-
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CLASSICAL TIBETAN
LANGUAGE _,,
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Stephan V. Beyer
THE CLASSICAL TIBETAN LANGUAGE
SUNY series in Buddhist Studies Matth~w
Kapsuin, diror
THE CLASSICAL TIBETAN LANGUAGE
Stephan V. Beyer
no de-phyir ies-nas Nlihad-pa yin gnoii-ha thoh-nos T/Jom-po yin log-smra Ndug-nm Tlsod-pa yin -Pad-ma dkar-po
State University of New York Press
Publishal by
STAn UNIVElSITY Of NEW Yo~)( PlESS Alb~ny
C 1992 State Univcrsicy ofNcw York AJI rights rauval Prinled in lhe Uniled StaleS of Amcrico No pan of thil book may bc uso:d or "'produ«d in any IIWlRer whallOCftr without wrirten ~rmi"ion. No pur of .hi. book may bc siored in I .ellieva! Iyllem or transmilled in any form or by any means iM:[uding electronic, dccuosn.ric. maplnic <2pf. m«hanical. pho.ocopying. recording. Or otherwise wilhollt the prior permission in wriring of me publisher. For inform
Library of ConJIUI Cau.lopnr·i•• Pu.blicl.lio. Data Ikycr. Stephan V.. ]913The classia! Tibctan Jan~ J Stephan V. Bcyet. p. em. _ (SUNY Kria in Buddhisrlludicsl [ndudes bibliOS.aphic::al ",re",~ (p. ) 100 indO!, ISBN 0-7914·109')...( _ ISBN 0-7914. [1OO-[ (pbk. ) libc"n lmguagc. I. Tide. II. Sories. PU608.B49 1992 495'.482421 _ dc20 91·2449')
CIP
10 9 8 7 6 S 4 3 2 1
I Ulm to prrM"" ~hiJJm' mqr~ rAfUlly ibM I prwtuu boob, .IMh inAilluU thllt my prwwitUs IU'~ propn-/y (It'g,miud. This (mt is for Rsbm;• .
Summary of Contents ~don
... ............. ... ........... ... ..... .... .... . ..... .... v
FcrtwOnI. by MI2IfMw ICiJpIteitt ..... •.... . .••.•.. •.• • • .•... ..... .. .•..•. :ai
'"!lICe ... . ........... .. ...... . • • • .. • .. .• • • ••. • ........ • . • ...... DiU I. lotrodYdioll .............. . . .............•. • .•..... ..... • ........ 1 2. Tr.adI.......doa ......... • ........ •. ..... • . • . • .•..........•. •...... 3
3. ,....... "- COIIIat .•••.••••••.•••••.•••••• • • • •• ••• ..••• • • •• ••••••.. 7 1. Ddinln, TIbetan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . • . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2. nbetaQ and relaled IanJWIJCI ............. .• ••• • • •....... .• • ....... 8 3. ..... rUllon In TIbetan ..................... • . •. •. • ......... .... ... 18 I. Variation in New nbetan ................... • . . .......... .. .... 19 2. Variation ill Old Tibetan . . . .... • ........• •• " ....... . .. • •...... 28 • . Definin, classical Tibetan ..... .. ............. • .•. • ....... . ........ 36
4. 'I1Ie WJ1tlna.,.ea. . . ......... ... .......... • • • • • • •. ...... .• .. . .... 39 5. ,..... ................. .. .. ..... • .... .... •.• . •................ I. ArttaIlatory cScIa1ptJoni . ..... • . . .. • .........• • ••......... • ... ... 2. Aroustk 4escriptions .........•.... • .•........ . .•.• ..... ......... 3. 1'be pboDcmk inYentory ...... • •. .. .•... ... .•..• • •••..............
55 55 6l 6S
6. S,u.bteI .... .. ..............•....•..........•.•.•............. . 68 1. Lellll1b colIISuaints ........... • .... • ••........ • ••• • ....... . ...... 68
2. SJot·l'IUer COIIIttaiJlts ......... • .•.. •. •........ • . • .•.•............ 71 3. Co-occu.rrence c:oastralnts . . ... • ....•. •... ..... •. •. . .. . ...... ... .. 81 ... DIsYllabic streu pollps .......• • •..•••....... .• • •••.............. 90 7. ~
..................... . ...... . .......... . . . .. . . ... fJ7 1. Prelimlurlct . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • • . . . . . • • . . . . . . . . • • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . fJ7 2. Ledc:al morpllololY ........•. • .... • . . ... . . . . . . . • . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 I. ConstructJons .. ........ . . • . 1. CompollJlds ........ . . . • . 2. DerivatJons ......... . . . . 1. inlM:r derivation .. . ..•. 2. Outer derivation .....••
•..•. •. •. .. . . .•.•. . . . •• • . . . . . . . • • • • . . . .. . . .. . ... .. . • ..•. • ........ • • •. • .. • • •• • ..... .• •• .
•. •. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . . •....... . ..... • •• ...........
3. Word ramilies ...... . • . • . . • . • . • . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . .. 2. Borrowin, ....... .. ..... • . •. ... • . •.•. ....... • .•........... 3. Imitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • . . . . • • • • • . . . . . • • . • • • • • • • . 4. Honorifta ..... ,.. ..... .. . . . . . • . . . . . . • . • . • . • . . . . . ..
vii
102 103 111 111
119 137 138 147 152
viii
THE Cu.ss1CAJ.. TIBETAN L\NOUAOE
8, Innectlons 160 I. Inncelion withtn syllables ... .. . .................. • .•...... 161 2. Morphophonemes across syllables ......•••............ • . • • • • • • . 186 9. Phn.ses ..... .. ................... • . • . •....•.......• . • .•. . 1. Preliminaries. . . . . . . . . . .. • • • ••... .........••• • • • • ...... 2. Nominals ..................... • . • ...... . ........... . . • . .. ... ) . Phrases ., ......... ..... .... .. .•• • ......... .•. •.•••••• •. ..... 1. Nominal phrases .............. • .•.... . ........ .•.• . • . • ...... I. Simple nominal phrases ...... • .• .......... • . • • • ••••• • •..... I. Specifiers ......................... • ... • . • .•. • . • ...... I. Delimiters ........................ •.• . • .•. • . • ...... l. Determiners ..... .. ........... • • • • • •••• • •••• ..... I . Definile determ iners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . • . • . • . .. .. I. Spatial determiners ........ • • • • • .•.•.•.•...... 2. Personal determiners ... .... • . • .•.•.•.•.•...... 2. Indefinite determiners ......... • . •. .. • .•.•. • ...... 2. Renex.ivcs ..... . ............. .• ••• • ••••••••..... . 2. Quantirlers ........................ • . • .•.•.•.•...... 1. Numerals 2. Plurals ) . Thlilizen ...........•.......... •.•.• .•. • . • ...... • . Selecton . . .... . .....•....... . •••• • • • • •.•.•..... . 2. A4nominals .............. . ......... .•.•.•.•. •.•... ... 2. ConJoined nominal phrases .. ... .•. •....•.•.•.•.• . • .•.•...... 2. Verb phrases ..................•.•....... .• . • ••••••• • ...... I. Ne,alion ................... • .............. • . •.• .•...... 2. Adverbs ..................•••......... .• • ••• • • ••••......
191 191 19' 204 204 204 204 206 206 206 206 1JI1 21.
10. Simple propo$lllons ...... • . . ......•. • .......... •.•.•.•.•.•...... I. Syntactic structure .....•••......•••......... .• • • • • • • • • •••..... l. Events . .... .... . . ..•.•. . .. ........ ..•.• . • . • ...... 2. Plrticipants .........• . .. : ...•• • .......... • . • • • . • .•.•...... 2. Thematic structure .... . ...•.•......•.•.• • ••• • • • ••• . .....
252 252 252
11. Compkll pnl$!.05ltlons ... . ...•. • .. ... ..... • .•.•.•.•.•...... I. Conjoined prOJl'O$itions .......................•••••••••••••.... . 2. Nomi naliza lion ............................ •.•.• .•. •.•.• ...... 1. The nominalizers .... .. .... ............ •. • • • ••••• •• ••• •. ... . 2. Nominal itt.d propositions as heads ...........•...•.•.•.•.•...... 3. Nominaliled ptoJl'O$ilions IS modirlers ........ •.•. • . •. •. •. • ...... J. Re131ive oonSlnK1ions . .... ..... ...... • • • • • ••• • •• •••• • ... : . 2. Com plement oonstruct iqns .... • ...... : .. • . • . • .•.•.•.•......
218
220 221 230 230 232 234
,.0
242 242
,..
,., 2n
282
'" '" '" "" 302
J09
334
SUMMARY OF CoNTENTS 12. SalIC_ ....... . ......... • . • .... • . • .......... • ..... • .•......
ix
",",
Perfonn.ancc. p"nlclc:s ...... . ..• . • . ...... ... . . • . • .•.•...... 2. Modal performali...u ........ • .•.•..•.•.•.•. . ......•. •.•. •...... lSI 3. SlalemenUi .............. . • . •• • . . • . • • •.. ..... . • , • • • • • • • • ..... '52 4. Qucstions ... ........... .•. • . • . • . l56 S. Commands . ...•••••••••••..••••. . • • ... . ..•••.....•••.••••••• l62 6. Vocatives ..•..••.••.•..•••••• • •••. •••• • •.•.•••. • ••. • •••••••. 370 1.
13. .,.....
Ute
ICIIUnoe ........... • . • ....•. • ...... • ... • ... • .•...... 383
1. Eu:iamatioas . .............. • . • . .• •••• ••. . .. • • • • • • • • • • ••..... 383 2. CoDIXCtive$ •. . .•.•••••..••.• • ••• • .• . • .•.•...•••••••.• • ..•.•• 385 3. SeDICDOtS U pttieDU .•....•••.. • •••. • . • • • •••.•• ••••••..•••.•.• 390
4. Fipret or lpeccb ..................... . ........ . ..... . ..... ... 400 S. Metrics .................... . ..... .. . . . ............ . . . ...... 408 14. BlbI.Iocr-ph,. ........•. •... .. . ..•..• . • . • . . ....... . . . •. • . • ......
'"
Contents DrdiC(l(;1JIt For~"'(Jfd
by
.. . .. . • • .•••.•. . . • • . • . . • • . Y Mllllh~'"
. • . • • • • • •••••.•.•.•••• u:f .......• .• . • .......... mil
IWpsu'u,
Ptt{uu
,. . . ••. . . .. . . . . •••. •. •. •. . . . . .. . I
I. Introd ....1iun
2.
. .. .. . • . . . . ...... •.•.•... •...... ) . . . . . . . . .. ....... .• . •. • . • .•...... 3 ......•. . . . . • • . •.... • ... • • • • ••• . . .... 3 2. Digtaplls and diacritics . .... ... • . . ..... • ... . .... ..•. •.• ... .. . 4 J. Other symbob •• . .
lhonsll~",I'on
I. Pl'IOnemic symbols
... Other I. n,uap
....• . .. .. . ..... • •. •. • ...... • . • .•.•.• ' • . • S ..... ... ........ 7
. • . • . . ............... 7 I. Ddining Tibetan .... .. . . . ....... . • ... . .... . ........... 8 l Tibel2n and relaled langllJges . . ............. • . • . • ............ 10 1. Tibetan and Chinese .. . 2. Tibe tan and Burmese .............. .. . • ........ • . . . • ...•... . .. 11 3. Tibetan and the H imala~n \angllap .....• •• ..• .. .••••• .......... 14 4. Tibetan and the Western Barhilrians . . .. ..•. . ....... . •.•.•• • • . .... 16 3. Variation in Tibetan ... . .. .. .. . .... . .... • . . ....... .•. • . • .•..... . 18 I. Variation in New Tibetan . . ... . . .. • •• . ........ • • • .• .•...... 19 I. The pal;lIaiiZilltion of \abials ... .. . ... . . • • •• • . . . ..... .• • •• ... .. 22 2. 5ume southern isoglosses ... • . • .... • . • .•.......... • .... . . 24 3. Elcpllt bre.:illhincss ...........•... . ... . •.•. ..... • ......... . 26 2. Varilllkln in Old Tibetan .... ... .. .• . . .. ... .•.• .. ..... . ......... 28 L__
_
..
.
2. Manuscript varilltklns . . . . . .
. ....• .• • • ... . ........... . .. • . • . . ....• ...... 4. The pro blem of tl\c preiniliab .................. • .•.•.•....... 4. Defining clUsical Tibetan ... . ..... .. ... •. . . .. .... .• ••......• .... ..
3. RCQ)llStrllcted va riation$ . . . . . . . . . . • . .
~
31 33
34 36
4. 'The 1I'T'ItI", ' 1sklll .... . . . ........ . .. ...... . .... 39 I . Graph and sollnd .... . 2. The invenlio./l of Wl'iting ....... . . ... .• ....... . . . • . . ••• •....... ~ 3. The writing $ystem . .. . ... .•.• . •....... 42 4. The IoCript ................. • ... . • . . . . .
S. Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... . .... • . •........ ... .•. • .... ... I. ArticulalOry descriptions ........ . .. •.. .... • . • . • .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .... I. Vowels. . . . . • • .. . .•. . .. . •• • •.......... • . • ....... 2. ConsonanlS .......... ..... .......... • .•.......... • .........
" " SS
S5 55 S7
xii
THE Cl.AssICAL TIBETAN LANOUAGE 1. Place • . • .
2. Oosllre .... .................... .. • .•..... .• . •.. .. . .. 3. Voice onset time ........ .... • .... •.•. •.. .. .. . ... • . • .... ...
,." fj()
... Nasality .................. ..... ..•• •• •• .. ..... • • • •• .. .... 62 2. Aooustlc de5criptknls .............•.. . ..... • . • .... . .. .. . • . .•. . .. 6J I. Gnavlt)' . ........ .... . .. . .. . .. • .....• • • •..... . .. • . •. • ....... 6J 2. Sonorance . .... ... .. ......... . ...... . . . ....... . .... .. .... . . 64 3. The phonemic inventory . . . . ... • .. . ... • .•.•...... .. • .•....... 65 6. S),U.D6a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..••.•.•.••. • . • •• . •..•..• • •••.••. I. Leugtb ronsuainu ........... .. ...•. •. ... • . • . • . •. .......•....... 2. Slot· filler ronstraints ............. . •...... • •• • • .... • ... • ••• ... . .. 1. Are ./. and ·w· postinitla1s1 ....... • . • . . ......•.......... •... ... . 3. Co-oocurrence rons u'ainu .......... • ••....... . • • •..... ...... .. ... I. Constraints on postinitials . .... . ..•• • ... '.... _ • . • ........ • • .. ... . 1 P05linitial _y_ • . ••••...••.. . . • .••.••. .•. •. • ....•.•••.•••... 2. Poslinitial .,.............. .. • • •• •. .... . • • •.• . .... ......... 2. Consualnts on preinilials . .... , . .• ••• •. .... , •• • . ..... .. , •...... 3. Stackin, ronslT.lnu ...... . . • .......... • ' ... .. .. • • . ..... ... Disyllabic stress ,roups , ........ • . ,., • • • ..•. • .•.• . • ', . . ......... , I.Qips ..... , ........... . • . • ..... .• . . ... , •. • . •..... . • . . ... ,. J. Word clips , .. , . .... . , . • . • . ,' , • . • , ....... ..• ,., ...... .... , 2. Nominal clips .. ,., .... • • •.....••.. . ... • ••• • ...... . . .. . " . 3. Phrase clips ... . ... , .... , ...... , .. •. • .... •. •• • ,. , ..... . ... 1. Coordinate clips .. .. .. . • ... ... •.• ...... , . • . • ... . ........ 2. Mllominai clips . . . .... • •• •. . . . , • • • . . . .... • .. .. .. , 3. Relalive clips ... , ....... ....... •. • , ..... •. •. •. ......... 4. Verb ..:lips ... .. . .... . . ... .. • .•. • ...... • . • .. .. ... .. .. , 2. Syllabic cycles ... . ......... . • ...... •• • ...... • ••• • ' . . . . . . .
6& 6& 71 7.. 81 81 81
84 87
89 90 92 92 9'l 93 9J 94 94
9S 9S
7. WonIs .•••....••.. .• . •.•••...•• • •• ..• •• • •• •. •.. • .••••..••. .
97 I. I'rcliminaries ... , , .... .. ....... . •. . .. . .•. . ..... . • • • • •.... , ..... 97 I. The scope or morpnolOgy .. . ...... • .. . .. ' • . • . • . • ...... , . 97 2. The "parIS or speech" . . . . . . .. • . • .... • •• .• .... ..•.• ...... . ... 98
2. Lexical morphology " . .
. .. . • ••... . • ••• _ . . . . . • • . . .
. .... 9'iI
1. ConstruC1ions .. , . . . . . . .. •.•. • ... _ • • . .. .. ....... I. ComPOllnds . . . . . . . . .. ........ . . • .• . ..... • . . .. • .. . .. , I. Native rompounds ........ , . , ... , , . ' " ... .• . •. • ' ........ I. NOUN + NOUN - NOUN .... . .... . .. , . .. • ••••• • .. . , ... 2. ADJECY'IV£ + NOUN"'" NOUN ................• .. . ... .. . 3. NOUN + ADJEcnvE ..... NOUN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . • . . . . . .. ... ADJECIlVE + AOJEcnvE ..... NOUN ....... • . , . • • • • • . . . . . .. S. NOUN. + VERB - VERB ,. • . ••• .• •••••• ,.. . . . . . . . . .... 2. Ttanslation rompouDds ... ,., . ............... . .......... . I . ADJEcnVE + AOJEC'7lVE ..... NOUN .... ...• .•••• • • • ' .... ,.
102 103 103 103 104 104
I~ 106
10'7 107
xiii 1. NOUN + VI!JlA ). 1N11!.HStF11!A ~
+
NOUN •.••••••.•.••••••• • •••••••••••. lOS
VERB -
VERB •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 110
DcriYaOOIli ••••••••••..••.••• , •••• ••• , •••• ' •• • ••• , •••••• HI
1. IlUICt dutvalloa ..............•....•......•.•. • ........ 1. Chlnae olledal caleaory ........ . ....... ..•• ......... . 2. Vok:tlll aad lBMltMry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • . . . . . . . . .. ). 1lM: IonIIadvc In' "H0t40It.1FK:" • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • . • . • • • • • •• 4. llIe 1IonDIti¥e In , " HlIMAN IK)()Y rAk1"' ........•• • .•..... . , . llIe fonnIllYe , . " AHIMAL R
.................... .
...
.....
111 111 112 II I
114 11'
6. 1k foJmlltlYe , . '"nVoHsmvl!" ..........•.•.... • .•...... 116 7. The foraatM -4 "NOMINAl." •.••• . • • •••••••.•• • . • .••••• 117 a. Tbe fonnItM ~ · "NOMtNAI." ••.••••••.•.•••••••••..•••• 117 9. 1lIc IonaIli'I'IC ., "'ttoMIHAI.'o' . . • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• 118 ••.•••••••••••• 119 2. 0u11Cl ckriYIl lotli • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • . • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •. 119
to. 'The formattYe '-4-'~ "1tI1UH1l' c:ou..tt'11VI!"
1. Sylllbk formatha ............. . .... .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. The fonnItM ·lIid "·NESS" ...... . ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Tbe formatfve 'pG "'EJUON HAV!NO TO DO wmi" . . . . . . . . . ' ). The formative -mkJo.M "SJuu.EO IN" • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• 4. 1'be Ionutfve ,mo-d/w " 810 OCD Of" .' ..........•.....
119
Jl9 120 120 12 1 5. 1k fonnalive -lUll "POSSESSIHO" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . .. 121 6. 1lIe fotmatt¥e .ytU "·LESS" • . • . • • • • • • • • • • • • . • . • • • • • • •• 122 7. 1be ronutive -h-. (I "OIMtNtmVE" .••• . .••••••••••..• 122
a. Sa fonIWIli¥el
••.••• ..•••• .••••.• • ••..••••••••••. ' 123
I. The tonN.ltva __ "fEMAl..£" aad 'pbo"MALE" . ..• ..... 1. An'-l ~ ton!IatiWI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • . .. 3. 1'be formIltva __ Ind __ " F1!MAl£" ••••••• •••• •• .• 4. Nlma ......... .. ......... . ..........•••......
121
5. OCOVlpby ............. . ............ .• . • ...... 9. 1lIe formative ,l'Ho " ADJECT1VFlACarr" ••••.••••.•.••••. 10. Tbe forClUltive ' 111 " I'UCE WHfJl£" .............••..... 11. Tbe formative ·/III " NONll'lAL" •••.••••.• : ••.••••.••••. 12. The forlllltive ' E "ADlI,ClT\IE" ....•.......•. ' .......•. 13. 'The torl'Dlti¥e -4/r.4-.k#-.p " NOIJ1ll" ••••••••••••••.••
127
.~.~~
....
. . . . . . . . . . . ......
1. Nominal reduplictl ioa .... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . ~ Verb tcduplkaooll .....................•........... 1. Word familia ........... .. ...•. . .•...... . .•• • ....•.... 2. 8oJl'O'lriaI .................. . ....•... • . . ....• . •• • .• . ..•... 1. 'lhlIsfm ................ • .. • .•....•. ,.. ...... . . . .......
2. ReproductioN ............ • ....•......•. , . . . . . . • . • . • . . . .. 1. to.lI tralUlltlona ............•.•....•.•. ,..... . ........ 2. Loaa aatiolll .. .. . .... .. ....• • • •....• • •••.....• • ..... ). MIIc4 fonIII ............. .. • ...... • ... . ....•.•..........
