Dzongkha: Not Just A Woody Fragrance

Besides being one of the most relaxing woody fragrances that transport tourists to Buddhist monasteries, Dzongkha is also the national language of Bhutan. The word ‘Dzongkha’ means the language “Kha” is spoken in the Dzong “fortresses.”  Although, it is a national language of Bhutan, it is also spoken in the surrounding areas of Nepal and India.

Language Classification: Understanding Dzongkha Better
A South Tibetic language, Dzongkha is related closely to Sikkimese. The language also bears a close linguistic relationship to J’umowa (a language that is spoken in the Chumbi Valley of Southern Tibet and Sikkimese). Dzongkha is often written in Bhutanese forms of the Tibetan Script.

Mentioned below are some other interesting facts about the language:

The language belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family, and more specifically, the Tibeto-Burman branch that also includes Burmese and Nepalese.

The language is often written using Tibetan alphabet.

The Romanization* of Dzongkha also exists.

The writing direction is from left to right.

Like various other Tibeto-Burman languages, this language also follows a basic subject-object-verb order.

English	Dzongkha
–          Hello (formal) –          Hello (informal) –          Nice to meet you –          How are you?	–          Kuzu zangpo la –          Kuzu zangpo –          Nga choe da choebay sem ga yi –          Gaday bay Zhu Ga?

 Basic Examples
(Source: http://wikitravel.org/en/Dzongkha_phrasebook)

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*Romanization is a phonetic transcription of a language, which means, that it is written the way it sounds.