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| Name | Standard Tibetan |
|---|---|
| Nativename | བོད་སྐད་bod skad |
| Familycolor | Sino-Tibetan |
| States | China, Nepal, India |
| Region | Tibet |
| Speakers | between 5 and 10 million |
| Script | Tibetan script |
| Fam1 | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2 | (Tibeto-Burman) |
| Fam3 | Tibeto-Kanauri |
| Fam4 | Bodish |
| Fam5 | Tibetan |
| Fam6 | Central Tibetan |
| Nation | Tibet Autonomous Region |
| Agency | Committee for the Standardisation of the Tibetan Language |
| Iso1 | bo|iso2b=tib|iso2t=bod|iso3=bod |
Standard Tibetan (, ; also written Bhö kä) is the most widely used spoken form of the Tibetan languages. It is based on the speech of Lhasa, an Ü-Tsang dialect belonging to the Central Tibetan languages. For this reason, Standard Tibetan is often called Central Tibetan ( ; also written Ükä or Uke or , also written Ü-tsang kä). Tibetan, often implicitly meaning Standard Tibetan, is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Central Tibetan is one of several branches of the Tibetan languages, the most salient others being Khams, Amdo, and Ladakhi. The standard form of written Tibetan is based on Classical Tibetan and is highly conservative.
In scientific and astrological works, the numerals, as in Vedic Sanskrit, are expressed by symbolical words.
Wylie transliteration is the most common system of romanization used by Western scholars in rendering written Tibetan using the Latin alphabet (such as employed on much of this page).
{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center |- ! rowspan=2 | ! colspan=2 | Front ! Back |- class=small ! unrounded ! rounded ! rounded |- ! Close | | | |- ! Close-mid | | | |- ! Open-mid | | | |- ! Open | | | |}
Three additional vowels are sometimes described as significantly distinct: or , which is normally an allophone of ; , which is normally an allophone of ; and (an unrounded, centralised, mid front vowel), which is normally an allophone of . These sounds normally occur in closed syllables; because Tibetan does not allow geminated consonants, there are cases where one syllable ends with the same sound as the one following it, with the result that the first is pronounced as an open syllable but retains the vowel typical of a closed syllable. For instance, zhabs (foot) is pronounced and pad (contraction of padma, lotus) is pronounced , but the compound word, zhabs pad is pronounced . This process can result in minimal pairs involving sounds that are otherwise allophones.
Sources vary on whether the phone (resulting from in a closed syllable) and the phone (resulting from through the i-mutation) are distinct or basically identical.
Phonemic vowel length exists in Lhasa Tibetan, but appears in a restricted set of circumstances. Assimilation of Classical Tibetan's suffixed vowels—normally ‘i (འི་)—at the end of a word produces a long vowel in Lhasa Tibetan; this feature is sometimes omitted in phonetic transcriptions. In normal spoken pronunciation, a lengthening of the vowel is also frequently substituted for the sounds and when they occur at the end of a syllable.
The vowels , , , , and each have nasalized forms: , , , , and , respectively. Historically, this results from a syllable-final , such as , , etc. In some unusual cases, the vowels , , and may also be nasalised.
In polysyllabic words, tone is only important in the first syllable.
Notes: The unaspirated stops , , , and typically become voiced in the low tone, being pronounced , , , and , respectively. These sounds are regarded as allophones. By a similar process, the aspirated stops , , , and are typically lightly aspirated in the low tone. The dialect of upper social strata in Lhasa does not use voiced stops in the low tone. The alveolar trill () is in complementary distribution of the alveolar approximant ; therefore, they are treated as one phoneme. The voiceless alveolar lateral approximant resembles the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative found in languages such as Welsh and Zulu and is sometimes transcribed as . The consonants , , , , , and may appear in syllable-final positions. The Classical Tibetan final is still present, but its modern pronunciation is normally realized as a nasalisation of the preceding vowel, rather than as a discrete consonant (see above). Note that is not pronounced in the final position of a word, except in highly formal speech. Also, syllable-final and are often not clearly pronounced, but instead realized as a lengthening of the preceding vowel. The phonemic glottal stop appears only at the end of words in place of an , , or which were pronounced in Classical Tibetan but have since been elided. For instance, the word for Tibet itself was Bod in Classical Tibetan and is now pronounced in the Lhasa dialect.
Indian indologist and linguist Rahul Sankrityayan wrote a Tibetan grammar in Hindi. Some of his other works on Tibetan were: # Tibbati Bal-Siksha - 1933 # Pathavali (Vol. 1,2 & 3) - 1933 # Tibbati Vyakaran - 1933 # Tibbat May Budh Dharm-1948
In February 2008 Norman Baker UK MP, released a statement to mark International Mother Language Day claiming that "The Chinese government are following a deliberate policy of extinguishing all that is Tibetan, including their own language in their own country" and asserting a right for Tibetans to express themselves in "in their mother tongue". But Tibetologist Elliot Sperling has noted that "within certain limits the PRC does make efforts to accommodate Tibetan cultural expression" and "the cultural activity taking place all over the Tibetan plateau cannot be ignored."
Some scholars also question claims like these, because most Tibetans continue to reside in rural areas where Chinese is rarely spoken, as opposed to Lhasa and other Tibetan cities where Chinese can often be heard. In the Texas Journal of International Law, Barry Sautman stated that "none of the many recent studies of endangered languages deems Tibetan to be imperiled, and language maintenance among Tibetans contrasts with language loss even in the remote areas of Western states renowned for liberal policies...claims that primary schools in Tibet teach putonghua are in error. Tibetan was the main language of instruction in 98% of TAR primary schools in 1996; today, putonghua is introduced in early grades only in urban schools...Because less than four out of ten TAR Tibetans reach secondary school, primary school matters most for their cultural formation."
The most important Tibetan branch of language under threat is however the Ladakhi language of the Western Tibetan group, in the Ladakh region of India. In Leh, a slow but gradual process whereby the Tibetan vernacular is supplanted by English and Hindi and there are signs of a gradual loss of Tibetan cultural identity in the area. The similarly related Balti dialect is also in severe danger; and unlike Ladakhi has already been replaced by Urdu as the main language of Baltistan; particularly due to settlers speaking Urdu from other areas moving to that area.
Category:Languages of China Category:Bodic languages Category:Languages of Tibet Category:Languages written in Tibetan script
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