Back Dzongkha Afrikaans जोंगखा भाषा ANP لغة دزونكا Arabic জংখা ভাষা Assamese Idioma dzongkha AST जोंखा भाषा AWA Dzonqxa Azerbaijani دزونقخا AZB Basa Dzongkha BAN Dzongkha BAR
| Dzongkha | |
|---|---|
| Bhutanese | |
| རྫོང་ཁ་ | |
 | |
| Native to | Bhutan |
| Ethnicity | Ngalop people |
Native speakers | 171,080 (2013)[1] Total speakers: 640,000[2] |
Early forms | |
| Dialects | |
| Tibetan script Dzongkha Braille | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Bhutan |
| Regulated by | Dzongkha Development Commission |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | dz |
| ISO 639-2 | dzo |
| ISO 639-3 | dzo – inclusive codeIndividual codes: lya – Layaluk – Lunana |
| Glottolog | nucl1307 |
| Linguasphere | 70-AAA-bf |
 Districts of Bhutan in which the Dzongkha language is spoken natively are highlighted in yellow. | |
Dzongkha (རྫོང་ཁ་; [t͡sòŋkʰɑ́]) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan.[3] It is written using the Tibetan script.
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 is 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. It has a more distant relationship to Standard Tibetan. Spoken Dzongkha and Tibetan are around 50 to 80 percent mutually intelligible.
- ^ Dzongkha at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Laya at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Lunana at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ a b "How many people speak Dzongkha?". languagecomparison.com. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
- ^ "Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan. Art. 1, § 8" (PDF). Government of Bhutan. 2008-07-18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2011-01-01.