.. BKlfonIU .. . ... . ... .... , . . .. .. ... . . ... ...... .. ........ .
124 125
126 127
129 130 131 133 ~
134
1» 117 138 139 142 142 143 145
..
,
3. ImltatloDl . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 I. lAtefjecdolU ......... • ...... ,., .. ...... , ., .•.•••• , .... . . 147 2. OnomatOpoeia. . . . . . . . . . . . •. . • . • . • . . . . . . . . • . • . • . • . • . . . . .. 147 3. Poetic word play ••• . . • • •. . ••••. • ••••••.• • • • • • • •.• • • •••••• 148
4. HonoriHa .. .. .. . ........ .. ..... . .......... . .. ............ 1. The use of bonorifia ............ • . •. ....... • . • . • . • . • ...... 2. ElepQOt and social vector ........ ... .... ..... . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Primary bollOtifia ....... . ...... • . . ........ •. • . • . • . • ...... 4. DelK>tation Ind connotation . . . . . • . • . • . . . . . . • • • • • • • • • • • . . . . .. , . E upbemisll!. ........ ... .. .... ~ . • . • . . . . • . • . • . • • • . • . • . • . . .. 6. Secundlry bonori~a . ........ . .. .. •. . . . ....• .• . • . • . • ...... 7. Kinship tenns .. . ........ . • ..... •• ••... .• • •••• • • • ........
1'2 1'2 1' 3 1S4 155 156 156 157
&. IIIIIcJaIonI .•..•••..•. .. ...•......••.•. • • ••••••••. • .•• • •••••••• 160 I . Innect lo n within sylla bles . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . • • . . . . . . . . • • • • • • • • • • . . . .• 161 I. Ttnse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . . . . . • • • • . • . • . . . . . . .. 161
2. Roou Ind Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . . . . . . . . . . • . • . . . . .. 162 3. 1}-pcs o f innectlonal NJe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . . . . . . • . • . • . • . • . . . . .. 162
4. 'O"ansitive Ind int ra nsitive verbs . . . . . . . . . • • • . . . . . . • • • • • • • • • • . . . .. 163
5. Plradipns ................... . ....•.•...... • . • . • . . . • .... . . 164 6. Aft"1lI Nics . . ..... ....... . . ........ • .•. • .• • . .. • . • .•. • ... . . . 1. Tbe prerLll N · . . . • • • • • • . . . • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •• . . . . . 2. The preflll G· . . . • . . . . • • . . • • • • • • . . • . • • • • . • • • • • • • . • . • • • • • •• 3. The prefo b. . .. . . . .. •. . .. •. •. .. .• .•. . . .. . . . . .• .•. . . . . . 4. Tbc , ufflJl: '$ ....... . . . .. ... • • . ... .• ••. . .. ... . . . • •• . ..... 7. Root rules .............. . .... • . • .... . . • . • . . ........ • ...... I. \fQice dw im ila tio n . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . . . . • . • . • . . . . . . . . • • • • . . . .. 2. UnstoPpinl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • . . . . . • • . • . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . .. 1. ublal N ics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . • . . ......•.......... •. ..... 8. TIle Pft5ent stem t:kl4rdt ... .. .. . . • ... . .••••....... .• .• • ..... 9. &ceptions Ind irrclularities . ... ...••..... .• . • . • ........ • • ... .. 1. Scrib:ll erron . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . .... • .•. . .. .......... . .. 2. Mllltiple ( !u.s mc mbenh ip ..... . . • . . . . . . • . • . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . 3. MUlti plc underlien .......... . • • • • . . • . • •• • • . ... • • • •.• . 4. Connict of rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . • . • . • . . . . . . . . . . • . . !Ii. $lIpplction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . • . . . . .. 6. RCJVilr irrc,uilrilies .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • • • • • . . . • . . • . • • • . . . . .. 2. MorpbopboftC lDtI ICfOIoS syllablc& • • . . . . • • • . • • . . • . • • . • • • • • • • • • . • • • •• I. Articulato ry ISIlmilallo n ....... .... •.... • . • . • .. • ... • . • . • . . .... 2. Oravity dwimiialion ............... . .. • •• • • • .. ; . • • • • • • • • . . . . . 3. Sooorlnc::e ISSlmUltion .. . . ... . ........... • .... .... .... • ...... 9.
nr- ....... .. ............. ... . . .... . .. . . .... . . . . .... . ... . . .
166 167 167 168 168 169 170 171 173 175 176 177 181 182
III 184
185 186
116 117
1M
,., '"
1. PrcUmlaariel ..... ... ........ • .. ...... • . •• •.... • . • . • . • .• • . ...• 1. Syfttu l&d morpholol)' ..•..•••. ... ••• • ••• • •••••• • • • • • • • ••• ••• 191
2. Overview o f tile syntax .... ... . 1. The "Thlegl"f.m Principle ......... . 1. The eliminalion of redun4ancy 2. Old and new info rm.lio n ..... . 1. TIle o mission of role part k les ...... . ..... . . • • . • ..... . . . •. 2. Nominal5 ..... .... ......... . ...... . .......... . ........ . I. Definition ...................... • ........ • . • ........ . . 2. Head Ind modifier ...... . 1. Basic patlems ..... 4. Enended pallern.s ........... . .... . . • • .. ..... .• • ... . 5. Adjeaives ......... . . ... . . • • . . ...... • •• . • . 6. Headless modifM:~ .. ... ... ..... ..... ..• ....... . J . Phru.c:s ........... . I. Nomina l phrases . ........ .. . . . • • . .. . .... • • • ... . I. Simple nomina l phrases .. . . .. . . . . ...... • . • . I. Specifiers . . .......... . . .. • . . .. . I. Delimiters ..... . . . ..• • . .. . 1. Dete rminers . . . t. Definite dete rmine n 1. Spalial determiners ......... . . 2. Perso n.l dete rminers . . . I . U nma rked and specialized fo rms 2. Honorific delerminen ... J. Speaking roles 4. HumilirlC$ ..... . S. From humililie to personal determine r 6. Sex· marked personal dete rminers . ... ....... . . 7. Personal delerminer taib . ......... . . . . 8. The archaic determine r 0-1,1 2. Indefinite determiners 1. Head less indefin ites 2. Indefinite adverbs . 2. Reflexives 2. Quanlifiers ............ . ......... . . I . Numerals 1. From o ne to ninely· nine ...... ..• .. 2. aipped numerall ....... . 3. Numerals as selecton ....... . 4. La rge numbers ................ • .• . S. Fra'tlQn~ . . •. . ... 6. Collective no uns Ind adjectives . •.. ... . . 7. Ordinall . . 8. Dis tributives .. 9. Weighl5 and measurcs . . 10. Paginatio n .. .
191 194 194
I"
""
199 199 199
200 100 201 203
"" "" 2IJ.I
2f)4
.',I»" 206
'" 207
••
".
"" 2IU 112 112 2 1.'
' 14 ' 1< ' 16 216
2IK
22
'"
""
T HE Cu.ssICAL TIBETAN lANGUAGE
2. PluDIs ................ . ....................... . J. 1b~ l iurs ....... . ...... . .................. . 4. Selectors .. ..... ............ • .•.•.•.•.... .. .. .... 2. AdnomiNiIs ..................... • .•. • .•.•............ I. Basic modification patle rru . .. .....•• • ••••........ • ..... 2. lfpes of modifica tion .... ........•.•. • ..... • .......... J. Recursion ....................•.•.................. 4. Headless adnomiNils ..... . . . .• • •• ..............•..... 2. Conjoined no mina l phrases ........... • .•.•............ • ..... 2. Verb ph rua .................... . • ••• • • •... .......• •.. .... I . NegatiOD ... . .................... • .•.................... I . 1brm negations .....•.........•.•.•.•.•........ • . • ..... 2. An idiom with MED .•••••...•.• • • •• • • •• •• . •.•. • • ••••.••• 3. Universal nela tion .... .. ... .... . • .•. • .................. 4. Double negation .................. • .•.•................ 2. Adverbs. . . . . .. ....• .. .•.... • • • • • ••.... .. • • ......
2J() 2J()
232
234 234 2J5 236
23' 240 242
'" '" '"
246 247 248
10. Simple pt'Oposllions .. ••••.....•••• • .••• . ••..• • • • ••.•...••.••.... 252
l. Syntactic st ructure .................... .• . • •• • • • •.............. 1. EventS .............................. .•. • .•.•. • . • . ... . ... I. Equations ............. . . ............ • • • • •.•.•.•. • ...... 2. lhnsitive and intrlfls itive verbs .......... . .•••• • • • ••• •••.. ... J. Ergat ivity ..... .. .................... • ... • . • . • . • .•...... 4 ...'Ttns.e"
252 252
25S 258 25'
,.,
.. .... . .................... .• ••••••. • .••• • ..... 26'
I. The lem.e system . ....... • . •. . . ..... • . • . • .•.•.•. • ...... 2. Periph rastic forlllS ....... • .•.•......•.•.•. • . • .•.•...... 2. Panicipa nl5 . . . . . . . . . ...• ••.......•• . • • • • • • • • . ...... I. The patient role ............. • . • .............. •. • .•...... 2. The lIgency role ............. • • . ...... •.•.•. • . • •• • • • ..... J. The locus and source roles .... ...•.•.•........ . ...•. • ...... 4. The acoo mpa niment role . ...... •.•.•... .• . • ... • . •.• . • • ... .. 2. Thematic SUuctu re . . .... ... .. ..... •••.• .. . ....... • .. • .. • ...... I . Par ticipant o rder . . . . . . . . . . . . .•.•. • ......... ... .. • . '..... 2. Thpics ............ . .......... ...... •. .. ..• • •.• • •••• . ..... 1. The tOpica lizer IIi . ....... . ........... . .•. • ... • ...... 2. The panicle -Ill as topica lizer .................... • . •. •...... J. Iden tmcaHon and definitio n wil ~ -STt • ••••. .•• • • • •• • • • _ • •. .••. I I . Co.pln pl'OJlO"iltions
................. • .. . ... ...... 1. Conjoined propos itions . . ... . . . . . . • . •• •. ...... . ... . 1. Conjunctions. . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . • • • . .. ... • ... . . . . 1. The alternative conjunction ... ...... '1.. The adven.ative conjunction '.. . . . .•. •. . . .. . I. Dialect varionts ... .. , . . . .. . . • • • • •• • • . .1. The wonJinative conjl.lllctio:l . .. . ' . .... • • . ••. . . ..
.... ... . . . ... .
,.2 263 263 2M 267
270 272 272
m m 278
2'"
xvii 1. Simultaneous and periphrastic con.muaions 2. Dialect variants .................... .. •.•••.... • .. . ...• 2. Gapping .............................. " ....... • . •... .... 2. Nomililiution ..... . ................. ........... ...•. •• ...... 1. The nominali:o.eR ............ ..... . ........................ . 1. Paticnt-«ntcrcd nominalizeR ........................... _... 1. 1be nominalizer -~ "rATIEHT OF rRorosmor-l 2. The nomililizeR -O-dog/-dgu/-u1uJd "ALL rATIEHTS OF PROl'O$mOr-r" .......... .•... .•.........•....... 3. The nomililizer .1>Iphro "REMAINDER OF PATIENT OF rRoros mON" ... . ..... .. ....................... 2. Ploposilion-o:nterc4 nominalizen ....... ... , •................ 1. The nomllilizer -hi ..•.•••.••••..•••••.•••••••••••••••• 2. The nominalizer ·sa "ruo.CE WHERE rRorosmoN" ......•...... 3. The nominalizer -grog:J '"liEU wml rROl'OSmON" .......•...•.. 4. The nomililizeR ·mkJuuJ/-mi '"PERSON INVOLVED IN rROPOsmON" ....... . ....... ............ • ...... 2. Nominalized propositions as heads ........... .. ..........• . ....• I. Multiple embedding .................. •. • ......•.•.••..... 2. 1be o mission or·1'O .................... • . • .•...... •..... . 3. Propositional adverbs ............. , ... • .• • • • •. , ..• ••...... 3. Nominalized propositions as modifien ...........•.. ....•.•...... 1. Relative construc.:1ions ................... .. •. • .. • ... •.. .... 1. Discunus on English relativiution .........•.•..... . •..... . 2. Rclalive prop<:l$itions after the head ........•.•...... • ...... 3. Relative propositions berore the head ......•• •• .... •.• • . .... •. Relativized propositions and adjectives ...... •. •. •. .......... 5. Dummy role particle carrieR ... . ... • ••. ..... • ...... 6. Headless relatives ...................... • . • .•.....•..... 7. States and proa:s.scs . . . . . ........... • . • ...•........ 8. Multiple embedding ................. .• • • • • • • •• .. •. ..... 9. Balanced relatives ....................... •. • ........... 10. ComplCl: re1ativized propositions .. ... •. ... •••• • .... •...... 2. Complemtnt oonstructlons ~ . ...............•• • .•.... • •..... 1. Complement heads ... .. ... ............. ..•.• .... ....... 2. Nominal complements .................. •.•.•.. .. • ..•... 3. Verb oomplements ..................... • .•• • ....•...... I. "JYpes of oomplement conuruction ........ .• .•..•........ 1. "Type I complement oonstructions ..... • •• . • .... • •••... 2. 'tYpe 2 complement oonstructions ..... • .• .•....•...... 3. 'tYpe J complement oonstructiOns ....... • .•. •.... .. .. . of. 'tYpe of oomplemcnl constructions ....... • .•..•........ 2. Complex complements. '............. ..•.• ••. ........ '.' 3. The omission of·1'O ... ......... .....• • • •• ....•...... •. Equative oomplemenu ....... , , , ....•.•. • .•....•.•... . H
••••••••••••••
290
291 293
,.. 29S 296 296
m 298 299 299 300 301 301 302 303 lOS 307 308 309 310 312 316 317 318 325 327 329 332 334 334 335 335 337 338 339 341 342 342 J40f
344 J4.4
xviii
TilE ClASSiCAl TIB ETAN LANGUAGE
S. On translltint Sanskrit vcrbs 1. Simple fo rms .... 2. Pe riphr u tie fornu
12. Smtrncu 1. Pe rformance ~rticlcs 2. Modal pcrrormativc:s . ) . Sta te menu ............. . I. The $Iatement panicle .. . 2. R«Iunc1Jncy ). n..: promise ~nicle ·1OU ...... . . 4. The WoIrnin, ~rticle ·A-re _ •.••• • ... ...• • •. • . 4. Questions _ .. ............. . . 1. The qLICStio n panicle _ .. . 2. Questions and alternat ives . . _ ... •.. ..... . . • . .. . ). Info rmat io n questions 4. 'The doubt particles .... . S. O lmmand.5 ......... . I. The command ~rticle . . 2. Polite a nd elepnt command! .. 3. Impersonal oommands ..... . 4. Requesu ........ . S. Linked imperatives 6. 'The info rma l comma nd part ic le 6. Vucal ives .... . . . • •. • .. .. . . . 1. Inilial and fina l vocalives . . . . . . ... . .... • .•. 2. Titles or rcspct't ............ __ . . ) . Othe r voca tive aprw iOns ... . 4. The structure or Tibelan namC$ ....... _ . 1: Personal names . . 2. ~pcs of personal names . ........ . J. Gro,raphk:al and family na mes 4. Epithe ts ... S. Namcs and epithets in vocative phra.ses 13. ~ 1M Kftt(1K'C •••••••. . • • . . . . . • . . . I . Exelamatio ll5 .... . . _ ........ _ . . .
...... . . I . Hypolhelical e.prcssions 2. Hypothetica l e llip5i5 ... ) . ElIelamatioll5 in · PtJ·lo 4. ElId3matio ns in -rr - ... 2. Co nne<:live5 \ . The co nnective Yn ..l 2. Doo..un.c co nnectives ) . Ph rasal ronna;tives ... . ..... .. . .
,..,
146 348
35 ' 35'
3m" m m 353
'" 356 357
'"
358
36' 362 363 36' 366 367 368
,., 370
370 371 373 373
374
'"
377 379
38' 383 383 383
"" "" 3" '"387 '" 388.
4. yan in IIIe K lling 510 1 . . • •. •• • • . . . . . . . . •. • . . ;\lUI 5. Proposiliomll oonnccliyu . . . . . . • . • • • • . . . . . . . . • • • . . .lllO .l. Senlences as pallcnu ........... .. .....•........ •. ...... . . . ... .'QO
I. Quote openet5 .............•... . .• • . • ........•.•.....
.'ul
2. 11M: quote clalcr TkJ ... ...........••• • ......• •• ••.......... .'<)1 3. Queliions as pallcnu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • . • . . . . . . • . • . . . . . . . .'07 4. Figure. of spcc:dl .•.. ... ••.••.••. • •••.••• ..•• •.•.•.. . .••..••.. 4Al I . Metapllof ........ ..... . • •. .. • •• . .... • • • • . . ... . • •• . • . 4f'O 2. Similes ..................•..•. • .. ..• ... • ........• • . ...... 40S
5. Metrics ............. .. .....•.... • ........ • ....... .. .•...... 44'lIl I. 2. 3. 4.
Definitions ........ • ••.......... ••• . ..... . •. • ...... .
UlIj.
~ic:
mappin l ....................•.•....... •• ............. 40Q Synalcpl'lll .•••••••••••••••••••.•..• .•• •••••••••• • ..•. ... .. 41 0 Catak:xis ........ .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •.• ........ • .•....... 41)
5. Aperiodical mctet5 . . ..............• . ..• . •• . ..... • • •• • •..... 415 6. U nstrcucd syllables in Jtronl positions ..........•. • ...... •• ...... 41 9 7. VJril tion in the laS! root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •.. ............ 422 14. BlblMlip1Ipb" •••. • ••••. .•••••. •.. . ..•..•• ••. .•••• • •• • ..• • •..••. I . Cultural backuound. ...... • .......... . . .• .•...... • . • .......... 2. Bibliograph ies '. . . . . . . . . . • • •• . .. . •. . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. • . . . . 3. Gra mm:.,", ...............•. •. .•••..... • • • • .... ... • • .• . .. .. . 4. Dictklnarlcs .......... .. ..•.•.. .. • ........ • ........• .. ... ... S. GklMarie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • . . . . . . .. . .•.•. . . .. . . . 6. Place names .... . 7. LcDcoVlphk: Stud ic$ ................. • ......... ........ 8. Tibetan IQU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . • • •....... • •. • .. 9. Tibetan U11M lliions rrom Sanskril .. . .. .•••••.... . ••• • •.. 10. Writing ........... ..... ........... . •........ • .•....... 1 I. LanfUIgc: clauificatioll$ ....... ...... ...••. • .. ... 12. Related lanlUJIP ............... .. . . .. • ••.......• • •• . . 13. Co mparisons Ind rtronstruet ions . . . .. • ...... 14. Wo rd ramllies ..... . IS. New Tibetan dial«ts .................. . . •• ••... . 16. Morp1'lolozy and SynlU ...... .... .. .. •...... •. •......•.• . 17. History o r TIbe ta n ...... .. ..•.•.... . ... ... • .. .... .. . .... 18. Utera'Y .tlldie5 ... .. ........ • • . .• • . . .. . . . • ••• .....• • . •. 19. Literl lure in motion ...........•. . .• • ..... . •• •.. ... . . • • . ... 2O.' 1lIc TIbcllln gram marians ................. . ..... • .... 2 1. Tibetan hermeneut ics ........ . ........•. . ...... • ...... 22. Tibetan p*mmar in oontext ..... ... .. ... • . • . • .. .. .
23. lbnual criticis m ... .. ... .. ...... • ... . . • . .• ... ....•.•• . 24. ltanslatioll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....• •• ..... . •• • .. ... • .•• .• .
25. Ethnopoella ............... • .... • . . . . ..... . . 26. 0d45 altd eDds •••.. . . • • .. .. • • .. • • . . . . . . . . . . . . . • •. ..•.
42,1 424
425 425 41.6
42R • .W
..,. 4.'1
.....
" 2
",
"1 ' 56 457
.,. "'" 411
"'" ....
...
"'" ,., '" ."" 4Q.'
