Sikkimese Bhutia
Sign in to saveAlso known as Sikkimese Tibetan, Bhutia, Drenjongké, Dranjoke, Denjongka, Denzongpeke, Denzongke, Drendzongké
Tibetic language of Nepal and Sikkim, India
Key facts
- Region
- India Sikkim , Nepal ( Koshi Province ), and Bhutan
- Ethnicity
- Bhutia
- Native speakers
- 25,000 (2019)
- Language family
- Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Tibeto-Kanauri (?) Bodish Tibetic Dzongkha–Lhokä Sikkimese
- Writing system
- Tibetan script
- Official language in
- India Sikkim
- Iso 639 3
- sip
- Glottolog
- sikk1242
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- modern language
- Country
- India
Show 6 more facts
- writing system
- Tibetan alphabet
- number of speakers, writers, or signers
- 70000
- topic's main category
- Category:Sikkimese language
- indigenous to
- Sikkim
- native label
- འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་
via Wikidata · CC0
~20 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Sikkimese Bhutia language (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་, Wylie: 'bras ljongs skad, THL: dren jong ké, Tibetan pronunciation: [ɖɛ̀n dʑòŋ ké]; 'rice valley language') is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Bhutia people of the Indian state of Sikkim and parts of Koshi province in eastern Nepal, and Bhutan. It is one of the official languages of Sikkim.
The Bhutia refer to their own language as Drendzongké (also spelled Drenjongké, Dranjoke, Denjongka, Denzongpeke or Denzongke) and their homeland as Drendzong (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་, Wylie: 'bras-ljongs, 'Rice Valley'). Up until 1975, Sikkimese was not a written language. After gaining Indian statehood, the language was introduced as a school subject in Sikkim and the written language was developed.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Sikkimese Bhutia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.