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Language code: dz

Technical information about ISO 639 language code dz

Documentation

The table below provides technical details for the Dzongkha language, designated by the dz code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

dz

Name

Official

Dzongkha

Native

རྫོང་ཁ

Family
Tibeto-Burman
Scripts
Tibetan
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
Central (Thimphu–Punakha) dialectHaa dialect
Related languages
Central TibetanSikkimeseSherpaBumthang
Key facts
Written with the Tibetan script in its Bhutanese Uchen styleThe name Dzongkha literally means “language of the fortress-monasteries”The language has two lexical tones that developed from historical consonant changesPast-tense clauses show ergative–absolutive alignmentA dedicated Dzongkha Braille system is in use
Sample phrase

ཀུ་ཟུ་བཟང་པོ། ཁྱེད་ག་བདེ་ཡོད་པས།

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Dzongkha belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, precisely to the Tibeto-Burman subgroup. It is the official language of Bhutan, and it is written using the Tibetan script. It is estimated that there are more than 150,000 speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

Bhutan

170K

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Dzongkha speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

Related locale codes

dz-BT – Dzongkha (Bhutan)

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