Amdo Dialect Textbooks

Colloquial Amdo Tibetan: A Complete Course for Adult English Speakers

By Kuo-ming Sung and Lha Byams Rgyal. China Tibetology Publishing House, 2005. ISBN 7-80057-557-8.

Colloquial Amdo Tibetan

Excerpt from Introduction: “This book consists of twenty-one lessons. The first three lessons introduce the phonology and orthography of Amdo Tibetan. The remaining eighteen lessons, covering a moderate range of conversational topics on the daily life of a foreign student in the Amdo region, introduce the essential grammar and vocabulary of spoken Amdo Tibetan…. The texts of all lessons are in the form of a conversation… Lha Byams Rgyal, the Tibetan author of this book, is from Trika County (Ch. Guide), Qinghai, where a mixed agricultural-nomadic dialect is spoken.” The book comes with two CDs with speakers reading the dialogues from each chapter, but not the sample sentences.

Evaluation (by Frances Garrett): This book is excellent, with exceptional grammar explanations that are worth reading for students of any sort of Tibetan. This is certainly the best available Amdo dialect instructional book. There are some minor errors in translation throughout the book.

Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan: A Language Primer

By Kalsang Norbu, Karl Peet, dPal ldan bKra shis, and Kevin Stuart. Studies in Linguistics and Semiotics, Vol. 5. The Edwin Mellon Press, n.d.

Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan

Excerpt from Introduction: “Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan is for English Speakers who are studying Amdo at a beginning level. The text assumes no prior knowledge of Tibetan… [and presents] dialogues and texts of increasing sophistication that reflect Amdo Tibetan lives in the late twentieth century…. The oral Amdo introduced in this text is based on the dialect of rDo sbis, Kalsang Norbu’s native township, and the dialect of Reb gong.”

Bod yig stabs bde’i sgra sbyor slob deb (A mdo skad). [Tibetan Simplified Phonetics Text (Amdo Dialect)]

By Li Yanfu. Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang. 1987.

This book teaches Tibetan pronunciation to Chinese readers using pinyin, not Tibetan script.

A mdo’i kha skad slob deb [Amdo Tibetan Dialogues]

By Min Shengzhi and Geng Xianzhong. Xining: Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang. 1989.

This book in Chinese contains Amdo Tibetan dialogues.

A mdo’i skad kyi khrid yig skal bzang mig ‘byed

By Gzungs ‘bum thar. Lanchou: Kan-suʾu mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 2006. ISBN 754211137X.

Le Parler de l’Amdo: Etude d’un Dialecte Archaique du Tibet

By Georges de Roerich. Rome: Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente. 1958.

A Grammar of Spoken Amdo Tibetan

By Wang Qingshan. Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe. 1995.

On oral Amdo Tibetan, in English.