Khams Tibetan
Khams Tibetan, Kham dialect 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.
Both Khams Tibetan and Lhasa Tibetan evolve to not preserve the word-initial consonant clusters, which makes them very far from Classical Tibetan, especially when compared to the more conservative Amdo Tibetan. Also, Kham and Lhasa Tibetan evolved to be tonal, which Classical Tibetan was not. Khams Tibetan has 80% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan.
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.
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 and Kongpo, 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 formerly known as Nangchen / Nangqên County and now 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.
Several other languages are spoken by Tibetans in the Khams region: Dongwang Tibetan language and the Rgyalrong languages.
The phonologies and vocabularies of the Bodgrong, Dartsendo, dGudzong, Khyungpo, Lhagang Rangakha, Sangdam, Sogpho, sKobsteng, sPomtserag, Tsharethong, and Yangthang dialects of Kham Tibetan have been documented by Hiroyuki Suzuki.
Other Khams Tibetan varieties include:
- Lhagang, a Minyag Rabgang Khams dialect
- Lethong, a Southern Route Khams dialect
- Choswateng, belonging to the rGyalthang group of Sems-kyi-nyila Khams
- 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
- before front vowels are realized as palatal fricatives.
- Palatal plosives 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.
- are heard as plosives in the dGudzong dialect of the rGyalrong area.
- may also be heard as a voiceless lateral in free variation.
Vowels
- are realized as sounds before a glottal stop.