Amdolese | |
---|---|
ཨ་མདོའི་སྐད།, A-mdo’i skad | |
Native to | China |
Region | Amdo (include Qinghai, Gansu, Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan) |
Native speakers | 2.5 million (2005) [1] |
Tibetan script | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | adx |
Glottolog | amdo1237 |
Amdo Tibetan (Tibetan script : ཨ་མདོའི་སྐད་, Wylie : A-mdo’i skad, Lhasa dialect : [ámtokɛ́ʔ] ; 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. [2]
Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Khams Tibetan and Ü-Tsang). [3] In terms of mutual intelligibility, Amdo speakers cannot communicate even at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan). [3]
Amdo Tibetan has 70% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan and Khams Tibetan. [4]
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. [5] [2]
Dialects are: [6]
Bradley (1997) [7] 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). [8] [9]
mDungnag, a divergent Tibetan language spoken in Gansu, is not mutually intelligible with any of the Amdo dialects. [10]
Hua (2001) [11] 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.
Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | (Alveolo-) palatal | Velar | Uvular/ Glottal | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
plain | sib. | plain | lab. | ||||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||||
Plosive/ Affricate | plain | p | t | ts | ʈ | tɕ | k | ||
aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | tsʰ | ʈʰ | tɕʰ | kʰ | |||
voiced | b | d | dz | ɖ | dʑ | ɡ | |||
Fricative | plain | s | ʂ | ɕ | x | h | hʷ | ||
voiced | z | ʐ | ʑ | ʁ | ʁʷ | ||||
aspirated | sʰ | ||||||||
Semivowel | w | j | |||||||
Lateral | voiceless | ɬ | |||||||
voiced | l |
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | ɨ | u |
Mid | e | ə | o |
Open | a |
The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan. According to Tournadre (2014), there are 50 languages, which split into over 200 dialects or could be grouped into 8 dialect continua. These languages are spoken in the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayas in Gilgit-Baltistan, Aksai Chin, Ladakh, Nepal, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Bhutan. Classical Tibetan is the major literary language, particularly for its use in Buddhist literature.
Amdo is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the birthplace of the 14th Dalai Lama. Amdo encompasses a large area from the Machu to the Drichu (Yangtze). Amdo is mostly coterminous with China's present-day Qinghai province, but also includes small portions of Sichuan and Gansu provinces.
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 presently covers a land area distributed between five regions in China, most of it in Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan, with smaller portions located within Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan provinces.
The Monguor language is a Mongolic language of its Shirongolic branch and is part of the Gansu–Qinghai sprachbund. There are several dialects, mostly spoken by the Monguor people. A writing system was devised for Huzhu Monguor (Mongghul) in the late 20th century but has been little used.
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. In terms of mutual intelligibility, Khams could communicate at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch.
Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, locally also known as Qaidam Prefecture, is an autonomous prefecture occupying much of the northern half of Qinghai Province, China. It has an area of 325,785 square kilometres (125,786 sq mi) and its seat is Delingha. The name of the prefecture literally means "west of (Qinghai) Lake."
Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, formerly known as Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, is an autonomous prefecture of Northeastern Qinghai Province in Western China. The prefecture has an area of 45,895 square kilometres (17,720 sq mi) and its seat is located in Gonghe County. Its name literally means "south of (Qinghai) Lake."
Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture of Eastern Qinghai, China, bordering Gansu to the east. The prefecture has area of 17,921 km2 (6,919 sq mi) and its seat is in Tongren County.
Xunhua Salar Autonomous County is a Salar autonomous county in the southeast of Haidong Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China, and the only autonomous Salar county in China. The autonomous county has an area of around 2,100 square kilometres (810 sq mi), and a population of approximately 161,600 inhabitants per a 2022 government publication. In the east it borders on the province of Gansu, in the south and the west to the Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, its postal code is 811100 and its capital is the town of Jishi.
The Bonan language is the Mongolic language of the Bonan people of China. As of 1985, it was spoken by about 8,000 people, including about 75% of the total Bonan ethnic population and many ethnic Monguor, in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces. There are several dialects, which are influenced to varying degrees — but always heavily — by Chinese and Tibetan, while bilingualism in Wutun is less common. The most commonly studied is the Tongren dialect. There is no writing system in use. The language is also referred to as "Manegacha", natively.
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.
Baima is a language spoken by 10,000 Baima people, of Tibetan ethnicity, in north-central Sichuan Province and Gansu Province, China. Baima is passed on from parents to children in Baima villages. It is spoken within the home domain and is not used in any media of mass communication.
Datong Hui and Tu Autonomous County, Datong County, or Serkhog County is an autonomous county of Hui and Tu peoples in Qinghai Province, China. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Xining, the capital of Qinghai.
Hualong Hui Autonomous County is a county in the east of Qinghai Province, China. It is under the administration of Haidong City. Its area is 2,790 square kilometers and has a population of 203,317 in 2010.
Central Tibetan, also known as Dbus, Ü or Ü-Tsang, is the most widely spoken Tibetic language and the basis of Standard Tibetan.
Lan–Yin Mandarin (Lanyin) is a branch of Mandarin Chinese traditionally spoken throughout Gansu province and in the northern part of Ningxia. In recent decades it has expanded into northern Xinjiang. It forms part of Northwestern Mandarin. It has also been grouped together with Central Plains Mandarin. The name is a compound of the capitals of the two former provinces where it dominates, Lanzhou and Yinchuan, which are also two of its principal subdialects.
Basum is a divergent Bodish language spoken by about 2,500 people in Gongbo'gyamda County 工布江达县, Nyingtri Prefecture, Tibet, China. Basum is spoken by 13.5% of the population of Gongbo'gyamda County. Glottolog lists Basum as unclassified within Bodish.
mDungnag Tibetan is a divergent Tibetic language of western Gansu, China.
The Qinghai–Gansu sprachbund or Amdo sprachbund is a sprachbund in the plateau traversed by the upper Yellow River, including northeastern Qinghai and southern Gansu. This has long been an area of interaction between speakers of northwestern varieties of Mandarin Chinese, Amdo Tibetan and Mongolic and Turkic languages. These families feature contrasting typologies, which spread between languages in the region. The languages have come to share many features, and differ significantly from their relatives outside the region.
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