[3] In terms of mutual intelligibility, Amdo speakers cannot communicate even at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch (including Lhasa Tibetan).
[5][2] Amdo is one of the Tibetic languages that have undergone a spelling reform to make the written form closer to the spoken language: Guŋthaŋpa Dkonmchog Bstanpa˛i Sgronme (1762–1823) wrote "the Profound Dharma given in the vernacular so as to be well understood by all people of weak intellect" in the early 19th century using the vernacular of the time.
[6] Modern Amdo works have continued the use of vernacular-based orthography: the 2007 novel Joys and Sorrows of the Nagtsang Boy, originally "written in kha skad", was translated to literary Tibetan and published in India in 2008.
Mabzhi is a dialect belonging to the Kokonor group of Amdo Tibetan (Tsering Samdrup and Suzuki 2017).
[10][11] mDungnag, a divergent Tibetan language spoken in Gansu, is not mutually intelligible with any of the Amdo dialects.