Khams Tibetan (Tibetan:ཁམས་སྐད,Wylie:Khams skad,THL:Khamké),Kham dialect is theTibetic language used by the majority of the people inKham. Khams is one of the three branches of the traditional classification ofTibetic languages (the other two beingAmdo Tibetan andÜ-Tsang Tibetan).^[2] In terms ofmutual intelligibility, Khams could communicate at a basic level with theÜ-Tsang branch (includingLhasa Tibetan).^[2]

Both Khams Tibetan and Lhasa Tibetan evolve to not preserve the word-initialconsonant clusters,^[3] which makes them very far fromClassical Tibetan, especially when compared to the moreconservativeAmdo Tibetan.^[4][5] Also, Kham and Lhasa Tibetan evolved to betonal, which Classical Tibetan was not.^[3] Khams Tibetan has 80% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan.^[6]

Kham Tibetan is spoken inKham, which is now divided between the eastern part ofTibet Autonomous Region, the southern part of Qinghai, the western part ofSichuan, and the northwestern part ofYunnan, China.

Khampa Tibetan is also spoken by about 1,000 people in two enclaves in easternBhutan, the descendants of pastoral yak-herding communities.^[7]

There are fivedialects of Khams Tibetan proper:

• Central Khams, spoken inDêgê County andChamdo
• Southern Khams, spoken in theDêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture andKongpo, There are severalsubdialects due to the mountainous terrain, as well ascontact with neighboring language communities for trade.
• Northern orNortheastern Khams, spoken informerly known as Nangchen / Nangqên County and nowYushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
• Eastern Khams, spoken inKangding
• Hor, orWestern Khams, spoken inNagqu Prefecture
• TheGêrzê dialect is sometimes consideredWestern Khams.

These have relatively lowmutual intelligibility, but are close enough that they are usually considered a single language. Khamba is more divergent, but classified with Khams byGeorge Van Driem.^[8]

Several other languages are spoken byTibetans in the Khams region:Dongwang Tibetan language and theRgyalrong languages.^[9]

Thephonologies 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

• /x,xʰ,ɣ/ before front vowels/i,e,ø,ɛ/ are realized as palatal fricatives[ç,çʰ,ʝ].
• Palatal plosives/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]
• /tʂ,tʂʰ,dʐ/ are heard as plosives[ʈ,ʈʰ,ɖ] in the dGudzong dialect of the rGyalrong area.
• /ɬ/ may also be heard as a voiceless lateral[l̥] in free variation.^[17]

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

• Amdo Tibetan
• Central Tibetan
• Lhasa Tibetan
• Balti language
• Languages of Bhutan
• Sound correspondences between Tibetic languages

• 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.doi:10.1075/ltba.38.2.07suz

• 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

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of:Research on Tibetan Languages: A Bibliography

• Bodic languages
• Languages of Tibet
• Languages of China
• Languages written in Tibetan script
• Languages of Bhutan
• Sichuanese Tibet

• Pages containing links to subscription-only content
• Language articles citing Ethnologue 18
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Khams Tibetan-language text
• Articles containing Standard Tibetan-language text
• Pages with plain IPA