Foreword The year 1959 marks an abrupt turning point in the history of Tibet. The night of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama to India, where he was followed by close to a hundred thousand of his fellow Tibetans, created a nation in exile dedicated above all to the preservation of the unique cultural institutions of its homeland. Not surprising, then, that during the past three decades the
-academic study of Tibet has been radically transformed. No longer the special preserve of adventurer-scholars able to mount expeditions to the Land of Snows. or of philologically oriented "buddhologists.," whose: Tibetan reo searches were almost exclusively confined to the translations of Sanskrit texts, Tibetan studies increasingly came to focus upon the indigenous Tibetan tradilions of religion. learning and art that are the primary interests of Tibetans themselves. Prominent among those whose scholarship reflected the changed conditions for research during the first two decades of Tibetan exile was a specialist in the field of Buddhist Studies. Stephan Beyer, then of the University of Wisconsin, whose superb contribution to the documentation and interpretation of Tibetan Buddhist ritual, The Cull of Tara, marked the first fruits of his wide-ranging researches. After the late seventies. however, Steve increasingly devoted his energies to a ~reer in law, having completely abandoned-or so it was widely rumored-his work in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies. 1 was therefore surprised and delight(!d to learn, after I joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1986. thai Steve was both in Chicago (with the firm of Sidley &. Austin) and that in his spare time he had remarkably completed a grammar of literary Tibetan, which he had begun at the University of California-Berkeley some ten years before. In 1988 Steve sent me a copy of the manuscript I immediately felt it to be an extremely exciting work, renecling throughout the author's wide-ranging knowledge of Tibetan literature, in its many genres and forms, anciern and recent. A distinctive feature of Steve's approach to the Tibetan language is his almost complete abandonment of the morphological and syntactic categories. barr.owed from Indo-European grammars, that have traditionally informed textbooks of Tibetan. The "canonical" status of this mismatching was reinforced both by indigenous Tibetan grammatical tradition, which derived its own analytic and descriptive categories from India, and by the emphasis,
xxii
TIfE CiAssICAL TIBETAN lANGUAGE
in Western philological circles, nn the study of literary Tibetan primarily as an adjunct to the study of Sanskrit Buddhist texts. For those who were inclined to direct their attention primarily to work.!; of Tibetan authorshipepic. history, biography, poetry, and so forth-it has long been clear that Indo-European models were both inadequate and misleading. but the effort to correct the powerful disposition to continue to adhere to them was largely limited, as it was in Jacques Bacot's still useful Grammtlin, to the enumeration of the S
CollllDbia Unfvc:lShy Vesat: 1991
Preface In 1975, I accc:pted an appointment u a visiting associate professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and I looked around (or a nice portable project to "take with me. It is" a measure of my innocence that t decided to start writing a grammar of classical Tibetan. Now, more titan fifteen years later, tbe project is about as finished as I am ever going to make it. During
those
fiftee~
years, I returned to the University of Wisconsin at Madison,
abandoned "my tenured appointment, and began a career as a trial lawyer with the firm of Sidley &. Austin in Oiicago. During fuat time., too, it would be (air to say that my work on this grammar was sporadic. Yet somehow, during !Ill those odd moments, a stadt of handwritten notes about two feet high--examples from the classical literature, attempu at theorizing. jumbles of cross-referenceJ-bccame the product you now have before you. My motive was simple-to move the Tibetan language from my head to paper. I hope someone finds the result useful. I am not a Tibeto-Burman linguist; but I believe that the reader of classical Tibetan texts should have some sense of the place of the language in the speech communities of the world. References in this text to Tibeto-Burman languages other than Tibetan are based on. several secondary sources, chief of which is Paul K. Benedict, Sitw-1'ibetan: A Consp«ru.s (Cambridge: Cambridge Unive rsity Press, 1912), as edited and annotaled by James Matisoff, and David Bradley, Proto·L%ish, Scandinavian Institute of Asian StudieJ Monograph Series No. 39 (London: Curzon Press, 1979). Comparative citalions of Tibeto-Burman forms are largely taken from these two remarkable compilations. In addition, I have relied on the stream of works produced by the Summer Institute of Linguistics on the languages of Nepa~ in partir.ular the various works of Warren W. Glover on Gurung and the works in the four volumes of Austin Hale and David E. Watters, Clause, sernence, and ducour.'iI~ patterns ill u/teted /onguogfi o{ Nepal, Summer Institute of unguistics Publications in linguistics and Related Fields 40 (Kathmandu: Summer Institute of linguistics and Tribhuvan University, 1973). In the bibliography at the end of the text, I have tried 10 include not only the texts upon which I have relied but also the texts Ihat the literary scholar might find enlightening. In all my reading on the classical Tibetan language, 1 have returned again and
TUE Cu.ssICAL TIBETAN UNGUAGE
again to the works of three scholarly pioneers of Tibetan studies-Berthold Laufer, Gb.a Uray, and Rolf Stein. They_represent the best scholarship to which I could aspire, and I cannot put forward this book without acknowledging the debt I owe them. I also cannot forebear from mentioning the name of E. Gene Smith, whose work is scattered in inlroductions and prefaces to the works of others: the collection of these into a single and accessible volume is a scholarly desideratum which is, unfortunately, not likely to occur soon. I owe a great personal debt to Professor Matthew Kapstein of Columbia University, for his friendship, encouragement, good sense, and extraordinary knowledge of the Tibetan language. No writer could hope for a better or more thorough reader, or for a more discerning critic. Thanks, too, to Professors lames Malisoff of the Universiry of California and F. K. Lehman of the University of Illinois for their ge nerow help, encouragement, a nd suggestions. Finally, I want to thank my friends and law partners Mike Davis. Bill Richmond, and Doug Fuson. Their friendship and support helped me write this book, even though they did not know it. One final note. If you want to learn classical Tibetan, you can do no better than to sit down and read A TibetalJ-English Dictionary by H.A. Uschke, o riginally published in 1881 and reprinted several times thereafter. laschke was a Moravian missionary in Ladakh, and I do not think that any other scholar of Tibetan has ever equalled the linguistic insight exhibited in this dictionary. And if you want to learn how to nttNK ABOUT classical Tibetan, you should sit d~ and read-twice-James A. Mati50ff, Variational Semllnlia in Tibeto-Bunnon, Occasional Papers of the WoUenden Society on Tibeto-Bunnan linguist.ics 6 (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1978), which is simultaneowly one of the most sensible and sensitive books on doing Tibeto-Burman linguistics I have ever read.
....
"'May
1991
STEPHAN
V.
BEYER
1
Introduction
This book is intended to describe the reading of texts in the classical Tibetan language. It is nal a complete survey of all aspects of Tibetan grammar,
although I have tried to include everything I thought it was imponant to know. It is intended to describe the READING of classical Tibetan; therefore it will nOl anempt to teach the reader to speak either Old Tibetan or some:
modem Tibetan dialect. I Rather my aim has been to provide procedures for the understanding of 1eXTS....... that is, coherent discourses with literary o r philosophical content, whose authors ustd the resources of their language to convey meaning. Moreover, this book describes the reading of CI..A$SICAI.. Tibetan. I have
excluded from systematic consideration the modern newspaper language at one end and the language of translated Indie texts at the other. This leaves a sufficiently immense corpus of written Tibetan material for us to work from. 1
I This limitation bas made tbe descriptive wk much easier. A RECOGNmON (lRA,MMAR sud! as this need not incorponte the ou tput oonstn ints required in I rRooucnoN GRAMMAR, under the as.sllmption UtilI II reader limply will not encounter synlatlical1y ill· formed seqllCllCai, wbereas I beginninl spea ke r mly wdl produce them. For eumpJe, • production pmmar of English WOuld require bolb I role to produce the sequencesgoodntSl .Dd (orTfft1ltn . nd I oonsnaint on tbe 5I1nC rille to 'prevent tbe sequences '!tnJtMSS or '!1froII&MSS (as opposed 10 tnJlh or srrmgrh). Bull tcoopilion lramntlr wollld need only a role IJklwinl such sequences IS roodntSl o r conut1ltS$ 10 be interpreted wben e ncountered. It tnJtnaI Of stroftpwn should lurn up in a len, Ibey could be procc:ss.ed by IIIe same ru le; if ItOt, tbe qllCSlion does not arise.. 1 Ilbink it Is flir 10 say thlt Ihe translated materials have bun more intensively studied lbIn works origin.aJIy oompo$Cd in Tibetan, because of the primlrily Indololicai Interests of II\IJIy scboJ.n of Tibetan; mosl cxblinl textbooks refl«t this interesl. 1bere can be no cSoubl, 01 course, lhat tbe cllssical ian&uage, as here defined. Is closely reJ.ted 10 the tnlnslllioQ Ianpaae. BUI il is cleat 100 ttlall'e language of the lranslalions exhibits ilS own pccul.ilriliQ, including ()l;Qlionally opaque attempts It reprod~n& Sanskril synlU. "TheK pcculilrilks, I firmly believe. Ire best Inllylcd from the point of view of Ihe glmmar of utM TIbetan works, rather !ban lhe olher .... y around.
z
TilE CLASSICAL TIBETAN t....o.NOUAO E
Finally, I hope to introduce classical Tibetan as a LANGUAGE, with a history, with a range of styles., and with ongoing processes of creation and change.
Too often the Tibetan language is seen either as a poor substitute for un· fortunately vanished Sanskrit texts, or as a spiritual code whose valu.c lies solely in the message it conceals-with the result that the language itself is neglected as a medium of great range, power, subtlety, and humor. I hope to rescue Tibetan from its subordination 10 lndie criteria, and to help the reader proceed not only with some grammatical confidence but also with an aware· ness of the individuality and literary potential of the language. I hope to provide the reader with conceptual tools for an intelligent and critical reading of Tibetan texts. I hope to share some of my affection for the Tibetan language.
2
'1.ransliteration I. PHONEMIC SYMBOLS
In this book I will use the following inventory of symbols to transcribe Tibetan of all periods:
FRICATIVES
STUPS
h
1
OLOlTAL
VElAR
k
g
z
'1
PALATAL
<
j
f
RETROFLEX
r
4
I
,
d
s
DENTAL
,.....IAL
p
SONORANI'S
• "
, ,
f
b
•
I
Y
,
n
r
m
w
Tabk 1. 7hvu/i(mltion of COtlS(JNJIW
BACK
FROI
j
U
,
a
> t
,
,
a
LOW
Z. DIGRAPHS AND DIACRITICS Combinations of symbols will be used 10 represent AFFRICA11'.S (such as ll, dz,
3
4
TIlE ClASS[(".A1. TmETA.~ LANGUAGE
pf), ASP IRATES (such as kh, bh. ISh), PALAT....Ul.ED COt-lSOl'IANTS (such as klly, zy. my), and similar modifications. A small subscript circle will indica te that a normally voiced phoneme is VOICEl[.<>S, as in New Tibetan (Lhasa) Ja "god" as opposed to /a "mountain pass." An umlaut will indicate that the marked vowel is articulated at the end of the mouth other Ihan the usual one - that is, thaI a normally back rou nded vowel is a FRONT ROUNDED vowel at the same height, as in New Tibttan (Lhasa) Iii "tell," where the vowel is rronted as opposed to Iu "sit" and rounded as opposed to Jj "destroy"; or Ihat a normally from spread vowel is a HACK SPRFAD vowd al the same height. 35 in New Tibetan (Amda) .f iji "field," where the vowel is backed as opposed 10 Jill "cloud" and spread as opposed to !uii "protection." llte symbol 1 will represent a voiced murmured lateral, as in New Tibetan (Ladnkh) lama "i;lma," 1a "god," lu "song." I will use the symbol N to indic.lle Ooth NASAI.li'ATION of a prcct:ding vowel. as in New Tibetan (Ohus) gUN "grape;' and PRI'N/\SAI.!7.A'1l0N of a following consonant, as in Ngil "move."
3. OTHER SYMBOLS I will use an asterisk tn mark an IJNATrES'Il'.n funn which has het:n historically reconstructed, as in Proto-Tibetan ·gryah "throw." I will use ;in interrogative 10 mark a DlSALI.OWED form which is precluded by the sym:hronic rules of the language, as in Old Tibetan '!l1a-mol1ls·dag as opposed III l1a-dfIK-mams "horses." Quotation marks will em:lose GI.OSSES, as in Old Tihetan I1Q "horse," in order to identify forms and constructions, not 10 provide their central meaning or best possible lranslation,
means "changes into" and <: mea ns "develops from," as when Proto-Tibetan -gryah " throw" > Old Tibetan 'KIph > New Tibe lan (Lh'lsa) c~p. The sign - means "varies with," as when Old Tibetan me-tog - mell-/og "flower." The sign __ in glosst:s means "is lexic:llized as," as in Old TihetHIl rdo-riii "long stone .... monument," New Tibetan (Obus) meNW "firc arrow - . gun." Angle brackets enclose uw,APJIS, as when 1 indicate that New Tibetan (Lhasa) SONCC "Buddha" has the wrinen form . The graph called a-tJhufi "little a" by the Tihetan grammarians will be transcribed, for ex~si tory purposes only, by a slash, as when discussing the written form for O ld Tibetan heu "cal f," but will nnt otherwise be transcribed, for
5
TIVJoISLITERATION
reasons that will be made clear in the main body of the text-thus, normally, Ok! Tibetan 00 <00> "light" rather than , beu "caW' rather than , and mda "arrow" rather than . hyphen will be used 10 indicate that the syllables which it connects ronstitute a single WORD, as in Old Tibetan· Ndfig·nen "world," or a single sn£SS GROUP, as in Old Tibetan pod-dkilr "white lotus." It will also be used to indicate that a morpheme is BOUND and must occur with some other form either preceding, as in Old Tibetan -dag "MORE THAN ONE," or following, as in Old Tibetan ml- "NEGATIVE." A hyphen may also indicate the POSmON of a phoneme in a Tibetan syllable: thus f· indicates a leftmost f, as in tgu, ·r· indicates a medial f, as in gru, and ·f indicates a final f, as in gur. A
J will use a period to distinguish a stop preinitial followed by an initial glide, as in Old Tibetan g.ron "left" > New Tibeta n (Ulasa) yON, from a stop initial followed by a postinitial glide. as in Old Tibetan gyoii "loss" > New Tibetan (I1lasa) ChON. Capitalization of a phoneme will indicate that it undergoes regular MORPHOPHONEMIC CHANGES according to phonological environment. Such an environ· ment may be across a syllable boundary, as when the Old Tibetan nominal· izer .I'Q becomes ·ba after preceding final .n,. ' f , -/ and vowels, and · ·po elsewhere; or within a syllable, as when the Old Tibetan future tense prefix G- becomes g. before acute consonant initials and d· before grave consonant initials. Verb R()()n will be entirely capitalized, followed, where appropriate, in parentheses, by the tense stems of that root, present and past in the case of intransitive verbs, and present, past., future, and imperative in the case of transitive verbs-for example, I(JIUM (Nkhumlkhums) "become shrunkell," TU (Nthu./btuslbtu/lhw) "gather," SLAlJ (sloblbs/obslbs/obls/obs) "teach." Using thts convention, we will show the derivation of, say, the present and past stems of GAD "laugh" as dgod < G-GAD "'aughs" and bgad < b·GAJ)-s "laughed." The Tibetan vertical stroke or lod, marking a reading pause, will be transcribed with a comma.
4. OTHER LANGUAGES Words in New Chinese, as well as Chinese place names, book titles, and other non-linguistic citations, will hf:c given i .. Wade-Giles transcription, about
6
THE CUssICAL TlBETAN I..J.NOUAOE
which I am sentimental. Reconstructed forms in Old and Middle Cltinese-Karlgren's "Archaic" and "Ancient" Otinese--have been taken from Bernhard Karlgren's Gml'MUlIQ Serico R«msa, with several Uberties taken with his transcription. Sanskrit is transcnDed in the traditional manner, as are, more or less. Mongolian and Bunnese. Those familiar with these languap should have no difficulty recognizing the forms. There is nothing even approaching a generally accepted tradition for transcn'bing the ~ wellknown Tibc:to-Burman languages; I have followed, as best I could, the transcriptions of the various aulhon to whose works I have referred. and I have attemptcd-probably with little success-to forte some consistency upon the varioUi systems.
Fip,t 2 Ch.tJmr 10 bind d.tmotll
3
Tibetan
• In
Context
I. DEFINING TIBETAN TIBETAN is a language spoken primarily on the: high plateau north of the Himalayas. It is related to a number of Himalayan languages, such as Gurung and Magar, whose speakers were a traditional source of recruits for the British Gurkha forces. It is- also related to several languages, such as Rgyarong and Minyag, spoken on the peat nonhem plains by nomadic tribes traditionally called ''western barbarians" by the Chinese. 1 Tibetan is morc distantly related to Burmese; even more distantly to languages spoken by Naked Nagas and other hill tribes of Assam; and more distantly still to Chinese. Tibetan has had a writing system since the seventh century, borrowed from an Indian prototype. India, in fact, has had a massive cultural impact on Tibet; but Tibetan itself is unrelated to Sanskrit or any o ther Indie
language. We can define Tibetan as that language in which we find the word bdun "seven" and its cognates-particularly as opposed to the word and ils cognates found everywhere else among the Tibeto-Burman languages. For example, we find Rgyarong snyis, Horpa zn~, Kanauri stU, Garo sni, Kachin sMlil, Burmese Iuults. Sgaw nwi, Taungthu nOt, Gurung iii, the ancient Zhang. zhung snis, and perhaps even Old Chinese ·uhy~1 "seven. "Z None of these
-,S/1"
I M;ddJe OIincse -w.y...1111 "barNrian" may in faa be a kl.anword from Old TIbelan bOIl "sumank: reUlion" or I relaled word ift one of Itle lUi·flft lInlup, l Anolher Ipp.arenl inlKMuion in TIbelin is the word kJtyod "you" 1M iu ~lIIld. IS opposed 10 ~ ')Ou" Ind iu oolnlld found ift other reilled lInlUlges-for eumple'. OIeP"'nl/Sall, Kx'hin /WI, Burmese /SaIl, Lushei nail. Spw lUI, Pwo lUI, Dhimal lUI, Nun; lUI, PhuDOt .l1.li"" Sisu IWI, Akha .l1.li10', Mpi nmI. RlYlfon& no, Minyal IIA, lad perhaps Old ChiJlele "iI>" and -;(iQ ')Ou," Compare Old Tibcl2n itid ')01,1 (elepnl)'" New Tibeta n (Sbewe) iIipo dtd.po> ''you.''
IlteratinllY, loolher Ipparent Tibelloll inllOYlllon is na Mbo;,e" and iu 001lUl1d, IS oppoKd 10 'sraII-rrvaII found elsewllere-for eumple, OIepan& s...a.II, Kachin hmll'aJI. 7
8
THE ClASSICAL TliJETAN l..ANGUAGE
languages is a Tibetan dialect, however closely related it may o therwise be to Tibetan. But whe n we find Balli Mun, Purig rdun, Ladakh dun, Golok wdan., Amda aUt, and Lhasa City IUN "seven," we know we are dealing with a series of D1A1.ECT'S within the: Tibetan language.
2. TIBETAN AND RELATED LANGUAGES When we say Tibetan is related to another language--say, Burmese or Chinese_I: mean that the languages are both desce ndanls of an earlier language no longe r in existence:. Frequently such a hypothetica l ancestor is proposed to account for many such offspring; this common ancestor is then often named a fter those two of its descendants with the oldest written
records-for example, Proto-Tibeto-Burman, which is the hypothetical language from which all Tibeto-Burman languages have come, or Proto-SinoTibetan, which is the hypothetical language from which have come not only
the Tibeto-Burman languages but Chinese as welL When comparing languages to see if they are related, random correspondences of words of course prove nothing. The apparent cognates could just be accidental: compllre Tibetan ~al "king" with English royal-regaL More frequently such apparent cugnates are loan .....ords, in one direction or the
BllrlllCSC ruroil, lUnaliri roii, Manehali IIraii. Bllnan !roiU, Han raii. Us li oruu, Phllnoi "'ON, Bis ll ?tI"'Jft, Akha malt, Mpi "')'!Iii. Rgyaro~g bra - rubIa, and perhaps Old Chinese Om ;} " hone." However, in ~ra l archaic tClt\Ji (rom Cen tral Asia, we Ond, to Ollr delight, alongside Old Tibe tan no ·'borsc," Ihe word ,",aol, which apparently means so mething very mIlCh lite "hone"-for eum ple, in a myt hological tat from Ihe ~ves near Tun-huang, in the couplct no-slwd IIi rsll~r·uhtr, mulit·slwd IIi rshtr·rshff "In hone language, yes,lllltr·uhtr! in 51004 language, yes, tshtr·1sMrf' Of in Ihe collplet no blup iii tplo",·10 blup, mla'; blup iii dguif..lo btup''11lc hone ~1Is, ycs, dwel ls in Ihe sky; the SIted dwells, yes, dwells in the heayens," o r, agai n, no IIi log-po dllt, mwii iii mJcJtriJ.po fjh~ '1'be horse, yes. his revulsion was Iteat; Ihe 3lted, yes, his bile wu Ireal." In tile adminis trlll ive co rrespondell<"'. t recovered froUl the Tibetan ga rrisons in Central Asia, v.e find, as we might expect, freq ue nt references to h-o~, bu t almost always as no. Still, the wor
9
TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT
other: this might be the case with words such as classical Tibetan dIa Middle Chinese -jha "tea," or classical Tibetan dlag Middle Chinese -dzhMc "robbery," where, as one Sinologist has put it, too close a likeness is even more suspect than too distant a one. But what makes it likely thaI, say. Tibetan and Chinese are related languages is a SYSTEMATIC correspondence among their words-for example, the faci that in both languages the word for "I" (Old Tibetan na, Old Chinese -iia) and "five" (Old Tibetan l·iUJ, Old Chinese -no) both have velar nasal initials, or the word for "three" (Old Tibetang-sum, Old Chinese -mn) and "kill" (Old Tibetan ~ Old Chinese -sal) both begin with a dental fricative. It is only on such a systematic basis that we are justified in assuming thaI Tibetan and Chinese derive from a common ancestor. Technically speaking. the only way actually to demonstrate that two or mort! languages are cognate descendants of a common ancestral language is to reconstruct the common language fmm which Ihey desce nded. Such reconstructions have been cited as the most triumphal vindication of IndoEuropean comparative linguistics. Yet similar attempts 10 reconstruct earlier stages of Tibetan and related languages have encountered serious difficulties.
You know tk, that in ftmtte r( speche is ehtumgt Withinnt a thouJAmi ytr, a,ui JV{J1'IUI tho That hadden pryI now rwntkr nyee and rtraungt Us thtnktth hem, tmd yet they spuRr htm so, Ami sptdde 4S wei in love AI men now M.
