The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from
Old Tibetan
Old Tibetan refers to the period of Tibetan language reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century.
In 816 CE, during the reign of Sadnalegs, literary Tibetan u ...
(7th to 9th centuries).
[Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.] According to Tournadre (2014), there are 50 languages, which split into over 200 dialects or could be group into 8
dialect continua
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated variet ...
.
These languages are spoken in the
Tibetan Plateau
The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...
and in the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
in
Gilgit-Baltistan
Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute bet ...
,
Aksai Chin, Ladakh,
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
,
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
,
Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...
, and
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
.
Classical Tibetan
Classical Tibetan refers to the language of any text written in Tibetic after the Old Tibetan period. Though it extends from the 12th century until the modern day, it particularly refers to the language of early canonical texts translated from oth ...
is the major literary language, particularly for its use in
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
literature.
Tibetan languages are spoken by some 6 million people, not all of whom are
Tibetans
The Tibetan people (; ) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6.7 million. In addition to the majority living in Tibet Autonomous Region of China, significant numbers of Tibetans live ...
. With the worldwide spread of
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
, the Tibetan language has spread into the western world and can be found in many
Buddhist publications and prayer materials; with some western students learning the language for translation of Tibetan texts. Outside
Lhasa
Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...
itself,
Lhasa Tibetan
Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the traditional "three-branch ...
is spoken by approximately 200,000 exile speakers who have moved from modern-day Tibet to
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and other countries. Tibetan is also spoken by groups of ethnic minorities in
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 people, ...
who have lived in close proximity to Tibetans for centuries, but nevertheless retain their own languages and cultures.
Although some of the
Qiang people
The Qiang people ( Qiangic: ''Rrmea''; ) are an ethnic group in China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised by the People's Republic of China, with a population of approximately 310,000 in 2000. They live mainly in a ...
s of
Kham
Kham (; )
is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
are classified by
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
as ethnic Tibetans (see
Gyalrongic languages
The Gyalrongic languages (also known as Rgyalrongic or Jiarongic) constitute a branch of the Qiangic languages of Sino-Tibetan, although some propose that it may be part of a larger Rung languages group, and do not consider it to be particularly ...
;
Gyalrong people
Gyalrong people (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་རོང, Chinese:嘉绒), also called Jiarong, rGyalrong, are speakers of the Qiangic Gyalrong language who live in the southern part of Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan, China. Th ...
are identified as 'Tibetan' in China), the
Qiangic languages
Qiangic (''Ch'iang, Kyang, Tsiang'', Chinese: 羌語支, "''Qiang'' language group"; formerly known as Dzorgaic) is a group of related languages within the Sino-Tibetan language family. They are spoken mainly in Southwest China, including Sichuan ...
are not Tibetan, but rather form their own branch of the
Tibeto-Burman language family.
Classical Tibetan
Classical Tibetan refers to the language of any text written in Tibetic after the Old Tibetan period. Though it extends from the 12th century until the modern day, it particularly refers to the language of early canonical texts translated from oth ...
was not a
tonal language
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey empha ...
, but many varieties such as
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and
Khams
Kham (; )
is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
Tibetan have developed tone registers.
Amdo
Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the bi ...
and
Ladakhi-Balti are without tone. Tibetan
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
can generally be described as
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...
.
Origins
Marius Zemp (2018) hypothesizes that Tibetan originated as a
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
with the
West Himalayish
The West Himalayish languages, also known as Almora and Kanauric, are a family of Sino-Tibetan languages centered in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and across the border into Nepal. LaPolla (2003) proposes that the West Himalayish languages may b ...
language
Zhangzhung
Zhangzhung or Shangshung was an ancient culture and kingdom in western and northwestern Tibet, which pre-dates the culture of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. Zhangzhung culture is associated with the Bon religion, which has influenced the philosophies ...
as its
superstratum
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
, and
Rgyalrongic as its
substratum
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
(both languages are part of the broader
Sino-Tibetan
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. ...
family). Similarly,
Tamangic also has a West Himalayish superstratum, but its substratum is derived from a different
Sino-Tibetan
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. ...
branch.
