Lamo (also called mBo; IPA: ; ’Bo skad) is an unclassified
Sino-Tibetan language
Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...
spoken in Tshawarong,
Zogang County,
Chamdo Prefecture
Chamdo, officially Qamdo () and also known in Chinese as Changdu, is a prefecture-level city in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Its seat is the town of Chengguan in Karuo District. Chamdo is Tibet's third largest cit ...
,
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
. It was recently documented by Suzuki & Nyima (2016). sMad skad, a closely related language variety, is also spoken in Tshawarong.
Suzuki & Nyima (2018) document the Kyilwa (格瓦) variety of
Dongba Township (东坝乡).
Names
Lamo is referred to by the ''Changdu Gazetteer'' (2005: 819)
[Xizang Changdu Diqu Difangzhi Bianzuan Weiyuanhui 西藏昌都地区地方志编纂委员会 (2005). Changdu Diquzhi 昌都地区志. Beijing: Fangzhi Chubanshe 方志出版社.] as ''Dongba'' (东坝话), as it is spoken in
Dongba Township (东坝乡),
Zogang County.
Khams Tibetan
Khams Tibetan () is the Tibetic language used by the majority of the people in Kham. Khams is one of the three branches of the traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Amdo Tibetan and Ü-Tsang). In terms of mutua ...
people refer to Lamo speakers as ''mBo'' or ''mBo mi'' (’bo mi). Traditionally, Lamo speakers also referred to themselves as ''Po mi'', although this autonym is not known by all Lamo speakers. They refer to their own language as ''Lamo''. Some Lamo speakers also refer to their town language as ''ˊmbo hkə''.
Lamo
autonyms by location (gSerkhu, discussed below, is a minor mutually intelligible variety):
Demographics
Lamo is spoken by about 4,000 speakers, with 2,000 in Dongba Township, and 2,000 in Zhonglinka Township. Both townships are located along the Nujiang River in
Dzogang County.
Lamo and gSerkhu villages by township:
Dialects
There are two dialects:
*Lamo (Tibetan name for the language: mBo-skad)
*Lamei
There are 5 Lamo-speaking village clusters in Dongba Township, which are Kyilwa, Phurkha, Gewa, Gyastod and Gyasmed. The remaining village clusters, out of a total of 13 village clusters in
Dongba Township, are
Khams Tibetan
Khams Tibetan () is the Tibetic language used by the majority of the people in Kham. Khams is one of the three branches of the traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Amdo Tibetan and Ü-Tsang). In terms of mutua ...
-speaking villages.
Lamei is spoken by 1,500 to 2,000 people in 5 village clusters in is spoken in Zhonglinka Township. Sitrikhapa, Wangtod, Wangmed, Rongba, and Laba village clusters have only Lamei speakers. Woba, Pula, and Zuoshod village clusters have both Lamei and
Khams Tibetan
Khams Tibetan () is the Tibetic language used by the majority of the people in Kham. Khams is one of the three branches of the traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Amdo Tibetan and Ü-Tsang). In terms of mutua ...
speakers.
gSerkhu is a variety of Lamo, with which it is mutually intelligible. Khams Tibetan speakers refer to the language as Sikhu. gSerkhu is spoken by about 400 people (80 households) in 4 villages of the gSerkhu Valley, which are Benzhui, Muzong, Cuixi, and Sangba, all located in Shangchayu Town,
Dzayul County. Dzayul County also has
Khams Tibetan
Khams Tibetan () is the Tibetic language used by the majority of the people in Kham. Khams is one of the three branches of the traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Amdo Tibetan and Ü-Tsang). In terms of mutua ...
speakers who had originally migrated from the Lamo-speaking area of Dongba Township,
Dzogang County.
Classification
Suzuki & Nyima (2016, 2018) suggest that Lamo may be a
Qiangic language.
Guillaume Jacques
Guillaume Jacques (, b. 1979) is a French linguist who specializes in the study of Sino-Tibetan languages: Old Chinese, Tangut, Tibetan, Gyalrongic and Kiranti languages. He also performs research on the Algonquian and Siouan language families ...
(2016)
[Jacques, Guillaumes. 2016]
Les journées d'études sur les langues du Sichuan
suggests that mBo is a
rGyalrongic language belonging to the
Stau-
Khroskyabs (Horpa-Lavrung) branch.
