Sherpa language

Sherpa 
शेर्वी तम्ङे, śērwī tamṅē,
ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག, shar pa'i skad yig
'Sherpa' in Devanagari and Tibetan scripts
Native toNepal, India
RegionNepal, Sikkim
EthnicitySherpa
Native speakers
140,000 (2011 & 2021 census)[1]
Tibetan, Devanagari
Official status
Official language in
 Nepal
 India
Language codes
ISO 639-3xsr
Glottologsher1255
ELPSherpa

Sherpa (also Sharpa, Sherwa, or Xiaerba) is a Tibetic language spoken in Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim, mainly by the Sherpa. The majority speakers of the Sherpa language live in the Khumbu region of Nepal, spanning from the Chinese (Tibetan) border in the east to the Bhotekosi River in the west.[3] About 127,000 speakers live in Nepal (2021 census), some 16,000 in Sikkim, India (2011), and some 800 in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (1994). Sherpa is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language. Sherpa is predominantly a spoken language, although it is occasionally written using either the Devanagari or Tibetan script.[3]

  1. ^ Sherpa  at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "50th Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India" (PDF). 16 July 2014. p. 109. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Sherpa | History & Culture". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 February 2021.