Chöke (or Classical Tibetan) is the language of the traditional literature and learning of the Buddhist monastics.

[2] The Laya dialect, closely related to Dzongkha, is spoken near the northwestern border with Tibet by some 1,100 Layaps.

Layaps are an indigenous nomadic and semi-nomadic people who traditionally herd yaks and dzos.

[5][6][7] Dzongkha speakers enjoy a limited mutual intelligibility, mostly in basic vocabulary and grammar.

[8] Khams Tibetan is spoken by about 1,000 people in two enclaves in Eastern Bhutan, also the descendants of pastoral yakherding communities.

Van Driem (1993) describes 'Ole as the remnant of the primordial population of the Black Mountains before the southward expansion of the ancient East Bodish tribes.

It appears to be the sole representative of a unique branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family,[12] and retains the complex verbal agreement system of Proto-Tibeto-Burman.

[13] Van Driem (1993) describes its speakers as a remnant of the ancient population of Central Bhutan before the southward expansion of the East Bodish tribes.

Van Driem (1993) describes it as the remnant of "the primordial population of Western Bhutan," and comments that Lhokpu or a close relative appears to have been the substrate language for Dzongkha, explaining the various ways in which Dzongkha diverged from Tibetan.

[citation needed] The Toto language is generally classified as belonging to the sub-Himalayan branch of the Tibeto-Burman family.

[14] It is spoken by the isolated Toto tribe in Totopara and along the West Bengal-Bhutan border in South Bhutan.