Sino-Tibetan · ISO 639-3 dzo · dz
Dzongkha Language རྫོང་ཁ་
Dzongkha is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 370,000 people in 2 countries. It is an official language of Bhutan. It is written in the Tibetan script.
Where Dzongkha is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Language family
- Sino-Tibetan
- Bodic
- Bodish
- Early Old Tibetan
- Middle Old Tibetan
- Late Old Tibetan
- Southern Tibetic
- Dzongkhic
- Nuclear Dzongkhic
- Dzongkha
Writing system
Tibetan script
Related languages
About the Dzongkha language
Dzongkha (རྫོང་ཁ་) is spoken by about 370,000 people, which makes it the 506th most spoken language in the world — just behind Fiji Hindi (380,000) and ahead of Fijian (370,000). It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and, more precisely, to the Nuclear Dzongkhic group within the Bodish branch.
Where is Dzongkha spoken?
Dzongkha is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in Bhutan (415,736) and India (2,818).
Share of the population that speaks Dzongkha: Bhutan 47% (415,736) and India <0.1% (2,818).
Dzongkha is an official language in 1 country: Bhutan.
Writing system and status
Dzongkha is written in the Tibetan script. Glottolog classifies it as threatened, meaning fewer children learn it than in the past.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Tichurong, Tibetan, Khams Tibetan and Amdo Tibetan.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 dz, ISO 639-3 dzo.
Frequently asked questions about Dzongkha
How many people speak Dzongkha?
Where is Dzongkha spoken?
In which countries is Dzongkha an official language?
What language family does Dzongkha belong to?
What is Dzongkha called in Dzongkha?
Is Dzongkha an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.