Khams Tibetan

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]

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 and Kongpo, 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 formerly known as Nangchen / Nangqên County and now 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

• Standard Tibetan
• Balti language
• Languages of Bhutan