Lamo (also called mBo; IPA: mbo˥; ’Bo skad) is an unclassified Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Tshawarong, Zogang County, Chamdo Prefecture, Tibet. It was recently documented by Suzuki & Nyima (2016). sMad skad, a closely related language variety, is also spoken in Tshawarong.
Suzuki & Nyima (2018) document the Kyilwa (格瓦) variety of Dongba Township (东坝乡).
Names
Lamo is referred to by the Changdu Gazetteer (2005: 819)[1] as Dongba (东坝话), as it is spoken in Dongba Township (东坝乡), Zogang County. Jiang (2022) also refers to the language as Dongba (东坝话).[2]
Khams Tibetan people refer to Lamo speakers as mBo or mBo mi (’bo mi). Traditionally, Lamo speakers also referred to themselves as Po mi, although this autonym is not known by all Lamo speakers. They refer to their own language as Lamo. Some Lamo speakers also refer to their town language as ˊmbo hkə.[3]
Lamo autonyms by location (gSerkhu, discussed below, is a minor mutually intelligible variety):[3]
Lamo is spoken by about 4,000 speakers, with 2,000 in Dongba Township, and 2,000 in Zhonglinka Township. Both townships are located along the Nujiang River in Dzogang County.[3]
There are 5 Lamo-speaking village clusters in Dongba Township, which are Kyilwa, Phurkha, Gewa, Gyastod and Gyasmed. The remaining village clusters, out of a total of 13 village clusters in Dongba Township, are Khams Tibetan-speaking villages.[3]
Lamei is spoken by 1,500 to 2,000 people in 5 village clusters in is spoken in Zhonglinka Township. Sitrikhapa, Wangtod, Wangmed, Rongba, and Laba village clusters have only Lamei speakers. Woba, Pula, and Zuoshod village clusters have both Lamei and Khams Tibetan speakers.[3]
gSerkhu is a variety of Lamo, with which it is mutually intelligible. Khams Tibetan speakers refer to the language as Sikhu. gSerkhu is spoken by about 400 people (80 households) in 4 villages of the gSerkhu Valley, which are Benzhui, Muzong, Cuixi, and Sangba, all located in Shangchayu Town, Dzayul County. Dzayul County also has Khams Tibetan speakers who had originally migrated from the Lamo-speaking area of Dongba Township, Dzogang County.[3] Jiang (2022) refers to the language as Suku or Sukuhua (素苦话).[2]
Suzuki & Nyima (2018)[5] report the phonology of the Kyilwa dialect. They have drawn the conclusion that Lamo "tends to have a different phonetic development from the others".
All of these vowels have creaky and nasalized counterparts. There are a few secondary articulations found marginally, namely retroflexed /ɚ/ and velarized /əɣ/.
Syllable structure: cCGV
The tones are high and rising, the same as in Larong and Drag-yab. The tone bearing unit is the first two syllables of every word. The second syllable is occasionally excluded from the TBU.[5]
Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2017. Outline of verb morphology of Lamo (mDzo sgang, Tibet). Paper presented at 50th International Conference for Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (Beijing).
