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Dzongkha:
Bhutan's National Language
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Bhutan's
Culture: Dzongkha |
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Bhutan Information |
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Dzongkha
: Origin and Description
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The
modern Dzongkha writing uses the alphabet system first introduced by Thonmi
Sambhota. Son of Anu of the Thonmi clan from central Tibet, Sambhota
was the most intelligent minister of the religious Tibetan king Songtsen
Gampo (Srong-btsan-sgam-po). He was believed to be an emanation of
Manjushiri, the Lord of wisdom. The king sent Sambhota with fifteen other
young Tibetans to study Sanskrit in India. Sambhota studied linguistics
at the feet of Pandita Devavidhayasinha and Brahmin Lipikara of Kashmir.
Since he was the brightest student, his teachers called him "Sam-bhota"
meaning "best Tibetan".
After
mastering linguistics in India, Sambhota went back to Tibet and introduced
the Tibetan alphabet system along with king Songtsen Gampo which comprises
of thirty consonants and four vowels. The sound system and the structure
of the alphabet were based on Devanagari, a script used for many modern
and older languages of India, including Sanskrit, Hindi, and Nepali. Although
the writing system (namely Jogyig) was brought to Bhutan by Dematsema
(ldanma-Tsemang) on the invitation of Sindhu Raja, the origin of the
Bhutanese alphabet has to be traced back to Sambhota since the jogyig
is also based on his alphabet. Initially, Sambhota wrote eight aspects
of Tibetan grammar but only two - Sumchupa (sum-bcu-pa) and Takijugpa
(stags-kyi-yjug-pa) are extant today.
For
this reason, Dzongkha grammar is one of the easiest as opposed to the universal
claim that it is too complicated and hard to comprehend. Other languages
have all these aspects of grammar or more but Dzongkha is condensed into
these two, making it comparatively easy to understand and remember.
The
thirty consonants of Dzongkha alphabet, traditionally called selje sumchu
(gsal-byed-sum-bcu), are classified into seven groups of four and one
group of two (the last two letters ha and ah) according to yigui kye
ne (yigei-skye-gnas) "place of articulation". Most of these sounds
are produced by a pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism, i.e., sounds
are mostly produced by pushing out air from the lungs.
Most
of the manners of articulation are carried out by the tongue with other
organs such as labial (lips), dental (teeth), hard and soft
palate, velum, glottis, and so on. Because of the lack of such biological
terms for most of the body parts in Tibetan, all the consonant groups are
named with the initial letter of the group such as Ka-de (ka-sde) "Ka-group" for the first four letters ka, kha, ga, and nga, Ca-de (ca-sde)
"Ca-group" for the second four letters ca, cha, ja, nya, and
so on. For manners of articulation, activities are carried out by means
of nangdu threpa (nang-du-phradpa) "internal touching", cungze
threpa (cung-zad-phradpa) "slight touching", tsumpa (btsum-pa) "closing",
and chewa (phye-ba) "opening". These traditional linguistic terms
indicate that the lack of labels did not prevent Sambhota from identifying
the mechanism and manner of articulating these consonants and vowels.x
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Modern
linguistics analysis show that there are reasons why Sambhota kept ka,
kha, ga, and nga in one group, ca, cha, ja, and nya in another group, ta,
tha, da, and na in yet another group, and so on till ha and ah.
This is because the first four letters - ka, kha, ga, and nga are called
velars. They are produced by raising the back of the tongue to the
soft palate or velum.
The
second four letters - ca, cha, ja, and nya are called palatals because
they are produced by raising the front part of the tongue to a point on
the hard palate just behind the alveolar ridge.
Ta,
tha, da, and na are called interdentals (between the teeth) as they
are produced by inserting the tip of tongue between the upper and the lower
teeth.
Pa,
pha, ba, and ma are called bilabials since these sounds are articulated
by bringing both lips together.
Likewise, tsa,
tsha, zra, wa, zha, za, oa, ya, are called fricatives and affricates
depending on where and how they are articulated. Ra and la together
are called liquid sounds. Specifically, ra is called rhotic and
la is called lateral. In producing ra sound, the tongue tip is raised
to just behind the alveolar ridge and therefore it is also called alveolar
glide. In the production of lateral sound la, the front part of the tongue
makes contact with the alveolar ridge, but the sides of the tongue are
down, permitting the air to escape laterally over the sides of the tongue.
Sha
and sa are called fricatives. In the production of these sounds, the
airstream is not completely stopped but is obstructed from flowing freely.
When you utter these two sounds, you will feel the air coming out of your
mouth. The passage in the mouth through which this air passes is narrow
causing friction or turbulence.
The
last two letters - ha and ah are called glottals. In producing these
two sounds, the glottis is open and no other modification of airstream
mechanism occur in the mouth. The air is stopped completely at the glottis
by closed vocal cords.
So,
we see that Sambhota has arranged the thirty consonants into groups in
order of their place and manner of articulation.
The
consonants are also classified according to their manners of articulation
such as ug chewa (dhugs-che-ba) "voiced", ug chungwa (dhugs-chung-ba)
"voiceless", drathoen chewa (sgra-thon-che-ba) "hard sounds",
and drathoen chunwa (sgra-thon-chung-ba) "soft sounds". Analysing
phonetically, such letters as pa, ta, ka, and sa in Dzongkha are voiceless
sounds (dbugs-chung-ba).
In
producing these sounds, the vocal cords are apart when the airstream is
pushed from the lungs. The air is not obstructed at the glottis, and it
passes freely into the supraglottal cavities. Because of this, they are
called voiceless sounds.
On
the other hand, such letters as ba, da, ga, and zra in Dzongkha are
voiced sounds (dbugs-che-ba) because when these sounds are produced,
the vocal cords are together and the airstream forces its way through and
causes them to vibrate. Hence, they are called voiced sounds.
Contributed
by Pema Wangdi,
Australian
national university
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