ལ་དྭགས་སྐད

Ladakhi

Sino-Tibetan

FamilySino-Tibetan Speakers~110K ScriptTibetan script CountriesIndia Official inNo (Hindi and English are the Union official languages; Ladakhi has no scheduled status) Vitalitysafe ISO 639-3lbj

Ladakhi (Bhoti, autonymously La-dwags-skad) is a Western Tibetic Bodish language of the Ladakh region of India, the easternmost Tibetic language in the Indian Himalayas. Sister to Balti (bft) within the Ladakhi-Balti subgroup, Ladakhi has retained many archaic phonological features lost in Central Tibetan (bo), including initial consonant clusters and a richer vowel system. Buddhist monastic tradition has produced extensive religious literature in Classical Tibetan with Ladakhi commentary; the local script tradition uses Tibetan uchen with regional Bhoti adaptations. Following Ladakh's 2019 elevation to Union Territory status, Ladakhi gained increased official recognition alongside Hindi, Urdu, and English. Norman's 2010 Ladakhi-English Dictionary and Koshal's 1979 Ladakhi Grammar are the major modern reference works.

Where it is spoken

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87 core words in Ladakhi

Water

ཆུ

tɕʰu

Fire

མེ

me

Sun

ཉི་མ

ɲima

Moon

ཟླ་བ

lzawa

Star

སྐར་མ

skarma

Night

མཚན

tsʰen

Rain

ཆར་པ

tʃʰarpa

Snow

ཁ

kʰa

Wind

རླུང

l̥uŋ

Earth

ས

sa

Stone

རྡོ

rdo

Mountain

རི

ri

Sea

རྒྱ་མཚོ

rɡʲatsʰo

Mother

ཨ་མ

ama

Father

ཨ་བ

aba

Daughter

བུ་མོ

bomo

I

ང

ŋa

You

ཁྱེད་རང

kʰeːraŋ

We

ང་ཞ

ŋaʒa

Name

མིང

miŋ

Person

མི

mi

Head

མགོ

ɡo

Eye

མིག

mik

Ear

ནམ་ཅོག

namtɕok

Nose

སྣ

sna

Mouth

ཁ

kʰa

Tooth

སོ

so

Tongue

ལྕེ

ltʃe

Hand

ལག་པ

lakpa

Foot

རྐང་པ

skaŋpa

Heart

སྙིང

ɲiŋ

Bone

རུས་པ

ruspa

Blood

ཁྲག

kʰraq

Love

དགའ

ɡa

Tree

ཤིང

ʃiŋ

Dog

ཁྱི

kʰi

Cat

བྱི་ལ

pila

Fish

ཉ

ɲa

Bird

བྱ

bja

Bear

དྲེན་མོ

drenmo

Horse

རྟ

rta

House

ཁང་པ

kʰaŋpa

Milk

འོ་མ

oma

Honey

རང་རྩི

raŋ tsi

Salt

ཚྭ

tsʰa

Wine

རྒུན་ཆང

rɡuntɕʰaŋ

Iron

ལྕགས

ltʃaks

Book

ཀི་དེབ

kideb

Eat

ཟ

za

Drink

འཐུང

tʰuŋ

Sleep

ཉལ

ɲal

One

གཅིག

tɕik

Two

གཉིས

ɲis

Three

གསུམ

sum

Four

བཞི

ʒi

Five

ལྔ

ŋa

Hundred

བརྒྱ

rɡʲa

Hello

ཇུ་ལེ

dʑule

Thank you

ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ

tʰuktɕetɕʰe

Good

ཡག་པོ

jakpo

New

སོ་མ

soma

Red

དམར་པོ

marpo

White

དཀར་པོ

kar po

Black

ནག་པོ

nakpo

Green

སྔོན་པོ

ŋonpo

Blue

སྔོན་པོ

ŋonpo

Sources

Words compared

Compared with languages in the same classification: Sino-Tibetan

Meaning LadakhiBaltiClassical TibetanSherpaSikkimeseLiturgical Classical TibetanDzongkha
Water ཆུ /tɕʰu/ ཆུ /tɕʰu/ ཆུ /tɕʰu/ ཆུ /tɕʰu/ ཆུ /tɕʰu/ ཆུ /tɕʰu/ ཆུ /tɕʰu/
Fire མེ /me/ མེ /me/ མེ /me/ མེ /me/ མེ /me/ མེ /me/ མེ /me/
Sun ཉི་མ /ɲima/ ཉི་མ /ɲima/ ཉི་མ /ɲima/ ཉི་མ /ɲima/ ཉི་མ /ɲima/ ཉི་མ /ɲimə/ ཉིམ /ɲim/
Moon ཟླ་བ /lzawa/ ཟླ་བ /dawa/ ཟླ་བ /zlaba/ ཟླ་བ /dawa/ ཟླ་བ /dawa/ ཟླ་བ /tawa/ ཟླ་བ /dawa/
Star སྐར་མ /skarma/ སྐར་མ /skarma/ སྐར་མ /skarma/ སྐར་མ /karma/ སྐར་མ་ /kaːma/ སྐར་མ /kaːma/ སྐརམ /kaːm/
Night མཚན /tsʰen/ མཚན /tsʰan/ མཚན་མོ /mtsʰanmo/ ནུབ /nup/ ཕྱི་རུ /pʰiru/ མཚན་མོ /tsʰɛ̃mo/ མཚན་མོ /tsʰanmo/
Rain ཆར་པ /tʃʰarpa/ ཆར་པ /tʃʰarpa/ ཆར་པ /tɕʰarpa/ ཆར་པ /tɕʰarwa/ ཆར་པོ /tɕʰaːp/ ཆར་པ /tɕʰaːpa/ ཆརཔ /tɕʰarp/
Snow ཁ /kʰa/ ཁ་བ /kʰawa/ ཁ་བ /kʰaba/ ཁ་བ /kʰawa/ ཁ་བོ /kʰau/ ཁ་བ /kʰawa/ ཁ་བ /kʰawa/
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