Classical and Spoken Tibetan

When learning Tibetan, it's obvious that classical Tibetan used in ཆོས་སྐད་ is different from contemporary spoken Tibetan. Just the specialized words and the history of standardized classical Tibetan is a difference. Classical Tibetan could use old words that Tibetans today are not using, neither even know what the words and expressions mean.

There are even words such as rabbit, རི་བོང་ -- such as in the classical Tibetan debate term རི་བོང་གི་རྭ་, horns of a rabbit that do not exist -- is རི་གོང་ in spoken Tibetan.

The grammar between the classical and spoken Tibetan differs as well. For e༷༷xample, an interrogative particle such as 'what' is གང་ in classical Tibetan and ག་རེད་ in spoken Tibetan. The བྱ་ marker that you see a lot in literary Tibetan to indicate 'to do' is not present in spoken Tibetan. Connection particles differ such as verb + པས་ in classical and verb + ཙང་ in spoken Tibetan for 'because, since'.

All together, you could have a very grounded and deep knowledge of Classical Tibetan, but if you speak this to a common Tibetan they would have a hard time understanding some of the sentences.

More Information: Manual Of Standard Tibetan by Nicolas Tournadre & Sangda Dorje, Appendix I.