Dzongkha
རྫོང་ཁ་
Dzongkha is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Bhutan, India, China, and Nepal, by about 237.1 thousand people. Glottolog rates it threatened.
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Dzongkha (རྫོང་ཁ་ [d͡zòŋkʰɑ́]), also known by its exonym Bhutanese, is a Tibeto-Burman language in the Tibetic language family that is primarily spoken by the Bhutanese people. It is the official and national language of Bhutan, and is written using the Tibetan script in formal contexts, with informal correspondence in the Joyig script.
The word dzongkha means "the language of the fortress", from dzong "fortress" and kha "language". As of 2013, Dzongkha had 171,080 native speakers and about 640,000 total speakers.
Dzongkha is a South Tibetic language. It is closely related to Laya and Lunana and partially intelligible with Sikkimese, and to some other Bhutanese languages such as Chochangachakha, Brokpa, Brokkat and Lakha. It has a more distant relationship to Standard Tibetan.
From Wikipedia · Dzongkha · CC BY-SA 4.0
Written down
འགྲོ་བ་མི་ཚུ་ག་ར་དལ་དབང་གི་ཐོག་ལས་སྐྱེས་ཏེ་ཡོདཔ་ལས་ ག་ར་ལུ་བརྩི་མཐོང་དང་ཐོབ་དབང་འདྲ་མཉམ་སྦེ་ཡོད། མི་ཚུ་ག་ར་སྨྲ་ཤེས་དོན་གོ་བའི་མཚན་ཉིད་དང་ལྡནམ་ལས་ ག་ར་གིས་ལཱ་ག་ཅི་ར་འབད་རུང་ གཅིག་གིས་གཅིག་ལུ་སྤུན་ཆའི་འདུ་ཤེས་བསྐྱེད་ཐོག་ལས་ལཱ་འབད་དགོ།
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in Unicode).
Words in Dzongkha
| Meaning | Word | Romanization |
|---|---|---|
| mother | ཨའི | a'i |
| name | མིང | ming |
| eye | མིག་ཏོ | mig to |
| hand | ལགཔ | lgap |
| blood | ཁྲག | khrag |
| liver | མཆིན་པ | mchin pa |
| water | ཆུ | chu |
| fire | མེ | me |
| sun | ཉི་མ་ | nyi ma |
| moon | ཟླ་བ | zla ba |
| rain | ཆརཔ | ch.rap |
| wind | རླུང་མ | rlung ma |
| stone | རྡོ | rdo |
| river | གཙང་ཆུ | gtsang chu |
| tree | ཤིང | shing |
| night | ཕྱི་རུ་ | phyi ru |
| dog | ཁྱི | khyi |
| cat | བྱི་ལི | byi li |
| fish | ཉ | nya |
| bird | བྱ | bya |
| horse | རྟ | rta |
| snake | སྦུལ | sbul |
| one | གཅིག | gcig |
| two | གཉིས | gnyis |
| three | གསུམ | gsum |
| four | བཞི | bzhi |
| five | ལྔ | lnga |
| ten | བཅུ་ཐམ | bcu tham |
| hundred | བརྒྱ | brgya |
| I | ང | nga |
Most similar languages
Vocabulary
Grammar
- ChocangacakhaSino-Tibetan85% alike
- DefakaIjoid84% alike
- Western MuyaSino-Tibetan80% alike
- TshanglaSino-Tibetan80% alike
- Lamjung-Melamchi YolmoSino-Tibetan79% alike
- Khams TibetanSino-Tibetan79% alike
Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.
Nearby languages
Elsewhere
Glottolog · dzon1239 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · dzo