-Geoffrey Chaucer, Troylus alld Criw:yde
For one thing, such reconstructions must take account of literally hundreds of related Janguages--overwhelmingly unwritten and, until recently. poorly recorded and described. For anOlher , the words which are heing compared in these language are remarkably compact. For example. we find classical Tibelan grog-rna, Burmese parwak "ant." Are thest! words cognate? Addi· tional comparisons from other language!> do nOl ~eem immediately t::elpful: Rgyarong korok and Kiranti Idwrok seem rdate!.! 10 the Tibetan grog, while Lahu pu-,:)?, Lisu baw/aw, and Mpi pillo? sC'!m related 10 the Bu rmc!>e
JO
THE Q.ASSICAL TIBETAN LANGUAGE
p~rw(Jk.
Yet we also find Miri mule, Dafla (orub, and Nung we to make of this?
S~r:J.
What are
One proposed solution postulates a Tlbeto-Burman word ·rwak "ant," to which Lahu and Burmese added a prefix .p- related to the word· for "insed' (compare, for example, classical Tibetan Nhu, Burmese pu~ Mpi pi "insect"); to which Tibetan, Rgyarong and KirallIi added a ·k- "ANIMAL" prefix; to which Nung added an ·s- "ANIMAL" prefix (compare, for example, Old Tibetan fwa, Burmese sa, Kachin fan, Nuns fa, Kannuri l'ya "deer"); and to which Miri and Dalla added a late ·d- prerIX of uncerlain signiflcalion. Now such explanations can quickly become uncomfonably ad hoc, and there is often an unexplained residue in any event; for example, we arc still left to account for Gurung lIabbm "anl.,,3 But such are the challenges faced by the Tibeto-Burman comparativist.
2.1. 1"IBETAN AND CHINESE Scholars have long suspected that Tihctan is related to Chinese, and have postulated a Sino-Tibetan family of languages descended from a hypothetical Proto-Sino-Tibetan ancestor. The rdalionshi p between Tibetan amJ Chmesc, however, is cenainly nOI obvious if we compare contemporary Tibetan wilh contemporary Chinese. In Peking city the old word for "dog" is pronounced IJlliiulI but in Lhasa city is pronounced ch~ while a Peking fish is calkd yu but a Lhasa fish is called nn. But thanks to the extraordinary conservatism of Tibetan writing on the one hand, and the scholarly detective work or such Sinologists as Ikrnhard Karlgren on the other, we can reconstruct these same words in Old Tibetan and Old Chinese:~ when we compare Old Tibetan khyi with Old Chinese
] Unlike many won1s in Gu run&. /lobbn4 docs not Ippear 10 be I loan word from Nepali, where the word for anl" is i«lmilo.. Nepali b an Indo-Aryan language nOI very dimnlly related to Hindi. M
• lAnruages Ire dated from tile first Ip~rance of writin,: thllS the earliesl Tibetan records Ire uid to be In Old Tibelln, and the Clrllc:st Chinese records in Old Chinese.. (Fornu reconuruttod for • period prior to \.he appearance of writin, Ire said 10 be in the prolo-la nluaae-Proto-Tibelln, uy, or Prolo-Chinese.) But Chinese was first wril1en much earlier Ihan Tibetan 'NU, so Old Chinese is older than Old Tibetan: In fact, Otd Tibclan Is
TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT
It
-khywt!1I "dog" and Old Tibetan no (from an even older Proto-Tihetan -jjyo) ..ith Old Chinese -nyo "fish," Ihe similarities between the two languages ~come much more striking. In the same way, other correspondences have ~en proposed-for example, Old Tibetan iii Old Chinese -nyet "sun," Old Tibe18n mig Old Chinese -myo.lc "eye," Old Tibetan ma Old Chinese -ny~ "ear," Old Tibetan lUi Old Chinese -.!}'t'll "firewood," Old Tibetan Ina Old Chinese -no "fIVe," Old Tibetan gsum Old Chinese -S.mJ "three."
Let us assume, then, on the basis of such partial evidence, that Tibetan and Chinese are descended from a common ancestor. Is there any way of tdling how long ago il was Ihal Tibetan and Chinese were, in some sense, the same language? Archeological finds indicate Ihat human beings first appeared in northern China around 10,000 Be, in all likelihood having come eastward from the frozen tundras of Siberia, when: they had survived and adapted through the mosl recent of the recurrent ice ages; by 5.000 Be neolithic culture had appeared on the fertile northern plains of China, which the n developed with remarkable continuity and m herence directly into historical limes, with a language we have every reason to believe was already distinctively Chinese. These speakers of Chinese 'continued to spread from Ihc middle Yellow River area toward the southern and eastern c"lasts-an extension even now in progress. If Ihe Chinese language splil off from the common stock sumewhere t>ctwet:n 10,000 and 5,()(X) Be, the n Ihe Chi nese and Tihetu·Burman language gmups may simply have been separatt!d tuo lor,g. and their descend;tnts simply h;lv!: changed too much, to permit any com-incing reconstruction of their mrnmnn source; but a reconstruction of ?roto-Sino-Tibel
2.2. TIBETAN AND BURMESE The Burmese I\'W into Old Tibetan. Here we oom~re Old Tilletan with Otd Chine~. ~ incc we want 10 oompare the earliest available rorlll$ in each ta n'\I~ge.
12
THE CL\ssICAL TIBETAN LANGUAGE
or less its present form. The writing, like that of Tibetan. is conservative, and presumably reflects the phonological state of the language at about the time the orthography was fIXed; that language in turn differs in some significant ways from modem "standard" Burmese, spoken throughout the Irrawaddy plain and delta, in Upper and Lower Burma, by more than thirty million people.5 The relationship of Tibetan and Burmese-and closely related languages such as those grouped together as Lolo--is only slightly mort apparent than the relationship of Tibetan and Chinese. A dog in Rangoon is khwei, and, as we travel through Southeast Asia, we find Lahu kwe, Phunoi kha, Bisu kJt~ Altha alcu~ Mpi kJu, but in Lhasa city a dog is chi Similarly•.a Rangoon fish is nat and we find Lahu na, Usu iiwa, Akha na, Mpi no, but in Lhasa city a fish is na-a nasal initial, but, apparently, in the wr~ng part or the mouth. However, when we compare the older wrillen rorms in Tibetan and Burmese, even a cursory inspection reveals systematic correspondences between the two languages much more extensive than those between either language and Chinese. Thlls we can, again, compare Old Tibetan khyi "dog" to Proto· Burmese -khuy, and ·Proto-Tibetan -nya "fish" to Burmese nD. Among the many cognates that have been proposed, we may note Old Tibetan iii Burmese ne "sun," Old Tibetan myig Burme.~ myak "eye," Old Tibetan rna Burmese no "ear," Old Tibetan lUi Burmese sots "firewood," Old Tibetan Hia Burmese no "five," Old Tibetan gsum Burmese sum "three.'"
5 For Ihe divcr&eflCC of Ihe spoken .nd Wrillen forms, I'IOIe-ran40mly-mo4em slan "snake," lwti "!Old;' an Kiron," myir "ri ve r," IMmin "cooked rice,~ Ihan "busked rice," Mi "sun," myill "nower," mi "fire," II "ur," hna "nose," IIwri ''silver.'' & -"p~ re nl cognlle5 in Old Tibetan ami Burmese are 1'101 hard. 10 find , A few minutes wfl h a dict ionary will IIltn up Old. Tibetan IShwll Burmese ISM "salt," Old T ibetan sku BUTml~\e /ali)' "body," Old Tibetan dgu Burmese leui "nine." Old Tibetan gri "knife" Burmese krt "copper," Old. Tibetan BORE ",row old." Burmese lui "be Veat," Old Tibetan byi Burm~ pwt " rat," Old Tibetan bya "bird" Bur_ pjIJ "bee," Old Tibetan grIig Burmese lalS "one," Old TilY.:lan iill BUlmese FUl "I," Old. Tibetan gnu Burmese lIn.:zu "fWO," Old. Tibetan 51l a Buo i'l est M '4l "nose," Old Tibeuin m)'t Burmese mi "fire,H Old Tibetan 5nty1lBurmese "':1)"11$ "bamNIO," 014 Tibetan SAD Burmese 1(11 "kill," Old Tibetan pip Burmese sDIS "leopard," Old Tibetan lla Burmese la "moon," Old Tibellin ri " ~inlin,H BUflTl4'..se ri
"wr;tc."
TlBETAN IN CoNTEXT
13
There can be no doubt that Tibetan and Burmese are related, or that Burmese in tum is related to a number of other Southeast Asian languases. in what is commonly called the Tibeto-Burman family--here. once again, named after the two members of the family with the oldest written records. In this family, in addition to Tibetan and Burmese. there is in fact a vast complex of languages. stretching from the northern reaches of Assam and Burma westward along the Himalayas, eastward into southern China, and southward along the Salween and Irrawaddy Rivers to the Bay of Bengal. These regions constitute one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world; it is still very difficult to get a dear picture of the relationships of the various languages and dialects, not only within the Tibeto-Burman family, but also in terms of the areal and boTTO'Aing relationships between the TibetoBurman languages and the unrelated Thai and Mon-Khmer languages with which they have long been in contact. The cultural diversity of this area is equally striking. Speakers of TibetoBurman languages include goat herders in the mountains of Nepal, former head hunters along the Indo-Burmese frontier, naked tribes in the jungle hills of Assam, as well as the Tibetans and Burmese, who built successful Buddhist kingdoms and literate cultures which have survived to the present day.' The
Some of these Tibetan and Burmese forfl\$ correspond even more t\osely ir we look I t tile orlho&raphy of the oldest dil ted Burmese illKfiption-the inscription or frina: fUjkum3r, elated 1112, often ailed the Myl1,edi Inscription bcx:ause it wu found on the mya lim "Emerald Pagoda." Here we find Burmese u "die" written , ri "water'" wrilten , and fN "give" written . Presumably Proto-Burmese '.iy > Burmese -I, Ind we can eom~re Old Tibetan iii "sun" wilh PrOlo·Bufinese °niy ralher than with Bunnest nt. Old . Tibetan gri " knife" wilh Proto· Burmese Akriy rather th~n with Burmt:se len. Old Tibetan Ttl " die" with ProlO·Burmese ·siy ratller than with. Burll\C:5e St, and Old Tibet. n gl7N "give" with ProlO·Burmese 'piy rat her tllan with Burmese pt. Similarly, we find Burmese Ivwt "gold" written . "''''t "nouri~h" wrillen , and 1at1~ ~ kin~ written < 1atJuy>. PresumaDly Proto-Burmese o,ur > Burmese ."'t, and we can com~re Old Tibetan dJlul "silver with Prolo·Burmese °nuy rather than with Burmese 11-. Old Tibetan stm.1 ''snake'' with Proto·Burmese 'mf1ly rather than with Burmese mfWt. and Old Tibetan dgur "crooked" with Proto·Burmese °klly rather than with Burmese low. H
./ Other speakcrs of Tibeto-Burman Jan&uges also had n.les, primarily on tbe Hindu mooe], in the valleys 3round the edges of Soulh Asia-lbe Newari in Kathmandu; the Meithtei in Manipur; tile Lushci in the MilO area; the Tripuri in Tripur.; the I"y\I in Burma, a:mqllCred by tbe Burmese; and Ihe Bodo or lUellari In centr.1 Auam, conquered by the Oai Allum.
14
TilE eusslCAL rlBETAN LANGU ....GE
generally accepted picture is that this entire area was occupied by an originally southward movement ofTibeto-Burman-speaking peoples along the great Irrawaddy and Salween river basins, which carry the walers of the Himalayas to the sea. Such southward migrations, perhaps prompted by periodic dessication of the [nner Asian plains, presumably began from the same point from which another group had moved eastward into the fenile plains or north China; and from secondary diffusion centers along the way there occurred further migrations westward along the great arc of the Himalayas, southward deeper into Burma, and eastward into northern Thailand and laos, with the languages diverging, interacting, and borrowing from each other, and interacting as well with the unrelated Mon-Khmer and Thai languages whose speakers were both being displaced and migrating themselves.
2.3. TIBETAN AND THE HIMALAYAN LANGUAGES Scattered along the arc of the Himalayas, like beads on a string, are a number of more or less related' languages, usually called-for want of any more informative name -the Himalayan languages. The relations among these: languages are not at all clear; for example, Newari, the historically important language of the old kings of Kathmandu, apparently cannot be grouped directly with any other of these Himalayan languages; and the remainder tend to be classified in primarily geographic groupings, with names like West Central Himalayish, on the assumption that human occupation of the Himalayan valleys proceeded linearly, from east to west, so that more closely related languages would tend to cluster geographically as well. I am not at all persuaded that this picture is correct; but I certainly have nothing bener to offer. s What does seem clear is that, among these Himalayan languages, some-Tamang, Gurung, Thakali, Magar, Kiranti-seem quite closely related to Tibetan.
• speakers of 5e\"Clal of !hC5e Himalayan languages ha\"C Iraditionally been Ihe $OUICC of recruits for lhe Brillsh Gurkha forces. Nepali, the dominanl language of Nepal. alme to he lhe JinguQ francQ of the Gurkha forces at hriglde posl' of lhe lllliian Army Ihmughoul India and of the British Army in Hong Kong and Malaysia. Glover has nOied thai Gurung t hildren returning to Nepal from mililary posts al n a)1IVC:n.e ...i th Iheir village rc1ali~ only in Nepali while lhe 1ol,)gh unrelated to Ihe Himal3yan languages. Nepali loonwclfIls have tl>oro ughly infiltrated the Himalayan le~ia)ns .
TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT
15
In 1927, Sten Konow, of the Linguistic Survey of India. distinguished between "complex pronominalized" and "non·pronominalized" Himalayan languages. with the pronominalized languages further subdivided into eastern and western branches. The pronominalized languages fuse subject and object pronouns to the verb, whe re they appear as preflXes a,ld suffIXes. yielding in effect a verbal inflection for bolh subjecl and object: for example, in Umbu, the language of the principal tribal people of eastern Nepal, we find the verb forms hiptiUi "I hit him," hipnt " 1 hit you," khiplu "You hit him," hiptu "He hiu him," Ichipli "He hits you," iihiplUm "We hit him," Ichiplilm "You all hit him," and so on.' Konow believed that the pronominalized langunges had borrowed this syntactic device from neighboring speakers of the entirely unrelated Munda languages. Such syntactic borrowing is not in itself impossible; in this case, however, it seems unlikely, for two reasons. First, the Munda verbal inflection system is very different in its basic structure from that of the pronominalized Himalayan languages studied by Konow; one would expect a greater similarity in structure--even if not in contenl- if the syntactic device had in fact been borrowed. Second, the Himalayan verbal inflections are quite similar among themselves. even between geographically distant languages, to the point where it appears possihle to reconstruct a Proto-Himalayan verb system. lO Such a proposed reconstruction would presumably place the development of the proto-inflectional ~ystem prior to any cOnt~l<:t with Munda speakers. In any event, it seems both pos.~ ihl>;: (lnd pklusible that the dcvelopment was an internal one. Many of these Himalayan languages, such as Newari, do not at fi;st glance seem closely rela ted to Tibt;tan; others--especial1y those in the Tamang. Gurung·Thakali group--appear strikingly similar not only in basic portions
, Thi$ aislinction eut~ across gcogr.Jphicat lines. EaStern pronominali7.ed languages intlude Limbu, Rat, Chepang, and ot her groups in easlern ana central Ne:pal; weSlern pronominalized languages such u IUnaur; are: spoken primarily in the: mountain areas of northwestern Il'IIIia OU15idc: KMhmir. NonrrOlKlminatized languages include: Ourllne, Mapr. Nc:wari, Ina l..c:pcha or Rong, lmong others; these: are: distributee! (rom the: north of weste:rn ccntnlll Ne:pat across to ta5tern Nepal and aej l cent areas of India. 10 Il'IIIeed, some: scholars have !One: so far as 10 suggest not thaI Ihe pronominalized Himalayan langulges Idiosyncratically .'qllired thei r inneetio ns, bllt rllher thll the no n· pronominalized languages Io5t the inncclioru tllc:y once had.
THE ~ICAL TlSETAN lANOUAGE
16
of their wcabulary but in syntax as well. rOt example, compare Gurung khi~ uhami iiaoe lShai-lni piNon "Give your daughter to my son" with Old Tibetan 1chyod-kyi J.shQ·mo iiai tsIuJ·14 sbyin New Tibetan (l..J\asa) IchOr.,; tshllmo iii; uhti-n ciN "Give your niece to my nephew...11 Nott too the following apparent cognates--old Tibetan ;u Kham nimi urnbu nom Gurilng din "suo," Old Tibetan mig Kham mi Limbu mik Gurung miN "eye," Old Tibetan rna Kham no Limbu nekho Gurung cuz "ear," Old Tibetan lUi Kham sin Limbu siiig GUNng siN "firewood," Old Tibetan pun Kham sohn Limbu sums; Gurona SON "three," Old Tibetan We Kham R Umbu ksot Gurong k "tongue.,,1l Suet- cognates must, of course, be distinguiJhed--somehow--from loanwords. Thert is every reason to believe, for example, that ·Old Tibetan tIhos New Tibetan (Obus) tIhii "dharma" Gurung tlhyoe "religious book" is a relatively recent loan. Note also other apparent loans in the same cultural sphere-Old Tibetan bla-ma New Tibetan (Dbw) lama Gurung Ionula " lama" (compared to the apparently genuine cognate Old Tibetan bkl Gurung pia "soul"), Old Tibetan rluij·r1a New Tibetan (Ohus) luiita Gurung /uiilo "prayer flag," Old Tibetan sRo New Tibetan (Obus) no "bless, pronounce benediction" Gurung no "blow upon a sick person (by religious officiant)," Old Tibetan rna New Tibetan (Obus) no Gurung.iia "shaman's drum,"
2.4. TIBETAN AND THE WESTERN BARBARIANS The Chinese historical records speak of nomadic and harbarian inhabitants of the high plains to the west, called, first, ·khyan > ch'illng "sheepherders" (the graph represents a man ·fI.nd a sheep), and, later, ·hhywan > fan "barbarians," a word which may in fact have been borrowed [rom Old Tibetan bon "shamanic religion" or a related word in one of the Hsi·fan
II Glltuna uh.o "son" Old Tibel.ln ISM "nephew, grandchild" app!'..ar to be genul!lcly old Sino-Tibc:l.ln words: we rind, ror example, DI··'nal 11411 ''son," 1\.anEiII UI-JQ "cllikl, bab)," Bllrmese UI "child," LusheJ til Hgi'andchikl, ttepllew," and ~rhaps also Ojd Chinese .uy~ "son, daughter, chikl." Note also Okl Tibelin an..t "bear, bring forth," and perhaps Old Chinese .~ which Karlgren interprets :IS ~vinll originally mea M "foet us,"
K1L1m (not to \lC oonfW>ot'id wilh the ](balt\ll dialecu or Tibell.nj i$ spoU:t. III ...esl by Map n of the Buc1a, Ohani, Pun, ar.d Rokha subnibcs; Umbu is spo..::n in cast Ne~l ; .nd OIolNnl is 'poken In the Oanc1aki zone in c:cft lral west Nepal. t2
Ne~J
17
TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT
languages. The annals of the Han Dynasty note the e)[istence of o ne group of ·lchyan, located far from China, callel.! the ·pywar·khya;;', a term in which we may perhaps see a relationship with OIl.! Tibetan bod "Tibet.,,13 Later, during the Tang dynasty, the Chinese distinguished between the ·tho·bhywall > I'u-fan "agricultural barbarians," a term which ca me to be used regularly for the Tibetans, hs i·fwJ "western barbarians," a loosely defined group of nomadic.: tribes ranging the: plains In what is now thc Amdo region,14 The Tibetans drew the same distinction hetwecn thcmselvcs and these other nomads, even though the ways of life (If Ihe Tibetan and Hsi· fan nomads were basically the same; the Tibetans speak of the Horpa, the Minyag, the eighteen tribes of the Rgyarong as nut speaking the Tibetan language, although Ihe:ooe languages have clearly borrowed a large number of words from central Tibetan. In fact, the influence of central Tihetan on the:se languages has heen so great that they have' frequently been considercd to be Tihctan thentsclves; note, howe;.-er, Rgyarong sllyi~, Horpa ZIlt', Minyag !m! "seven" instead of Old Tibetan hdull "seven" and its New Tibctan retk)[cs, Rgyamng IW, Horpa IIi, Minyag na "you" inslt:al.! of Old Ti~lan khyod "you" and its New Tibetan reflexes, Rgyarong pram, Horpa pllnl.pllnl, Minyag ,Hln "white" instead of Okl Tibetan dkar "white" and its rdleKt:s. Tht: relation~hip betwt:en these languages and Tibetan. however. is cicarly a close one: for example , in the Rgyarong dialect of Lcng·rtse, we finll Old Tihelan ma Rgy,mmg ma "ear," Old Tibetan !iii Rgyar\ln g.\yill.~ "fircw(Kld," DIll Tihetan mix Rgy
"'m
I~ I Ihink il IS prell ~ clear Ih~1 h, ~1 '"T,"'·I." '",h~m"nl( rd'p"n," 110 '"ca ll "111. ny 0111," amI pcrh~i'" 1'1/0 '"~h~nJ;~ pl~ee. ml l:'~ I~:' ~I'O "'''111''''':. ,hifl. mic,ale," dhon /.'ihWI "ct.Mn.po " king"' a$ Mi<.ltlle Chinese 4/.wn ./m"·/I an<.l Olll TII"':lan /,Ion " nlln"I0:'" as M"h.!Jc Chi n.:sc 'Iy-..·rn. 1I>;ng Ille same Chinese .:h~. a':ler'; hUI lIere (he I"n~~"~.: " ... leU a.~ hdn): Iha l ur Ihe 'kh)"tIn.