Only a few language clusters in the world are derived from a common language which is identical to or closely related to an old literary language. This small group includes the Tibetic languages, as descendents from
Old Tibetan
Old Tibetan refers to the period of Tibetan language reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century.
In 816 CE, during the reign of Sadnalegs, literary Tibetan u ...
(7-9th century), but also the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
with
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, the
Arabic languages
The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variati ...
(or "dialects") with
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic ( ar, links=no, ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ, al-ʿarabīyah al-fuṣḥā) or Quranic Arabic is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notab ...
, the
Sinitic languages
The Sinitic languages (漢語族/汉语族), often synonymous with "Chinese languages", are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute the major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is frequently proposed that there is ...
with
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
, the modern
Indic languages with
Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid- 2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preser ...
etc.
Classification
The more divergent languages are spoken in the north and east, likely due to
language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...
with the
Qiangic
Qiangic (''Ch'iang, Kyang, Tsiang'', Chinese: 羌語支, "''Qiang'' language group"; formerly known as Dzorgaic) is a group of related languages within the Sino-Tibetan language family. They are spoken mainly in Southwest China, including Sichuan ...
,
Rgyalrongic languages
The Gyalrongic languages (also known as Rgyalrongic or Jiarongic) constitute a branch of the Qiangic languages of Sino-Tibetan, although some propose that it may be part of a larger Rung languages group, and do not consider it to be particularly ...
. The divergence exhibited in
Khalong may also be due to
language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceiv ...
. In addition, there is
Baima, which retains an apparent Qiangic
substratum
In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
, and has multiple layers of
borrowing from
Amdo
Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the bi ...
,
Khams
Kham (; )
is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
, and
Zhongu, but does not correspond to any established branch of Tibetic.
The two major Tibetic languages used for broadcasting within China are
Standard Tibetan
Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the traditional "three-branch ...
and
Amdo Tibetan
Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two dialects, the farmer dialect and the nomad dialect.
Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional cl ...
.
Tournadre (2014)
Tournadre (2014)
[Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.] classifies the Tibetic languages as eight
geolinguistic continua, consisting of 50 languages and over 200 dialects. This is an updated version of his work in 2008.
The Eastern and Southeastern branches have lower internal
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
, but it is more limited in the Northwestern branch and between certain southern and northern
Khams
Kham (; )
is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
dialects. These continua are spread across five countries with one exception, this being Sangdam, a
Khams
Kham (; )
is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
dialect in
Kachin,
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
.
*North-Western:
Ladakhi,
Zangskari,
Balti,
Purki
*Western:
Spiti
Spiti (pronounced as Piti in Bhoti language) is a high-altitude region of the Himalayas, located in the north-eastern part of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The name "Spiti" means "The middle land", i.e. the land between Tibe ...
,
Garzha, Khunu,
Jad
*Central:
Dbus
In computing, D-Bus (short for "Desktop Bus")
is a message-oriented middleware mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine. D-Bus was developed as part of the freedesktop.org project, ...
,
Tsang, Phenpo, Lhokha,
Tö,
Kongpo
Kongpo () is a region of central-eastern Tibet, centered in modern Gongbo'gyamda County, Nyingchi Prefecture. It is situated on the Nyang River, a northern tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo River.
Kongpo Drula Gonpa is the oldest and largest monast ...
(in
Kongpo
Kongpo () is a region of central-eastern Tibet, centered in modern Gongbo'gyamda County, Nyingchi Prefecture. It is situated on the Nyang River, a northern tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo River.
