Introduction

The term ‘East Bodish’ was first used in Shafer (1954) to identify a proposed family of languages to which Dakpa, a language spoken Southeast of Lhasa, belonged. Shafer (1954) noted that Dakpa, and therefore ‘East Bodish’ languages were closely related to, but not directly descended from Classical Tibetan. Since then, several other languages have been identified as East Bodish. A majority of these languages are found in Bhutan, but some spill over into Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh as well.

The East Bodish languages, in general, are amongst the most poorly described in all of Tibeto-Burman, in particular in comparison to their other Bodic cousins (e.g. Newar, Kiranti languages, Tamang). The studies I am familiar with are presented in §2. Other than van Driem (2007), showing the close relationship between Dakpa and Dzala, there has been no attempt to sort out the relationship amongst the East Bodish languages.

The aim of this chapter is to make new data available while also proposing the first tentative internal phylogeny amongst the languages within East Bodish. In §2 I provide the relevant background on East Bodish languages, including approximate location and number of speakers. §3 presents the data and arguments that confirm van Driem (2007)'s analysis that Dakpa and Dzala form a subgroup within East Bodish. §4 discusses the placement of the dialect of Hengke spoken in Phobikha, called Phobjip, in East Bodish and §5 discusses Chali.