Sherpa people
The title of this article is ambiguous. For other meanings, see Sherpa (disambiguation).
The Sherpa (Scherpa; German roughly "Ostvolk", Tibetan ཤར་པ Wylie shar pa) are a people who migrated to the Central and Southern Himalayas 300 to 400 years ago from the cultural region of Kham, mainly present-day Qamdo and Garzê. The name of the people comes from Tibetan: shar means "east", the suffix pa means "people", "people". Members of this ethnic group are also called Sherpa (plural Sherpas); the female form is Sherpani (plural Sherpanis). Today there are about 180,000 Sherpas. They live mainly in eastern Nepal and in the border regions of China and India. They are mostly Buddhist and speak a language specific to their culture, which is also called Sherpa.
Sherpa in Nepal
Settlement Areas
Most Sherpas live in the eastern regions of Nepal. The core area of their distribution is the Solu-Khumbu region, which consists of the Khumbu, Pharak and Solu regions. They also live in the Rolwaling valley further west and the Arun and Barun valleys to the east. The Sherpas in the Helambu region north of Kathmandu are less related to them, originating from southern Tibet ("shar" here means east of the Bhote Kosi near Dhunche). By census in 2001 about 155,000 Sherpas were identified in Nepal. The oldest Sherpa village in Nepal, Pangboche, is said to have been built over 300 years ago.
In India, more than 20,000 Sherpas live (as of 1997), mainly in the state of Sikkim as well as in the Darjiling district of the state of West Bengal and in the state of Arunachal Pradesh.
There are about 2,600 Sherpas (夏尔巴人) living in the People's Republic of China, about 80% of whom are Sherpa-speaking. Although they are not officially recognized as one of China's 56 nationalities, they have a special status in the Tibet Autonomous Region that is roughly equivalent to "internal recognition". Their settlement area is Xigazê County in Tibet, especially two places directly on the China-Nepal border: in Zhêntang (陈塘镇) Greater Township of Dinggyê County (定结县) live ca. 1,600, in the large commune of Zham (樟木镇) of Nyalam County (聂拉木县) about 1,000 Sherpas.
About 1,100 Sherpas live in the United States, of which just under 500 live in New York (as of 1998).
Translated meanings
Since British extreme sportsmen, explorers and adventurers hired men from the Sherpa people as porters in the Himalayas in the first half of the 20th century, the name Sherpa has often been used synonymously for high mountain porter, sometimes without knowledge of the original meaning. The porters, who carry equipment and luggage in the mountains up to the base camps, are distinguished from the high mountain porters or Sherpas. The most famous Sherpa is Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986), who succeeded as an equal companion with Sir Edmund Hillary in the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953.
Derived from this, today chief negotiators of a government are also called "Sherpa".
