Lamo (also calledmBo; IPA:mbo˥;’Bo skad) is an unclassifiedSino-Tibetan language spoken in Tshawarong,Zogang County,Chamdo Prefecture,Tibet. It was recently documented by Suzuki & Nyima (2016). sMad skad, a closely related language variety, is also spoken in Tshawarong.

Suzuki & Nyima (2018) document the Kyilwa (格瓦) variety ofDongba Township (东坝乡).

Lamo is referred to by theChangdu Gazetteer (2005: 819)^[1] asDongba (东坝话), as it is spoken inDongba Township (东坝乡),Zogang County. Jiang (2022) also refers to the language asDongba (东坝话).^[2]

Khams Tibetan people refer to Lamo speakers asmBo ormBo mi (’bo mi). Traditionally, Lamo speakers also referred to themselves asPo mi, although this autonym is not known by all Lamo speakers. They refer to their own language asLamo. Some Lamo speakers also refer to their town language asˊmbo hkə.^[3]

Lamoautonyms by location (gSerkhu, discussed below, is a minor mutually intelligible variety):^[3]

Lamo is spoken by about 4,000 speakers, with 2,000 in Dongba Township, and 2,000 in Zhonglinka Township. Both townships are located along the Nujiang River inDzogang County.^[3]

Lamo and gSerkhu villages by township:^[3]

There are two dialects:^[3]

• Lamo (Tibetan name for the language: mBo-skad)
• Lamei

There are 5 Lamo-speaking village clusters in Dongba Township, which are Kyilwa, Phurkha, Gewa, Gyastod and Gyasmed. The remaining village clusters, out of a total of 13 village clusters inDongba Township, areKhams Tibetan-speaking villages.^[3]

Lamei is spoken by 1,500 to 2,000 people in 5 village clusters in is spoken in Zhonglinka Township. Sitrikhapa, Wangtod, Wangmed, Rongba, and Laba village clusters have only Lamei speakers. Woba, Pula, and Zuoshod village clusters have both Lamei andKhams Tibetan speakers.^[3]

gSerkhu is a variety of Lamo, with which it is mutually intelligible. Khams Tibetan speakers refer to the language asSikhu. gSerkhu is spoken by about 400 people (80 households) in 4 villages of the gSerkhu Valley, which are Benzhui, Muzong, Cuixi, and Sangba, all located in Shangchayu Town,Dzayul County. Dzayul County also hasKhams Tibetan speakers who had originally migrated from the Lamo-speaking area of Dongba Township,Dzogang County.^[3] Jiang (2022) refers to the language asSuku orSukuhua (素苦话).^[2]

Suzuki & Nyima (2016, 2018) suggest that Lamo may be aQiangic language.Guillaume Jacques (2016)^[4] suggests that mBo is arGyalrongic language belonging to theStau-Khroskyabs (Horpa-Lavrung) branch.

Suzuki & Nyima (2018) note that Lamo is closely related to two other recently documented languages ofChamdo, eastern Tibet, namelyLarong (spoken in theLancang River valley ofZogang County andMarkam County) andDrag-yab (spoken in southernZhag'yab County). These languages together are called theChamdo languages.

Lamo compared withWritten Tibetan andProto-Tibeto-Burman (Nyima & Suzuki 2019):^[3]

Suzuki & Nyima (2016) list the following Lamo words.

Suzuki & Nyima (2018)^[5] report the phonology of the Kyilwa dialect. They have drawn the conclusion that Lamo "tends to have a different phonetic development from the others".

Prenasalisation andpreaspiration appear as a preinitial.

All of these vowels havecreaky andnasalized counterparts. There are a few secondary articulations found marginally, namelyretroflexed /ɚ/ and velarized /ə^ɣ/.

Syllable structure:^cCGV

Thetones are high and rising, the same as inLarong andDrag-yab. The tone bearing unit is the first two syllables of every word. The second syllable is occasionally excluded from the TBU.^[5]

Directional prefixes in Lamo:^[3]

• n-:ˊnə- sə̰ ‘kill’,ˊna-qɑ ‘chew’,ˊnu-pho ‘drop’
• th-:ˊtho-xɯ ‘go’,ˊtho-ndzo ‘gather’,ˊthe-ji ‘sell’
• k-:ˊka-tɵ ‘buy’,ˉko’-ɕa ‘break into pieces’
• t-:ˉtu’-rɑ ‘receive’,ˉtə’-tɕa ‘wear (a hat)’
• l-:ˉla’-mbo ‘overthrow’
• w-:ˉwo’-ɕa ‘tear up’,ˊwu-ndzə ‘eat’

Directional prefixes withle ‘come’ in Lamo:^[3]

• ˊne-le: ‘come downwards/come down’
• ˊthe-le: ‘(he) has arrived’ (perfect/aorist only)
• k-: (does not occur)
• ˊtə’-le: ‘arrive upwards/come here close to the speaker’
• ˉle-le: ‘come to a place closer to the speaker but not necessarily near them’
• ˊwu-le: ‘come towards the speaker on the same horizontal level’

• Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2016.’Bo skad, a newly recognised non-Tibetic variety spoken in mDzo sgang, TAR: a brief introduction to its sociolinguistic situation, sounds, and vocabularyArchived 2020-10-31 at theWayback Machine. Fourth Workshop on Sino-Tibetan Languages of Southwest China (STLS-2016). University of Washington, Seattle, September 8–10, 2016.
• Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2017. Outline of verb morphology of Lamo (mDzo sgang, Tibet). Paper presented at 50th International Conference for Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (Beijing).
• Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2018.Historical relationship among three non-Tibetic languages in Chamdo, TAR.Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018). Kyoto: Kyoto University.

• Unclassified Sino-Tibetan languages
• Languages of China
• Languages of Tibet

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• Short description matches Wikidata
• Language articles without speaker estimate
• Languages without ISO 639-3 code but with Glottolog code
• Pages with plain IPA
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