Kongpo Drula Gonpa is the oldest and largest monast ...
with
Basum)
*South-Western:
Sherpa Sherpa may refer to:
Ethnography
* Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal
* Sherpa language
Organizations and companies
* Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility
* ...
and
Jirel
The Jirels ( ne, जिरेल जाति) is an ethnic Kirat
The Kirati people, also spelled as Kirant or Kiranti, are a Sino-Tibetan ethnic group. They are peoples of the Himalayas, mostly the Eastern Himalaya extending eastward from ...
; other languages/dialects along the Sino-Nepalese border:
Humla
Humla District ( ne, हुम्ला जिल्ला), a part of Karnali Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Simikot as its district headquarters, covers an area of and has population of 50,858 as ...
,
Mugu,
Dolpo
Dolpo ( bo, དོལ་པོ ) is a high-altitude culturally Tibetan region in the upper part of the Dolpa District of western Nepal, bordered in the north by China.. Part of the region lies in Shey Phoksundo National Park. The sparse, agro ...
,
Lo-ke,
Nubri
Nubri ( Tibetan: ནུབ་རི; ) is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by about 2000 ethnically Tibetan people living in Nubri Valley in northern Central Nepal, upper Gorkhā District of Gandaki Province. Nubri has at least three dialects as ...
,
Tsum,
Langtang
Langtang valley is a Himalayan valley in the mountains of north-central Nepal, known for its trekking routes and natural environment.
Administrative
The Langtang valley lies in the Rasuwa district of the Bagmati Province in Nepal. Situat ...
,
Kyirong,
Yolmo,
Gyalsumdo,
Kagate,
Lhomi,
Walungge,
Tokpe Gola.
*Southern:
Dzongkha
Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script.
The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...
,
Drengjong,
Tsamang,
Dhromo Lakha,
Dur Brokkat,
Mera Sakteng Brokpa-ke
*South-Eastern:
Hor Nagchu,
Hor Bachen,
Yushu, Pembar, Rongdrak, Minyak,
Dzayul, Derong-Jol, Chaktreng, Muli-Dappa, Semkyi Nyida
**'Northern route' dialects: '
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 ...
(Chab-mdo),
Derge
Derge (; ) is a town in Dêgê County in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, China. It was once the center of the Kingdom of Derge in Kham.
History
Historically, Derge, which means "land of mercy", was an important centre of Tibe ...
(sde-dge), and
Kandze (dkar-mdzes)
**'Southern route' dialects:
Markham Markham may refer to:
It may also refer to brand of of clothing which originates from South Africa which saw it's establishment in 1873.
Biology
* Markham's storm-petrel (''Oceanodroma markhami''), a seabird species found in Chile and Colombia
* ...
(smar-khams),
Bathang ('ba'-thang),
Lithang
Litang (; ) is in southwest of Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China.
Litang is part of Kham in the Tibetan cultural zone, and several famous Buddhist figures were born here, including the 7th Dalai Lama, the 10th Dalai Lama, the ...
(li-thang)
*Eastern:
Drugchu,
Khöpokhok,
Thewo-Chone,
Baima,
Sharkhok,
Palkyi (or Pashi; four
dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
, including Chos-rje), and
Zhongu
*North-Eastern
**
Amdo
Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the bi ...
**Gser-Rdo:
[Sun, Jackson T.-S. 2021. ]
Gser-Rdo: A New Tibetic Language Across the Rngaba-Dkarmdzes Border
'. Gserpa,
Khalong
Tournadre (2005, 2008)
Tournadre (2005) classifies the Tibetic languages as follows.
*
Central Tibetan
Central Tibetan, also known as Dbus, Ü or Ü-Tsang, is the most widely spoken Tibetic languages, Tibetic language and the basis of Standard Tibetan.
''Dbus'' and ''Ü'' are forms of the same name. ''Dbus'' is a transliteration of the name in Ti ...
*:The basis of
Standard Tibetan
Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the traditional "three-branch ...
that includes various Nepalese varieties
*
Khams
Kham (; )
is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
*
Amdo
Amdo ( am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the bi ...
