Tibet's Remarkable Linguistic Diversity Is In Danger Of Extinction

Most of my research since then has focused on language politics in the Rebgong valley on the northeast Tibetan Plateau. From 2014 to 2018, I interviewed dozens of people, spoke informally with many others, and conducted hundreds of household surveys about language use.

I also collected and analysed Tibetan language texts, including government policies, online essays, social media posts and even pop song lyrics .

When I was in Ziling, just before the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Tibetans launched a massive protest movement against Chinese rule. Those protests led to harsh government crackdowns , including mass arrests, increased surveillance, and restrictions on freedom of movement and expressions of Tibetan identity. The crackdown was largely focused on language and religion.

Years of unrest ensued, marked by more demonstrations and individual acts of sacrifice. Since 2009, more than 150 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule .

Tibet is a linguistically diverse place. In addition to Tibetan, about 60 other languages are spoken in the region . Minority-language speakers comprise about 4% of Tibetans (around 250,000 people).

Government policy forces all Tibetans to learn and use Mandarin Chinese. Those who speak only Tibetan have a harder time finding work and are faced with discrimination and even violence from the dominant Han ethnic group.

Meanwhile, support for Tibetan language education has slowly been whittled away: the government even recently banned students from having private Tibetan lessons or tutors on their school holidays.

Linguistic minorities in Tibet all need to learn and use Mandarin. But many also need to learn Tibetan to communicate with other Tibetans: classmates, teachers, doctors, bureaucrats or bosses.

In Rebgong, where I did my research, the locals speak a language they call Manegacha. Increasingly, this language is being replaced by Tibetan: about a third of all families that speak Manegacha are now teaching Tibetan to their children (who also must learn Mandarin).

The government refuses to provide any opportunities to use and learn minority languages like Manegacha. It also tolerates constant discrimination and violence against Manegacha speakers by other Tibetans.

These assimilationist state policies are causing linguistic diversity across Tibet to collapse. As these minority languages are lost, people's mental and physical health suffers and their social connections and communal identities are destroyed.

Tibetan resistance to Chinese rule dates back to the People's Liberation Army invasion in the early 1950s.

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When the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, that resistance movement went global. Governments around the world have continued to support Tibetan self-determination and combat Chinese misinformation about Tibet, such as the US Congress passage of the Resolve Tibet Act in 2024.

Outside efforts to support the Tibetan struggle, however, are failing some of the most vulnerable people: those who speak minority languages .

Manegacha speakers want to maintain their language. They resist the pressure to assimilate whenever they speak Manegacha to each other, post memes online in Manegacha or push back against the discrimination they face from other Tibetans.

However, if Tibetans stop speaking Manegacha and other minority languages, this will contribute to the Chinese government's efforts to erase Tibetan identity and culture.

Even if the Tibetan language somehow survives in China, the loss of even one of Tibet's minority languages would be a victory for the Communist Party in the conflict it started 75 years ago.

Gerald Roche is a lecturer in linguistics at La Trobe University .

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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