Laya (

Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script. The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...

: ལ་ཡ་ཁ་, ལ་ཡག་ཁ་; Wylie: ''la-ya-kha'', ''la-yag-kha'') is a Tibetic variety spoken by

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

Layap The Layap ( Dzongkha: ལ་ཡཔ་) are an indigenous people inhabiting the high mountains of northwest Bhutan in the village of Laya, in the Gasa District, at an altitude of , just below the Tsendagang peak. Their population in 2003 stood at ...

s inhabiting the high mountains of northwest

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

in the village of Laya,

Gasa District Gasa District or Gasa Dzongkhag ( Dzongkha: མགར་ས་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Mgar-sa rdzong-khag'') is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. The capital of Gasa District is Gasa Dzong near Gasa. It is loc ...

. Speakers also inhabit the northern regions of

Thimphu Thimphu (; dz, ཐིམ་ཕུག ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Bhutan. It is situated in the western central part of Bhutan, and the surrounding valley is one of Bhutan's ''dzongkhags'', the Thimphu District. The ancient ...

(

Lingzhi Gewog Lingzhi Gewog (Dzongkha: གླིང་གཞི་) is a gewog (village block) of Thimphu District, Bhutan. Lingzhi Gewog, along with Naro and Soe Gewogs, is part of Lingzhi Dungkhag A dungkhag ( dz, དྲུང་ཁག་ ''drungkhak'') i ...

) and

Punakha District Punakha District ( Dzongkha: སྤུ་ན་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Spu-na-kha rdzong-khag'') is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. It is bordered by Thimphu, Gasa, and Wangdue Phodrang Districts. The do ...

s. Its speakers are ethnically related to the

Tibetans The Tibetan people (; ) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6.7 million. In addition to the majority living in Tibet Autonomous Region of China, significant numbers of Tibetans live ...

. Most speakers live at an altitude of , just below the Tsendagang peak. Laya speakers are also called ''Bjop'' by the Bhutanese, sometimes considered a condescending term. There were 1,100 speakers of Laya in 2003. Laya is a variety of

, the

national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...

of Bhutan. There is a limited mutual intelligibility with Dzongkha, mostly in basic vocabulary and grammar.

References

Languages of Bhutan Languages written in Tibetan script {{Bhutan-stub

See also

References