*Dzongkha–Lhokä
*:
Dzongkha
Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script.
The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...
,
Sikkimese,
Lakha,
Naapa,
Chocangaca,
Brokkat,
Brokpa
The Brokpa (), sometimes referred to as Minaro, are a small ethnic group mostly found in the union territory of Ladakh, India around the villages of Dha and Hanu. Some of the community are also located across the Line of Control in Baltista ...
and probably
Groma
*
Ladakhi–Balti
*:
Ladakhi,
Burig
Purgi, Purigi or Puriki (Tibetan script: , Nastaʿlīq script: ) is a Tibetic languages, Tibetic language closely related to the Balti language, Balti language. Purgi is natively spoken by the Purigpa, Purigpa people in Ladakh region of India and ...
,
Zangskari,
Balti
*
Lahuli–Spiti
*
Kyirong–Kagate
*Sherpa–Jirel
*:
Sherpa Sherpa may refer to:
Ethnography
* Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal
* Sherpa language
Organizations and companies
* Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility
* ...
,
Jirel
The Jirels ( ne, जिरेल जाति) is an ethnic Kirat
The Kirati people, also spelled as Kirant or Kiranti, are a Sino-Tibetan ethnic group. They are peoples of the Himalayas, mostly the Eastern Himalaya extending eastward from ...
The other languages (
Thewo-Chone,
Zhongu,
Khalong,
Dongwang,
Gserpa,
Zitsadegu,
Drugchu,
Baima) are not
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
, but are not known well enough to classify.
Tournadre (2013) adds
Tseku and
Khamba to
Khams
Kham (; )
is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham ...
, and groups Thewo-Chone, Zhongu, Baima as an Eastern branch of Tibetic.
Bradley (1997)
According to Bradley, the languages cluster as follows (dialect information from the ''Tibetan Dialects Project'' at the University of Bern):
*Western Archaic Tibetan (non-tonal), including
Ladakhi,
Balti and
Burig
Purgi, Purigi or Puriki (Tibetan script: , Nastaʿlīq script: ) is a Tibetic languages, Tibetic language closely related to the Balti language, Balti language. Purgi is natively spoken by the Purigpa, Purigpa people in Ladakh region of India and ...
*
Amdo Tibetan
Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two dialects, the farmer dialect and the nomad dialect.
Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional cl ...
(including
Thewo-Chone) (non-tonal)
*
Khams Tibetan
Khams Tibetan () is the Tibetic languages, 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 ...
(tonal)
*
Western Innovative Tibetan (Lahuli–Spiti) (slightly tonal)
*:Dialects of Upper
Ladakh
Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu and ...
and
Zanskar
Zanskar, Zahar (locally) or Zangskar, is a tehsil of Kargil district, in the Indian union territory of Ladakh. The administrative centre is Padum (former Capital of Zanskar). Zanskar, together with the neighboring region of Ladakh, was brief ...
, of the Northwest Indian Border Area (
Lahaul and Spiti district
The Lahaul and Spiti district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh consists of the two formerly separate districts of Lahaul () and Spiti (; or ). The present administrative centre is Kyelang in Lahaul. Before the two districts were merged, ...
and
Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...
), and of
Zanda County __NOTOC__
Zanda County () or Tsamda County () is a county in the Ngari Prefecture to the extreme west of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Its seat of power is at Tholing, the former capital of the Guge kingdom.
Zanda or Tsamda is said to m ...
(westernmost Tibet)
*
Central Tibetan
Central Tibetan, also known as Dbus, Ü or Ü-Tsang, is the most widely spoken Tibetic languages, Tibetic language and the basis of Standard Tibetan.
''Dbus'' and ''Ü'' are forms of the same name. ''Dbus'' is a transliteration of the name in Ti ...
(slightly tonal)
*:Most dialects of
Ngari Prefecture
Ngari Prefecture () or Ali Prefecture () is a prefecture of China's Tibet Autonomous Region covering Western Tibet, whose traditional name is Ngari Khorsum. Its administrative centre and largest settlement is the town of Shiquanhe.
