| Tibetic | |
|---|---|
| Tibetan Central Bodish | |
| Geographic distribution | China (Tibet Autonomous Region,Qinghai,Sichuan,Gansu,Yunnan); India (Ladakh,Sikkim,Uttarakhand,Himachal Pradesh,Arunachal Pradesh,Assam); Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan);Nepal;Bhutan;Myanmar (Kachin State) |
| Ethnicity | Tibetan people and other Tibetic-speaking peoples |
Native speakers | 6 million (2014)[1] |
| Linguistic classification | Sino-Tibetan
|
Early forms | |
| Subdivisions |
|
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | oldm1245 |
 Division of Tibetic Cultural Areas | |
TheTibetic languages are a branch of theTibeto-Burman languages in theSino-Tibetanlanguage family.[2] Descending fromOld Tibetan, there are 50 recognized Tibetic languages, which branch into more than 200 dialects, which could be grouped into eightdialect continua.[2] These Tibetic languages are spoken in parts ofChina (Tibet,Aksai Chin),Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan),Nepal,Bhutan andIndia (Arunachal Pradesh,Assam,Uttarakhand,Himachal Pradesh,Sikkim).[3]Classical Tibetan is the major literary language, particularly for its use inTibetan Buddhist scriptures and literature.
Tibetan languages are spoken by some 6 million people, not all of whom areTibetan.[1] With the worldwide spread ofTibetan Buddhism, the Tibetan language has also spread into the western world and can be found in manyBuddhist publications and prayer materials, while western students also learn the language for the translation of Tibetan texts. Outside ofLhasa itself,Lhasa Tibetan is spoken by approximately 200,000 exiled Tibetans who have moved from Tibet toIndia,Nepal and other countries. Tibetan is also spoken by groups of ethnic minorities inTibet who have lived in close proximity to Tibetans for centuries, but nevertheless retain their own languages and cultures.
Although theQiang peoples ofKham are classified byChina as ethnicTibetan, theQiangic languages are not Tibetan, but rather form their own branch of theTibeto-Burman language family.
Classical Tibetan was not atonal language, but many varieties such asCentral andKhams Tibetan havedeveloped tone registers.Amdo andLadakhi-Balti are without tone. Tibetanmorphology can generally be described asagglutinative.
Although the term "Tibetic" had been applied in various ways within theSino-Tibetan research tradition,Nicolas Tournadre defined it as a phylum derived fromOld Tibetan.[2] Following Nishi (1987)[4] and Beyer (1992),[5] he identified several lexical innovations that can be used as a diagnosis to distinguish Tibetic from the other languages of the family, such asབདུནbdun "seven".[2][6]
The "Tibetic languages" in this sense are a substitute for the term "Tibetan languages/dialects" used in the previous literature; the distinction between "language" and "dialect" is not straightforward, and labeling varieties of Tibetic as "Tibetan dialects" could be misleading not only because those "dialects" are oftenmutually-unintelligible, but also the speakers of Tibetic do not necessarily consider themselves as ethnicTibetan, as is the case withSherpas,Ladakhis,Baltis,Lahaulas,Sikkimese andBhutanese.[2][7]
Marius Zemp (2018)[8] hypothesizes that Tibetan originated as apidgin with theWest Himalayish languageZhangzhung as itssuperstratum, andRgyalrongic as itssubstratum (both languages are part of the broaderSino-Tibetan family). However, there are many grammatical differences between the Rgyalrongic and Tibetic languages; Rgyalrongic tend to use prefixes such as *kə-, *tə-, etc., while Tibetic languages use suffixes such as -pa/-ba, -ma, -po/-bo, -mo, etc.[9]
Similarly,Tamangic also has a West Himalayish superstratum, but its substratum is derived from a differentSino-Tibetan branch.
