Amdo Tibetan (Tibetan script: ཨ་མདོའི་སྐད་, Wylie: A-mdo’i skad, Lhasa dialect: [ámtokɛ́ʔ]; also called Am kä) is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two varieties, the farmer dialects and the nomad dialects.^[2]

Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Khams Tibetan and Ü-Tsang).^[3] In terms of mutual intelligibility, Amdo speakers cannot communicate even at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan).^[3]

Amdo Tibetan has 70% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan and Khams Tibetan.^[4]

The nomad dialect of Amdo Tibetan is closer to classical written Tibetan as it preserves the word-initial consonant clusters and it is non-tonal, both now elided in the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan). Hence, its conservatism in phonology has become a source of pride among Amdo Tibetans.^[5][2]

Dialects

Dialects are:^[6]

• North Kokonor (Kangtsa, Themchen, Arik, etc.)
• West Kokonor (Dulan, Na'gormo, etc.),
• Southeast Kokonor (Jainca, Thrika, Hualong, etc.)
• Labrang (Labrang, Luchu)
• Golok (Machen, Matö, Gabde)
• Ngapa (Ngapa, Dzorge, Dzamthang)
• Kandze

Bradley (1997)^[7] includes Thewo and Choni as close to Amdo if not actually Amdo dialects.

Mabzhi is a dialect belonging to the Kokonor group of Amdo Tibetan (Tsering Samdrup and Suzuki 2017).^[8][9]

mDungnag, a divergent Tibetan language spoken in Gansu, is not mutually intelligible with any of the Amdo dialects.^[10]

Hua (2001)^[11] contains word lists of the Xiahe County 夏河, Tongren County 同仁, Xunhua County 循化, Hualong County 化隆, Hongyuan County 红原, and Tianjun County 天峻 dialects of Amdo Tibetan in Gansu and Qinghai provinces.

Phonology

Consonants

• Retroflex stop sounds /ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ/ may also be pronounced as affricate sounds [ʈʂ, ʈʂʰ, ɖʐ] in free variation.^[12]
• Voiced consonants are often heard as pre-breathy-voiced (i.e. /d/ [ʱd]) among different dialects.
• /ʐ/, typically written phonemically as /r/, can be heard as an alveolar flap [ɾ] in word-medial positions.
• /x/ may also be heard as a palatal [ç] in free variation.
• Labio-dental fricatives /f/ and /v/ may also occur in words of foreign origin.

Vowels

• Amdo Tibetan typically has a four-vowel system as /e, ə, a, o/, as all close vowels [i, ɨ, u] have merged to one vowel /ə/. However, when there is a consonant sound within the coda position, the pronunciation of /ə/ is changed, thus realizing one of the three close sounds [i, ɨ, u], depending on the consonant in place.
• /a/ may typically be heard as more fronted before a mid vowel /e/, and may also be realized as an open-mid [ɛ] in some environments.^[13]

Media

Inside China

• The Qinghai Tibetan Radio (མཚོ་སྔོན་བོད་སྐད་རླུང་འཕྲིན།) station broadcasts in Amdolese Tibetan on FM 99.7.^[14]

Diaspora

• Radio Free Asia broadcasts in three Tibetan languages: Standard Tibetan, Khams language and Amdolese language.^[15]