History
Ngar ...
in western Tibet, of the northern Nepalese border area in Nepal,
Tsang dialects of
Shigatse Prefecture
Shigatse, officially known as Xigazê (; Nepali: ''सिगात्से''), is a prefecture-level city of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its area of jurisdiction, with an area of , corresponds to the histor ...
, and
Ü dialects (
Lhokha,
Lhasa
Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...
, etc.). The basis of
Standard Tibetan
Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the traditional "three-branch ...
.
*Northern Tibetan (slightly tonal)
*:Dialects of
Gêrzê, of
Nagqu Prefecture
Nagqu (also Naqu, Nakchu, or Nagchu; ; ) is a prefecture-level city in the north of the Chinese autonomous region of Tibet. On May 7, 2018, the former Nagqu Prefecture was officially declared the sixth prefecture-level city in Tibet after Lhasa, ...
in north-central Tibet, and of
Nangqên County
Nangqên County, or Nangchen (, ), is a county of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and is the southernmost county-level division of Qinghai province, China, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region to the south.
The county seat is Xangda (sh ...
in South
Qinghai
Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...
(Considered dialects of Khams by Tournadre)
*Southern Tibetan (slightly tonal)
*:
Groma language
Groma, also known as Tromowa and J'umowa, is a language spoken primarily in the lower Chumbi Valley in Tibet, with some speakers in Sikkim in India. It belongs to the southern group of Tibetan languages. Its speakers identify as Tibetans
Th ...
of
Chumbi Valley
The Chumbi Valley, called Dromo or Tromo in Tibetan,
is a valley in the Himalayas that projects southwards from the Tibetan plateau, intervening between Sikkim and Bhutan. It is coextensive with the administrative unit Yadong County in the Ti ...
in southern Tsang,
Sikkimese in India,
Sherpa Sherpa may refer to:
Ethnography
* Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal
* Sherpa language
Organizations and companies
* Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility
* ...
and
Jirel
The Jirels ( ne, जिरेल जाति) is an ethnic Kirat
The Kirati people, also spelled as Kirant or Kiranti, are a Sino-Tibetan ethnic group. They are peoples of the Himalayas, mostly the Eastern Himalaya extending eastward from ...
in Nepal, and various languages of
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
:
Dzongkha
Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script.
The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...
,
Brokkat,
Brokpa
The Brokpa (), sometimes referred to as Minaro, are a small ethnic group mostly found in the union territory of Ladakh, India around the villages of Dha and Hanu. Some of the community are also located across the Line of Control in Baltista ...
,
Chocangaca,
Lakha,
Laya dialect
Laya ( Dzongkha: ལ་ཡ་ཁ་, ལ་ཡག་ཁ་; Wylie: ''la-ya-kha'', ''la-yag-kha'') is a Tibetic variety spoken by indigenous Layaps inhabiting the high mountains of northwest Bhutan in the village of Laya, Gasa District. Speak ...
,
Lunana dialect
The Lunana language, ''Lunanakha'' (Dzongkha: ལུང་ནག་ན་ཁ་; Wylie: ''lung-nag-na-kha'') is a Tibetic language spoken in Bhutan (Lunana Gewog, Gasa District) by some 700 people in 1998. Most are yak-herding pastoralists. Lun ...
.
;Other
Some classifications group Khams and Amdo together as Eastern Tibetan (not to be confused with
East Bodish
The East Bodish languages are a small group of non-Tibetic Bodish languages spoken in eastern Bhutan and adjacent areas of Tibet and India. They include:
* Dakpa (Tawang Monpa)
* Dzala
* Nyen, including Mangde and Phobjib
* Chali
* Bumthang
...
