ABSTRACT
Tibetan consists of a number of dialects, not all mutually intelligible; for an outline of dialects see the chapter on Lhasa Tibetan. Tibetan belongs to the Bodic branch of Tibeto-Burman, within which it appears to be most closely related to the Tamang-Gurung-Thakali (TGT) nucleus, then to the West Himalayan group:
Documents exist in Tibetan script representing two ancient Bodic but non-Tibetan languages, Nam (Thomas 1948) and Zhang-zhung (Hoffman 1967; Thomas 1967; Haarh 1968; Hummel 1995; Martin 1997).
