Khams Tibetan
Khams Tibetan (Tibetan: ཁམས་སྐད་, Wylie: Khams skad, Lhasa dialect IPA: [kʰâm kɛ]
; also called Kham kä) is the Tibetic language used by the majority of the people in the Kham region of eastern Tibet (E. Tibet Autonomous Region, S. Qinghai, W. Sichuan, Yunnan). It is one of the four main spoken Tibetic languages, the other three being those of U-Tsang (ü kä), Amdo (am kä) and Ladakhi (tö kä). All four Tibetan language groups share the same written script, but their pronunciations, vocabularies and grammars are different. These differences may have emerged due to geographical isolation of the regions of Tibet. Khams Tibetan is used alongside Central Tibetan and Amdo Tibetan in broadcasting, but shares the Classical Tibetan orthography with them. Khams Tibetan is, however, not intelligible with Amdo Tibetan, Central Tibetan, or Ladakhi. Like Central Tibetan, it is a tonal language.
Khampa Tibetan is also spoken by about 1,000 people in two enclaves in Eastern Bhutan, the descendants of pastoral yakherding communities.[5]
Dialects
There five dialects of Khams Tibetan proper:
- Central Khams, spoken in the Dêgê (W. Sichuan & Tibet) and Chamdo (Tibet) areas
- Southern Khams, spoken in the Dêqên TAP (Yunnan & Tibet). There are several subdialects due to the mountainous terrain, as well as contact with neighboring language communities for trade.
- Northern or Northeastern Khams, spoken in Nangqên and Yüshu (S. Qinghai) areas
- Eastern Khams, spoken in the Dardo area
- Hor, or Western Khams, spoken in the Nagqu area
- Gêrzê dialect is sometimes considered as Western Khams
These have relatively low mutual intelligibility, but are close enough that they are usually considered a single language. Khamba and Tseku are more divergent, but classified with Khams by Tournadre (2013).
Several other languages are spoken by Tibetans in the Khams region: Muya, rGyalrong, and Dongwang.[6]
See also
References
- ↑ Khams at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Khamba[2] at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Tseku at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) - ↑ George van Driem, Languages of the Himalayas, p 892
- ↑ George van Driem, Languages of the Himalayas, p 892
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Khams–Hor". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ van Driem, George L. (1993). "Language Policy in Bhutan" (PDF). London: SOAS. Retrieved 2011-01-18.
- ↑ N. Tournadre (2005) "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." Lalies, 2005, n°25, p. 7–56
External links