, whose speakers are not ethnically Tibetan). Some, like Tournadre, break up Central Tibetan. Phrases such as 'Central Tibetan' and 'Central Bodish' may or may not be synonymous: Southern (Central) Tibetan can be found as Southern Bodish, for example; 'Central Tibetan' may mean dBus or all tonal lects apart from Khams; 'Western Bodish' may be used for the non-tonal western lects while 'Western Tibetan' is used for the tonal lects, or 'Bodish' may even be used for other branches of the
Tibeto-Kanauri languages
The Tibeto-Kanauri languages, also called Bodic, Bodish–Himalayish, and Western Tibeto-Burman, are a proposed intermediate level of classification of the Sino-Tibetan languages, centered on the Tibetic languages and the Kinnauri dialect cluste ...
.
Writing systems
Most Tibetic languages are written in one of two
Indic script
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...
s.
Standard Tibetan
Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the traditional "three-branch ...
and most other Tibetic languages are written in the
Tibetan script
The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (''abugida'') of Brahmic scripts, Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Lhasa Tibetan, Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese language, Sikkimese, Ladakhi language, Ladakhi, Jire ...
with a historically conservative orthography (see below) that helps unify the Tibetan-language area. Some other Tibetan languages (in India and Nepal) are written in the related
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...
script, which is also used to write
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
,
Nepali and many other languages. However, some
Ladakhi and
Balti speakers write with the
Urdu script
The Urdu alphabet (), is the right-to-left alphabet used for Urdu. It is a modification of the Persian script, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic script. The Urdu alphabet has up to 39 or 40 distinct letters with no distinct letter c ...
; this occurs almost exclusively in
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
. The Tibetan script fell out of use in Pakistani
Baltistan
Baltistan ( ur, ; bft, སྦལ་ཏི་སྟཱན, script=Tibt), also known as Baltiyul or Little Tibet ( bft, སྦལ་ཏི་ཡུལ་།, script=Tibt), is a mountainous region in the Pakistani-administered territory of Gilg ...
hundreds of years ago upon the region's adoption of
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
. However, increased concern among
Balti people for the preservation of their
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
and traditions, especially in the face of strong
Punjabi cultural influence throughout Pakistan, has fostered renewed interest in reviving the Tibetan script and using it alongside the
Perso-Arabic script
The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari Persian) since the 7th cent ...
. Many shops in Baltistan's capital
Skardu
, nickname =
, motto =
, image_skyline =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Gilgit Baltistan#Pakistan
, pushpin_label_position ...
in Pakistan's "Northern Areas" region have begun supplementing signs written in the Perso-Arabic script with signs written in the Tibetan script. Baltis see this initiative not as separatist but rather as part of an attempt to preserve the cultural aspects of their region which has shared a close history with neighbours like
Kashmiris
Kashmiris are an Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group speaking the Kashmiri language, living mostly, but not exclusively, in the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu and Kashmir, India.(a) (subscriptio ...
and Punjabis since the arrival of Islam in the region many centuries ago.
Historical phonology
Old Tibetan
Old Tibetan refers to the period of Tibetan language reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century.
In 816 CE, during the reign of Sadnalegs, literary Tibetan u ...
phonology is rather accurately rendered by the script. The finals were pronounced devoiced although they are written as voiced, the prefix letters assimilated their voicing to the root letters. The graphic combinations ''hr'' and ''lh'' represent voiceless and not necessarily aspirate correspondences to ''r'' and ''l'' respectively. The letter ' was pronounced as a voiced guttural fricative before vowels but as homorganic prenasalization before consonants. Whether the gigu ''verso'' had phonetic meaning or not remains controversial.
For instance, ''Srongbtsan Sgampo'' would have been pronounced (now pronounced in Lhasa Tibetan) and babs'' would have been pronounced (pronounced in Lhasa Tibetan).
