Khams Tibetan Explained

Khams Tibetan
Also Known As:	Khams skad, Khamké
Nativename:	ཁམས་སྐད
Region:	Khams (Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan in China) Bhutan
Speakers:	2 million
Date:	2022
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Sino-Tibetan
Fam3:	Tibeto-Kanauri (?)
Fam4:	Bodish
Fam5:	Tibetic
Script:	Tibetan script
Lc1:	khg
Ld1:	Khams
Lc2:	kbg
Ld2:	Khamba
Lc3:	tsk
Ld3:	Tseku
Notice:	IPA
Glotto:	kham1299
Glottorefname:	Kham-Hor
Elp:	4346
Elpname:	Khamba

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).^[1] In terms of mutual intelligibility, Khams could communicate at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan).^[1]

Both Khams Tibetan and Lhasa Tibetan evolve to not preserve the word-initial consonant clusters,^[2] which makes them very far from Classical Tibetan, especially when compared to the more conservative Amdo Tibetan.^{[3] [4]} Also, Kham and Lhasa Tibetan evolved to be tonal, which Classical Tibetan was not.^[2] Khams Tibetan has 80% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan.^[5]

Distribution

Kham Tibetan is spoken in Kham, which is now divided between the eastern part of Tibet Autonomous Region, the southern part of Qinghai, the western part of Sichuan, and the northwestern part of Yunnan, China.

Khampa Tibetan is also spoken by about 1,000 people in two enclaves in eastern Bhutan, the descendants of pastoral yak-herding communities.^[6]

Dialects

There are five dialects of Khams Tibetan proper:

• Central Khams, spoken in Dêgê County and Chamdo
• Southern Khams, spoken in the Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. 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 County and Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
• Eastern Khams, spoken in Kangding
• Hor, or Western Khams, spoken in Nagqu Prefecture
• The Gêrzê dialect is sometimes considered Western Khams

These have relatively low mutual intelligibility, but are close enough that they are usually considered a single language. Khamba^[7] and Tseku are more divergent, but classified with Khams by Tournadre.^[8]

Several other languages are spoken by Tibetans in the Khams region: Dongwang Tibetan language and the Rgyalrong languages.^[9]

The phonologies and vocabularies of the Bodgrong, Dartsendo, dGudzong, Khyungpo (Khromtshang), Lhagang Rangakha, Sangdam, Sogpho, sKobsteng, sPomtserag, Tsharethong, and Yangthang dialects of Kham Tibetan have been documented by Hiroyuki Suzuki.^[10]

Other Khams Tibetan varieties include:^[11]

• Lhagang, a Minyag Rabgang Khams dialect (Suzuki and Sonam Wangmo 2017)^[12]
• Lethong, a Southern Route Khams dialect (Suzuki 2018b)^[13]
• Choswateng, belonging to the rGyalthang group of Sems-kyi-nyila Khams (Suzuki 2018a)^[14]

Deng (2020) documents 1,707 words in the following three Khams Tibetan dialects:^[15]

• Cawagang 擦瓦岗, Yiqing Township 益庆乡, Pasho County, Chamdo Prefecture
• Upper Batang Village 上巴塘村, Batang Township 巴塘乡, Yushu County, Qinghai
• Rongbu Town 荣布镇, Sog County, Nagqu Prefecture

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	(Alveolo-) palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Plosive		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/
Affricate			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Fricative			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Approximant		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Lateral			pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/

• pronounced as //x, xʰ, ɣ// before front vowels pronounced as //i, e, ø, ɛ// are realized as palatal fricatives pronounced as /[ç, çʰ, ʝ]/.
• Palatal plosives pronounced as //c, ɟ// are included in the consonant inventory of the dGudzong dialect, but these sound values may include a phonetic variant of palatalised velar plosives. The velar plosive series generally do not include a phonetic variant of palatal plosives. These two series, therefore, are still distinctive, but it is supposed that they may merge into velar ones in the near future.^[16]
• pronounced as //tʂ, tʂʰ, dʐ// are heard as plosives pronounced as /[ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ]/ in the dGudzong dialect of the rGyalrong area.
• pronounced as //ɬ// may also be heard as a voiceless lateral pronounced as /[l̥]/ in free variation.^[17]

Vowels

	Front		Back
Close	pronounced as /ink/		pronounced as /ink/
Close-mid	pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/	pronounced as /ink/
Open-mid	pronounced as /ink/
Open	pronounced as /ink/		pronounced as /ink/

• pronounced as //i, u, o// are realized as sounds pronounced as /[ɨ, ʉ, ʊ]/ before a glottal stop pronounced as //ʔ//.^[18]

See also

• Standard Tibetan
• Balti language
• Languages of Bhutan

Further reading

• Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Sonam Wangmo. 2015. Discovering endangered Tibetic varieties in the easternmost Tibetosphere: A case study on Dartsendo Tibetan. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 38:2 (2015), 256–270.

External links

• A Bibliography of Tibetan Linguistics
• A grammar of the Tibetan Dege (Sde dge) dialect (Introduction) - Häsler, Katrin Louise. 1999.
• The Tibetan Language School of Sichuan Province
• www.zangthal.co.uk Kham dialect notes

Notes and References

1. 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.
2. A bref comparison of register tone in central tibetan and kham tibetan. https://web.archive.org/web/20150616073139/http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/haller1999brief.pdf. 2015-06-16. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 22. 1999. Felix. Haller. 2.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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 . 2023-04-10 .
6. Web site: Language Policy in Bhutan . PDF . van Driem . George L. . George van Driem . . . 1993 . 2011-01-18 . https://web.archive.org/web/20101101084255/http://repository.forcedmigration.org/pdf/?pid=fmo%3A3003 . 2010-11-01 . dead .
7. George van Driem, Languages of the Himalayas, p 892
8. (2013)
9. 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
10. http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/en/publications/aall Asian and African Languages and Linguistics
11. 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.
12. Suzuki, Hiroyuki & Sonam Wangmo (2017). Language evolution and vitality of Lhagang Tibetan: a Tibetic language as a minority in Minyag Rabgang. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 245: 63–90.
13. Suzuki, Hiroyuki (2018b). Litangxian ji qi zhoubian Zangzu yuyan xianzhuang diaocha yu fenxi [Current situation of Tibetans’ languages in Lithang County and its surroundings: Research and analysis]. Minzu Xuekan 2: 35-44+106-109.
14. Suzuki, Hiroyuki (2018a). Xianggelila-si hokubu no Kamutibettogo syohoogen no hoogen tokutyoo to sono keisei [Dialectal characteristics of Khams Tibetan dialects spoken in the north of Shangri-La Municipality and their formation]. Journal of Asian and African Studies 95: 5–63.
15. Book: Deng, Ge 邓戈 . 2020 . Zangyu Kang fangyan cihuiji 藏语康方言词汇集 . Lhasa . Tibet Ethnic Publishing House 西藏民族出版社 . 978-7-223-06515-3.
16. Book: Suzuki, Hiroyuki. Phonetic Analysis of dGudzong Tibetan: The Vernacular of Khams Tibetan spoken in the rGyalrong Area. Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology. 2011.
17. Book: Olson, Robert F.. Central Khams Tibetan: A phonemic survey. Kailash. 1974.
18. Book: Sun, Hongkai. Zang Mian yu yu yin he ci hui [藏缅语语音和词汇]. Chinese Social Sciences Press. 1991. 156–159.