TIBETAN LANGUAGE CLASS

 

 

 

DZONGKHA LANGUAGE

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Dzongkha (རྫོང་ཁ་), occasionally also called 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. Linguistically, Dzongkha is a South Tibetan language. It is closely related to and partially intelligible with Sikkimese and to some other Bhutanese languages. 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 study is mandatory in all schools in Bhutan, and the language is the lingua franca in the districts to the south and east where it is not the mother tongue. The beautiful  Bhutanese film Travellers and Magicians (2003) by Kyentshe Norbu is entirely in Dzongkha.