Laya (
Dzongkha: ལ་ཡ་ཁ་, ལ་ཡག་ཁ་;
Wylie: ''la-ya-kha'', ''la-yag-kha'') is a
Tibetic variety spoken by
indigenous 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 mountainou ...
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 (
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'') is ...
) and
Punakha Districts. Its speakers are ethnically related to the
Tibetans. 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
Dzongkha, the
national language of Bhutan.
There is a limited mutual intelligibility with Dzongkha, mostly in basic vocabulary and grammar.
See also
*
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 ...
*
Laya Gewog
Laya Gewog is a gewog (village block) of Gasa District, Bhutan. The capital of gewog is the town Laya.
The gewog lies entirely within Jigme Dorji National Park and contains several of Bhutan's glaciers.
As well as the national language, Dzo ...
*
Laya village
*
Languages of Bhutan
There are two dozen languages of Bhutan, all members of the Tibeto-Burman language family except for Nepali, which is an Indo-Aryan language, and Bhutanese Sign Language. Dzongkha, the national language, is the only native language of Bhutan wit ...
References
Languages of Bhutan
Languages written in Tibetan script
{{Bhutan-stub