Khengkha (ཁེངས་ཁ་)

Khengkha is a member of the Eastern Bodish branch of the Tibeto-Kanauri language family. It is spoken by about 40,000 people in southern Bhutan, particularly in the Sarpang district, and also in the Mongar, Trongsa and Zhemgang districts.

Khengkha is also known as Kheng, Khenkha, Khen, Keng, Ken, Kyengkha or Kenkha. There are three dialects: Upper Kheng, Lower Kheng and Middle Kheng. It is related to Kurtöp, Nupbi, Bumthang and Dzhongkha, which are all spoken in Bhutan.

There is a way to write Khengkha with the Tibetan alphabet, however the language is rarely written.

Tibetan alphabet for Khengkha

Download an alphabet chart for Khengkha (Excel)

Notes

The consonants ཀ (ka), ཁ (kha), ཅ (ca), ཆ (cha), ཏ (ta), ཐ (tha), པ (pa), ཕ (pha), ཙ (tsa), ཚ (tsha), ས (sa), ཤ (sha), ཧ (ha) and ཨ ('a) are always high tone.
The consonants ག (ga), ང (nga), ཇ (ja), ད (da), བ (ba), ཛ (dza), འ (a), ཞ (zha) are always low tone.
The consonants ཉ (nya), ན (na), མ (ma), ལ (la), ར (ra), ཡ (ya) and ཝ (wa) can be both high and low tone.

Sample videos

Information about Khengkha | Numbers

Links

Information about Khengkha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kheng_language
https://wikitravel.org/en/Khengkha_phrasebook
https://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/5643

Bodish (Tibeto-Kanauri) languages

Amdo Tibetan, Bumthang, Choni, Dzongkha, Jirel, Kagate, Khams Tibetan, Khengkha, Ladakhi, Lhowa, Sherpa, Sikkimese, Tibetan, Tshangla

Languages written with the Tibetan alphabet

Amdo Tibetan, Balti, Bokar, Bumthang, Chocha Ngacha, Choni, Dzongkha (Bhutanese), Jirel, Khams Tibetan, Khengkha, Ladakhi, Sikkimese, Tibetan, Sherpa, Tamang, Tshangla

Page created: 30.01.24. Last modified: 09.02.26

[top]

Conversations - learn languages through stories

You can support this site by Buying Me A Coffee, via PayPal or Patreon, or by contributing in other ways.

If you find all the adverts annoying, there is now an Ad-free version of Omniglot which you can access for a small monthly or annual donation.

Note: all links on this site to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr are affiliate links. This means I earn a commission if you click on any of them and buy something. So by clicking on these links you can help to support this site.