18
THE ClAssiCAL TIBETAJII l...;.]iGUAGE
when we find Old Tibetan slag t{gyarong Jehu" "tiger" but stak "tiger" in Ihe Lcog-rtse dialect, or Old Tibetan dbyar-ka Rgyarong lSQr "summer" but dbyar. Iu in the Chos-ki!l dialect, it is reasonable to believe we have found an informant with a literary education.
3. VARIATION IN TIBETAN If Tibetans from different parts of Tibet are asked to give their word for "hair," a Tibetan from Purik will say sm, one from Amda will say Ikya, one from Kham will say lira, one from Tao-Cu will saY!(Ta. and one from Bhutan or Sikkim will say kya. Similarly, a ladakhi will say $fl. a rural Central Tibetan will say la, and an upper-class resident of Lhasa City will say !la, But jf these Tibetans aTe literate, and ate asked to write the word they had just spoken, they will all produce the same written form, which we here transcribe as . And, if they are shown the written form , Ihey will. again, pronounce the word differently, but they will all recognize the form and agree that-however it is pronounced-it means " hair." One reason for this is the remarkable conservatism of the Tibetan writing system. The written form . for example, with the same meaning "hair," can be found in manuscripts more than a thousand years old, preserved in the deserts of Central Asia, which can still be read-in some sense of that term-by any literate Tibetan. ls The written form has remained unchanged: the word represented by that form has come to be---or has continued 10 be--different in different dialects. The advantage of such uniform orthography is its transcendence of regionalism: all literate Tibetans sha n: a single written language, however different their spoken dialects may ~. The disadvantage is the divorce between the written and spoken languages, making literacy an incre,asingly difficult and elite accomplishment. Now when Tibetan was first fe.duced to writing, it seems reasonable 10' assume that the written form was, in fact, an attempt 10 render a word pronounced something very much like skra. We thus find variation in
IS For eu mple. in .1 mythic lext from Ihe caves near Tun.hllllng we find db,,·wn bdun " .• NbrtJg·s:'n drt;kJs Msal4 ''The tiene! of the wastes, Dre.da, dem.anc1s seven hairs from his I\e.a
garrison in Central Asia,'reportinl on the colleaion of animal hair fo r rope· making. we read bla.gis phyugs I'Igd skrn srail phytd gyis ""Bkr has made 11 half'Tnii of hair of some animals,"
T I BHAN IN CoN"Il, XT
19
!.he Tibetan language along two dimensions. The language varies along a DI....CIlRON1C dimension, wherein a word pronounced skra i~ the nimh century has come to be pronounced, say, fa in the twentieth; and the language varies ,do ng a SYNCHRONIC dimension, wherein a word now pronuunced 1a ill Ladakh is pronounced lira in Kham, or pronounced la by a Lhasa City storekeept!r is pronounced l1a by a Lhasa C ity ariSlOcrat. 16
When we spt!ak of the history of the Tibelan language, we will use the term PROTO-TIBETAN to refer to the Tibetan language spoken before the existence of any written records. We will use the term OLD TIBETAN for the language spoken during the earliest pt!riod for which written records exist-that is, more or Jess arbitrarily, for the language.spoken, say, from the seventh to the tenth ccnturies, which is the language upon which those earliest wrillen teKts were based. The term MlilDU; TIILETAN will refer 10 the language sfXlkcn from the tenth to the nineteenth centuries, a pt!rioo .for which we have an awesome quantity of wrillen materials, but atxlut whose spoken language we can make only s(;attered inferences. Finally, the term NEW TIllt:TAN will refer to the spoken language fur which we have modern comemporaneous transcriptions and analyses, beginning in the nir)eteenth century with the fi rst European explorers and missionaries.J1 When we spea k of synchronic va riation, we will adopt· the convention of citing forms by historical period followed by a parenthctical indication of dialect where such information is available-for eKample, Old T ibetan hdun but New Tibetan (Dbus) "UN "seven," Old Tibetan my; but Old Tibetan (Sumpa) mu "ma n."
3.1. VARIATION IN NEW TIBETAN When a Tibetan from Ladakh and a Ti~lan from Lh~sa City go to the 16 Di.clnoni!: ""rjaliun. uf UJUfSC, I/ °s·kFa » O td Tibetan skra '· tlair." And s)'TJI:hronk VlIIriatlon occurred at his to rical periods o the r th an th e mO<.lern. There is some lextllli evidenec. for example, thl, alongside Old Tibetan (Lhasa) myi ··man,'· there was an Old Tibetan (Sumpa) mu "man" IS well. 17 Note thlt these lerms ;ire rcall ), methodological rather Ih;in properly linguistic, The clIu ification depel'<1s upon the fonuitous existence of wrillen rcc;ords on the one hand and modem tran5("riptions on the other. Middle Tibetan si mply includes everything in between:
20
TilE Cl.ASSICAL TIBETAN WaUAGE
market together to buy vegetables, the Ladakh; is shopping for tshodma but the Lhasan for tshc. If they buy spinach, the Ladakhi calls il paJak and Ihe Lhasan calls it poise. If they buy peas, the Ladakhi calls them lanma and the Lhasan calls them !cmna. When Ihey pay, the Ladakhi calls the rupee coin kyirmo and the Lhasan calls it bmo. Are they speaking Ihc same language? They will both say they 3rc speaking Tibetan; but Ihe Ladakh; will call the language po/skal and the Lhasan will caU it pMkc. Even if we look just al the lexicon, leaving grammar aside, the relationship between the two ,dialects is complex. For example, continuing with vegetables, we find Ladakhi [abuk and Uasa I~ "radish" < Old Tibetan la·phug. where the word is recognizably the same in both dialects;18 and, similarly. we find Ladakh; IsOn and Lhasa LsOH "onion," although in this case the word gives every appearance of having come into Middle Tibetan from Middle Chinese ·tshuii "onion," rather than of being a nalive Tibetan word. On the other hand, we find Ladakh; ~a llma and Lhasa tv.ma "peas" < Old Tibetan sran-ma, where a common origin of the word in Old Tibetan is less obvious, but the differences in pronunciation are the result or more or less regular phonological changes in each dialect.19 Ladakhi gobi and Lhasa kopi "caulinower" appear alike not because the words have a common Old Tibetan origin, but because the two dialects have recently-and apparently independemly-borrowed the Hindi word pllUl Robhi "caulinower." The Lhasa dialect uses Ihe compound kONI<1pu "middle finger radish _ carrot," while Ladakhi uses the term soroklurmon "carrot," almost certainly borrowed in part from Urdu zamak "carrot.,,20
18 The rad is h-although cenain Ly nOI a Iiteral Y~ tapLc-dOCli ~-rop up in so me genuinely ancient IQU. For example, a ninth·century admjni~ llat i"c memorandum flom a Tibe~n ,arrOOn in Centlal Asia, wrillcn 0:1 :I strip of wood, apparcnlly LiSting expenses incurrcd. , includes sfNtU lo·w s/aJ·blll 1(1u1-boi Iha·phug rin "ror the monkey year. the cost of radishes fOI enlenaining the nOblcs." t9 ThIlS we find not only Oid TfDelan S' (I...·mtJ "peas" > New Tibe tan (I..ad.akh) ftJN1ItJ (lJIua) but also Old Tibetan skra "ha if" > New T ibeta n (Lada kll) fa (l.lIua ) fa, Olo;! Tibetan sprin "cloud" > New Tibetan (Ladakh) fill (Lhasa) {iN. Similarly, Old l1bela n skod wlanguage" > New Tibetan (Ladakh) sAm (Lhasa) /c.c, Old Tibetan lo/ " race > New TIbe t. n (Ladakll) 10/ (Lbasa) Je. Old Tibeu n mfShon '·n.. me" > New Tibetan (Lao;!akh ) tshon (Lh4ISa) uht:N.
'DImQ,
H
;zo The seoono;! half of ttle Ladalll'li sO' lllau/man ··canOl" is nOI $0 easy. My bc:$1 guess is Illal 11 is o;!erived fro m Urdu danntJn "nled icine," but Il'Ic scma nlics are ce rtainly not obvlous.
TiBETAN IN
21
CoN"ffiXT
It is thus clear that contemporary Tibetan is not monolithic; the languages ..-hich by OUT definition qualify as "Tibetan"-note Lhasa City rUN Ladakhi dun "seven"-are phonologically, lexically, and syntactically divergent. Such languages we call mALEcrs of New Tibetan?'
"Ever'body my1 wortls Riff"""," mid I.". ''ArkRnw folIu SAys 'em Iliff"",t, lind OHAhomy folJu lAyl 'em Riffmnt. And ..e uen Ii IIuJy from MAUa&hu.setts, lin' she mid 'em differentiSl of ail. CouIdn' hardly maU ()Nt ..hlit she"Ill lAyin '." -John Sieinbeck, 711e Grapes of Wralh
Now what we really need is a genuine dialect map of Tibet, ma rked with ISOGLOSSES of significant linguistic features, such as diHerent pronunciations of the same word, or the use of different words for the same thing. For example, in traveling westward from Lhasa City to Ladakh, we find, al some point, that people have stopped saying (a "hair" and have started saying ~a, have stopped sayingpho "Tibet" a nd started saying pot, have stopped saying Icc "language" and started saying sleDl, and have stopped saying JcoNl~pu "carrot" and have started saying sarakturman. For each of these diffe rences, we can draw an isogloss: on one side of the line people say things one way; on the other side they say the same thing another way. Now of course the line between pho and pot may not coincide with the line between fa and fa, 11 The dislinclion berwec: n a dialect and a language is nOl ofte n clear, and tile distinClion is frequenlly polilic;:al lalller tllan tinguislic: DUICIl, for aam ple, is a la nguage, bUI Yiddish
is otlen c:aUe4 II dia tea of Gelman, which prompled Uric! Weinreich 10 define II dialect as a la nguage without an army or nail)'. "Bhutanese:" may thllS be a ian&uage ral her lhan a diaJecI by virtue o r Ihe ract tha t the indepe nden t kingdom UsuC:$ il$ own postage sta mps. By the WlIIy, it is often the cue tll,l1 o ne dial«t in a language is picked o ut as normalive and Olher dialccu stigmatized: in the cue of Tibelan, the speech o r Lhasa Ciay is frequent ly pUI forward as lhe prcstige dialect. It is nol 'lear 10 me tilat Ill is view is II all wides pread oUlSilk of Lhasa Ci ty; the view is, lIowcvc:r, fuund among lhose foreign ling uis ls wh ose informants Ire fro m Lhasa, I nd amon, those fo re igners whose work or sympalllie5 lie wlIh tile Lhasa poli ti<:a.l or rciigiollS eli:e.
22
Tilt:: CL\SSICAL Tm urAN lANG U.... GE
and the lines themselves may nOi be sharply drawn; along the isogloss, pM may fade: into pol through an intermed ia te ph6t, or some people may use both Conus but in different styles of speech, or people in one social class may use one form and those in a nother social class use the other. Thus, when such lines arc: drawn, they often show considerable cris:o;+crossi ng; when a number of isoglossc:s do more or less coi ncide, they an: ~id to ma rk a DlALECf BOUNDARY,
Oearly we arc: far from evt:u apprua~ h illg such a dialect map of Tibet. But there arc: a few dialect feature s with which we can make a beginning, and which provide examples of Ihe .sons or questions that still re main 10 be asked. The follOwing sections will bric ily discuu three phonological feature s of th is sort ill New Tibetan- thc: palalaiizatlu!l of labials, p{J~tinitials a nd the fron ting of back vowels in the southern d i [lkc t ~ , and elegant brt:athincss in Lhasa City.22
3.1.1. The palatalization or labials In central Tibet, Old Tibetan palatalized labiais such as by- and plly- have generally become palata] affricates- lor example, Old 'i'ibetan phyogs "side" > New Tibetan (Dbus) tlho (Lhasa) t.~/I:J, Old Tibetan bya "bird" > New Tibetan (Dhus) tIa (Lhasa) tJlla, Old Tibetan b)'un "nonh" > New Tibetan (Dbus) dan (Lhasa) tIlIUN. Old Tibetan byi -ba " rat" > New Tibetan (Dbus) lJiwQ (Lhasa) dhiw;. These same changes are found eastward as far as Chamdo City, located at the up per rcal;hes of what becomes, furthe r soulh, the Mekong River; but, as we move;: even further east, aaoss the Yangtze River to the city of Derge, we find that these same Old Tibetan palatalized
Zit These topicS werc Chosen becallse of lhc light they t h row~~n if indirCCl ly-on thc qUC5lion o f varia lion in O ld Tibetan. wnich we ...·iII dilOCuss in lhc ntAI sectio n. Thus we ha~ not discussed the oe.oelopmenl of appa(enlly phonemic loncs in Lnasa City-both lonc REG IS1EI.S, with diffcrcnt tonc hClghts tI,,-velOplng trom votoed a nd YOil:eles.s OASCLS in Ohl Tibetan, a nd tone COtn'OURS, Wllh diffcl cn l lonal shapa; Ilt:VClOl'inr. tro m sy llabic· final l'OWCis, sJ ides. and Stops in Old Tibetan. Phonemic lone, or O)UrK, is fOllnd in ma ny lanr.uagcs , C5pcdally in Sou tl'lC&S1 AsIa, wncre lOne has appa rently spread amonr. lan&wogC5 which arc nol ,cACtically related , bllt only in gco,rap htcal proXimity. Moreover, to nal s)'$tCIN haw; apparently appc:;trcd and di~ ppcan:d , and Ihcn appeared ap in, in panieular lan,uar.e fam ilies. Thcrc is no reaso n 10 believe Ihac Old Tib\:tl n had lones; if Prolo-Tibetan eYer ha4 phonemic lOnes, the systcm ltad dilappcarcd lo n, beforc historical timC5.
;,IBETAN IN \..ONlCXT
'J
!abials have become palatal fricatives- thus New Tibetan (Derge) Jo "side," Ia "bird," liwa "rat." We find these sa me palatal fricatives extending far to the nonheast, in the Amdo country, ..... here we find New Tibetan (Amdo) Jog "side," la "bird," Ian "nonh." Iii " rat." But if we had gone nonh from Derge, instead of no rtheast. and had entered the Golok country, we would have found that the Old Tibetan palatalized labials had become not palatal fricatives but rather labiopalatal rricatives-thus New Tibetan (Golok) pya "bird," fIan " north," fIyo "rat." And if we had instead gone southeast fro m Derge to the city of Tao-fu-the Tibetan Tau or Uao-we would have found that the Old Tibetan palatalized labials had become Iabiopalatal affricates before rounded v~els., but labial stops in front of spread VQ'IIiels-thus New Tibetan (Tlto-fu) pIa "sKle," pita "bird," piwo "rat." From the materials we have, these dialect differences a ppear fairly consistent- thus, for example. Old Tibetan phyj·ba " marmot" > New Tibetan (Dbus) tIhiwo (Derge) Jtwa (Arodo) lu (Golok)ftyo (Tao-fu) phipo. We can, apparently, draw fairly neat isogIos.ses for these features, separating Derge and Amdo from Tho-fu, fro m Golok, and from Chamdo and the central dialects. But it is not clear whether this neatness really exists in the material, o r is simply an anefact o f its paucity. Let us look at the same change elsewhere. In western Tibet, we find the same change as in central Tibet-palatalized labials becoming palatal affricates-in the dialect of Ladakh, but not in the otherwise closely related dialects of Balti or Purik-thu5, for example, Old Tibetan byo "bird" > New Tibetan (Balti) bya (Purik) biIJ, but (Ladakh) tIa (Obus) tIa (Utasa) tIha, Old Tibetan ph)'O&f "side" > New Tibetan (Balti) phyox, but (Ladaldl) tIhoJcs (Dbus) tIho (Uuua) tIh3. We would therefore want to draw a n isogIoss grouping the western dialect of Ladakh with the central Tibetan dialects with regard to this o ne feature . But the picture is even more complicated. In ladakh-as opposed to the central dialects-Qld Tibetan palatalized labials have fa iled to become palatal affricates before front vowels-thus Old Tibetan phye " nour" > New Tibetan (Balti) ph< (Punk) ph< (Ladakh) I'M, but (Dbus) tJIoe (Lh..a) tJIoe, Old Tibetan ~ "hair' > New Tibetan (Balti) pMd (Purik) pM! (ladakh) phyet. but (Dbus) Lfh.t (Lhasa) tim. Note also that Old Tibetan phyi-mo " grandmother" > New Tibetan (Balti) -pi (Purik) -pi a nd Old Tibetan phyi "outside" > (Ladaldl) phi but (Dbus) tIhi·(Lhasa) tlhL So our isoglou would group Ladakh with the central dialects with regard to the development or palatalized labials onlv in svllables with hadr vowr.lt· in tvll~hl.._c wilh rrnnl
24
THE CL\SSICAL TIBETAN L\NOUAGE
vowels, Ladakhi would remain with the other western dialects of Balti and Purik. Finally, in Ladakh we find particular words-such as tIindilk "patron" and t!hin4n ''breakfast''-that appear to be exceptions 10 this laner rule, and in which palatalized labial. have become palatal affricates before front voweb. Why is this? There are several possibilties, and no conclusions: it may be thaI the change from palatalized labial to palatal affricate is continuing 10 spread into syllables with front vowels., and that these few words are the first such lexical items to undergo this change. with more to come in the future; it may-perhaps more plausibly---be that these few lexical items are in ract loan words into Ladakhi from a prestige central Tibetan dialect.
3.1.2. Some southern isoglosses The southern dialects of Sikkim and Bhutan show a change of Old Tibetan postinitial -r- to po5tinitiai -y- after grave-that is., velar and Jabial--initia1s; the neighboring Sherpa dialect shows instead the same retroflex stops shown by the dialects of Cennal Tibet to the north: Thus we find Old Tibetan skra "hair" > New Tibetan (Groma) kyo (Bhutan) kyo (Sikkim) kyo, but (Sherpa) {a (Obus) fa (Uaasa) fa, Old Tibetan khrtlg "blood" > New Tibetan (Gromo) khyag (Bhutan) thyak (Sikkim) khyag, but (Sherpa) ,Iulk (Dbus) {'Iak (Lhasa) lila, Old Tibetan sbtul "snake" > New Tibetan (Gromo) bill (Bhutan) beu (Sikkim) biu. bUI (Sherpa) tjrul (Dbus) 4U (Lhasa),a. Presumably an isogloss for this feature could be drawn around the southern dialects. wilh Sherpa and the northern dialects on one side and the southern dialec:ts on Ihe other. Where, in Ihe southern dialects, this change has not occulTed-as when Old Tibetan Nbron "wild yak" is represented by New Tibetan (Gromo) 40;i (Sikkimese) 40n (Dbus) 40n (Lhasa) tON-it is reasonable to suspect thai the word has in fact been borrowed by the southern dialects from one or more of the central dialects. This is especially so where the word denOles an item in the central, but not the southern, cultural repenoire.2)
2.1 or COllfSC, Ih is dislilldion is nO! .lways dear. III Chamdo City. for eumple, _lind Old Tibetan i'ibras ·'rice" > New Tibetan (Cbmdo) mbri but Old Tibetall JbnU '"suke" > New Tibetan (Ouimdo) driL 1 have no ooubt that tbe Chamdo City word drQ "lUke" wa borrowed from a ocntl1l! Tibetan di.IecC-compare, for eumple, New nbetall (Dbua) 4il (Lhasa) [il"sn'ke. ~ Bllt why in tile -ot1d would ChaIllOO City borrow tbe word """kef
TIBETAN IN CONTEXT
z,
But. again, things are really more complicated. In Ihe cenlral Tibetan dialects, denial syllable finals have largely disappeared. When such dental syllable finals existed, they caused preceding back vowels to move to the front of the mouth, presumably in anticipation of the following dental consonant. Any such front rounded vowels were without linguistic significance in Old Tibetan; but such vowels acquired significance in the central dialects as the dental finals that had caused them began to be lost. Thus, in these dialects, before what had been Old Tibetan dental finals, the back rounded vowels 0 and u have becOme, respectively, the front rounded vowels a and ii-thus, for example, Old Tibetan nos "side" > New Tibetan (Dbus) no (Lhas.a.) no, Old Tibetan lu.s "body" > New Tibetan (Obus) Iii (Lhasa) til. Similarly, the back spread vowel a has become either the front spread vowel ~, or a new, somewhat lower, front spread vowel t, depending on the dialect- Ihus, for example, Old Tibetan las "work" > New Tibetan (Obus) Ie (lhasa) It:. Sherpa is different. In common wilh other southern dialects, Sherpa has not developed fronl rounded vowels before de ntal finals, bUI has re taine~ the Old Tibetan back rounded vowels-thus, for example, Old Tibetan YOD "exist" > New Tibetan (Bhutan) yOi (Sherpa) yOI, but (Dbus) yO (lhasa) yO, Old Tibetan dnuJ "silver" > New Tibetan (Sikkim) nul (Sherpa) nul, bUI (Dbus) nii (Lhas.a.) nii, Old Tibetan khyod "yuu" > New Tibetan (Bhutan) khyot (Sherpa) khyod, but (Dbus) ahii (lhasa) cho, Old Tibetan yul "country" > New Tibetan (Sikkim) yul (Sherpa) yul, but (Dbus) yu (lhasa) yii, Old Tibetan bdun "seven" > New Tibetan (Bhutan) dun (Sherpa) dun, hut (Dbus) dUll (Lhasa) tUN. An isogloss for front rounded vowels would thus run along a diffe rent route than would the isogloss for -T- > -y- aher grave initials: the first isogloss would run nonh and west of the Sherpa settlemcnts in Nepal, linking Sherpa wilh dialects to the easl a nd west; the second isogloss would run easl of the Sherpa country, linking Sherpa with dialects to the north. BUI, again, there is more. In the southern dialects, as in the central dialects, the back spread vowel a does become fronted hefore dental finals, as opposed, say, to the western dialects, where such fr onting does not occurfor example. Old Tibetan brgyad "eight " > New Tibetan (Bhutan) gyet (Sikkim) gy~ (Sherpa) gye (Dbus) dIe (lhasa) cc, but (ladakh) rgyat (Balti) bgyad (Purik) 'KYat, Old Tibetan skad "speech" > New Tibetan (Sikkim) k~ (Sherpa) ked (Dbus) ke (lhasa) Iu:, but (ladakh) skill (Balti) skilt (Purik) skat. Thus the isogloss for the fronting of a before dental finals would follow
26
Tin,
ClASSICAl. TIBETAN I..J\NGUAGE
yet another route, linking together both the ce ntral and southern dialects, and separating them from the dialects to the west. And we are not dum: yet. Bhutan appears generally to follow the southern pattern, with no front rounded vowels before dental syllable finals-thus New Tibetan (Shc rpa) 4rui (Bhutan) beu "snake," (Sherpa) yot (Bhutan) yot "exist"; but note the exceptions-New Tibetan lSherpa) nul (Sikkim) nul, but (Bhutan) nu "sitver," (Sherpa ) yul (Sikkim) yul, but (Bhutan»,u "country." Once again we 3TC left to wonder whether these exceptions are the first signs of a change beginning to spread through Ihis portion of Ihe lexicon, or loan words from a prestige central Tibetan dialect.