Only a few language clusters in the world are derived from a common language which is identical to or closely related to an old literary language. This small group includes the Tibetic languages, as descendants fromOld Tibetan (7th–9th centuries), but also theRomance languages withLatin, theArabic languages (or "dialects") withClassical Arabic, theSinitic languages withMiddle Chinese, the modernIndic languages withVedic Sanskrit.[2]
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The more divergent languages are spoken in the north and east, likely due tolanguage contact with theQiangic,Rgyalrongic languages. The divergence exhibited inKhalong may also be due tolanguage shift. In addition, there isBaima, which retains an apparent Qiangicsubstratum, and has multiple layers ofborrowing fromAmdo,Khams, andZhongu, but does not correspond to any established branch of Tibetic.[10]
The two major Tibetic languages used for broadcasting within China areStandard Tibetan andAmdo Tibetan.
Tournadre & Suzuki (2023) recognize 8 geographicalsections, each with about 7-14groups of Tibetic dialects.[3] This classification is a revision of Tournadre (2014).[2]
Tournadre (2014)[2] classifies the Tibetic languages as eightgeolinguistic continua, consisting of 50 languages and over 200 dialects. This is an updated version of his work in 2008.[11] The Eastern and Southeastern branches have lower internalmutual intelligibility, but it is more limited in the Northwestern branch and between certain southern and northernKhams dialects. These continua are spread across five countries with one exception, this being Sangdam, aKhams dialect inKachin,Myanmar.
Tournadre (2005)[13] classifies the Tibetic languages as follows.
The other languages (Thewo-Chone,Zhongu,Khalong,Dongwang,Gserpa,Zitsadegu,Drugchu,Baima) are notmutually intelligible, but are not known well enough to classify.mDungnag, a Tibetan language spoken inGansu, is also divergent and is not mutually intelligible with eitherKhams orAmdo.[14]
Tournadre (2013) addsTseku andKhamba toKhams, and groupsThewo-Chone,Zhongu, andBaima as an Eastern branch of Tibetic.
According to Bradley,[15] the languages cluster as follows (dialect information from theTibetan Dialects Project at the University of Bern):
Some classifications group Khams and Amdo together as Eastern Tibetan (not to be confused withEast Bodish, whose speakers are not ethnically Tibetan). Some, like Tournadre, break up Central Tibetan. Phrases such as 'Central Tibetan' and 'Central Bodish' may or may not be synonymous: Southern (Central) Tibetan can be found as Southern Bodish, for example; 'Central Tibetan' may mean dBus or all tonal lects apart from Khams; 'Western Bodish' may be used for the non-tonal western lects while 'Western Tibetan' is used for the tonal lects, or 'Bodish' may even be used for other branches of theTibeto-Kanauri languages.[16]
Amdo Tibetan has 70% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan and Khams Tibetan, while Khams Tibetan has 80% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan.[17]
The Tibetic-speaking area spans six countries:China (PRC),Nepal,Pakistan,India,Bhutan, andMyanmar.[2][18] Tibetan is also spoken indiaspora communities inEurope,North America (e.g.Little Tibet, Toronto),Asia andAustralia.[19]
WithinChina, the great majority of Tibetic speakers areofficially classified into theTibetan ethnicity which however includes speakers of otherTrans-Himalayan languages such asRgyalrongnic.[20] Aside fromTibet Autonomous Region, there are severalautonomous prefectures for the ethnicities inSichuan,Qinghai,Gansu, andYunnan.[21]
Lhasa Tibetan, or more technically, Standard Tibetan (natively calledསྤྱི་སྐདspyi skad) is used among post-1950s Tibetan emigrants toNepal.[2] Other Tibetic varieties such asSherpa,Jirel andYolmo are spoken indistricts along theChina-Nepal border.[22][23]
Thenational language ofBhutan isDzongkha, a Tibetic language originally spoken in the western region.[23] Although non-Tibetic languages (Tshangla,East Bodish) are dominant in many parts of the country, Dzongkha is also widely used there as a second-language.[23] Other Tibetic varieties of Bhutan include Choča-ngača,Brokpa andLakha.[24]
Within areas administrated byPakistan,Balti is spoken inGilgit-Baltistan.[23]
Within areas administrated byIndia, some Tibetic varieties are spoken inLadakh,Sikkim,Himachal Pradesh (Kinnaur,Lahul and Spiti),West Bengal (Darjeeling andKalimpong), as well asUttarakhand.[23][25] As withBhutan andNepal, there reside a number ofTibetan refugees across the country, notably inDharamshala where the headquarters of theCentral Tibetan Administration is located.[26]
InMyanmar, a variant ofKhams Tibetan is spoken near theHkakabo Razi,Kachin State which is adjacent toNujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture,Yunnan andTibet Autonomous Region.[27] Suzuki (2012) describes the phonology of the Sangdam dialect, as well as giving a brief overview of Tibetic varieties in the country.
