Tibetic

The Tibetic languages form a branch of Tibeto-Burman within the Sino-Tibetan family, descended from Old Tibetan of the seventh to ninth centuries and comprising about fifty languages across the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas. Their closest relatives include the West Himalayish languages, among them Zhangzhung, the speech of the early Bon religion.

Under the Tibetan Empire of the seventh century, King Songtsen Gampo's court commissioned a script, traditionally credited to minister Thonmi Sambhota, who modelled an abugida on the Gupta script of northern India; the earliest annals survive from around 650 and stone inscriptions from the eighth century.

The empire's translation of Buddhist scriptures fixed Classical Tibetan, the shared literary language of Tibetic speakers and Tibetan Buddhism. The spoken tongues diverged into regional forms such as Lhasa, Khams and Amdo Tibetan, some developing tones absent from the classical language.