The Origin, Development and Sound System of Ladakhi Language

The primary reason of this research is to bring out the salient features of Ladakhi language in terms of its origin, development, sound system and the contribution of native and western scholars who have kept Ladakhi language alive throughout the centuries. A comprehensive study has been done in the third chapter where it discusses its origin and development of Ladakhi and about the people who have given an enormous input and practice it to be more useful in the Ladakh and other Himalayan regions. Since Ladakhi language has an interrelationship with Tibetan language and literature this chapter also done the study about the origin and development of Tibetan language.

Secondly, it is significant to highlight the uniqueness of spoken Ladakhi as it used an abundant of Archaic and Classical Tibetan terms that is rare to see its usage even in the colloquial Tibetan. The contemporary Tibetan speech has lost many of these terms and its usage. In this regard, comparative short sentences in colloquial languages have been prepared in the fourth chapter so that it not only illustrates the difference between spoken Ladakhi and Tibetan but also proves how Ladakhi is rich to its own and how it comes close to the Archaic and Classical Tibetan languages.

Thirdly, Ladakhis take pride in pronouncing the original Tibetan language sound, which is very important to have a correct Classical Tibetan writing. In this part, Balti language has also had the intact sound of written Tibetan. Ladakhi also shares a great bond with the Balti language as well regarding the context of phonetics. Thus, having seen to be a very important work the fourth chapter of this thesis is prepared by interviewing with the old and educated senior people of Balti, Ladakhi and Tibetan who has more knowledge of their ancestral legacy. It has seen important to do documentation on the sound system of Balti and Ladakhi before it lost its intact pronunciation. Otherwise, Tibetans have no substantiated proof of having their sound as Balti and Ladakhi in ancient times rather than saying it was as them in earlier times. Tibetans by knowingly or unknowingly has lost the original sound of Tibetan and the reason for this declination remained unknown.

Another reason for this research is that Ladakh is in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which is a Muslim dominant government. It has never been paid attention to the development and preservation of Ladakhi language as it still teaches as an optional subject in the Ladakhi Schools. The intention of the State Government Language Policy has not been transparent enough in maintaining and reforming of Ladakhi language in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Our culture, community, and way of life are based on Ladakhi language but we have to use Urdu for many official purposes. Therefore, it has seen that Ladakhi is being lost its importance since the state and center government has not paid enough attention and due to this the language survey of Indian declared it as one of the endangered languages of India. Today, the younger generation can no longer speak or understand their ancestral language. By all these reasons, Ladakhi or Bhoti language must teach as the compulsory subject in the schools in Ladakh so that it would be a great initiative towards reclaiming and revitalizing the Ladakhi language. Compared to Ladakhi, other languages such as Urdu, Dogri, and Kashmiri were given much favored by state and Centre government.