He estimates there are about 300 Khams Tibetan speakers inhabiting at least four villages in Dazundam Village Tract, Pannandin Sub-township,Nogmong Township,Putao District, Kachin State.[28] The four villages he mentions areTahaundam, "Shidudan"(Japanese:シドゥダン), Sandam, Madin, the second of which he provides no romanization because the placename is uncharted on the map available to him.[28] According to Suzuki'sconsultant, they migrated fromZayu County, Tibet more than a century ago although they still have contact with relatives living there, and there are few differences between the dialects of the four villages .[29]
SinceRawang people are theethnic majority of the area, the Tibetans also have a command ofRawang, which is mainly used for interethnic communication; those with primary education can speak and writeBurmese as well, while they are illiterate in their own language.[29]
Most Tibetic languages are written in one of twoIndic scripts.Standard Tibetan and most other Tibetic languages are written in theTibetan script with a historically conservative orthography (see below) that helps unify the Tibetan-language area. Some other Tibetan languages (in India and Nepal) are written in the relatedDevanagari script, which is also used to writeHindi,Nepali and many other languages. However, someLadakhi andBalti speakers write with theUrdu script; this occurs almost exclusively inPakistan. The Tibetan script fell out of use in PakistaniBaltistan hundreds of years ago upon the region's adoption ofIslam. However, increased concern amongBalti people for the preservation of theirlanguage and traditions, especially in the face of strongPunjabi cultural influence throughout Pakistan, has fostered renewed interest in reviving the Tibetan script and using it alongside thePerso-Arabic script. Many shops in Baltistan's capitalSkardu in Pakistan's "Northern Areas" region have begun supplementing signs written in the Perso-Arabic script with signs written in the Tibetan script. Baltis see this initiative not as separatist but rather as part of an attempt to preserve the cultural aspects of their region which has shared a close history with neighbours likeKashmiris and Punjabis since the arrival of Islam in the region many centuries ago.
Old Tibetan phonology is rather accurately rendered by the script. The finals were pronounced devoiced although they are written as voiced, the prefix letters assimilated their voicing to the root letters. The graphic combinationshr andlh represent voiceless and not necessarily aspirate correspondences tor andl respectively. The letter ' was pronounced as a voiced guttural fricative before vowels but as homorganic prenasalization before consonants. Whether the giguverso had phonetic meaning or not remains controversial.
For instance,Srongbtsan Sgampo would have been pronounced[sroŋpʦanzɡampo] (now pronounced[sɔ́ŋʦɛ̃ɡʌ̀mpo] in Lhasa Tibetan) and 'babs would have been pronounced[mbaps] (pronounced[bapˤ][dubious –discuss] in Lhasa Tibetan).
Already in the 9th century the process of cluster simplification,devoicing andtonogenesis had begun in the central dialects, as can be shown by Tibetan words transliterated into other languages, particularlyMiddle Chinese but alsoUyghur.
The combination of the abovementioned evidence enables us to form the following outline of the evolution of Tibetan. In the 9th century, as shown by the bilingual Tibetan–Chinese treaty of 821–822 found in front ofLhasa'sJokhang, the complex initial clusters had already been reduced, and the process of tonogenesis was likely well underway.
The next change took place in Tsang (Gtsang) dialects: Thera-tags were altered intoretroflex consonants, and theya-tags became palatals.
