Tibetan

Tibetan is the Tibeto-Burman language of the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas, whose varieties descend from Old Tibetan, first written in the seventh century with an Indic-derived script. A reform of 816 under King Sadnalegs fixed the literary standard that became Classical Tibetan, the language of the Buddhist canon translated from Sanskrit and of the Mahavyutpatti lexicon.

After the later diffusion of Buddhism from the tenth to twelfth centuries, the Gelug order built the great monasteries of Ganden, Sera and Drepung. In the seventeenth century the Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, made Classical Tibetan the language of government, scholarship and liturgy across his realm.

The central and Kham dialects developed tones, while Amdo and Ladakhi speech kept older features; the classical written form remained the shared medium of Tibetan Buddhism.