| Also Known As: Bhotia Of Dukpa,Drukke,Drukha,Rdzongkha,Jonkha,Zongkhar,Bhutanese,Dukpa,Bhotia Of Bhutan,Hloka,Dzongkha,Lhoskad
Description:
Dzongkha (རྫོང་ཁ Wylie: rdzong-kha, Jong-kă), occasionally Ngalopkha, is the national language of Bhutan. The word "dzongkha" means the language (kha) spoken in the dzong, – dzong being the fortress-like monasteries established throughout Bhutan by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal in the 17th century.
Dzongkha bears a close linguistic relationship to J'umowa spoken in the Chumbi valley of Southern Tibet and to the Dranjongke language of Sikkim. It has a much more distant relationship to standard modern Central Tibetan. Although spoken Dzongkha and Tibetan are largely mutually unintelligible, the literary forms of both are 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.
Dzongkha and its dialects are the native tongue of eight western districts of Bhutan (viz. Phodrang, Punakha, Thimphu, Gasa, Paro, Ha, Dhakana, and Chukha). There are also some speakers found near the Indian town of Kalimpong, once part of Bhutan but now in West Bengal. Dzongkha study is..... full article at Wikipedia |
