Languages of Bhutan

There are two dozen languages of Bhutan, all members of the Tibeto-Burman language family except for Nepali, which is an Indo-Aryan language, and Bhutanese Sign Language.Dzongkha, the national language, is the only language with a native literary tradition in Bhutan, though Lepcha and Nepali are literary languages in other countries. Other non-Bhutanese minority languages are also spoken along Bhutan's borders and among the primarily Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa community in South and East Bhutan.

The Central Bodish languages are a group of related Tibetic languages descended from Old Tibetan (Chöke). Most Bhutanese varieties of Central Bodish languages are of the Southern subgroup. At least six of the nineteen languages and dialects of Bhutan are Central Bodish languages.

Dzongkha is a Central Bodish language with approximately 160,000 speakers as of 2006. It is the dominant language in Western Bhutan, and has been the language of government and education in Bhutan since 1971. The Chocangaca language, a "sister language" to Dzongkha, is spoken in the Kurichu Valley of Eastern Bhutan by about 20,000 people.

The Lakha (8,000 speakers) and Brokkat languages (300 speakers) in Central Bhutan, as well as the Brokpa language (5,000 speakers) in far Eastern Bhutan, are also grouped by Van Driem (1993) into Central Bodish. These languages are remnants of what were originally pastoral yakherd communities.

The Laya dialect, closely related to Dzongkha, is spoken near the northwestern border with Tibet by some 1,100 Layaps. Layaps are an indigenous nomadic and semi-nomadic people who traditionally herd yaks and dzos. Dzongkha speakers enjoy a limited mutual intelligibility, mostly in basic vocabulary and grammar.

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