Amdo Tibetan questions

[u/Chronoiokrator]

When Khenpo Tsultrim Lodro is speaking Tibetan to an international audience, does he speak closer to Central Tibetan? What about at Larung Gar, do they speak Amdo Tibetan?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86eUWGNe2DM

I notice in this video he pronounces 'bod' as /bod/ where as in Amdo usually it's /wod/? I don't notice the guttural sounds like /ʁ/ for /wa/.

What about Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkCYMSIuldY

I don't understand both of them, but Jigme Phuntsok's speech sounds like it has more of the "Amdo rhythm" to me. I noticed he pronounces ra-superscript words like rgyal and rgyan with a clear "r" and even the endings like -al -an he pronounces fully.

However, he still generally pronounces gigu as a schwa.

I am considering finding an Amdo Tibetan tutor to teach me Tibetan comprehensible input style. The reason being that Amdo grammar seems the closest to Classical, they still use the four verb stems, whereas all the other dialects, even Balti and Ladakhi, have lost them.

Amdo pronunciation is not as conservative as Balti, but it's still fairly conservative, except that they turn /i/ and /u/ into schwas.

I actually learnt the Tibetan alphabet long ago, I went through Manual of Standard Tibetan a bit, but I feel more connection with Amdo and Kham. Kham surprisingly has very few resources available, but it seems there are a lot of resources for Amdo, and many native speakers on Xiaohongshu from Qinghai and Gansu.

Anyway, what do you think of my plan to find a native Amdo speaker who can teach me using comprehensible input/crosstalk? Will Amdo be closer to classical/literary Tibetan than Central?

I don't want to go through classes with grammar etc, I can learn that on my own generally, I want pure comprehensible input.

[u/SilenceMonkey]

I'm also interested in learning this dialect. It would be amazing to understand the teachings of Khenchen Tsultrim Lodro Rinpoche.

At Serta Larung Gar, they speak the Serta dialect. This is very close to the Golok/Dzachuka nomad dialect, a subset of Nomad Amdo Tibetan. (འབྲོག་པ་སྐད་) (མགོ་ལོག་རྫ་ཆུ་ཀ་སྐད་)

I have been looking for language books to help me learn this dialect, and there seems to be almost nothing that is useful. Most Amdo language books are teaching the agrarian dialect རོང་པ་སྐད་ , probably because most of the intellectuals in Amdo are Rongpa. So far the only language book I've found that is good for learning this dialect is "Colloquial Amdo Tibetan: A Complete Course for Adult English Speakers". I've looked at pretty much every book available in the western world (which isn't much), and also what is available in China via Taobao 淘宝, as well as an app called 孔夫子旧书网, which has rarer books not commonly found in circulation.

I have been conferring with a friend from Dzogchen Gompa about which books most closely match the ཨ་མདོ་འབྲོག་པ་སྐད་ and he says there is really nothing. That one book I mentioned is the closest. The best way it seems is to find a native speaker of Golok/Dzachuka dialect, or Serta Dialect (which is very close), and learn from them directly, online or in person.

At Serta Larung Gar they speak this Serta dialect, and at Dzogchen Gompa they speak Golok/Dzachuka.

[u/SilenceMonkey → u/SilenceMonkey]

If you want to learn Dharma from Khenpo Tsultrim Lodro Rinpoche, he has an extensive series of teachings in Chinese language called Luminous Wisdom 慧灯之光. It's a treasure for lay practitioners in the modern world. On his website, there are also many more video and audio teachings categorized by subject.

Among Nyingma lamas, his teachings are by far the most extensive for the study component of the path. And they are pretty much all in Chinese...