Agricultural Tools in the Lavrung Language

This video shows the names of various agricultural tools in the Lavrung language. There are approximately 5,000 Lavrung speakers in China. They identify themselves as Tibetans, but Tibetans who speak a language that is distinct from other Tibetans. Most Lavrung-speakers live in Dzam thang County, Rnga ba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. Currently, many Lavrung words for agricultural and household tools are being lost, as work becomes increasingly mechanized. The audio, video, and images for this video were collected by G.yu lha, a Lavrung-speaker, in order to document these vanishing words. She distributed DVDs containing Tibetan and Chinese versions of this video to Lavrung villages. The Lavrung names of the tools are shown in the International Phonetic Alphabet, since Lavrung does not have a writing system. The film was created by Klu rgyal 'bum in 2011. Funds to support the creation of this film were provided by the World Oral Literature Project and the Firebird Foundation.