3.1.3. Elegant breathiness Righi around Lhasa City there should be an isogloss separating New Tibetan (Lhasa) ka from (Dbus)ga "joy," (Lhasa) tQ from (Dbus) da "arrow," (Lha~a) pu from (Obus) bu "worm"; presumably this isogloss would pretty much coincide with the one separating New Tibetan (Lhasa) /.:hur from (Dhus) kur "tent," (Lhasa) rllep from (Dbus) tep "book," (Lhasa ) plio from (Dhus) pO "Tibet." In other words, in Dbus, the Ne .... Tibetan reflexes of Old Tibetan voiced initials-but only those originally without preinitials-have had their voice onset time delayed until they have fallen togdhcr with the New Tibetan voiceless initials. Such DEVOI CII'IG is, in fact, found in several f'e ..... Tibetan dialects, although more sporadicAlly than in central Tibet: compare, for example. Old Tibetan gur "tent" > New Tibetan (eolok) kur (Amdo) ki"r (Ladakh) kur (Dbus) kur, but Old Tibetan mgo "hciid" > New Tibetan (Oolok) go (Amda) go (Ladakh) go (Dbus) gO.2A
:u This dcvoi(:ing apparCnlly began wilh Ihe Uljl'ed flK-atives and ylilillally spreall 10 O1hel parts of the lellco n, The hislt) rian Nlos lo · ~ ·ba Gzon·nu-dpat, in hi! lXb ·lhrr Jno... po, quotcs a teller from a Nepalese scholar addlcssin& Bu·MtlR (1290-1364) I$la·/u pa~irll, ratner than the correct la·tfl ptllJl/ila, p,csllmahty Wliling tile term as I:e had healll it pronounced" Gton.nu-dpal himself. writing in 1478, noted that in his day ta III Ja-dilii mlhulI'ptJ " " . za IIi $a-diJiI mlAull'/J6 "'th~ graph is pronounad tile same as ... and tbe " ... ph is pronounad ItK :;allle as <$>.'" TIle Si. tu mah:lpal}~ita. in his monumental ,rammatiell COmmenlary MldlOu·poi ",gul''JJ)'Un mw.tig phrd·mdus, prob.:lbly to be: dated in 1744, simply listed I and z as sgra·mtt! ''Voicel~'" sounds alon, wilh J ind s"
TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT
27
In LlIasa City, however, the process has gone much farther than in other dialects: the New Tibetan reflexes of Old Tibetan voiced initials with preinitials have fallen together with the New Tibetan voiceless initials, and those without preinitials have had their voice onset time delayed even more, until they have rallen together with the New Tibetan aspirated initials-thus Okt Tibetan mgo "head" > New Tibetan (Obus) go but (LlIasa) leo, Old Tibetan mda "arrow" > New Tibetan (Dbus) da but (Uasa) ta, Old Tibetan flU "tent" > New Tibetan (Obus) hu but (Uasa) khur, Old Tibetan da "now" > New Tibetan (Obus) ta but (Uasa) tho.
This "breathiness" is apparently perceived as characteristic of the prestige L1lasa City dialect. It is thus not surprising that, within that dialect, speakers seek to achieve elegance by being even breathier.2S For such speakers, the New Tibetan reflexes of all originally voiced initials have fallen together with originally aspirated initials-thus Old Tibetan mgo "head" > New Tibetan (Dbus) go (l..liasa) leo (Lhasa elegant) ki10, Old Tibetan rdo "stone" > New Tibetan (Obus) do (Uasa) to (Lhasa elegant) tho, Old Tibetan mdliii "neck" > New Tibetan (Dbus) dtm (Uasa) tIiii (l..1lasa elegant) tJhiii. We must thus draw an additional isogloss, to separate New Tibetan (Lhasa) to from (Lhasa ekgant) Icho "head" and (Uasa) to from (l..1lasa elegant) tho "stone"-but this isogloss must be drawn through social rather than through geographical space. This social isogloss will probably coincide with several others, thus forming a social--rather than a spatial--dialecI boundary. One such additional social isogIoss will separate speakers who articulate unreleased nondental finals from those who do not, with those who do not articulate these finals being the more elegant-thus Old Tibetan myig "eye" > New Tibetan (Golok) Note tbat the process or de-.ooicin, atr«lS only tl\o$e initials that were origi~lIy voked in Old Tibelan. and IUs had no cITect on Old Tibclan un voiced initi:.llls- Ibus, for example. Old Tibelan Iw·ba Mpiflar" > New Tibelan (AITIdo) ~af/cilba (Dbus) /cilwa (Lhua) ~a, Old Tibetan dkM·po .....hitc .. > NewTibelan (Golok) Juuwo (Amdo) Juuo (Ladakh) ~rpq (Obl.lS)
""Pc (""">_
2S It is probably 'WOr1h nOlinsthat a Ue.l1 d~1 o r Amcrica n schol:.llrship o n the Lhasa dillect is based on tbe speech of a sin&le inrorma nt , N3wang Norn:.llng. supplemented by the Ipcccb of other l..b.as.a aristOQ'lU. Mr. Notnang is c.tucmc ly charming. lilcr3tc. and anlculate, and thereforc a pleasure 10 'WOrk with; but he is also tbc speakcr of an unusu311y depot !)'pC of Uasa Oty 4iaka. An cntire JCIICration of Amcrican studcnts IUs thcrdorc lcamod 10 speak tbe Tibetan cquMicnl or Bonon brahmin English.
28
TUE CussICAL TIBETAN lANOUAGE
?ffik (Amdo) ")t1;"-xiii1c (Balli) mile (Ladakh) mile (Dhus) miJc-mi? (Lhasa)
mile-mi7 but (Lhasa elegant) m~ Old Tibetan nub "west" > New Tibetan (Golok) nup (Balli) nup (ladakh) nup (Obus) nup (Lhasa) nup but (Lhasa elegant) fill. Old Tibetan KUr "tent" > New Tibetan (Golok) leur (Arodo) Icir (Ladakh) leur (Obus) leur (Lhasa) khur but (Lhasa elegant) khu.. Another social isogloss will separate speakers f('l whom Old Tibetan stop initials with
1.,,', ...", 16 UJiJe IJ"'U"""'T, I...,., tD tAl! liJte • lRdy.
-George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion
, postinitials are retroflex SlOps from those for whom they arc r~troflex affricates, with the laller again being the morc elegant-thus Old Tibetan skro "hair" > (l9lam) lIra (Tao-fu) 1fTa (Purik) skro (ladakh) IQ (Obus) to (Lhasa) 10 bUI (Lhasa degam) lio, Old Tibetan gri "knife" > New Tibetan (Tao-fu) gri (Khams) 4; (Obus) {i (Lhasa) Ihi bul (Lhasa elegant) #h~ Old Tibetan SprUl "cloud" > New Tibetan (Derge) trim (Purik) sprin (Lada\th)IUa (Dbus) {in (Lhasa) {iN hut (Lhasa elegant) Old Tibetan Nbras "rice" > New Tibetan (Balti) bros (Ladakh) 40$ (Dbus) 4t (Lhasa) Ie but (I...hasa elegant) IIII£. In sum, if this analysis is correct.. the social dialect boundary in Lhasa City separates speakers of a breathier, more fricative, Ie" stopped manner of speech from speakers of a voicier, less fricative. more stopped manner of speech. This is, in fact. a discernible difference among speakers of the lhasa dialect, and depends on social class or the efforts of the speaker to sound elegant and aristocratic.
"iN.
3.2. VARIATION IN OW TIBETAN I can say without hesitation that similar sorts of variation existed in Old Tibetan as well. The problem is that-aside from 8 conviction that such variation existed in Old Tibetan. as it exists in every language---we simply do not know much about it. The period of Old Tibetan we may take to be more or less coextensive with
TIBETAl'I IN CoNTEXT
the age of the centra! Tibetan Yar-lui'i dynasty, from the seventh 10 the ninth c:cnturies-the era of Tibet's greatest military expansion and the time when the foundations of Tibetan culture were laid, including Ute language we are bere calling classical Tibetan. This was the time when terrifying Tibetan hordes, with their faces painted red, conquered and occupied the strategic c.ses of Central Asia, and on one occasion even captured and briefly held Ct'ang-an, the capital of Olina. For these two centuries. Tibet was the dominant power in Inner Asia.
By the middle of the eighth century at the latest, the barbarian warriors of Tibet had developed a uniform writing system, based on an Indian mode~ which they used on huge monolithic pillars to record their vic10riCJ and in correspondence among the military outposts of their empire. By the reign of Khri Sron-lde-btsan (742-797), who founded the monastery of Bsam-yas and invited the Indian academicians Santaraiq;ita and KamaJaJ.ila to Tibet, this ""ting system had begun 10 be applied to the production of Buddhist texts. By the beginning of the ninth cenlury it seems a need was felt to standardize the language of these translations., whether from religious or imperial. impulse it is difficuiJ to say; in any event, the language standardization project was begun under Khri Lde-sroii-btsan (776-815) and completed under his son Khri Gtsug-lde-btsan (805-836). 'The result was a dictionary, the ,Bye-brag·ru rwgs·par byed·pa, perhaps better known under its Sanskrit~d titfe.MahiiryUl· ptuti, and a commentary, the Sgra-sbyor bam.po giiis·pa, Widi tlie sanskrit title MtJdhyavyulpatti, which served as a treatise on translation theory and practice. Translations that had already been completed were revised by the central translation committee, and, as the historian Bu,slon says., s/cJJd-gsa' btJad.kyis gf(ln·1a phab "The new language was established by decree." The result was a series of canonical translation eqUivalents for Buddhist texts, in officially sanctioned spellings.
3.2.1. Sources There are three primary sources of written evidence for dialect variation in Ol~ Tibetan during this period. One source is the collection of manuscripts recovered from the famous walled-up library in one of the shrines constituting the settlement at Ch'ien·(o-tung, near Thn·huang, in western Kan"u, the caravanserai which marks the end of China and the beginning of the desert. The sealed cave 'Yielded an immense hoard of Tibetan manuscripts rrom the eighth and ninth centuries, including historical records. translations, myths,
30
TilE CussICAl.. TIBETAN l...ANOUAGE
rituals, divination manuals, and collections of proverbs. The spelling of words in these lexts is the most direct available evidence of dialect variation among the scribes who wrote them down,liS
Another source consists of documents, written primarily on thin strips of wood held together with Siring, or on coarse, unglazed paper, left behind by the Tibetan garrisons al the oasis cities of Chinese Turkestan, primarily {orts at Miran and at Maziir-Tagh in Khotan. These oases had long had their own
vibrant culture-their garden walls adorned with frescoes and stucco reliefs _hen they were occupied and garrisoned by Tibetan troops, who Jeft behind in their storerooms the identity cards of soldiers, address labels for military and administrative corresponde nce, military reports. administralive memoranda, and letters to superiors from harried commanders in need of supplies. Like the Tun-huang texts, these more prosaic documents give us spellings a nd vocabulary that may reflect di
21> A few o( tlH.:$e maflu:o;cri pts. too, turned ou t 10 be Chi nese: Buddhist texiS transliterated inlO Tibetan, presumably !oO tll.al they could be reci ted by Tibetan tra~de~ Ulitenlte in Chinese but JlCrll.ap5 wilh some knowled~ of the spoken language.. Since we have indc(ltnden, ao;:a.s to tbe Chincs.e tCXIS thllS transliterated, and independent rtCOnstruc1ions o f their Middle ChilK$C phonology, such tcxu. ca n provide signifICant dues 10 the phonolopc.i va lues of the Tibetan I raphs wed to IfJl\SClibe Ihem. We will tum 10 tllcK ICKIS (or help whe n we discuss the Tibetan '-'Till nl sys tem.
31
TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT
similar Chinese transliterations of several Tibetan government titles and royal names in the Chinese historical records dealing with Inner Asian political affairs.
3.2.2. Manuscript variations Even with these sources, it is difficult to form any consistent geographical picture of Old Tibetan dialect variation. We can, of course, detect fragments of dialects. One ten from the TIm-huang library, for example, consists of proverbs attributed to ma sum-po "Mother Sum-pa/the Sum-pa mother." In this text we find written consistently for Old Tibetan my; "man," and appareOlly intended to represent the form mu "man" in the dialect of the author. Thai ·this dialect was thai of a Sum-pa people is indicated not only by the title of the text but also by the fact that the Sum-pa were apparently a distinctive Tibetan group.v We are probably justified in believing that we have here found a genuine Old Tibetan dialect variant-Qld Tibetan (Sumpal mu "man," as opposed, say. to the Old Tibetan (Lhasa) my; > m; "man" attested on the contemporaneous monumental pillars erected around Lhasa City. Similarly, another Tun-huang manuscript, this time dealing with divination, presents what seem to be consistent dialect features, writing for Old Tibetan z/Q "moon" and for Old Tibetan zlogs "reversed," and for Old Tibetan lhams-dad "all" and for Old Tibetan sems-t1an "sentient creature." Again, these spellings would seem to reflect genuine Old Tibetan dialect variants; unfortunately, we do nOI know where they are from. But the variants are sufficiently systematic that the
71 The SlIm.pa ptay ... rote in both tl\c Old Tibeu.n Chronicles and l~ DIU Tibetan Ann.als: tbey were «.lOquercd by Myaft Maft.po.rd1.e taft -$na ll, the mipister of Sroft·btsan sa-m-po: there were Sum.pa in Rtya -ror. and Mdo-$ rnad. The New rang History reports tbit Su.g-$gta, a prince of tbe Sum.p'. derectod fro m Tibet and $u rrendcrcd to the Cbi~. Tbc term --fNJ abo appears as a geographical designalion in proper namcs-for CDmplc, the otbuwise IInknown Sum-pi Qsu_slcbs, mentionod in a ninth-ccnlury fragment of ad!lli.usuatlvc ~ncspondcncc from the Tibcl.ln fon at Mlrln. l..ater tbe term _.po came to mu to tbc MopJ'lOf, wtIo came to the Kokonor region laler on; the author S;tm-pa Yelea dpll-Nbyor was probably among lbe talter. At lca$t OJIC WOfd-list of New TIbetan, first pubtiJhcd by the South Manchuriap Railw3y in 1943. reports the form I'IU map" from t!le area oc ubrullQ Am4o, allhougll this Is pl"obabty an aue mpl to rel'ldcr the lOon m1. M
J2
manuscript seems to represent a particular dialect, in which the zI of. say, s~ and -$oil is represented by ! Using the manuscript designation as the provenance of tht! linguistic (orms. therefore. we are probably justified in proposing Old Tibetan (Stein ms. 73 IV 38) slo "moon," as opposed to Old Tibetan (Uiasa) zla "moon," and Old 'Tibetan (Stein tnI. 73 IV 38) tMm-/ad "all," as opposed to Old Tibetan (Lhasa)
Lhasa City is represented by
thams-dad "all," with the Uasa Conns as attested on the Sino-Tibetan treaty pillar of 821. Again, we fllld a Thn-huang mythological manuscript apparently perWnina: to a ~gendary time of woe in tbe Skyi counuy, although the provenance of the manuscript itself is uncertain. The manuscript lUna to reOcct. at leut in some portions, a dialect which did not have---o"f wu in the procell of l,?,ing-the distinction between palatal and dental affricates found elsewhere in Old Tibetan. Thus we find. in this manuscript, both . and . both and , and both and , written apparently indiscriminately. What is interesting and puzzling, however, is that these are all proper names, and proper names that are, as far as I know, peculiar to this text. We do not ftnd such variation in other parts of the lexicon: Old Tibetan mtfhog "best" is written consistently as , and Old Tibetan "t.fhab "water" is written consistently as . One hypothesis is that the manuscript in fact represents a dialect in which there is no distinctio~r no longer a distinction--between dental and palatal affricates; where the scnbe writes 8 word in common use, he writes it according to the speillng rule he has learned; where the scribe has no rule to follow, as when he is writing a proper name he has never seen spelled elsewhere, he improvises its spelling inconsistently, since the different graphs for palatal and dental affricates do not reflect a distinction in his own speech. We do not know, of course, whether in this dialect the palatal affricates have fall~n together with the dental, or the denial wilh the palatal; but such a dialect would dearly be different from that recorded, ~y, on the pillar inSCriptions at Lhasa City.2I
28 Tbe Central Alian manusaipU-botb from Tlul-buaniand Kholaa-6llowoo~ vuiation In their lpcllinl or those vamfIUI1k:a1 panidcl wblcb uaderao lIIOrpbOpbOaotopcd changes aa;:ordin, 10 lhe final or poiIllinal of \be prcc:edin, I)'lIabk. So _ _'"lImp" WId 10 aencl'llHu a 'lap form of svth a ~nide-rOf call1pie. 1!:Ie ¥01c:cd ~lataliKd for1Il, wrilinl .". _n wllCre lhe morpbopbonoklpcal ""lei would __ 10 caU for ..,. or ... Other manusaipl$ may avoid paJalalillCd fo~ a1lOtdbet. and lK ~ II11allCSled po5looG50lLInlal IOI1n5 .; and ..ti, u ill UId . wberc _
uWt, ..
TIBETAN IN Cof'fTEXT
33
3.2.3. Reconstructed variations Sometimes we can reconstruct earlier variation where New Tibetan dialect variants do not reflect a single Old Tibetan source. The word for "knee," for example, is pus-mo in the classical texts, with the high back vowel u and a final -s. But it is clear that this fonn is only one of several earlier Tibetan words with the same meaning. Some of these variants apparently go back to earlier fonns with the same vowel but a velar final cluster: in western Tibet we find New Tibetan (Balti) buxnw (Purik) puksmo. which indicate an earlier fonn -pugs-mo. But we also find fonns with the same finals or clusters but a high front vowel i instead of a high back vowellL We find (Ladakh) pUma, indicating an earlier fonn 'pis-mo, and (Lahuli) pismo. of uncertain ancestry, but possibly from -pig-rno or -pi.gs-nw. At the other end of Tibet, in the far nonheast, we find (Arndo) wiXmo-iXmo, which could have come from any of the four earlier forms 'pig--pigs--pug.-pugs-mo. and (Golok) wigo. which seems to indicate an earlier 'pig-mo. And in central Tibet we find (Dbus) pimo. which looks like it came from -pis-rna, and (Lhasa) pilmu, which is so clearly related to an earlier form 'pus-mo that one suspects that it is in fact a reading pronunciation of the written form . And we also find in Lhasa City a form pemf}, whose vowel ~instead of .c--and long high level tone on the first syllable suggest an earlier form 'pel-fTUJ. There is, thus, no one earlier form that can accoun! for all these New Tibetan variants, and we must reconstruct at least four--ot possibly five-precursor forms-'pis-mo. 'pig--pigs-mo. 'pus-mo. 'pug--pugs-mo. and, perhaps, 'pel-mo. Contemporary forms help confirm other variations in Old Tibetan. At one time, «nain Old Tibetan words with a labial initial and a front vowel had been written with the bottom graph , both in the Central Asian manuscripts and on the Lhasa inscriptions, indicating that the labial initial had been palatalized-for example, myi "man," myUi "name," mye "fire," "l)'Q "grandfather," dpyes "copy." Other words with a labial initial and a front vowel were apparently not so palatalized, and were written without the -for example, mUi "brother," mt-tog-men-tog "nower," dpen "useful." After the language refonns of the early ninth century, the bottom graph was eliminated from all such words, and the words officially became mi IIIOfJIbopboDOlo&kaJ. nalet would sccm 10 all (or -k)' Of·gi II is very dlfTlaall 10 draw any OOIIdusioof from s\ldl l'ariltion. DOl OCiIy because of Its iftCOlI$istcncy _II within a .inpe ~..aipt, bill abo bccallK these SpctlillP may in fact rcrJca sporadic ancmpts al pboAclllkWnl the writiDI of tbcte pIIni<:1c$. .
