NEW ICT REPORT WARNS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE TIBETAN LANGUAGE
What does it really mean when a language dies? As Tibetan scholars and leaders have warned for decades, the disappearance of a language and its script doesn’t stop at words. It erases culture, memory and identity. The new ICT report, Beyond ‘Neither Goat Nor Sheep’, shows how close Tibetan is to that breaking point.
The report documents how shifts in Chinese state policy are steadily pushing Tibetan out of public life. Through changes in education, law and employment requirements, Tibetan is being sidelined in favor of Mandarin. The result is fewer opportunities for Tibetans who study their own language, shrinking space for Tibetan-medium education and growing pressure, especially on young people, to abandon Tibetan in daily life.
What Tibetans once described as Ramalug, the creeping mix of Chinese words into Tibetan conversations, has now turned into something far more serious. Even within Tibet’s highly restrictive environment, Tibetans are speaking out, at great personal risk, about policies that threaten the survival of their language altogether. This concern is echoed internationally: the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has described the situation as an ongoing “cultural genocide of Tibetan Buddhists.”
Drawing on legal analysis and historical context, the report traces a clear shift from earlier policies that recognized and promoted Tibetan language rights to the current era under Xi Jinping, marked by systematic efforts to impose a singular Chinese national identity. By weakening existing protections and introducing new laws that hollow them out, Beijing creates the appearance of choice while leaving Tibetans with none. The message of the report is stark but urgent: the erosion of the Tibetan language is not accidental. It is policy-driven, and its consequences will be irreversible if left unchallenged.
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