Amdo Tibetan (ཨ་མདོའི་སྐད་)

Amdo Tibetan is a Tibetic language spoken by about 1.8 million people in an area that was known as Amdo, and was one of the three traditional regions of Tibet. This area is now part of the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan. Amdo Tibetan speakers are found particularly in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in southern Gansu, in the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northern Sichuan, and in parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Amdo Tibetan is also known as Amdo, Anduo, Ngamdo, Panang or Amdolese Tibetan. There are two main groups of Amdo Tibetan dialects: nomad dialects and farmer dialects. The nomad dialects retain much of the pronunciation of Classical Tibetan, such as consonant clusters at the beginning of words, which are not found in other Tibetic languages. Amdo Tibetan is not mutually intelligible with other Tibetic languages.

Amdo Tibetan is officially classified as a language of a recognized nationality in China. It is written with the Tibetan script, although Modern Literary Tibetan is the standard language of literature. Amdo Tibetan is used by teachers in schools, on TV, and in some written material.

Amdo Tibetan alphabet

Notes

The letter a chen is used as a vowel carrier at the beginning of words and syllables when there is no preceeding consonant.
The letters fa and va are only used in loanwords from other languages
In some dialects ga, ja, dza, da and ba are pre-aspirated (preceded by a breathy sound)

Download an alphabet chart for Amdo Tibetan (Excel)

Details of the Amdo Tibetan alphabet provided by Wolfram Siegel (PDF, in German)

Sample videos in Amdo Tibetan

Links

Information about Amdo Tibetan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdo_Tibetan
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/adx
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Amdo_Tibetan_phrasebook
https://www2.lawrence.edu/fast/sungk/pdfs/Colloquial_Amdo/aL6 revised.pdf

Bodish (Tibeto-Kanauri) languages

Amdo Tibetan, Choni, Dzongkha, Jirel, Kagate, Khams Tibetan, Khengkha, Ladakhi, Lhowa, Sherpa, Sikkimese, Tibetan, Tshangla

Languages written with the Tibetan alphabet

Amdo Tibetan, Balti, Bokar, Chocha Ngacha, Choni, Dzongkha (Bhutanese), Jirel, Khams Tibetan, Khengkha, Ladakhi, Sikkimese, Tibetan, Sherpa, Tamang, Tshangla

Page created: 22.11.21. Last modified: 31.01.24

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