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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 · 27.4°N 89.6°E

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

MeaningWordRomanization
motherཨའིa'i
nameམིངming
eyeམིག་ཏོmig to
handལགཔlgap
bloodཁྲགkhrag
liverམཆིན་པmchin pa
waterཆུchu
fireམེme
sunཉི་མ་nyi ma
moonཟླ་བzla ba
rainཆརཔch.rap
windརླུང་མrlung ma
stoneརྡོrdo
riverགཙང་ཆུgtsang chu
treeཤིངshing
nightཕྱི་རུ་phyi ru
dogཁྱིkhyi
catབྱི་ལིbyi li
fishཉnya
birdབྱbya
horseརྟrta
snakeསྦུལsbul
oneགཅིགgcig
twoགཉིསgnyis
threeགསུམgsum
fourབཞིbzhi
fiveལྔlnga
tenབཅུ་ཐམbcu tham
hundredབརྒྱbrgya
Iངnga

Most similar languages

Vocabulary

Grammar

Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.

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Glottolog · dzon1239 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · dzo