Suzuki & Nyima (2018) note that Lamo is closely related to two other recently documented languages of
Chamdo
Chamdo, officially Qamdo () and also known in Chinese as Changdu, is a prefecture-level city in the eastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Its seat is the town of Chengguan in Karuo District. Chamdo is Tibet's third largest city ...
, eastern Tibet, namely
Larong (spoken in the
Lancang River
The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annuall ...
valley of
Zogang County and
Markam County) and
Drag-yab (spoken in southern
Zhag'yab County
Zhag'yab County (Tibetan: བྲག་གཡབ་རྫོང་ Wylie brag g-yab rdzong; ), also spelled Chagyab, is a county of the Chamdo Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China
China, officially the People's Republic of C ...
). These languages together are called the
Chamdo languages
The Chamdo languages are a group of recently discovered, closely related Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Chamdo Prefecture, Tibet.Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2018Historical relationship among three non-Tibetic languages in Chamdo, TAR ''Pr ...
.
Lamo compared with
Written Tibetan
The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (''abugida'') of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages ...
and
Proto-Tibeto-Burman
Proto-Tibeto-Burman (commonly abbreviated PTB) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined b ...
(Nyima & Suzuki 2019):
Lexicon
Suzuki & Nyima (2016) list the following Lamo words.
Phonology
Suzuki & Nyima (2018)
report the phonology of the Kyilwa dialect. They have drawn the conclusion that Lamo "tends to have a different phonetic development from the others".
Consonants: /p
h,
p,
b, t
h,
t,
d,
ʈ, ʈ
h,
ɖ, k
h,
k,
g, q
h,
q,
ɢ,
ʔ, ts
h, ts, dz, tɕ
h, tɕ, dʑ,
s,
z,
ʂ,
ɕ,
ʑ,
x,
ɣ,
χ,
ʁ,
h,
ɦ,
m,
m̥,
n,
n̥,
ȵ,
ȵ̊,
ŋ,
ŋ̊,
ɴ, ɴ̥,
l, l̥,
r,
w,
j/.
Vowels: /
i,
e,
ɛ,
a,
ɑ,
ɔ,
o,
u,
ɯ,
ə,
ʉ,
ɵ/. All of these vowels have
creaky and
nasalized
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internationa ...
counterparts. There are a few secondary articulations found marginally, namely
retroflexed /ɚ/ and velarized /ə
ɣ/.
The
tones are high and rising, the same as in
Larong and
Drag-yab. The tone bearing unit is the first two syllables of every word. The second syllable is occasionally excluded from the TBU.
Morphology
Directional prefixes in Lamo:
*n-: ''ˊnə- sə̰'' ‘kill’, ''ˊna-qɑ'' ‘chew’, ''ˊnu-pho'' ‘drop’
*th-: ''ˊtho-xɯ'' ‘go’, ''ˊtho-ndzo'' ‘gather’, ''ˊthe-ji'' ‘sell’
*k-: ''ˊka-tɵ'' ‘buy’, ''ˉko’-ɕa'' ‘break into pieces’
*t-: ''ˉtu’-rɑ'' ‘receive’, ''ˉtə’-tɕa'' ‘wear (a hat)’
*l-: ''ˉla’-mbo'' ‘overthrow’
*w-: ''ˉwo’-ɕa'' ‘tear up’, ''ˊwu-ndzə'' ‘eat’
Directional prefixes with ''le'' ‘come’ in Lamo:
*''ˊne-le'': ‘come downwards/come down’
*''ˊthe-le'': ‘(he) has arrived’ (perfect/aorist only)
*''k-'': (does not occur)
*''ˊtə’-le'': ‘arrive upwards/come here close to the speaker’
*''ˉle-le'': ‘come to a place closer to the speaker but not necessarily near them’
*''ˊwu-le'': ‘come towards the speaker on the same horizontal level’
References
*Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2016.
’Bo skad, a newly recognised non-Tibetic variety spoken in mDzo sgang, TAR: a brief introduction to its sociolinguistic situation, sounds, and vocabulary'. Fourth Workshop on Sino-Tibetan Languages of Southwest China (STLS-2016). University of Washington, Seattle, September 8–10, 2016.
*Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2017. Outline of verb morphology of Lamo (mDzo sgang, Tibet). Paper presented at 50th International Conference for Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (Beijing).
*Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2018
Historical relationship among three non-Tibetic languages in Chamdo, TAR ''Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018)''. Kyoto: Kyoto University.
{{Na-Qiangic languages
Unclassified Sino-Tibetan languages
Languages of China
Languages of Tibet