🐵 Aspirated
🔻 Low Tone
Row 1
Column 3
This is the letter ག Gha. It's red because it's an aspirated low tone letter. When a vowel is added the inherent ཨ (A) in ག changes the vowel accordingly.
MNEMONIC
ག kinda also looks like a kettle no?
ཁ and ག look like they were created
quite similarly to the letters p and q.
The four vowels
There are four vowels which can be attached to a consonant and they are:
༼ ག་ གི་ གུ་ གེ་ གོ་ ༽
Ga + vowels
Let's take a look at how the spelling and pronunciation of ག changes with each vowel.
vowel Vocab
Here are some vocabulary words with each vowel.
༼ རྒ་ ལྒ་ སྒ་ ༽
Superscripts
These letters go above the root letter.
ག can attach to all three superscripts.
Although they are spelled differently,
these letters are pronounced the same.
Stroke order
(Click for animations)
Rago
Lago
Sago
Superscript
Vocab
བོད་སྐད
The སྐ in བོད་སྐད changes
it's pronunciation
to སྐེ due to the suffix ད.
༼ གྲ་ གྱ་ གླ་ ༽
Subscripts
These letters go below the root letter.
ག can attach to these three subscripts.
Subscripts usually change the sound
of the letter they are attached to.
See how rata, yata, and lata
change the pronunciation of ག.
Stroke order
(Click for animations)
Rata
Yata
Lata
Subscript
Vocab
བཀྲ་ཤིས
Although there is an R in Trashi,
the R is very subtle.
⚠️ Irregular ⚠️
Wazur is sneaky and can attach to certain combinations and this is one of them. Don't worry, these combinations are super infrequent and the sound does not change.
གྲྭ་
Ga + rata + Dra + Wazur = Dra
༼ གྲྭ ༽
༅ High school
༼ ཆེ་རིམ་སློབ་གྲྭ།༽ ༄ Cherim lopdra
Bonus
༅ Student
༼ སློབ་ཕྲུག ༽ ༄ Lopthru
༼ སྔོན་འཇུག ༽
Ka as a Prefix
Prefixes are silent letters that
come before the root letter.
ག is one of the 5 prefixes,
it can attach to the following.
ཅ་ ཏ་ ཙ་ ཤ་ ས་
ཞ་ ཟ་ ད་
ན་ ཉ་ ཡ་
ཅ་ ཏ་ ཙ་ ཤ་ ས་ ཞ་ ཟ་ ད་ ན་ ཉ་ ཡ་
(4th column letters change tone.)
༼ དག་ བག་ མག་ འག་ ༽
Ga + Prefix
As a root letter,
ག usually follows these letters:
Even though
དག་, བག་, མག་, and འག་
look different than ག་,
they're all pronounced the same.
Prefix vocab
Ka as a suffix
These letters come after the root letter.
ག is one of the 11 suffixes that can attach to a letter. Sometimes it makes a K sound, sometimes it's silent.
vocab builder
Here are some additional
vocabulary words that are
associated with the letter ག.
The key words in this video are:
སྒོང ་རྡོག
See how many words we could
make from just one root word?
Did you notice how the ཀོབ་ in ཀོབ་ཆུང kinda sounds similar ཀོ་པི. I think the པ changed to བ because པ is not one of the original jenju, so in order to capture the final "p/b" consonant sound, we have to add བ as a suffix.
Practice
Now that we learned how vowels interact with the letter ག let's try writing it in the Uchen, Jotshum, and Ume script.
Uchen
(Dzongkha & Tibetan)
ག་ གི་ གུ་ གེ་ གོ་
རྒ་ ལྒ་ སྒ་
གྲ་ གྱ་ གླ་ གྲྭ་
Jotshum
(Dzongkha)
ག་ གི་་ གུ་ གེ་ གོ་
རྒ་ ལྒ་ སྒ་
གྲ་ གྱ་ གླ་ གྲྭ་
Ume
(Tibetan)
ག་ གི་ གུ་ གེ་ གོ་
རྒ་ ལྒ་ སྒ་
གྲ་ གྱ་ གླ་ གྲྭ་
༼༺࿉༻༽
This is everything you need to know about the letter ག.
Make sure that as you practice your
handwriting with the resources
above so that you can impress
everyone with your Dzongkha skills.
(╮°-°)╮┳━━┳
Don't forget!
Spelling in Dzongkha is incredibly important and considered by many to be one of the hardest parts about learning the language. When studying, try to make it a habit to spell the words aloud like we did in the videos.
Quiz time!
Literally the two words that
no one enjoys hearing.
Don't worry, we prepared some
flashcards for you to practice
what you learned in this lesson.
( ╯°□°)╯ ┻━━┻
Relax, its not graded.
If you have any questions regarding anything in this lesson, please reach out to me in our discord server.
See you in the next lesson!