Later on the superscribed letters and finalsd ands disappeared, except in the east and west. It was at this stage that the language spread in Lahul and Spiti, where the superscribed letters were silent, thed andg finals were hardly heard, andas,os,us were pronouncedai,oi,ui. The words introduced from Tibet into the border languages at that time differ greatly from those borrowed at an earlier period.
Other changes are more recent and restricted to Ü and Tsang. In Ü, the vowel soundsa,o,u have now mostlyumlauted toä,ö,ü when followed by the coronal soundsi,d,s,l andn. The same holds for Tsang with the exception ofl, which merely lengthens the vowel. The medials have becomeaspirate tenues with a low intonation, which also marks words having a simple initial consonant; while the former aspirates and the complex initials simplified in speech are uttered with a high tone, shrill and rapidly.
Proto-Tibetic, the hypotheticalproto-language ancestral to the Tibetic languages, has been reconstructed by Tournadre (2014).[2] Proto-Tibetic is similar to, but not identical to, writtenClassical Literary Tibetan. The following phonological features are characteristic of Proto-Tibetic (Tournadre 2014: 113).
Reconstructed Proto-Tibetic forms from Tournadre (2014) include:
Pre-Tibetic is a hypothetical pre-formation stage of Proto-Tibetic.[2]
*ty-, *ly-, *sy- were not palatalized in Pre-Tibetic, but underwentpalatalization in Proto-Tibetic (Tournadre 2014: 113-114).[2] Positedsound changes from Pre-Tibetic to Proto-Tibetic include *ty- > *tɕ-, *sy- > *ɕ-, *tsy- > *tɕ-, and *ly- > *ʑ-. However, Tournadre (2014: 114) notes that manyBodish languages such asBasum,Tamang, andKurtöp (East Bodish) have not undergone these changes (e.g., Bake (Basum)ti 'what' vs. Proto-Tibetic *tɕ(h)i and Baketɨ 'one' vs. Proto-Tibetic *g(ǝ)-tɕ(h)ik; KurtöpHla: 'iron' andBumthaplak 'iron' vs. Proto-Tibetic *ltɕaks).
Some Pre-Tibetic reconstructions, along with reconstructed Proto-Tibetic forms and orthographic Classical Literary Tibetan, from Tournadre (2014: 114-116) are listed below.
| Gloss | Pre-Tibetic | Proto-Tibetic | Classical Literary Tibetan |
|---|---|---|---|
| one | *g(ǝ)-tyik | *g(ǝ)-tɕ(h)ik | gcig / gchig གཅིག་ / གཆིག (Old Tibetan) |
| big | *tye | *tɕ(h)e | che ཆེ་ (Old Tibetan) |
| ten | *b(ǝ)-tyu | *b(ǝ)-tɕu | bcu / bchu བཅུ་ / བཆུ་ (Old Tibetan) |
| what | *tyi | *tɕ(h)i | ci / chi ཅི་ / ཆི་ (Old Tibetan) |
| flesh | *sya | *ɕa | sha ཤ་ |
| know | *syes | *ɕes | shes ཤེས་ |
| wood | *sying | *ɕiŋ | shing ཤིང་ |
| to cut (past stem) | *b(ǝ)-tsyat | *b(ǝ)-tɕat | bcad བཅད་ |
| spittle | *m(ǝ)-tsyil-ma | *m(ǝ)-tɕ(h)il-ma | mchil-ma མཆིལ་མ་ |
