The language is complex and in fact there are various dialects that are (upon first encounter) mutually unintelligible. A Tibetan told once told me his mother met the Dalai Lama. He asked her how it went. She said “it would’ve been better if he spoke Tibetan”- the two spoke different dialects. Dr. Barnett sheds light on the dialects of Tibetan as well as political, economic, and educational issues facing the language. The Tibetan spoken among exiles is more or less a variant of Lhasa Tibetan – you can hear some differences in accent and phraseology, but there’s no problem for speakers of each variant to understand each other. So Lhasa Tibetan has become a standard for those who interact with exiles, and is the form of Tibetan that’s usually taught to foreigners.[Source]
