Khams Tibetan (Tibetan: ཁམས་སྐད, Wylie: Khams skad, THL: Khamké) is the Tibetic language used by the majority of the people in Kham. Khams is one of the three branches of the traditional classification of Tibetic languages (the other two being Amdo Tibetan and Ü-Tsang).^[2] In terms of mutual intelligibility, Khams could communicate at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan).^[2]

Both Khams Tibetan and Lhasa Tibetan evolve to not preserve the word-initial consonant clusters,^[3] which makes them very far from Classical Tibetan, especially when compared to the more conservative Amdo Tibetan.^[4][5] Also, Kham and Lhasa Tibetan evolved to be tonal, which Classical Tibetan was not.^[3] Khams Tibetan has 80% lexical similarity with Central Tibetan.^[6]

Distribution

Kham Tibetan is spoken in Kham, which is now divided between the eastern part of Tibet Autonomous Region, the southern part of Qinghai, the western part of Sichuan, and the northwestern part of Yunnan, China.

Khampa Tibetan is also spoken by about 1,000 people in two enclaves in eastern Bhutan, the descendants of pastoral yak-herding communities.^[7]

Dialects

There are five dialects of Khams Tibetan proper:

• Central Khams, spoken in Dêgê County and Chamdo
• Southern Khams, spoken in the Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. There are several subdialects due to the mountainous terrain, as well as contact with neighboring language communities for trade.
• Northern or Northeastern Khams, spoken in Nangqên County and Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
• Eastern Khams, spoken in Kangding
• Hor, or Western Khams, spoken in Nagqu Prefecture
• The Gêrzê dialect is sometimes considered Western Khams

These have relatively low mutual intelligibility, but are close enough that they are usually considered a single language. Khamba^[8] and Tseku are more divergent, but classified with Khams by Tournadre.^{[9][full citation needed]}

Several other languages are spoken by Tibetans in the Khams region: Dongwang Tibetan language and the Rgyalrong languages.^[10]

The phonologies and vocabularies of the Bodgrong, Dartsendo, dGudzong, Khyungpo (Khromtshang), Lhagang Rangakha, Sangdam, Sogpho, sKobsteng, sPomtserag, Tsharethong, and Yangthang dialects of Kham Tibetan have been documented by Hiroyuki Suzuki.^[11]

Other Khams Tibetan varieties include:^[12]

• Lhagang, a Minyag Rabgang Khams dialect (Suzuki and Sonam Wangmo 2017)^[13]
• Lethong, a Southern Route Khams dialect (Suzuki 2018b)^[14]
• Choswateng, belonging to the rGyalthang group of Sems-kyi-nyila Khams (Suzuki 2018a)^[15]

Deng (2020) documents 1,707 words in the following three Khams Tibetan dialects:^[16]

• Cawagang 擦瓦岗, Yiqing Township 益庆乡, Pasho County, Chamdo Prefecture
• Upper Batang Village 上巴塘村, Batang Township 巴塘乡, Yushu County, Qinghai
• Rongbu Town 荣布镇, Sog County, Nagqu Prefecture

Phonology

Consonants

• /x, xʰ, ɣ/ before front vowels /i, e, ø, ɛ/ are realized as palatal fricatives [ç, çʰ, ʝ].
• Palatal plosives /c, ɟ/ are included in the consonant inventory of the dGudzong dialect, but these sound values may include a phonetic variant of palatalised velar plosives. The velar plosive series generally do not include a phonetic variant of palatal plosives. These two series, therefore, are still distinctive, but it is supposed that they may merge into velar ones in the near future.^[17]
• /tʂ, tʂʰ, dʐ/ are heard as plosives [ʈ, ʈʰ, ɖ] in the dGudzong dialect of the rGyalrong area.
• /ɬ/ may also be heard as a voiceless lateral [l̥] in free variation.^[18]

Vowels

• /i, u, o/ are realized as sounds [ɨ, ʉ, ʊ] before a glottal stop /ʔ/.^[19]