# Dzongkha numerals

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vte :
Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan, has two numeral systems, one vigesimal (base 20), and a modern decimal system. The vigesimal system remains in robust use. Ten is an auxiliary base: the -teens are formed with ten and the numerals 1–9. Ex. cu_ci

## Vigesimal

| Numerals | Numerals | Spelling | Romanisation |
| Hindu-Arabic | Tibetan | Spelling | Romanisation |
| 1 | ༡ | གཅིག | gcig |
| 2 | ༢ | གཉིས | gnyis |
| 3 | ༣ | གསུམ | gsum |
| 4 | ༤ | བཞི | bzhi |
| 5 | ༥ | ལྔ | lnga |
| 6 | ༦ | དྲུག | drug |
| 7 | ༧ | བདུན | bdun |
| 8 | ༨ | བརྒྱད | brgyad |
| 9 | ༩ | དགུ | bgu |
| 10 | ༡༠ | བཅུ་ཐམ | bcu tham* |
| 11 | ༡༡ | བཅུ་གཅིག | bcu gcig |
| 12 | ༡༢ | བཅུ་གཉིས | bcu gnyis |
| 13 | ༡༣ | བཅུ་གསུམ | bcu gsum |
| 14 | ༡༤ | བཅུ་བཞི | bcu bzhi |
| 15 | ༡༥ | བཅོ་ལྔ | bco lnga |
| 16 | ༡༦ | བཅུ་དྲུག | bcu drug |
| 17 | ༡༧ | བཅུ་བདུན | bcu bdun |
| 18 | ༡༨ | བཅོ་བརྒྱད | bco brgyad |
| 19 | ༡༩ | བཅུ་དགུ | bcu dgu |
| 20 | ༢༠ | ཁལ་གཅིག | khal gcig |
*When it appears on its own, ‘ten’ is usually said བཅུ་ཐམ bcu tham ‘a full ten’. In combinations it is simply བཅུ bcu.
Multiples of 20 are formed from ཁལ khal. Intermediate multiples of ten are formed with ཕྱེད phyed 'half to':
| 30 | ༣༠ | ཁལ་ཕྱེད་གཉིས | khal phyed gnyis | (a half to two score) |
| 40 | ༤༠ | ཁལ་གཉིས | khal gnyis | (two score) |
| 50 | ༥༠ | ཁལ་ཕྱེད་གསུམ | khal phyed gsum | (a half to three score) |
| 100 | ༡༠༠ | ཁལ་ལྔ | khal lnga | (five score) |
| 200 | ༢༠༠ | ཁལ་བཅུ་ཐམ | khal bcu tham | (ten score) |
| 300 | ༣༠༠ | ཁལ་བཅོ་ལྔ | khal bco lnga | (fifteen score) |
400 (20²) ɲiɕu is the next unit: ɲiɕu ciː 400, ɲiɕu ɲi 800, etc. Higher powers are 8000 (20³) kʰecʰe ('a ɡreat score') and jãːcʰe 160,000 (20⁴).

## Decimal

The decimal system is the same up to 19. Then decades, however, are formed as unit–ten, as in Chinese, and the hundreds similarly. 20 is reported to be ɲiɕu, the same as vigesimal numeral 400; this may be lexical interference for the expected *ɲi-cu. (In any case, there is no ambiguity, because as 400 it is obligatorily ɲiɕu ciː 'one 400'.) Several of the decades have an epenthetic -p-, perhaps by analogy with 18 and 19, where the -p- presumably reflects a historical *cup 'ten':
    sum-cu 30, ʑi-p-cu 40, ˈŋa-p-cu 50, ɟa-tʰampa or cik-ɟa 100 (a 'full hundred' or 'one hundred'), ɲi-ɟa 200, sum-ɟa 300, ʑi-p-ɟa 400, etc.