Asian Heritage Month Blog Event: The Tibetan Language
By Zara D. Garcia-Alvarez
Dzongkha (Bhutanese) (རྫོང་ཁ) is the national language in Bhutan and is spoken by about 130,000 people in Bhutan, Nepal, and India. It is a Sino-Tibetan language which is closely related to Tibetan and distantly related to Chinese.
The Tibetan alphabet
The form of the alphabet below is known as u-chen (དབུ་ཅན་) and is used for printing. Cursive versions of the alphabet, such as the gyuk yig or ‘flowing script’ (རྒྱུག་ཡིག་) are used for informal writing.
Consonants
Vowels
Numerals
Punctuation and other symbols
From: Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tibetan.htm
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Here is an excellent audio and video introduction to the consonants by Lama David Curtis on YouTube:
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To read more posts for the Asian Heritage Month Blog Event, please visit here.
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What other rare Asian dialects are you familiar with or would like to learn?
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