rGyalrong Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

From the introduction: Approximately 230,000 of the 6.2 million Tibetans in China do not speak Tibetan. Instead, they speak one of about 18 different languages, including languages known as Namuyi, Minyak, Ergong, Khroskyabs, and... more

From the introduction:
Approximately 230,000 of the 6.2 million Tibetans in China do not speak Tibetan. Instead, they speak one of about 18 different languages, including languages known as Namuyi, Minyak, Ergong, Khroskyabs, and nDrapa. In total, about 39 languages other than Tibetan are spoken on the Tibetan Plateau, by a little over one million people. These statistics may vary depending on how one defines a language, defines Tibet, or defines the Tibetan people, and, we still have much to learn about the languages of this area. However, regardless of how the numerical details might change, the underlying pattern appears to be well established – Tibet is linguistically diverse. While international scholarly and public attention focuses on the fate of the “Tibetan language”,1 the plight of Tibet’s minority languages continues to go unacknowledged. This article takes a preliminary look at the vitality of Tibet’s 39 minority languages, using UNESCO’s nine-factor model as a framework. While these languages differ vastly, their shared geographical and social environment, as well as their similar and interconnected histories, warrant a discussion of their collective fates. As suggested in the title, the results presented here are preliminary remarks on a complex topic, and should be taken as indicative rather than definitive.