34
TilE CLASS ICAL TIBETAN l..J.NGU .... GE
"man," min "name," m~ "fire," mes "grandfather," dpe "copy," presumably because that is the way the nobles in Lhasa City pronounced them . . In the far northwest, however, labials before front vowels in these words conlinued to be palatalized. How do we know? As a general rule, Old Tibetan my > New Tibetan ii, as when, say, Old Tibetan myug " reed" > New Tibetan (Obus) iiuk, or Old Tibetan dmyal.ba > New Tibetan (Uasa) nala. Thus, when we find, among Ihe northwestern dialects, New Tibetan (Amda) iii (Dpari) mni (Qolok) mno "man," 85 opposed to New Tibetan (Obus) mi (Lhasa) mi in central Tibet. and New Tibetan (Amda) ne (Han-niu) miii (Qolok) wiie "fire," 85 opposed to New Tibetan (Obus) me (Lhasa) me, we can hypothesize the norlhwestern forms are in fact descended from an earlier -myi "man" and -mye "fire," respectively. while the central Tibetan forms are descended from the Old Tibetan mi and me recorded in the texts after the spelling reform. Words that were not written as palatalized before the spelling reform do not have palatalized descendants in any dialect-thus, for example, Old Tibetan me-log "flower" > New Tibetan (Amdo) met07(Lhasa) meto.
3.2.4. The problem or the prtinitials A striking feature both of the manuscripts and of the inscriptions is the variability of preinitials. In the Central Asian manuscript material, whether from Khotan or Tun-huang, the scribes sporadically weaken or omit preinitial consonants in complex syllable onset clusters: they write both and for dkOll "rare," both and for dgu "nine," both and for dkar "white," both and for mgo "head," both and fordpon "lord," both and for milia "end," both and " for blSan "king," both and for rtsis "reckoned," both and for biOI! "minister." both and for gsar "new:' Similarly, on the Sino-Tibetan treaty pillar of 821, we find Old Tibetan "command" transliterated as Middle Chinese ~hya, Old Tibetan "old" as Middle Chinese -leon, Old Tibetan "attached" as Middle Chinese -rwok, Old Tibetan "sees" as Middle Chinese -tlul, Old Tibetan <11JYOi> "king" as Middle Oinese -Icye, Old Tibetan "firm" as Middle Chinese -tan. Old Tibetan "name of a district" as Middle Chinese -mwa, Old Tibetan "high" as Middle Chinese
TUH, rAN IN CoNTEXT
35
-tn-but Old Tibetan <.bzaii> "gO(xf' as both Middle Chinesl! -dzhuii and -b-dzhaii <.-bhwn-dzhaii>, Old Tibetan "serpent deity" as both Middle Chinese -1M.4 and -k-Iy~ <. -Icyu-Iy~p>. Nonslopped and nasal prl!initials were apparently still articulated clearly e nough for the Chinese scrim: to catch: Old Tibetan "IIONoRIFIe Al'llX TO PEHSONAL NAMES" is transliterated as Middle Chinese -slan <-syer-wii>, Old Tibetan <.fllum> "wool" as Middle Chinl!se -SlIam <-syel-nam>, Old Tibetan "assembled" as Middle Chinese -nus <,-nwo-syel>. We find similar Chinese transliterations in the Tang dynastic histories. In the Annals of the Later Tang we find what we can presume is Old Tibetan blSan "king" IranSlileTilled as Middle Chinese -/Jan, Old Tibetan blon "minister" as Middle Chinese -/yw.wz, but Old Tibetan spyan "eye" as Middle Chinese -spyen <. -sye/-pyel! >. Synchronically, it is clear that the speakers of the dialects reflected in tht!sc texts were not articuJating--or were not consistently articulating--earlier stopped nonnasal preinitials, and were weakening them or dropping them completely. It is equally clear, however, thai, at Ihe same time. the spc!'lkers of the Lhasa City dialect were wriling their words with the prdnil ials indicated, right on the same pillar as the Chinese transcriptions, and .....I!rc giving those spellings the official sanction of their Buddhist translation commission. And in other dialects these preinitials apparently continued 10 be articulated: note, for example, Old Tibetan dgu "nine" > New Tibetan (Khams) dgu, Old Tibetan bdun "seven" > New Tibetan (Khams) bdull, Old Tibetan gram "story" > New Tibetan (Khams) gtam, Old Tibetan sgo "d(xn" > New Tibetan (Khams) sgO.29 This is all very puuling. I believe it is pla usible to suggest that we are dealing 29 Loan words are nOI much hClp unlC$!; we know JUSt where Iml when !he loan took ptace. When Mongol IauJni "musk" was borrowed into Tibelan a" sku·btU·rigs. or wilen Mo ngot ba4J.J, ''Warrior'' was borrowed as dfHl ' /Jdud, 01 wilen Middle Cllinoc 0/...,.00 "dragon" is wriuen in Tibelan as bolll ,/u;; ''Wind'' and kJu;; "fi.'cr" in Ille oompuund ,Iu;;· na-Idu;;·na "d ragon lIorse ... prayer nag." we can guC\s Ihal. ~I Ihat lime and pl~ce. Ihe preinilials were n1 oJu nut know where or when Ihat was. BUI somelimes we can gel dose. For eumple. on tile smaller of the two DlU·yunr;-kuln inKr iptions. wrillen in Mongot ian. in Nphags-pa scripl. probably in the late thirteenth or <:;irly fourteenth centu')', we find Tibeun rab·gnas "oorlS«ralion" as Mungol arabniU. Tibetan bl3·ma " lama" as Mongol lema. and Tibetan d~-bju "profcuor" as Mongol ~bji. This inscription is, of o;:ourse. I long lime afle r and a lo ng distance from the Sino-Tibetan trealy inscriptio n. bUI it prcsum~bly still represents the speech of such educated Tibetans as might have acc;c.<.S 10 Ihe Mongol OOUrt.
36
TilE Cu.ssICAL TIBETAN lANGUAGE
here with a social rather than a geographic dialect-a social dialect that includes both the officials at Lhasa City and 'the administrators and scribes of their Central Asian garrisons. JO But if preinitials tended to be elided in the prestige dialect, why were they made part of the official spellings? And if-as I prefer 10 hypothesize-preiniliais te nded to be articulated in the prestige dialect in slow or elevated speech, but elided when talking rapidly or conversationally, why we re they not nOled by the Chinese scnbes who transliterated Ihe Tibetan words-presumably pronounced slowly and carefully for them-4)n the treaty inscription?
4. DEFINING CLASSICAL TIBETAN I will use the term ClASSI CAL TIBETAN to refer to the language of written Tibetan teXiS , with the exception of the canonicallranslalions, primarily from Sanskrit,)] and' the language of modern newspapers and similar printed
)fl Assignment to an ad miniuralive post al o ne of the beautiful and civilized oasis cilia uf Cen tral A~ia woulu nOI necessa ri ly be a hn(!Ship posl, althou gh there were cerlainly some gMri~uns Ihat were ulRsidcrably k:.~ allraclive,
~I Translations of Blllluhist and OIher lell! began dllring the first half of the eighth c.cRlu ry; Il!; we have nut ed, Ihc vflcahu lary and style of the translation language were Ihnruughly rc~ul a ril_cU lIuring the carly part nf thc ninth ce ntury, under King Khri Gtsugkk-ht .... n. With the pmmulga liun of Iranstali.. n rules by Ihe royal com miss io n, stand.ardi/ltion of rende ring becamc a pr im~ry vinue: as Ilne cummcnia tor has no ted, many of the tramlalions of Ihe niRlh Ihmugh Ih e early twelflh ce nturies appear to be Ihe work o r lin· imaginaliv.: hack!;. Tli is mechanical renderin g nf equivalents, however, hll!; oOen been deemed a vi rtue by modern .~ holars who vi L..... Tibetan only as a mea ns 10 " reconstruct" IO!>I Sanskrit le_~IS- lha l is, 10 engage in Ihe [M!culiar elercise of translati ng Tibe tan tnu into Saltskrit.
One of Ihc pruh lc ms was Ihe uirrlCully of per~ uading q ualified indian teac hers to travel to Tibel, a place percelvcU as ho rr id ~ nd harl'llr ic hy any ur ba ne Ind ian academic; anOlher pruh lcm was the ha/alu- famine. thievel>. strange di!oC
37
material ]2' The remainder--the vast corpus of written Tibetan material ranging in date from the eighth century to the present day--is written in a language recognizably the same, and all morc: or less accessible 10 the literate Tibetan. 1 use the: term in conscious imitation of similar usage in Olinese literary study, where the: term "classical Otinese" refers to the written language: as a whole. from bronze inscriptions to novels, all of whi<:b is the province of the: literate scholar. but with the similar exelusion of translations from Sanskrit and the written Chinese of newspapers and magazines.
Classical Tibetan, unlike many written languages, is in many ways independent of the spoken Tibetan language. For example, the basic phonological distinctions underlying the: clusicallanguagc have remai~hroughout its history-those of Old Tibetan. Even today, a writer of classical Tibetan will WRITE. the: form for the: prcsent stem, for the past stem, and for the future: stem of the verb SGRUB "accomplish," even when all three forms arc PRONOUNCED identically in his spoken language-for example. New Tibetan (Lhasa) /Up. Similarly, a writer of classical Tibetan will write the past stem of SAG "gather" as . with an -s suffix, and the past stem of SAD "kill" as . \\oithout an -s SUrrlX, because of an Old Tibetan syllable structure constraint. even when his spoken language no longer has syllable-final consonant clusters in any event. In both these examples, classical Tibetan is WRIlTEN according to the phonological rules of Old Tibetan.)'}
tJheD $nyaJrlbhadn. IrriYcd wilb • retinue of nine pal)4ilS in 1206; by tbe second balf of tbe tIlirtCIcntb CUtury, Soa-ston Rdo-rdtc rC)'llI-muban was working with uqmTkara to tn.UIaIC SatlStrit drama, puctry,lDd ucatiscson poetical theory. And tbac rdugcc scholars came with tbelr boots: the bulk of Sanskrit man\lSCfipu preserved in Tibet date from tbe IIllrICCAlb cenlury. II Neowspapc:r Tibetan b.as been called "modern literary Tibetan" by anthropologist Mcl\IyD. OokIItein,'allboup its uses .ppear to me to be far from litcrary. ansal Tibetan, of c:owse. continues 10 be wrillen to tbis !lay, as tbe language of learned discourse, aDd even u the laapp of popullr culture; wtlcttlcr newspaper Tibetan will become a vebicle for a teGuloc colloquial lilCnlturc rcmahu: 10 be SOClI, .'tbougb arty signs are encouraling.
:n A pt.ralld llllIIlioII
Is found In Chinese poetry: words which once rhymed in older of tbe lanpaJC conlinued 10 be used as rhymes, even when tbey no IonJCr rhymed III tbe apekca laDpaJC of the pact, witb special diclionaries compiled to tell the writer whk:b wordiWCfC supposed 10 be considercc1 rhymes I nd whith wcre not.
Sl.lp
38
THE CtAssICAL TIBETAN l.....\NOUAGE
This is not to say, of course, that clanical Tibetan has never been influenced by the spoken language. Such influences can certainly be found. For example, the firteenlh-century Guan-smyan he-ru-ka, in his famous biography of the clcventh-century poet Mi-Ia ras-pa, consistently used the Middle Tibetan conjunction -nUi "RuT' in his own prose, in contrast to the Old Tibetan conjunction ·Yon ''BUT'' found consistently in the genuinely older songs attributed to Mi·la which he quotes. Similarly, dialect pronunciations have been given an Old Tibetan orthography and borrowed back into the classi<'.allanguage~ for example, Nphyor-pa "pretty" as mtIhor-pa, and sk.yuii-ta "jackdaw" as flIuii-ka. The amount of Ihis influence, of course, varies with the author, the style, and the subject matter: clearly a text on logic theory written for candidates for advanced monastic acade mic degrees will show less influence from the contemporaneous dialect of its author than a book of popular maxims, even when written by the same writer.}t Once again. the parallel with classical Chinese is striking.
Figurr J.
lIIu,"i1Illl~d
book. ptJ~
}t In this reprd we should note a remar kable ,rollp of nineteenth· and twen tleth«DtllTy monk scholars in the ris.,"~d "edectic" ITIOYcment, be,lnnin, with Kon·sprul Karma ~a,. dNn yon· tl n rl)'l· mtsho, Ndtam..:lbya lls mkhyc n.brtscl dball·po. and Mi·ptllm reya·mtsllo of Khanu, who e mphuized the IInity of the Tibetan rdir;iollS tr~ i tio n, .nd who initiated • lu tin, inte rest in oral litera tllre and the ep~ trad itio n.
4
The Writing System 1. GRAPH AND SOUND
It is important 10 distinguish between a linguistically functional sound and the written sign--or ORAPH_hich represents that sound. This distinction was blurred among the Tibetan grammarians. who used the term yi-ge indiscriminately to mean both a sound and the graph used to write that sound. Such usage can be misleading. The script does make some graphic distinctions that reneel significant phonological distInctions: fo r example, stopped preinitiais
It is 8lnerRliy ASIUltUd 'hilt tbt spoim JPOrtJ came before the "';nm FOrd. I su!J!Jen ,hilt the l[IOIt~n IIPQrtl as we know it 'lUlU lifter the ..,ittm 1fJ(Wr/.• ..• My bam theory is thRt the "";tten FOrd was "'lUaU) " nM4S that made the spokm word pmsibk. -William S. Burroughs. nit l ob
are written as left graphs and nonstopped preinitials arc written 35 lOp graphs. But the writing system fails 10 reflect other and eq ually significant phonological distinctio ns: for example, in both zla " moon" and s/a "t hin" the -/. is wrillen as a bottom graph; but in zla it is apparently an Old Tibetan postinitial, while in s/a it is undoubtedly the initial. I
I Thus, 100, lhe
ric!
G~H IC oonYc:ftlions
tllal 1M Kquences and are wrillen with the
same
docs nO! mean they Ire PItOI' New Tibeta n (Lhasa) [lID ....a! pllollOlot;iall1y distillC( rrom O ld Tibeta n grup " he lper" > New Tibetu (Lhasa) n, dcspile
lbeir ,rlphic similarily,
THE CussICAL TtBETAN l...ANOU ....GE Moreover, it must be remembered that the writing system has remained virtually unchanged for a thousand years, while the spoken language has undergone change in several ways. The wrinen form , originally representing Old Tibetan sgrub "accomplishes" < N·SGRUB, now represents, say, New 1.'ibetan (Lhasa) {Up. Now phonological change has been sufficienlly regular, in most cases, that a literate Lhasa city reader can process as representing {Up; but the same person, as writer, cannOl with similar assurance transcribe {UP as , instead of, say, or , which also represent New Tibetan (Lhasa) {Up. Rather, it must be leam~d that {Up "accomplishes" is written , that !up "overflows" is written , and that {Up "sews" is written .l The gi'owing divorce between writing and speech leads to another occasional anomaly--the fact, not only that Til?ttans are generally terrible spellers, but alsO that a Tibetan ca" say things he · dOt:s not know how to write at all. Such a com mon expression as New Tibetan (Lhasa) (;Hi; "last year" seems to have no written form; it is represented graphically where necessary by the unrelated sequence .l
2. THE INVENTION OF WRITING The traditional accoUnt of the invention of the Tibetan writing system is set t'orth in the ecclesiastical history of Bu·ston (129Q.1364). There we are told that Thon·mi Anui·bu was sent to India by king Sron·btsan sgam·po (who ruled from about 627 to 650) along with sixteen companions in order to study writing; he studied with a pal}"ita named Lha-rig-pai sen·ge, created the Tibetan alphabet based on a Kashmiri prototype, and composed eight works on writing and grammar. This bare account is progressiydy elaborated in tht: later historical te"ts, which add circun::stantial details to the story. The name Thon-mi-Thu-mi-Mtho-mi becomes associated with twO earlier-and prob·
1 ColUCrvativc writing systcms represe nting t.:hanging lallguages IIlclcforc aspire 10 thc oondition of Chinese, with the relation~hip betwC(:n graptl ~nd sound becoming increasingly ~rbillary and , eventually. :he subj«t of shotr mcmori1.ation. 1 Note tOO that one can, ofoourse, wril( II graphi(: s-rquencc rep resen tin g a ~y!l3bh: whi(:h is nOI allowed by the phonologicat rules of thc langu age. nlll!J the graphic sequence can be interpreted as .cpresenting a syllabic ?brkJub. whkh is not II pcrmiU C an IX interpretC
41
THE WRmNo SYSTEM
ably composite--grammatical works, the Sum-Lfu-pa and the Rtags-kyi Ndtug-
We should note, however, that the earliest, and simplest, account was written seven hundred yean after the events it purports to describe, and that Fr'luineiy ancient Tibetan historical records from Central Asia- unavailable 10 Bu-ston and his successors-appear to contain no mention of Thon·mi at
ptL
oil
Considerable doubt can thus be cast on the traditional account of the invention of Tibetan writing, and there are cunsiderable difficultIes concerning even the historicity of its putative inventor. Moreover, an Indian inSCription on baked bricks from Gopalpur, written in a script virtually identical with the Tibetan, has been independently dated to around 50(1 Such evidence gives reason to believe that any purported invention was, if anything, a sta ndardization of Indic scripts already in circulation for as long as a century. Such standardization presumably would have rlXed the graphS for phonemes which are found in Old Tibetan but not in Sansktit·-prenasalization, voiced fricatives. and one series of affricates, as well as ! mooth vocalic ingressprimarily through the modification o f existing graphs. 4 The development of a writing system wa~ apparently due to admmistrutivc ralher than religious needs, al least at the beginning. One o f the eallicst references 10 writing is in the ancient anuals discove red at the caves ne:lr Tun-huang, which brieny describe the principal evenls of e ar.h year from tt·e death of Sroii-btsan sgam-po in 6.50 through 747. The entry for the yetlr 655 reads buan.po mer-Iche-na blugs-.rut, b/on-IIhe slon ·ISO!; ·lfjlf JoIgOr-tir b ka-/;.im..,· kyi yi-Ce bris "The King stayed at Me: ·i.:hc, and prime mir"!i5t Ci" Stoii- Isan wrote the text of his commands t.) ~g.)r- li ." ~ T he earlics! ext J ro t dated Tibetan writing is found on a pillar erected at 2 01 anti dat.:d 7(.7. T ~e piliar was c·rccted by the powerful minister Nan- I~lIn S!::g-sgrtl klu-r,()r" n-cvr l.lir.g his services to the king, including victories over the Chinese, and lhl: n;wanls h(~ received. The pillar makes no mention of iluudhislIl .
• For eumple, Ihe graphs for Ihe denIal affricalcs ih, rJ, 1.111 are Iho; .... mo:: a.\ Ihe &,aph~ for Ihe palatal affriOUe5 dl, /1. 11h wilh • $m. 1I hook added; Ih-e gr~ph for l is Ille grllp h f(u .u backwards; Ihe graph for 1 is, perh.aps. deriV{'J fro m tI.e guph fur ii. The urigir. r.f Ihe V.ph called Q·dhuJi "Iiule 0" hy the TIbo::um gram!narian~ ~~ a m~IIC I or rnuch ,JiSpu lc
S Note the impliQllion Ihal the king hinudf wu
iII ile.;,!'!.
42
THE C1..Ass1CAJ.. nSETAN LANGUAGE
3. THE WRITING SYSTEM The principles of the Tibetan writing system are easily descnbed. The original
technical problem was that of taking a syllabic script used for the predominantly open Indie syllabic and adapting it to the complex onset clusters and closed syllables of Tibetan. The key to the adaptation is a small raised dot called tsheg "dot," which defines the boundaries of the syllable: everything between two dots constitutes onc syllabic. The word "syllabic" in Tibetan is tsheg·bar "between the dots." The following table shows the graphic structure of the Tibet9n syllable, which we will discuss in the following paragraphs; the GRAPHIC structure of the syllable must, of course, be kept conceptually distinct from its PifONOLOO1CAt structure. The numbers in the table indicate the sequence in which the graphs
a re processed.
I LEFr
I I II I I Tab/~
5 VOWEL
HOP
j
CEI'rIl:R
.. BOTTOM
5 VOWEL
I I Ii I I
'RIGHT
J. Graphk. smwuu of flu Old
II
7 FAR RI GHT
I
Tj~ftJ1l syllabf~
The minimum graphiC sequence consists of one CENTER ORAPH and one VOWEl. GRAPH either above or below the center graph. This sequence is processed as an open syllable, with the vowel last; a vowel graph cannot be written indeoendently of 0. center graph. The center graph may be any one of the 29 graphs representing the consonants g. Ie. Ich, d, t, tho h, Po ph, dl, I!, tlh, dz. ts, tsh, ii, if, fI, In, I, I, z, 5, y, r, ~ W, 7, and h. Ir the syllabIc: being
43 represented has no initial consonant, but rathe r begins with a vowel, the center graph position is st ill filled, with what we will here call the PLACEHOLDING GRAPH, called a-dhun " lillie Q " by the Tibetan grammarians.'
