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Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Bhutan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dzongkha (རྫོང་ཁ་; [d͡zòŋkʰɑ́]) is a Tibeto-Burman language that is the official and national language of Bhutan.[3] It is written using the Tibetan script.
 | It has been suggested that Dzongkha grammar be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since September 2024. |
| Dzongkha | |
|---|---|
| Bhutanese | |
| རྫོང་ཁ་ | |
| |
| Native to | Bhutan |
| Ethnicity | Ngalop people |
Native speakers | 171,080 (2013)[1] Total speakers: 640,000[2] |
Early forms | |
| Dialects | |
| Tibetan script Dzongkha Braille | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Bhutan |
| Regulated by | Dzongkha Development Commission |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | dz |
| ISO 639-2 | dzo |
| ISO 639-3 | dzo |
| Glottolog | nucl1307 |
| Linguasphere | 70-AAA-bf |
 Map of where the Dzongkha language is spoken natively | |
The word dzongkha means "the language of the fortress", from dzong "fortress" and kha "language". As of 2013[update], Dzongkha had 171,080 native speakers and about 640,000 total speakers.[2]
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 Chocha Ngacha, Brokpa, Brokkat and Lakha. It has a more distant relationship to Standard Tibetan. Spoken Dzongkha and Tibetan are around 50 to 80 percent mutually intelligible.
Dzongkha and its dialects are the native tongue of eight western districts of Bhutan (viz. Wangdue Phodrang, Punakha, Thimphu, Gasa, Paro, Ha, Dagana and Chukha).[4] There are also some native speakers near the Indian town of Kalimpong, once part of Bhutan but now in North Bengal, and in Sikkim.
Dzongkha was declared the national language of Bhutan in 1971.[5] Dzongkha study is mandatory in all schools, and the language is the lingua franca in the districts to the south and east where it is not the mother tongue. The Bhutanese films Travellers and Magicians (2003) and Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2019) are in Dzongkha.
The Tibetan script used to write Dzongkha has thirty basic letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants. Dzongkha is usually written in Bhutanese forms of the Uchen script, forms of the Tibetan script known as Jôyi "cursive longhand" and Jôtshum "formal longhand". The print form is known simply as Tshûm.[6]
There are various systems of romanization and transliteration for Dzongkha, but none accurately represents its phonetic sound.[7] The Bhutanese government adopted a transcription system known as Roman Dzongkha, devised by the linguist George van Driem, as its standard in 1991.[5]
Dzongkha is a tonal language and has two register tones: high and low.[8] The tone of a syllable determines the allophone of the onset and the phonation type of the nuclear vowel.[9]
All consonants may begin a syllable. In the onsets of low-tone syllables, consonants are voiced.[9] Aspirated consonants (indicated by the superscript h), /ɬ/, and /h/ are not found in low-tone syllables.[9] The rhotic /r/ is usually a trill [r] or a fricative trill [r̝],[8] and is voiceless in the onsets of high-tone syllables.[9]
/t, tʰ, ts, tsʰ, s/ are dental.[8] Descriptions of the palatal affricates and fricatives vary from alveolo-palatal to plain palatal.[8][10][9]
Only a few consonants are found in syllable-final positions. Most common among them are /m, n, p/.[9] Syllable-final /ŋ/ is often elided and results in the preceding vowel nasalized and prolonged, especially word-finally.[11][9] Syllable-final /k/ is most often omitted when word-final as well, unless in formal speech.[9] In literary pronunciation, liquids /r/ and /l/ may also end a syllable.[8] Though rare, /ɕ/ is also found in syllable-final positions.[8][9] No other consonants are found in syllable-final positions.
Many words in Dzongkha are monosyllabic.[9] Syllables usually take the form of CVC, CV, or VC.[9] Syllables with complex onsets are also found, but such an onset must be a combination of an unaspirated bilabial stop and a palatal affricate.[9] The bilabial stops in complex onsets are often omitted in colloquial speech.[9]
Dzongkha is considered a South Tibetic language. It is closely related to and partially intelligible with Sikkimese, and to some other Bhutanese languages such as Chocha Ngacha, Brokpa, Brokkat and Lakha.
Dzongkha bears a close linguistic relationship to J'umowa, which is spoken in the Chumbi Valley of Southern Tibet.[12] It has a much more distant relationship to Standard Tibetan. Spoken Dzongkha and Tibetan are around 50% to 80% mutually intelligible, with the literary forms of both highly influenced by the liturgical (clerical) Classical Tibetan language, known in Bhutan as Chöke, which has been used for centuries by Buddhist monks. Chöke was used as the language of education in Bhutan until the early 1960s when it was replaced by Dzongkha in public schools.[13]
Although descended from Classical Tibetan, Dzongkha shows a great many irregularities in sound changes that make the official spelling and standard pronunciation more distant from each other than is the case with Standard Tibetan. "Traditional orthography and modern phonology are two distinct systems operating by a distinct set of rules."[14]
The following is a sample vocabulary:[15]
| Dzongkha | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dzongkha | Transliteration (Wylie) | Pronunciation (Roman Dzongkha) | Meaning | ||
| སྟག་ | stag | tâ | tiger | ||
| སྟོན་ | ston | tön | to teach | ||
| སྤྱིན་ | spyin | pcing | glue | ||
| རྟིངམ་ | rtingma | tîm | heel | ||
| མིང་ | ming | meng | name | ||
| སྨོ་ཤིག་ | smo shig | 'mosh | isn't it so? | ||
The following is a sample text in Dzongkha of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
འགྲོ་
’Gro-
བ་
ba-
མི་
mi-
རིགས་
rigs-
ག་
ga-
ར་
ra-
དབང་
dbaṅ-
ཆ་
cha-
འདྲ་
’dra-
མཏམ་
mtam-
འབད་
’bad-
སྒྱེཝ་
sgyew-
ལས་
las-
ག་
ga-
ར་
ra-
གིས་
gis-
གཅིག་
gcig-
ལུ་
lu-
སྤུན་
spun-
ཆའི་
cha’i-
དམ་
dam-
ཚིག་
tshig-
བསྟན་
bstan-
དགོ།
dgo
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[16]
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