Amdo Tibetan

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]

Amdolese
ཨ་མདོའི་སྐད།, A-mdo’i skad
Native toChina
RegionAmdo (include Qinghai, Gansu, Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan)
Native speakers
2.5 million (2005)[1]
Tibetan script
Language codes
ISO 639-3adx
Glottologamdo1237

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

Dialects are:[6]

  • 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)[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.

Phonology

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Retroflex (Alveolo-)
palatal		 Velar Uvular/
Glottal
plainsib. plainlab.
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
  • Retroflex stop sounds /ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ/ may also be pronounced as affricate sounds [ʈʂ, ʈʂʰ, ɖʐ] in free variation.[12]
  • Voiced consonants are often heard as pre-breathy-voiced (i.e. /d/ [ʱd]) among different dialects.
  • /ʐ/, typically written phonemically as /r/, can be heard as an alveolar flap [ɾ] in word-medial positions.
  • /x/ may also be heard as a palatal [ç] in free variation.
  • Labio-dental fricatives /f/ and /v/ may also occur in words of foreign origin.

Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i ɨ u
Mid e ə o
Open a
  • Amdo Tibetan typically has a four-vowel system as /e, ə, a, o/, as all close vowels [i, ɨ, u] have merged to one vowel /ə/. However, when there is a consonant sound within the coda position, the pronunciation of /ə/ is changed, thus realizing one of the three close sounds [i, ɨ, u], depending on the consonant in place.
  • /a/ may typically be heard as more fronted before a mid vowel /e/, and may also be realized as an open-mid [ɛ] in some environments.[13]

Media
Inside China
  • The Qinghai Tibetan Radio (མཚོ་སྔོན་བོད་སྐད་རླུང་འཕྲིན།) station broadcasts in Amdolese Tibetan on FM 99.7.[14]
Diaspora
  • Radio Free Asia broadcasts in three Tibetan languages: Standard Tibetan, Khams language and Amdolese language.[15]

See also

References
  1. Amdolese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Reynolds, Jermay J. (2012). Language variation and change in an Amdo Tibetan village: Gender, education and resistance (PDF) (PhD thesis). Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University. p. 19-21. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-12.
  3. Gelek, Konchok (2017). "Variation, contact, and change in language: Varieties in Yul shul (northern Khams)". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (245): 91–92.
  4. "China". Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth Edition. 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-09-09.
  5. Makley, Charlene; Dede, Keith; Hua, Kan; Wang, Qingshan (1999). "The Amdo Dialect of Labrang" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 22 (1): 101. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05.
  6. N. Tournadre (2005) "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." Lalies, 2005, n°25, p. 7–56
  7. Bradley (1997) Archived December 8, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  8. Samdrup, Tsering; Suzuki, Hiroyuki (2017). Migration history and tsowa divisions as a supplemental approach to dialectology in Amdo Tibetan: A case study on Mangra County (PDF). pp. 57–65. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  9. Suzuki, Hiroyuki; Wangmo, Sonam; Samdrup, Tsering (2021-03-30). "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: 69–101. doi:10.11435/gengo.159.0_69. ISSN 0024-3914. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  10. 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.
  11. 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].
  12. Ebihara, Shiho (2011). Amdo Tibetan. Yamakoshi, Yasuhiro (ed.), Grammatical Sketches from the Field: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. pp. 43–48.
  13. Rgyal, Lha-Byams; Sung, Kuo-ming (2005). Colloquial Amdo Tibetan : A Complete Course for Adult English Speakers. National Press for Tibetan Studies.
  14. 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།
  15. "བོད་སྐད་སྡེ་ཚན།". rfa.org.

Bibliography
Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Amdo Tibetan.
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Research on Tibetan Languages: A Bibliography
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