Dzongkha


Dzongkha, also known by its exonym Bhutanese, is a Tibeto-Burman language in the Sino-Tibetan 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.
The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language"., 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 Chocha Ngacha, Brokpa, Brokkat and Lakha. It has a more distant relationship to Standard Tibetan.

Classification

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. 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 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.
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. It has been written that "traditional orthography and modern phonology are two distinct systems operating by a distinct set of rules" in Dzongkha.

Usage

Dzongkha and its dialects are the native tongue of eight western districts of Bhutan. 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. 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 and Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom are in Dzongkha.

Phonology

Tones

Dzongkha is a tonal language and has two register tones: high and low. The tone of a syllable determines the allophone of the onset and the phonation type of the nuclear vowel.

Consonants

All consonants may begin a syllable. In the onsets of low-tone syllables, consonants are voiced. Aspirated consonants,, and are not found in low-tone syllables. The rhotic is usually a trill or a fricative trill, and is voiceless in the onsets of high-tone syllables.
are dental. Descriptions of the palatal affricates and fricatives vary from alveolo-palatal to plain palatal.
Only a few consonants are found in syllable-final positions. Most common among them are. Syllable-final is often elided and results in the preceding vowel nasalized and prolonged, especially word-finally. Syllable-final is most often omitted when word-final as well, unless in formal speech. In literary pronunciation, liquids and may also end a syllable. Though rare, is also found in syllable-final positions. No other consonants are found in syllable-final positions.

Vowels

  • When in low tone, vowels are produced with breathy voice.
  • In closed syllables, varies between and, the latter being more common.
  • varies between and.
  • varies between close-mid and open-mid, the latter being common in closed syllables. is close-mid. may not be longer than at all, and differs from more often in quality than in length.
  • Descriptions of vary between close-mid and open-mid.
  • is close-mid, but may approach open-mid especially in closed syllables. is close-mid.
  • is slightly lower than open-mid, i.e..
  • may approach, especially in closed syllables.
  • When nasalized or followed by, vowels are always long.

Phonotactics

Many words in Dzongkha are monosyllabic. Syllables usually take the form of CVC, CV, or VC. Syllables with complex onsets are also found, but such an onset must be a combination of an unaspirated bilabial stop and a palatal affricate. The bilabial stops in complex onsets are often omitted in colloquial speech.

Writing system

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.

Romanization

There are various systems of romanization and transliteration for Dzongkha, but none accurately represents its phonetic sound. The Bhutanese government adopted a transcription system known as Roman Dzongkha, devised by the linguist George van Driem, as its standard in 1991.

Grammar

Nouns

Number

Dzongkha nouns distinguish between singular and plural, with the plural either unmarked or suffixed with . The use of the plural suffix is not obligatory and is used mainly for emphasis.

Case

Dzongkha nouns are marked for 5 cases: genitive, locative, ablative, dative and ergative.
  • genitive case: marks possession and is often translated as "of". There are 4 genitive suffixes in written Dzongkha:
  • * - after words ending in,,,.
  • * - after words ending in, and certain words ending in a vowel.
  • * - after words ending in,,.
  • * after certain words ending in a vowel.
  • locative case - marks location or destination and is often translated as "in", "at" or "on". It's indicated by the suffix .
  • ablative case - marks direction away from the noun and is often translated as "from". It's indicated by the suffix .
  • dative case - marks the goal or where an activity takes place and is often translated as "to", "for" or "at". It's indicated by the suffix .
  • ergative case - used for ergative and instrumental functions. There are 3 ergative suffixes in written Dzongkha:
  • * - after words ending in,,,.
  • * - after words ending in, or a vowel.
  • * - after words ending in,,.

Derivation

As in other Tibetic languages, compounding is the most common method for deriving new nouns in Dzongkha. A compound usually consists of two monossyllabic roots, which can be either free or bound.
Root 1Root 2Compound nounNotes
is a bound morpheme with no meaning of its own.
is a bound morpheme and means something like "top" in most compounds.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Verbs

Dzongkha verbs inflect for tense, aspect and mood, but unlike many languages, they do not show agreement for person and number.

Conjugation

Dzongkha verbs are mainly marked for the progressive aspects|progressive], the witnessed past, the inferred past, the perfective, the present continuous, the adhortative, the optative, and the supine. They are also marked for things like the steady state present, "acquired knowledge", factual tenses, along many other modals.

Copula

In Dzongkha, there are 5 copular verbs that can be translated as "to be" in English: , , , and .

Adjectives

Comparison

The comparative is indicated by the suffix while the superlative is indicated by the suffix .

Numerals

Hindu-Arabic numeralsDzongkha numeralsSpellingRoman Dzongkha
1ci
2’nyî
3sum
4zhi
5'nga
6dr°u
7dün
8gä
9gu
10cuthâm

Vocabulary

The following is a sample vocabulary:

Sample text

The following is a sample text in Dzongkha of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Vocabulary

Grammar


Category:Languages of Bhutan
Category:Languages written in Tibetan script