Although the term "Tibetic" had been applied in various ways within the Sino-Tibetan research tradition, Nicolas Tournadre defined it as a phylum derived from Old Tibetan.

[2] Following Nishi (1987)[4] and Beyer (1992),[5] he identified several lexical innovations that can be used as a diagnosis to distinguish Tibetic from the other languages of the family, such as བདུན bdun "seven".

In addition, there is Baima, which retains an apparent Qiangic substratum, and has multiple layers of borrowing from Amdo, Khams, and Zhongu, but does not correspond to any established branch of Tibetic.

The other languages (Thewo-Chone, Zhongu, Khalong, Dongwang, Gserpa, Zitsadegu, Drugchu, Baima) are not mutually intelligible, but are not known well enough to classify.

[14] Tournadre (2013) adds Tseku and Khamba to Khams, and groups Thewo-Chone, Zhongu, and Baima as an Eastern branch of Tibetic.

[17] The Tibetic-speaking area spans six countries: China (PRC), Nepal, Pakistan, India, Bhutan, and Myanmar.

[2][18] Tibetan is also spoken in diaspora communities in Europe, North America (e.g. Little Tibet, Toronto), Asia and Australia.

[23] Although non-Tibetic languages (Tshangla, East Bodish) are dominant in many parts of the country, Dzongkha is also widely used there as a second-language.

[23] Within areas administrated by India, some Tibetic varieties are spoken in Ladakh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh (Kinnaur, Lahul and Spiti), West Bengal (Darjeeling and Kalimpong), as well as Uttarakhand.

[28] The four villages he mentions are Tahaundam, "Shidudan" (Japanese: シドゥダン), Sandam, Madin, the second of which he provides no romanization because the placename is uncharted on the map available to him.

[28] According to Suzuki's consultant, they migrated from Zayu County, Tibet more than a century ago although they still have contact with relatives living there, and there are few differences between the dialects of the four villages .

The Tibetan script fell out of use in Pakistani Baltistan hundreds of years ago upon the region's adoption of Islam.

Already in the 9th century the process of cluster simplification, devoicing and tonogenesis had begun in the central dialects, as can be shown by Tibetan words transliterated into other languages, particularly Middle Chinese but also Uyghur.

In the 9th century, as shown by the bilingual Tibetan–Chinese treaty of 821–822 found in front of Lhasa's Jokhang, the complex initial clusters had already been reduced, and the process of tonogenesis was likely well underway.

The next change took place in Tsang (Gtsang) dialects: The ra-tags were altered into retroflex consonants, and the ya-tags became palatals.

It was at this stage that the language spread in Lahul and Spiti, where the superscribed letters were silent, the d and g finals were hardly heard, and as, os, us were pronounced ai, oi, ui.

The words introduced from Tibet into the border languages at that time differ greatly from those borrowed at an earlier period.