The Tibetan language has been given the same legal status as Putonghua in the restive region under a law passed by the Tibet People's Congress.
According to a Xinhua report, the new law also stipulates that Han Chinese and other ethnic groups should try to learn Tibetan. But the news agency did not say how the law would be enforced.
The report instead focused on the use of the language in Tibet and how it would survive as Tibetans increasingly speak Putonghua and English. The law states that advertisements and billboards in public venues should use both the Tibetan language and Putonghua.
The Tibetan language is about 1,300 years old and is used by about 84 per cent of the 2.4 million Tibetans in Tibet. The rest speak local dialects.
Dainbe Qoidar, deputy director of a regional committee on Tibetan language, noted while there was a government department responsible for safeguarding the language, it now had the added protection of the law.