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 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 word "Dzongkha" in Jôyi, a Bhutanese form of the Uchen script
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]
Romanization
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]
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]
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.
/e/ varies between close-mid [e] and open-mid [ɛ], the latter being common in closed syllables. /eː/ is close-mid [eː]. /eː/ may not be longer than /e/ at all, and differs from /e/ more often in quality than in length.[8]
Descriptions of /øː/ vary between close-mid [øː] and open-mid [œː].[8][9]
/o/ is close-mid [o], but may approach open-mid [ɔ] especially in closed syllables. /oː/ is close-mid [oː].[8]
/ɛː/ is slightly lower than open-mid, i.e. [ɛ̞ː].[8]
/ɑ/ may approach [ɐ], especially in closed syllables.[8][9]
When nasalized or followed by [ŋ], vowels are always long.[11][9]
Phonotactics
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 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]
Dzongkha nouns distinguish between singular (unmarked) and plural, with the plural either unmarked or suffixed with ཚུ་-tshu. The use of the plural suffix is not obligatory and is used mainly for emphasis.[15][16]
གིས་-g°i - after words ending in ག་, ང་ or a vowel.
ཀྱིས་-g°i - ater words ending in བ་, ད་, ས་.
Derivation
As in other Tibetic languages, compounding is the most common method for deriving new nouns in Dzongkha. A compound usually consists of two (or, less commonly, more) monossyllabic roots, which can be either free or bound.[18]
ཏོག་to is a bound morpheme and means something like "top" in most (though not all) compounds.
རྡོ་do (stone)
གནག་nak (black)
རྡོ་གནག་donak (graphite)
Pronouns
Personal pronouns
Person
Singular
Plural
1st
ང༌nga (I)
ང་བཅས༌ngace (we)
2nd
ཁྱོད༌chö (you)
ཁྱེད༌chä (you all)
3rd (m)
ཁོ༌kho (he)
ཁོང་khong (they)
3rd (f)
མོ༌mo (she)
honorific
ནཱ༌nâ (he; she; you)
ནཱ་བུ་nâb°u (they; you all)
The honorific pronounནཱ༌nâ and its plural form are used when one wants to show respect to the person being addressed or to a 3rd person of either gender.
Verbs
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2024)
Copula
In Dzongkha, there are 5 copular verbs that can be translated as "to be" in English: ཨིན་'ing, ཨིན་པས་'immä, ཡོད་yö, འདུག་du and སྨོ་'mo.
Adjectives
Comparison
The comparative is indicated by the suffix བ་-wa ("than") while the superlative is indicated by the suffix ཤོས་-sho ("the most", "-est").[19]
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.[20]
^van Driem, George; Tshering of Gaselô, Karma (1998). Dzongkha. Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region. Vol. I. Leiden, The Netherlands: Research CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies, Leiden University. p. 3. ISBN90-5789-002-X.
^van Driem, George; Tshering of Gaselô, Karma (1998). Dzongkha. Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region. Vol. I. Leiden, The Netherlands: Research CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies, Leiden University. pp. 7–8. ISBN90-5789-002-X.
^van Driem, George (1998). Dzongkha = Rdoṅ-kha. Leiden: Research School, CNWS. p. 110. ISBN90-5789-002-X. Traditional orthography and modern phonology are two distinct systems operating by a distinct set of rules.
Dzongkha Development Commission (1999). The New Dzongkha Grammar (rdzong kha'i brda gzhung gsar pa). Thimphu: Dzongkha Development Commission.
Dzongkha Development Commission (1990). Dzongkha Rabsel Lamzang (rdzong kha rab gsal lam bzang). Thimphu: Dzongkha Development Commission.
Dzongkha Development Authority (2005). English-Dzongkha Dictionary (ཨིང་ལིཤ་རྫོང་ཁ་ཤན་སྦྱར་ཚིག་མཛོད།). Thimphu: Dzongkha Development Authority, Ministry of Education.
Imaeda, Yoshiro (1990). Manual of Spoken Dzongkha in Roman Transcription. Thimphu: Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), Bhutan Coordinator Office.
Mazaudon, Martine. 1985. "Dzongkha Number Systems." S. Ratanakul, D. Thomas & S. Premsirat (eds.). Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies presented to André-G. Haudricourt. Bangkok: Mahidol University. 124–57
Mazaudon, Martine; Michailovsky, Boyd (1986), Syllabicity and suprasegmentals: the Dzongkha monosyllabic noun
Michailovsky, Boyd; Mazaudon, Martine (1989). "Lost syllables and tone contour in Dzongkha (Bhutan)". In Bradley, David; Henderson, E. J. A.; Mazaudon, Martine (eds.). Prosodic Analysis and Asian Linguistics: To Honour R.K. Sprigg. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 115–136. doi:10.15144/PL-C104.115. hdl:1885/253672. ISBN0-85883-389-1.
Michailovsky, Boyd (1989). "Notes on Dzongkha orthography". In Bradley, David; Henderson, E. J. A.; Mazaudon, Martine (eds.). Prosodic Analysis and Asian Linguistics: To Honour R.K. Sprigg. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 297–301. doi:10.15144/PL-C104.297. hdl:1885/253688. ISBN0-85883-389-1.
Tournadre, Nicolas (1996). "Comparaison des systèmes médiatifs de quatre dialectes tibétains (tibétain central, ladakhi, dzongkha et amdo)". In Guentchéva, Z. (ed.). L'énonciation médiatisée(PDF). Bibliothèque de l'Information Grammaticale, 34 (in French). Louvain Paris: Peeters. pp. 195–214. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2020-10-19.
van Driem, George (n.d.). The First Linguistic Survey of Bhutan. Thimphu, Bhutan: Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC).{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
Watters, Stephen A. (1996). A preliminary study of prosody in Dzongkha (Masters thesis). Arlington: UT at Arlington.
van Driem, George; Karma Tshering of Gaselô (collab) (1998). Dzongkha. Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region. Leiden: Research School CNWS, School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies. ISBN90-5789-002-X. – A language textbook with three audio compact disks.
Karma Tshering; van Driem, George (2019) [1992]. The Grammar of Dzongkha (3rd ed.). Santa Barbara: Himalayan Linguistics. doi:10.5070/H918144245. ISBN978-0-578-50750-7.
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