Nam is an unclassified extinct language preserved in Tibetan transcriptions in a number of Dunhuang manuscript fragments. The manuscript fragments are held at the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Nam
RegionCentral Asia
Extinct(date missing)
Sino-Tibetan
  • (unclassified)
    • Nam
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottolognamm1235

Classification

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According to Ikeda Takumi, the research of F. W. Thomas, published in 1948, concluded that Nam "was one of the old Qiang [languages] spoken around the Nam mountain range near Koko nor in Qinghai province", associated with a country called Nam tig which is mentioned in some historical records. However, Ikeda further states that Thomas' conclusions were widely criticized.[1]

Glottolog accepts that it was at least Sino-Tibetan.[2]

Lexicon

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Wen (1981: 18–19) lists the following basic vocabulary items, which have been taken from Thomas (1948: 399–451).

No. Chinese gloss English gloss Nam
1 sky mo, nam
2 cloud gmog, mog, mog
3 sun gnyi
4 moon ’la, la
5 fire sme/’me, ’me’i, me, ’mye, ye
6 water ’ldya, ’ldya
7 mountain ’ri, gri, gri’i, ’ri’i
8 stone ’rto, rto
9 tiger cho
10 bear (animal) gre
11 牦牛 yak ’brong
12 horse rta, rta’, ’rta, ’rta’
13 donkey gzu, ’ju , ’zu, ’dzu, ’ju’u’gduz
14 dog ’kyi
15 pig ’phag
16 head ’bu, ’ko
17 eye ’me’i, méi, mye
18 齿 tooth swa
19 hand ’phyag
20 heart syning, snyang
21 blind klu
22 dead ’shi, shi (gshi, bshi)
23 arrow ’da’, ’lda’?
24 door rgo, ’go, ’ko(rgor)
25 big rbo, bo-bon, rbom, ’bom, ’rbom
26 small byi, hbyi
27 high shid, ’shid, tho, ’tho, stang, ’stang

References

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  1. ^ Ikeda Takumi. "Spotlights to the decipherment of the Nam language". The 41st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics. p. abstract. Retrieved November 27, 2010.[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Nam". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Further reading

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