| liver | *m(ǝ)-tsin-pa | *m(ǝ)-tɕ(h)in-pa | mchin-pa མཆིན་པ |
| four | *b(ǝ)-lyi | *b(ǝ)ʑi | bzhi བཞི་ |
| field | *lying | *ʑiŋ | zhing ཞིང་ |
| flea | *ldi | *ldʑi | lji ལྗི་, 'ji ་འཇི་ |
| iron | *s(ǝ)-lak(s) > *l-sak(s) > *l-tsyak(s) | *ltɕaks | lcags ལྕགས་ |
| arrow | *mda | mda' མདའ་ | |
| to suppress | *bnans | *mnans | mnand (Old Tibetan) |
| to listen | *bnyan | *nyan | mnyand |
| eye | *d(ǝ)myik | dmyig དམྱིག་ (Old Tibetan); mig | |
| flower | *mentok | men-tog མེན་ཏོག (Old Tibetan); ་me-tog |
Thenumerals in different Tibetan/Tibetic languages are:[30]
| GLOSS | Ü-Tsang (Middle) | Amdo | Khams | CLASSICAL TIBETAN | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lhasa | Cheng Zhang | Dolpo | Jirel | Mugom | Sherpa | Yohlmo | ||||
| '1' | ʨiʔ53 | ʨi53 | ʂik | dokpoi | ʧɪk | ʦɪk55 | ʨīː | xʨɨx | ʨi55 | *xʨik gtšig |
| '2' | ȵi55 | ȵi55 | ɲiː | ŋi | ŋi | ŋi55 | ɲìː | ɦȵi | ɲɯ53 | *gnis gnis |
| '3' | sum55 | sɔ̃53 | sum | sum | sum | sum55 | sūm | sɘm | sũ53 | *xsum gsum |
| '4' | ɕi13 | ɣɯ31 | ɕi̤ː | si | ɕi | ʣi55 | ʑì̤ | ɦʑɘ | ʐə33 | *βʑi bži |
| '5' | ŋa53 | ɴɐ53 | ŋa | ŋa | ŋá | ŋɑ55 | ŋɑ̀ | ɦŋa | ŋɑ53 | *ɬŋɑ lŋa |
| '6' | tʂʰuʔ13 | tʂu31 | ʈṳk | tʰuk | duk | ɖʊk11 | ʈṳ̀ː | tʂəx | tʂo33 | *dɽuk drug |
| '7' | tỹ15 | dɛ̃24 | ty̤n | duin | dun | dɪn55 | t̪ì̤n | ɦdɘn | dĩ33 | *βdun bdun |
| '8' | ɕɛʔ13 | dʑe31 | ce̤ʔ | get | ket | gæ55 | cē̤ː | ɦdʑʲɛ | ʑe33 | *βɽgjat brgyad |
| '9' | ku13 | ɡɯ31 | kṳ | gu | gu | gu55 | kṳ̀ | ɦgɘ | gə33 | *dgu dgu |
| '10' | ʨu53 | ʨɯ53 | tɕu | ʦutʰambaː | ʧú | ʦi55tʰɑm11ba11 | ʨʉ̄ | ʨɘ | ʨə55 | *ɸʨu btšu |
For the Central or Eastern Tibetic languages:
| GLOSS | Dzongkha-Lakha | Balti-Ladakhi | Spiti bhoti | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dzongkha | Sikkimese | Balti | Changthang | Ladakhi | Purik | Zangskari | ||
| '1' | ʨí | ʧi | ʧik | ʧik | ʧik | ʧik | ʧiʔ | ʧík |
| '2' | ɲí | ni | ɲis | ɲis | ɲis | ɲis | ɲiː | ɲiː |
| '3' | súm | súm | xsum | sum | sum | sum | sum | súm |
| '4' | ʃi̤ | ʒe | βʒi | zi | zi | ʒi | ʒi | ʒì |
| '5' | ŋə | ŋa | ɣɑ | ŋa | ʂŋa | ʂŋə | ŋa | ŋá |
| '6' | dʑo | tʰu | truk | ɖruk | ʈuk | ʈuk | ʈuʔ | ʈùk |
| '7' | ty̤n | dĩ | βdun | dun | rdun | rdun | ðun | dùn |
| '8' | kæ̤ | gɛ | βgyʌt | gʲat | rgʲat | rgyət | ʝət | ɟèt |
| '9' | kṳ | go | rgu | gu | rgu | rgu | ɣu | gù |
| '10' | ʨu tʰam | ʧɔːmba | ɸʧu | ʧu | rʧu | rču | ʧu | ʧú |
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
| ||||
| East andSoutheast Asia |
| ||||
| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
| ||||
| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
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