Thimphu - A comprehensive English-Dzongkha dictionary, which will have over 30,000 words, is all set for release in the Bhutanese kingdom this month. Dzongkha is Bhutan’s dominant language.

Publishers Dzongkha Development Authority (DDA) will print about 3,000 copies, which will be distributed to schools, government departments and other sectors free of cost.

Developed over more than four years, the dictionary with over 90,000 Dzongkha equivalents is described by experts as the first of its kind that fulfils the ‘dictionary criteria’.

Researcher Pema Wangdi says the new lexicon, based on the Oxford Popular School Dictionary and Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, tries to distinguish different word senses in a series of numbered equivalence.

‘We have tried to define the English word in its closest Dzongkha equivalent,’ Wangdi was quoted as saying by Bhutan’s national newspaper Kuensel.

‘This will allow people more choices to pick and choose words to fit their context.’

However, the definitions are not strictly restricted to Dzongkha only.

Wangdi pointed out that for some English words whose equivalents were not found in the Dzongkha vocabulary, they have been borrowed from Choeked (classical Tibetan text) and other regional dialects such as Tshangla, Brokpa and Bumthap.

For example, the word ‘gowtshor’ in Brokpa perfectly fits the word ‘love’ in English, both in its verb and noun usage.

‘We have used words from other dialects that explains the English equivalent beautifully,’ he pointed out.

But Wangdi said only those words that are easy to spell in Dzongkha have been taken into account ‘to avoid confusion’.

Developed over a series of meetings where experts deliberated on endless debates and discussions, the dictionary would be provisional and subject to further discussions and changes based on feedback from readers.

With over 30,000 words as the main entries, the researchers are convinced that except for some cultural specific words, most of the words in the English vocabulary have been incorporated in the new dictionary.

The headwords, which are the general root words, are arranged in alphabetical order with no phonetics and no grammatical information.

Wangdi said the need was not called for because such facilities were available in the English dictionaries that are found in abundance in the country.

Civil servants, translators, interpreters and students are the potential target readers, the publishers said.

‘The sole purpose of the dictionary is to promote Dzongkha language through English,’ said Dorji Gyeltshen.

‘With this publication, people should now be able to use Dzongkha more frequently and in its correct form,’ he said.