Grafle

Script guide › Brahmic / Indic

Bengali vs Dzongkha (Tibetan)

Bengali and Dzongkha (Tibetan) sit in the same corner of the writing-system map — Grafle's Brahmic / Indic group — and players mix them up constantly. Here's the fastest way to tell them apart.

The tell

Dzongkha syllables are split by raised dots (་) with sharp descenders; Bengali flows under its bar with angular hooks.

Side by side

Bengali

সমস্ত মানুষ স্বাধীনভাবে সমান মর্যাদা নিয়ে জন্মগ্রহণ করে।

নমস্কার, আপনি কেমন আছেন?

বাংলা একটি মিষ্টি ভাষা।

Bengali's own tells

  • Has a top bar like Devanagari, but the letters below are more angular and triangular with hooks and tails.

On signs in:

  • Bangladesh
  • India

Full guide to recognizing Bengali →

Dzongkha (Tibetan)

འགྲོ་བ་མི་རིགས་ག་ར་དབང་ཆ་འདྲ་མཉམ་འབད་སྐྱེས་ཡོདཔ་ཨིན།

བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།

རྫོང་ཁ་ཡིག་གུ་མཛེས་ཏོག་ཏོ་ཨིན།

Dzongkha (Tibetan)'s own tells

  • Letters hang from a top line with sharp descenders, and syllables are separated by raised dots (་).

On signs in:

  • Bhutan

Full guide to recognizing Dzongkha (Tibetan) →

More lookalike pairs