Already in the 9th century the process of cluster simplification,
devoicing
In phonology, voicing (or sonorization) is a sound change where a voiceless consonant becomes voiced due to the influence of its phonological environment; shift in the opposite direction is referred to as devoicing or desonorization. Most commo ...
and
tonogenesis
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...
had begun in the central dialects can be shown with Tibetan words transliterated in other languages, particularly
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
but also
Uyghur.
The concurrence of the evidence indicated above enables us to form the following outline of the evolution of Tibetan. In the 9th century, as shown by the bilingual Tibetan–
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
treaty of 821–822 found in front of
Lhasa
Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...
's
Jokhang
The Jokhang (, ), also known as the Qoikang Monastery, Jokang, Jokhang Temple, Jokhang Monastery and Zuglagkang ( or Tsuklakang), is a Buddhist temple in Barkhor Square in Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Tibetans, in ...
, the complex initial clusters had already been reduced, and the process of tonogenesis was likely well underway.
The next change took place in Tsang (Gtsang) dialects: The ''ra''-tags were altered into
retroflex
A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the ha ...
consonants, and the ''ya''-tags became palatals.
Later on the superscribed letters and finals ''d'' and ''s'' disappeared, except in the east and west. It was at this stage that the language spread in Lahul and Spiti, where the superscribed letters were silent, the ''d'' and ''g'' finals were hardly heard, and ''as'', ''os'', ''us'' were ''ai'', ''oi'', ''ui''. The words introduced from Tibet into the border languages at that time differ greatly from those introduced at an earlier period.
The other changes are more recent and restricted to Ü and Tsang. In Ü, the vowel sounds ''a'', ''o'', ''u'' have now mostly
umlauted to ''ä'', ''ö'', ''ü'' when followed by the coronal sounds ''i'', ''d'', ''s'', ''l'' and ''n''. The same holds for Tsang with the exception of ''l'' which merely lengthens the vowel. The medials have become
aspirate tenues with a low intonation, which also marks the words having a simple initial consonant; while the former aspirates and the complex initials simplified in speech are uttered with a high tone, shrill and rapidly.
Reconstruction
Proto-Tibetic
Proto-Tibetic, the hypothetical
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...
ancestral to the Tibetic languages, has been reconstructed by Tournadre (2014).
Proto-Tibetic is similar to, but not identical to, written
Classical Literary Tibetan. The following phonological features are characteristic of Proto-Tibetic (Tournadre 2014: 113).
*The prefixes
*s(ǝ)-, *d(ǝ)-/g(ǝ)-, *m(ǝ)-, and *b(ǝ)-, which have been retained from
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 by ...
. *s(ǝ)- is primarily used with animals and body parts, as well as *d(ǝ)-/*g(ǝ)- and *m(ǝ)-/*r(ǝ)-.
*
Palatalization of
dental and
alveolar consonant
Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated with ...
s before ''y'' (/j/).
*Consonant change from
lateral
Lateral is a geometric term of location which may refer to:
Healthcare
*Lateral (anatomy), an anatomical direction
*Lateral cricoarytenoid muscle
*Lateral release (surgery), a surgical procedure on the side of a kneecap
Phonetics
*Lateral cons ...
to
dental position after /m/ (e.g., *ml > *md).
*Distinctive aspirated initial stops. This phenomenon is attested by alternating aspirated and non-aspirated consonants in
Old Tibetan
Old Tibetan refers to the period of Tibetan language reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century.
In 816 CE, during the reign of Sadnalegs, literary Tibetan u ...
orthography. Examples include gcig ~ gchig (གཅིག་ ~ གཆིག་) 'one'; phyin-chad ~ phyin-cad (ཕྱིན་ཆད་ ~ ཕྱིན་ཅད་) 'from now on'; ci ~ chi (ཅི་ ~ ཆི་) 'what'; and cu ~ chu (ཅུ་ ~ ཆུ་) 'water'.
