User:Yzhang4/Language selection

I'm Yue Zhang ([yɛ51 tʂɑŋ55] or [yɛ21 tsɑŋ45]). I would like to work with Yang Windhorse and Levin Ho.

The languages we are planning to choose from are:

Amdo Tibetan (a.k.a. Amdolese ཨ་མདོའི་སྐད) (ISO 639-3: adx) [1]

Number of speakers: 1,800,000 (2005 C. Lhungrub)

Location: Amdo Region (In the northeast of Tibet, south of Gansu Province, China, northwest of Sichuan Province, China)

Morphological Typology: Agglutinative ([2]), a verb-final language characterized by an elaborate system of post-verbal morphology that are limited to finite clauses and which encode information about the nature of the assertion.

Classification: Sino-Tibetan-> Tibeto-Burman-> Western Tibeto-Burman-> Bodish-> Central Bodish-> Amdo

Language Development: Classroom teachers use it, but Modern Literary Tibetan [bod] is the language of literature. TV. Videos. Dictionary. Grammar. Texts. Amdo Tibetan shared the writing system (Tibetan script) and standardized writing Tibetan with Central(Ü-Tsang) Tibetan, while Colloquial Amdo could not communicate even at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch. [3]

Resources: We found a colloquial Amdo Tibetan dictionary in English and Chinese 耿显宗 - 安多藏语口语词典 (藏汉英对照). Amdo Tibetan Spoken Language Dictionary with Chinese and English Translations. ཨ་མདོའི་ཁ་སྐད་ཚིག་མཛོད། བོད་ནྱ་དབྱི (ISBN: 9787542111258)

Moreover, Yang knows some Amdo native speakers.

Gyalrong (a.k.a. Ryalrong རྒྱལ་རོང) (ISO 639-3: jya) [4]

Number of speakers: 83,000 (1999 Sun Hong Kai)

Location: Garzê and Ngawa, Sichuan Province, China

Morphological Typology: polysynthetic; SOV; phonologically and lexically similar to Tibetan, grammatically more similar to Pumi and Qiang; complex consonant clusters; limited pitch contrast.

Writing system: Tibetan Script

Language development: Radio. Dictionary. Grammar. Texts. Bible portions: 1932.

Resources: we found a Gyalrong language dictionary in French and Chinese. Dictionnaire_Japhug_chinois_francais [5]. Moreover, a bibliography for Gyalrong studies is available. [6]

Khams Tibetan (a.k.a. Kham ཁམས་སྐད) (ISO 639-3: khg ) [7]

Number of speakers: 1,380,000 in China (1994)

Morphological Typology: Agglutinative; SOV; tonal, 4 tones.

Writing system: Tibetan Script

Language Development: Similar to Amdo Tibetan, Modern Literary Tibetan [bod] is the language of literature. Dictionary. Grammar. Texts.

Resources: there is a textbook of Khams Tibetan [8]