An appeal for Dzongkha

25 July 2008

Sir,
Some time ago, almost every Bhutanese newspaper published an article on the Dzongkha teaching pool graduation. For example, ‘first batch of masters in Buddhist philosophy’, ‘His Holiness the Je Khenpo award certificates to Dzongkha lecturers’ and ‘21 gets masters in Buddhist Philosophy’.

Since I am un-workman-likely-going in for comparative and field linguistics which is the only hobby of mine, I have recently begun my Dzongkha abecedarian familiarization.

The textbook by Kunzang Thinley and George Louis van Driem from the Leiden University is now rare and not available in libraries here. I tried to buy it online but had not received an answer.

The Royal University of Bhutan and it’s Institute for Language and Cultural Studies at Semtokha Dzong both do not announce their e-mail contacts at the RUB’s web-site. Can you please help me to get in touch with a Dzongkha teacher who would wish to correspond with an absolutely ignorant pupil eager to be educated from the very beginning? We will be able perhaps to compose, step by step, a new Dzongkha manual for Russian speakers as well as a grammar and a dictionary because those for English are not available either.

Of course, I am not professional but I am very enthusiastic and can co-ordinate multiple efforts to achieve good results. Thus far I successfully took part in Georgian and Chechen language researches in the capacity of an assistant and typesetter.

Lexicographic work is one of my favourite pastimes and I would be glad to make a feasible contribution to the Dzongkha studies in Russia, or better to say: initiate them in this country. I serve as a health care specialist in Moscow but originate from the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk.

Andrey Shumilov krasnoyarskiy@gmail.com
Moscow, Russia

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