Amdo Tibetan
The Amdo language (Tibetan: ཨ་མདོ་སྐད་, Wylie: A-mdo skad, Lhasa dialect IPA: [ámtokɛ́ʔ]
; also called Am kä) is the Tibetic language spoken by the majority of Amdo Tibetans, mainly in Qinghai and some parts of Sichuan (Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture) and Gansu (Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture).
Amdo is one of the four main spoken Tibetic languages, the other three being Central Tibetan, Khams Tibetan, and Ladakhi. These four related languages share a common written script but their spoken pronunciations, vocabularies and grammars are different. These differences may have emerged due to geographical isolation of the regions of Tibet. Unlike Khams and Standard Tibetan, Amdo language is not a tonal language. It retains many word-initial consonant clusters that have been lost in Central Tibetan.
Dialects
Dialects are:
North Kokonor (Kangtsa, Themchen, Arik, etc.)
West Kokonor (Dulan, Na'gormo, etc.),
Southeast Kokonor (Jainca, Thrika, Hualong, etc.)
Labrang (Labrang, Luchu)
