ABSTRACT
Various dialects of Tibetan are spoken in a broad area reaching from northern Pakistan to Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces in China. The place of Tibetan within TibetoBurman is discussed in Chapter 16. A great deal of work remains to be done on Tibetan dialectology. The most comprehensive current classification is that of Nishi (1986), who distinguishes six major groups: Central or U-Tsang (Lhasa, Shigatse, Sherpa, Kagate, etc.), Western Archaic (Balti, Ladakhi, Purik), Western Innovative (Lahul, Spiti), Southern (dialects of Sikkim and Bhutan), Khams, and Amdo. Lhasa, the best-known contemporary Tibetan dialect, belongs to the Central group. It serves as a lingua franca, and to some extent as a standard, in both the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the diaspora communities.