Reconstructed Proto-Tibetic forms from Tournadre (2014) include:
* *g(ǝ)-tɕik 'one'
* *g(ǝ)-nyis 'two'
* *g(ǝ)-su- 'three'
* *b(ǝ)-ʑi 'four'
* *l(ǝ)-ŋa 'five'
* *d(ǝ)-ruk 'six'
* *b(ǝ)-dun 'seven'
* *b(ǝ)-rgyat 'eight'
* *d(ǝ)-gu 'nine'
* *b(ǝ)-tɕu 'ten'
* *s(ǝ)-dik-pa 'scorpion'
* *s(ǝ)-bal 'frog'
* *s(ǝ)-tak 'tiger'
* *s(ǝ)-b-rul 'snake'
* *s(ǝ)-pra 'monkey'
* *s(ǝ)-kra 'hair'
* *s(ǝ)-nyiŋ 'heart'
* *s(ǝ)-na 'nose'
* *d(ǝ)-myik 'eye'
* *m(ǝ)-go 'head'
* *r(ǝ)-na 'ear'
Pre-Tibetic
Pre-Tibetic is a hypothetical pre-formation stage of Proto-Tibetic.
*ty-, *ly-, *sy- were not palatalized in Pre-Tibetic, but underwent
palatalization in Proto-Tibetic (Tournadre 2014: 113-114).
Posited
sound change
A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chang ...
s from Pre-Tibetic to Proto-Tibetic include *ty- > *tɕ-, *sy- > *ɕ-, *tsy- > *tɕ-, and *ly- > *ʑ-. However, Tournadre (2014: 114) notes that many
Bodish languages
Bodish, named for the Tibetan ethnonym ''Bod'', is a proposed grouping consisting of the Tibetic languages and associated Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Tibet, North India, Nepal, Bhutan, and North Pakistan.
It has not been demonstrated ...
such as
Basum,
Tamang
The Tamang (; Devanagari: तामाङ; ''tāmāṅ'') are an Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group of Nepal. In Nepal Tamang/Moormi people constitute 5.6% of the Nepalese population at over 1.3 million in 2001, increasing to 1,539,830 as of the 2011 c ...
, and
Kurtöp (
East Bodish
The East Bodish languages are a small group of non-Tibetic Bodish languages spoken in eastern Bhutan and adjacent areas of Tibet and India. They include:
* Dakpa (Tawang Monpa)
* Dzala
* Nyen, including Mangde and Phobjib
* Chali
* Bumthang
...
) have not undergone these changes (e.g., Bake (
Basum) ''ti'' 'what' vs. Proto-Tibetic *tɕ(h)i and Bake ''tɨ'' 'one' vs. Proto-Tibetic *g(ǝ)-tɕ(h)ik; Kurtöp ''
Hla:'' 'iron' and
Bumthap ''lak'' 'iron' vs. Proto-Tibetic *ltɕaks).
Some Pre-Tibetic reconstructions, along with reconstructed Proto-Tibetic forms and orthographic Classical Literary Tibetan, from Tournadre (2014: 114-116) are listed below.
Comparisons of Numerals
The
Numerals
A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to:
* Numeral system used in mathematics
* Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English)
* Numerical d ...
in different Tibetan/Tibetic languages are:
The numbers include the tonelevel. For the middle or eastern languages:
References
*
**
Further reading
*
*
*
*
AHP43 Amdo Tibetan Language
External links
Comparative Dictionary of Tibetan Dialects (CDTD)Languages on the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas— Nicolas Tournadre
Overview of Old Tibetan Synchronic phonologyby Nathan Hill
at CNRS-LACITO
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20140324094654/http://thetibetpost.com/en/outlook/opinions-and-columns/3811-chinas-tibet-policy-continued-attempt-at-erasing-tibetan-language China's Tibet policy continued attempt at erasing Tibetan language]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tibetan languages
Languages attested from the 7th century
Agglutinative languages
Languages of China
Bodic languages
Languages of Tibet
Languages of Bhutan
Languages of Nepal
Languages of Pakistan
Languages of India