Amdo Tibetan Explained
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 varieties, the farmer dialects and the nomad dialects.
Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Khams Tibetan and Ü-Tsang).[1] In terms of mutual intelligibility, Amdo speakers cannot communicate even at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan).[1]
Amdo Tibetan has 70% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan and Khams Tibetan.[2]
The nomad dialect of Amdo Tibetan is closer to classical written Tibetan as it preserves the word-initial consonant clusters and it is non-tonal, both now elided in the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan). Hence, its conservatism in phonology has become a source of pride among Amdo Tibetans.[3] [4]
Dialects
Dialects are:[5]
- North Kokonor (Kangtsa, Themchen, Arik, etc.)
- West Kokonor (Dulan, Na'gormo, etc.),
- Southeast Kokonor (Jainca, Thrika, Hualong, etc.)
- Labrang (Labrang, Luchu)
- Golok (Machen, Matö, Gabde)
- Ngapa (Ngapa, Dzorge, Dzamthang)
- Kandze
Bradley (1997)[6] includes Thewo and Choni as close to Amdo if not actually Amdo dialects.
Mabzhi is a dialect belonging to the Kokonor group of Amdo Tibetan (Tsering Samdrup and Suzuki 2017).[7] [8]
mDungnag, a divergent Tibetan language spoken in Gansu, is not mutually intelligible with any of the Amdo dialects.[9]
Hua (2001)[10] contains word lists of the Xiahe County 夏河, Tongren County 同仁, Xunhua County 循化, Hualong County 化隆, Hongyuan County 红原, and Tianjun County 天峻 dialects of Amdo Tibetan in Gansu and Qinghai provinces.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | (Alveolo-)
palatal | Velar | Uvular/
Glottal |
|---|
| | | |
|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | |
|---|
Plosive/
Affricate | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | |
|---|
| pronounced as /pʰ/ | pronounced as /tʰ/ | pronounced as /tsʰ/ | pronounced as /ʈʰ/ | pronounced as /tɕʰ/ | pronounced as /kʰ/ | | |
|---|
| pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | |
|---|
| Fricative | | | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /hʷ/ |
|---|
| | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ʁʷ/ |
|---|
| | | pronounced as /sʰ/ | | | | | |
|---|
| Semivowel | pronounced as /ink/ | | | | pronounced as /ink/ | | | |
|---|
| Lateral | | | pronounced as /ink/ | | | | | | |
|---|
| | pronounced as /ink/ | | | | | | | |
|---|
- Retroflex stop sounds pronounced as //ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ// may also be pronounced as affricate sounds pronounced as /[ʈʂ, ʈʂʰ, ɖʐ]/ in free variation.[11]
- Voiced consonants are often heard as pre-breathy-voiced (i.e. pronounced as //d// pronounced as /[ʱd]/) among different dialects.
- pronounced as //ʐ//, typically written phonemically as pronounced as //r//, can be heard as an alveolar flap pronounced as /link/ in word-medial positions.
- pronounced as //x// may also be heard as a palatal pronounced as /link/ in free variation.
- Labio-dental fricatives pronounced as //f// and pronounced as //v// may also occur in words of foreign origin.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back |
|---|
| Close | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| Mid | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| Open | pronounced as /ink/ | | |
|---|
- Amdo Tibetan typically has a four-vowel system as pronounced as //e, ə, a, o//, as all close vowels pronounced as /[i, ɨ, u]/ have merged to one vowel pronounced as //ə//. However, when there is a consonant sound within the coda position, the pronunciation of pronounced as //ə// is changed, thus realizing one of the three close sounds pronounced as /[i, ɨ, u]/, depending on the consonant in place.
