| Nativename | Purigi, Purki |
|---|---|
| States | India, Pakistan |
| Region | Ladakh |
| Ethnicity | Purigpa |
| Date | 2011 census |
| Ref | e18 |
| Familycolor | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam 2 | Tibeto-Burman |
| Fam 3 | Tibeto-Kanauri (?) |
| Fam 4 | Bodish |
| Fam 5 | Tibetic |
| Fam 6 | Ladakhi–Balti |
| Script | Perso-Arabic script Tibetan script |
| Nation | |
| Iso 3 | prx |
| Glotto | puri1258 |
| Glottorefname | Purik-Sham-Nubra |
Purgi, Burig, Purki, Purik, Purigi or Puriki (Tibetan script: པུ་རིག་་སྐད།, Nastaʿlīq script: ) is a Tibetic language closely related to the Ladakhi-Balti language. Purgi is natively spoken by the Purigpa people in Ladakh region of India and Baltistan region of Pakistan. There are about 94,000 native speakers of the language in India.[2]
Most of the Purigpas are Shia Muslims, although a significant number of them follow Noorbakhshi and Sunni Islam, and a small minority of Buddhists and Bön followers reside in areas like Fokar valley, Mulbekh, Wakha. Like the Baltis, they speak an archaic Tibetan dialect closely related to Balti and Ladakhi. Purigi is more closely related to Balti than Ladakhi, so there are different opinions among linguists in considering Purigi and Balti as different languages or simply different varieties of the same language.[3][4][5]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Retroflex | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | k | q | |||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | kʰ | |||||
| voiced | b | d | ɖ | ɡ | |||||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ||||||
| aspirated | t͡sʰ | t͡ʃʰ | |||||||
| voiced | d͡z | d͡ʒ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | (f) | s | ʂ | ʃ | χ | h | ||
| voiced | z | ʒ | ʁ | ||||||
| lateral | ɬ | ||||||||
| Trill/Tap | r | ɽ | |||||||
| Approximant | lateral | l | |||||||
| central | w | j | |||||||
- /pʰ/ may also be realized as a fricative [f].
- /r/ is often fricativized, being heard as [r̝].
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | (ə) | o |
| Open | a | ||
- /a/ may often be heard as back [ʌ] or centralized [ʌ̈], and in certain environments as [ɛ].
- Sounds /e, o/ may often be heard as [ɛ, ɔ].
- /e/ can be heard as [ə] when in unstressed syllables.[4]
References
- ^ "The Ladakh Official Languages Regulation, 2025". The Gazette of India. 2 June 2025. Retrieved 27 June 2025.
- ^ CENSUS OF INDIA 2011, PAPER 1 OF 2018 LANGUAGE INDIA, STATES AND UNION TERRITORIES, P. 11.
- ^ * N. Tournadre (2005) "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." Lalies, 2005, n°25, p. 7–56 [1]
- ^ Zemp, Marius (2018). A Grammar of Purik Tibetan. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-36631-2.
- ^ Rangan, K. (1979). Purki Grammar. Central Institute of Indian Languages.