Script guide › Brahmic / Indic
How to recognize Dzongkha (Tibetan)
Dzongkha (Tibetan) is one of 14 languages in Grafle's Brahmic / Indic group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- Letters hang from a top line with sharp descenders, and syllables are separated by raised dots (་).
What Dzongkha (Tibetan) looks like
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།
Brahmic / Indic scripts: The scripts of South and Southeast Asia — letters hang from top bars, curl into loops, or stack vowel marks above and below.
Where you'll see it on signs
- Bhutan
Easy to confuse with
- Hindi / Nepali (Devanagari) — Tibetan-style letters hang from the top line with sharp descenders and dot separators (་); Devanagari's bar connects boxier letters with no dots.
- Bengali — Dzongkha syllables are split by raised dots (་) with sharp descenders; Bengali flows under its bar with angular hooks.