- pronounced as //a// may typically be heard as more fronted before a mid vowel pronounced as //e//, and may also be realized as an open-mid pronounced as /[ɛ]/ in some environments.[12]
Media
- Inside China
- The Qinghai Tibetan Radio station broadcasts in Amdolese Tibetan on FM 99.7.[13]
- Diaspora
- Radio Free Asia broadcasts in three Tibetan languages: Standard Tibetan, Khams language and Amdolese language.[14]
See also
Bibliography
- Norbu, Kalsang, Karl Peet, dPal Idan bKra shis, & Kevin Stuart, Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan: A Language Primer. Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.
- Hua Kan 华侃主编 (ed). 2001. Vocabulary of Amdo Tibetan dialects [藏语安多方言词汇]. Lanzhou: Gansu People's Press [甘肃民族出版社]. (Contains word lists of the Xiahe County 夏河, Tongren County 同仁, Xunhua County 循化, Hualong County 化隆, Hongyuan County 红原, and Tianjun County 天峻 dialects in Gansu and Qinghai provinces.)
External links
Notes and References
- Variation, contact, and change in language: Varieties in Yul shul (northern Khams). Gelek. Konchok . International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 245. 2017. 91–92.
- Web site: 2016 . China . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20160909075938/http://www.ethnologue.com/country/CN/languages . 2016-09-09 . Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth Edition.
- The Amdo Dialect of Labrang. Charlene. Makley. Keith. Dede. Kan. Hua. Qingshan. Wang. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 22. 1. 1999. 101. https://web.archive.org/web/20160305073712/http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/makley1999amdo.pdf. 2016-03-05.
- Language variation and change in an Amdo Tibetan village: Gender, education and resistance. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University. PhD thesis. Reynolds. Jermay J.. 2012. 19-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20170812114744/https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/557712/Reynolds_georgetown_0076D_11674.pdf?sequence=1. 2017-08-12.
- N. Tournadre (2005) "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." Lalies, 2005, n°25, p. 7–56 http://tournadre.nicolas.free.fr/fichiers/2005-aire.pdf
- http://www.isw.unibe.ch/tibet/ Bradley (1997)
- Book: Tsering . Samdrup . Hiroyuki . Suzuki . 2017 . Migration history and tsowa divisions as a supplemental approach to dialectology in Amdo Tibetan: A case study on Mangra County . Studies in Asian Geolinguistics VII: Tone and Accent . 57–65 .
- Suzuki . Hiroyuki . Wangmo . Sonam . Samdrup . Tsering . A Contrastive Approach to the Evidential System in Tibetic Languages: Examining Five Varieties from Khams and Amdo . Gengo Kenkyu (Journal of the Linguistic Society of Japan) . 159 . 2021-03-30 . 0024-3914 . 10.11435/gengo.159.0_69 . 69–101 . 2023-03-21.
- Shao, Mingyuan 邵明园 (2018). Hexi Zoulang binwei Zangyu Dongnahua yanjiu 河西走廊濒危藏语东纳话研究 [Study on the mDungnag dialect, an endangered Tibetan language in Hexi Corridor]. Guangzhou: Zhongshan University Publishing House 中山大学出版社.
- Hua Kan 华侃主编 (ed). 2001. Vocabulary of Amdo Tibetan dialects [藏语安多方言词汇]. Lanzhou: Gansu People's Press [甘肃民族出版社].
- Book: Ebihara, Shiho. Amdo Tibetan. Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. 2011. Yamakoshi, Yasuhiro (ed.), Grammatical Sketches from the Field. 43–48.
- Book: Rgyal. Lha-Byams. Colloquial Amdo Tibetan : A Complete Course for Adult English Speakers. Sung. Kuo-ming. National Press for Tibetan Studies. 2005.
- http://www.qhtb.cn/ 青海藏语广播网 མཚོ་སྔོན་བོད་སྐད་རླུང་འཕྲིན། - 青海藏语广播网 མཚོ་སྔོན་བོད་སྐད་རླུང་འཕྲིན།
- Web site: བོད་སྐད་སྡེ་ཚན།. rfa.org.