(0
JIIQ gra ph Qf tile Tibc:lall writing 5}'$IUt Iw been as diKussed and rontr()Y(rted as
"Iittle a." For tile Tibetan grammlrians, Q-dlruil "little a" stood in ronU''&St to 1tHJMfI "bil D" or lhe glottal SlOp 1. This .seems to be precisely Ihe s.amc dislinc1ion as thai between Chinese)ll "smoot h YOCalic inlreM" and yin, "gloll.ll SlOp" knOW1I to lbe andent CIIincse phonelici3ns and reconstructed (or lbe la nluaJe of the swl! century AD. Fo r some ruson , however, the T ibetan plKlnclicians idenliflCd lbeir pollal SlOp 1 wilh tile onse t of ~;lShi l syllab les wrinen wil/loll\ initial consona nt IflIphs. Now Indic descriptions of Ihis o nsc t are puv.ling; but perhaps in conlempora neous Sanskrit pronuncia tio n a predictabLe and hena:: nonphonemic gloua l ~I Op did in raci precede ew: ry vowe l IvjliMlut OIher consonani onloel, jlUl as in prese nl -day E nglish-compare•. for cumple. English hrwr wilh Fre nch (I#" . Th is is eenainly true in modern Hindi; a Hindi speaker will read the \'QWCI , for eumple. as hi. 111115 the Tibelan yaph <1> for Ihe g!otlll stoP? is derived from and identified with the Indic graph , which was presumably pro. no unted 70. And il WI$ lhe plaee·holding graph a·dhuft ··lillie a." represe nt ing as «nter graph a smOOl h vuc:alic ingress-a graph nOI found in Sa nskrit-that Ihe Tibetln o rlhograpllcrs oo nsidcrcd th~i r own innOYali()n.
lltal is the reason Ng05 lo·tsJ·ba G l_on. nu.dpal n011;:$ ~rtieularly IIIaI the Sanskrit .Iphabet was adapted to Tibetan by includin, the smOOlh voea lic; ingress ' mo n, the OOnloOnants: /'1)'11' gar·la mtd·kyan bod·la la-daft la ·dan a·m anu dgos. Now the ,Ioltal SlOp b, of course, pho nemi c in Tibetan, as in such lIlin imal pairs as Of "underpan M l'I:lf "neck," and lhe Tilletan gramma rians remained pUl.1.1ed as to why lhe Sanskrit ,rammarians considered the ,lcm.1 StOp to be a vowel; slill, in imiUltion of the presti,ious Indian model, l!'ley used the ,raph < 1> wilen discussing vowels, and thus would .pparenlly speak of "the vowel 11:1" or ··Ihe vowe l 11:1:' iosle;od of ··the vowel a'· o r "Ihe vowel 0:' mUCh 10 the confusion of e-.ery· one involved. ~ntially, lhe pla<:.e. holding , raph Q·dhun "lillie
0 " is' used to write 1llE ABSENCE 01' A When this ,raph-whic;h I will re pre5Cnt in this footnote wilh the phonetically IIclillal symbol < I>-'ppurs in the <:.enter ,raph posilion, it indicale. lhe .bsenoe of an INmAL to nSO nanl: Ihat is. it re presents a IInooth vocalic ;nlrcu, IS in Of or IV , a.~ opposed, $.lIy, to ?og or ~r . In p05lvocalie position, It indicate. Ihe abscn<:.e of an INTERVOCALIC consonant: thai is, It represents th.at the vowel which follOW$ is tile second member of I diphthong. u inpai or bni <~/U> . And, in the righl grap h pos ition, it ind icates the absen<:.e of. FlNAL COnloOnanl: that is, it Indicates that Ihe righlmrnot o f the consonant 'flphs is the <:.enler Iraph, as in dto or ~ <'II iial >. 1$ opposed, $.lIy, 10 dog or Maii .
~{) N SON",,",.
44
This place.bolding flinClion-indiallinl the absence of a consonant-is clearly tbe function ,o f tbe graph in tbe early Tibelan manv.scripl transcriptions of OIinese Buddhist 101$. II marks tbe absence of a CQlISOnanl onset ""her transcribing lbe Middle C'bille$C: $moolh vocalic ingress: Middle Chinese OJ is IfllU(7ibcd as , Middle Chinese ')wd as , and Middle Chinese ')'WM as . Similarly, I~ graph marks 1M .b5eM'C of an inlervocalk: when 'rall5Cfibing Middle Cbinesc: diphlnonp: Mkklle Chinese -ayo. is transcribed as , Middle OIinese ~ as <*Ii>, MicSdle Olinese "myaI as , Middle CbiDclc '"dhyri as , Mkklic OIincsc ~ as <11:;/11>, Middle: Cbiocse 0/dry1f4 as . MiIWIc Cbiocse -,.m IS • • 1Id Middle Cbincse "/)'de IS < fi/U >. And .pin, tbe If.ph mUD (be .b5eQU of OOllSOlllnl c:odI in transcribing Middle OIinese open syllables: Middle Chinese ~ is \f.nsmbe4 as <114/>, Middle Chinese "rio as <.:la/>, Middle ChitlC5e -,II,) as , Middle: Chinese ~ as , and Middle: " Chinese °iii u .
eonso~nl
Similar examples art found in tile Sino- Tibeun Ifelly in5Cliption of 821, where the placeholding Q.llJwil marks the.bseIK:e of intervocalic oonsonanlS in MI4dIe OIinese diphthonp: MiddJe Chinese .jhyaJ. is Iranscribed as , Middle Chinese "IraN as. or , Middle Chinese "lull as , Middle OIinese "'IIy~ as <.vgi/ll>, Middle C hinese ":UI14 a.~ , Middle Chinese "Iy;u as , M)ddle -Chinese ~hyt;u as , Middle Ch inese "Ihal a5 or , and Middle Chinese "JyilCol as <~jJlI> or . Si nce: the place-holding graph represents the absence of a oonsonant, it is unambiguously transliterated into English script as the abscnoe of I oonsonanl-for eumple, III il\Slead of, lilly, /uf, ~II instead of, say, bt/ll, I nd dga instead of, say, dp/, Such ,ransliteralion will be our practice: tbro ugholll Ihis text, exce:pl where, as aboVe, the graphic a-/Ihuil is cxplieilJy rendere4 a., for expo5itory purposes.
It is intemiling to note lhat the Korean scr ipt, invenle4 in Ihe fifteenlh ce:nlury, IOOOrding to tradition, by King Scjon".lso oonlains a place-hold ing graph. This plll
4S
THE WRmNO SYSTEM
As in other Indie scripts, the v~el 0 is signalled by the AB.'iF..NCE of an overt vowel graph; we may say, conventionally, that the vowel graph <0> for the vowel 0 is the ZERO GRAPH.' A center graph with no other accompanying overt vowel graph necessarily has the invisible zero graph, and thus the syllable nucleus must be o. Therefore, just as a vowel graph cannot occur independently of a center graph, a center graph cannot occur independently
What is ..nNe" is btuetl 1m PNm-moremmr: .,hen 1 ..nte, ",., body 40u 1fOt mqn in unison ";rb the flo-' of 7I'01'ds. .... WIllu is will, 1m tbe umlT"". um1fOt be upilrtuetl from body mo,*",. The JPOim 'KIOrd "';w itself 1f01 (m/y in body porturlJ ... but tUso in the tUnwt snnaphorie glJtJlreJ of the Ipleeh lUI.
-Edouard Glissanl, Free und ForcM Poetics
of a vowel graph. Vowels other than a are written, on the Indie model, by vowel grllphs written above (~ e, 0) or below (u) the center graph.' For example, the syllable IUJ i~ written with the graph and the zero graph <0> followed by a dot to show the end of the syllable; the syllable "i is
of the empire In 1269. This script was also ucd to lransliter:ate Chinese, ~nd it made the $3Tf\C IRphic distinction bcl'wCCn glOtLIII $lOp and smooth ingress; it may be the source from whicb Kln. Scjon. borrowed the ume distinction into his invention. 1 This distinction must be borne in mind: the ZERO GRAI'II represcnu the rresenu: or a pbonemc by the absence of a graph; the PI.... a , · llOU)ING ORAI'll represents the absence ,)f a pboneme by ihe prescnce of a graph. , The Tibelan .rammlrUos have given t~ vowel graplls-and thus the vowels themr.elvcs -fandfill names based on their Shipes above and below the tenter graph: they call < i:> gi. p "curve," labs·kyu "foot t,ook," Ngff1!..t>u "upright," and <0> 110·10 " II~ bol'1\S." Note th~n the name ror each vowel contains that vowel. Note. too, that the term /100-10 is, strictly sllUklng. meaningless; it is interpretcJ by the ,rammlriaM as either m, of course, has no shape. beill, invisible; thus the TibeLlln uammariJlns sometimes speak of there bein • . only four vowels Ind a 1!.a-bo "Inherent" a in each consonant .raph. This 'Qy of spea king is probably not helpful.
46
THE ClASSICAL TIBETAN l...ANGUAGE
written with the graph plus the vowel graph written above the center graph, followed by a dot; the syllabic u is written with the place-holding a.t]huii, to indic31e the absence of an initial consonant, plus Ihe vowel graph written below the center graph, followed by a dot: and so on.
Above Ihe center graph-but below any superscript vowel graph-may be written one of three TOP GRAPHS, which are reduced (orms of Ihe center graphS for r. I, and s. Below the center graph-but above any subscript vowel graph-may be written one of four BOITOM GRAPIIS, which are reduced forms of the graphs for y, r, ~ and w. All consonant graphs stacked on the same vertical axis represent a single onset cluster and aTC proces.scd from top to bottom, with the vowel graph processed last: thus a lOp graph , a center graph <8>, a bouom graph , and a zero vowel graph is processed as , representing the syllable rgya; a lOp graph , a cenler graph , and a vowel graph is processed as . representing the syllable sku; a center graph . a bouom graph . and a vowel graph <;> is processed as . represenling the syUabk bn; and so on.' To the left of the center graph may' be written one of fIVe LEFT GRAPHS, wh ich are the fult forms of the graphs for g, d, b. m, and a-t!hun "Iiule a," which in this position represerats the prenaSalization of a following stopped
, One issuc dc.'iCI>>C$ hrief mcntion hefc. In the cl~ical TIbetan writin, s)'Stem we find the digraphs and
- that is. a center ,mph with a top ,raph . and a ctnle r graph with a bottom graph . In !lCVtfal New Tibetan dialects these digraphs represent the VOKI'LESS GLIDES! and !, with such minimal pairs as New Tibetan (Ulas.a) !Il < Ihll> "goo" /11 "rnount ~in pus," /ok. "Spccl~J" Ink "hand," .ril " ragged" rU <",I> "ro ue n." Could these digraphs have represented such voiceles.s glides in Old Til>clan as well·! This seems unl ikcly: we find. for example. such classical douhlets liS IhurI-Klim ··patch:· /J/Oo-Gr,OO '·rdu:· lhog-gllJK "ulcer," ULA/)-GUO-SUD "~dulle rate," hril-gril ·'round:' and hmn-groii "COld." Note also New Tibetan (udak h) 10 "gild ,·· [Il "song:' lans '·a rise:' wilen: O ld Tibelan fh ellangc:s hi~luricaJly jusl like OIl! Tibetan gl or sl inlo New Tibelan (Ladakh) 1• .1 voiced murmured 1~lcfal. ·OIe digraphs thus seem likely 10 ha\·c represen ted genuine clWiter5 of glollal (rialtive plij$ ,Iide; but olher t.\plan~ti()ns are surely possible. Anomalously. on the Sino-Tibetan IIt:.1ly pillar of ~21. we find the clWiler III lranM:ribcd by Chinese characlers whose initial has heen independenlly rcoonsrrijcrc:d as Middlc Olincsc "lit. Thus Old Tlbet.an /JtQ is trall$Cl"ibcd ;is Middle Chin c.'iC "till> o r "Ihl>nt, and Old Tibetan lho as Middle Chinese "Ihuo. I do nol know why Ihis i~.
47 consonant.10 A left graph is processed first, followed by top-la-bottom 10 11Icre are several lines of evidence Ih al tl'le Q·llhuli "Iiule a" in kft ,raph po5ilion in be represented prena.sal iza tion of I following5loppcd consonanl. FiRl, as early as the ninth Qetllury. OD the Sino-Tibetan treaty pillar of 821, we find independe ntly Tct'()tI5lruaed MiOdle OlinCie nasal initial$ transcribed by what Illen mllSl nave been Old TIbetan prcnasaliud dOpf-fOr cumple, Middle Chincsc '"IiI.oo as , Middle Chinese '"II)'m as , MMidle Chinese "1tywo as <"'P>, Middle Chinese -m)'l as , Ind Middle Chinese "M)w;lft as . Similar n a nsaiplio ll5 are found in (he Tibetan Il'lInslileralions. of OIi_ Buddbist prlyer tau diswYere4 nur Tun·~Wln,-ror cumple. Middle ClIincse "II....u as <~>, Middle Chinese ~wo as , Middle: ChineK e.;!yt as <1¥'8i>, MiOdlc: OIinc:K -lUi as <~>, and Middle Chinese "nywo as . Second, look: loanwords iD Old Tibetan are occasionally written with Q·tJluli'I in ler! graph position to represc:nl I prccoc1in& nasal. For wmplc. in an early Tibetan-Chi nese manuscripl YOCabubry IiSl-1 50rI 0( IrlY<:ler', diaiomlry fo und nur lhe Tun -lluan& ca ravanserai-we find inslead 0( Ihe Ialer 51anllard onlMlgraphy fo r $t;j.~ "lion" < SanskIillilphD, Apabhrarpb JiitrJw-sUJUw. Elsewhere in Ihe cla.uicallcxU we: find bol h Ind lor lindJw-rtJ ''vcnni lio n'' < Sanskrit sindiJra, Apabhraf]'l$ where ,Ihe standard OrllMlJrlphy woukl have <1U1I.gi>, for , for , lOr <14yin-dall>, aflll for , Fourth, we find doublets In the classical "n&use where a_I.flwii in left ,raph posi tion alternate!> with in left graph positionlor aample, NTSJf£R-M1"Sm'/I "gricv~," fo7l10l.-MTlfOL "confc:sst MIhiJI -bu-mtlhiJI-lHl "'puriollS &' s ;ewel," Mdo.ii-mdaii "fune ra l," wgal-pa-mgaJ·pa "billet of wood," NIduu. bo-mkhar·btJ "staff," Fifth, loanwords from Middle Tibetan into Monguor_a dialect of Mon lOlian--4ate (rom the thinC(:nth ce ntury: these Ioanwor!ls show prenasa.lLution wbere tbe corrc:sponding Tibetan written forms sboW a ·I.f./luit in left grapt, position-Mongual Ndworlo "circle" < Middle Tibt:tan "N/chor-/o , Mon,oor NIogoIII " meeting bowc" < Middle Tibetan °Ndu_kJuJit , Mon guor m~m " IOO,{X))" < Middle Tibetan "..mum <,;bum>, Mo nguor moo "s ti pe nd" < Midd le Tibetan ". <1#bog3>,
Wby was this prc nasa liutlon represented by tJ·l.fhuii, the place-lMlkling , raph? It is instructive to compare pren~lization with ... hlt oo.'lI fS in Tibetan ehanl: bere tbe si nge r attempts 10 maintain an uninterrupted leve l ofsoun.d while articulating the worQs Y<:ry slowly and with variollS melodic embellishmenl5_a singin, technique Which, in il5 striking similarity to Japanes.e Shingon chant, apparen tly deriva (ro m ring dynasty Chinese Buddhist 5Ouroc:s, In this chanting style, as the articulators move: into position fo r each SlOpped OOnlOna nt, Ihe singer briefly lowers his velum 10 allow the now of air to contin ue unimpcckd, yielding a prenasaliution of each Slopped consonant in the ehanl_for eumple. New Tibetan (U.~) fOf,f~phamo " Diamond Sow Ooddc:»" is 'hanted &$ IOIItltttpMmo. and New Tibetan (Lha.sa) ~poIkN'Cli "Noble Avalokitdvara" is chanted as p/ItJNpoNtJeHrtJi The point is this; there is a close relation apparent to a Tibetan
48
TilE ClASSICAL TIBETAN i..J.NOUAOE
processing of the top. center, and bottom graphs., with the vowel graph processed last: thus a left graph , a center graph , a txmom graph , and a zero vowel graph is processed as . representing the syllabic dgra; a left graph , a top graph , a center graph , and a vowel grap h is processed as , representing the syllable brdzu; a left graph a-I.fhuii "little a," a center graph , a bottom graph . and a vowel graph is processed as , represeOling the syllable :lgYe; "and so on.
To the right of the center graph may be:: written ont of ten RIGtIT GRAPII$, which 8rc full forms of the graphs for &. ii, d, n, b, In, r, ~ S, and a-tIhuii., which in this position represents the absence of a syllable-final consonant, just as, in the center graph position, it represents the absence of a syllable-initial consona nt. 1I A right graph is processed last, after the vowel graph: thus a
belween sucll prenasali1.ation a nd a prcocding ope n syllable- tllat is, 1M absence of • oonsonant.1t is not ~lIl plising 10 find Ih e Q·tJlu..fi used 10 mark Ihis onset. II An overt vowel grap h, o r a lOp 01 bollom graph, unambiguously identifies Ihe center graph in a graphic sequence. However, wilen Illere is no 0V1:r1 vowel Vlph - that is ..... Ilen Illele is the uro vowc l grapll _a nd no top o r boll o m gta pll, tllen tile localion of the center graph (:In be ambiguous; for example, tile sequence could be p roec:sscd ei lher as , wilh read a.s Ille cen let graph, or a.s , wilh <8> read as the centcr grap h. BUI. wilh Q· /lltufi in Ille righl grap h posilion, the sequence &an o nly be procc:ssocl as <.dga>. since it shows tllal Ihere is no syllable·final consonant in the syllable wllich lhe .o;cq uence repre:senl5. Thus Ihe graphic co nve ntion is used only when OIlier m~ns arc lack ing ullambigUOU5ly 10 nag whicll o f IWO con\.eC\ltive consonan t paphS is in ract Ihe cenler graph: the place.holding graph is unncccss.ary-and \ln~-when a n oven vowel gra ph idenlifies the ce nter graph, as in o( , or when a top or botto m graph idc ntiflC5 the ce nler graph , as in 01 . . Int erestingly, this convention allows such inlerences o nly lrom gra p hic SIrUCIUre, nOI I((lm sylla Me Sif tltl ul e. The i5Cq uence is graphically ambiguous bl:rwecn lhe readinp and <8tU >. bul Ihe syllable gIQ is a pos.'ible Iyllable, while lhe syllable ?gaz is nol; still, Ihe writing syste m marks as the ce nlcr graph by pUll ing Q.r!lulli in Ihe rip l gra ph p05ition, 10 resolve Ihe GRAI'HIC ambiguity. and a llowing no inference concern ing the center gaph 10 be made from Ihe fact thaI Ihe sequence 001.11<1 nOi ' UONOU>GICALLV be prOCCS£Cd as
?gaz.. In fatl, il took.some time lo r Illis grap hic conve nt io n to ta ke hold. In the arelurie manuscript material h o m Central Asia. we find the a-lJhuii sporadica lly in rigbt !l:flpb position eYen ""Ilc re the cent er !,raph is ol herwise IInambiguollS. as in tile lylLablCl!i Ndn , btl
TH E W a n1NG SVSIB1
49
center graph , a zero graph , and a right graph is processed as , representing the syllabic bor; a top graph , a center graph , a vowel graph , and a right grllph is processed as , representing the syllabic rdUlI; a left graph , a center gra ph , a vowel graph <0>, and a right graph is processed as , representing the syllabic dWm; and so on. To the right of Ihe right graph may be written one of two FAN. RIGHT GRAPIIS, which arc full forms of the graphs for $ and d ,l2 A far right graph is
. o r ma : and sporadiCally omitted fro m rig,h t gapk position wkere ,raphk: ambi,uity (Xl ncerning thes~:n)er graph could be resolved pho nologically, as in the syllablcs ' bJul , mlha , or mkJl. S~ch inconsistencies were presumahly eradica ted in the ninth -GCntul)' language rdorms oT King KIIri Gtsu,·Lde·btsan. l1tc place.hol ding graph in righl.graph position also allows the writing of diphtho ngs- for eumrle, htu , paan . mao . In this posi tion. a·tJlwli in cffect represents smooth voca lic ingress inl n Ihe IoCCOnu "'OWel o( the diphtbong. but wilhin a single: sylla hle. si nce Ihe: graphs arc not se paraled try- the syllahle·marking dot I1htg. Here again it apparently look some: time to cstahlis h the ennve nt ion: in the archa ic manUKripLS we s.poradically find diphlbongs wrilt en as two \)"l1ables. and sporadically as well we find such graphic )C(j uentcS a.~ and reprc.<.enting what mUSt su rely have bcc:n the syllables poi ,nd baL Oncc agai n. Ihe ]ingQistic standardil.atlon of the ninlh centul)' app,uenl ly intended 10 establish II un;vc.-,;al cl)n''Cnlion ia thi~ regald. ahhough it is doubtful thallhere .-as in facl any dfecti,'C stllndardil,a.iun prim to .he f'Criod o( .he Sa·skya hegemony. l1tc Wfiting of such di phthongs-with a·I.lhu;; marking the abse nce o( (XlnSOnanl o nSCI o( Ihe seoond vowel-a pparently und er lies the convenlion of ....Til ing n·t/hun as a ~OlTOM GRAPII \0 indicate long vowels in the tra nsli terat ion u( SanSkrit. Such lang "(lWCls .....cre in ~lIlikeliJt.ood hCllrd ,u equivalent 10 Tibc.lan gcmi nal c vowels-Sanskrit /til as Titlelan lUIa, Sanskril kt as Tillelan ki~ Sanskrit kii 3S Tille tan kuu. An a·dhun in the boltom graph posi tio n, with the appfop riate vowcl graph ovc r Of under Ihe ecn ter graph. would he a convenicl\1 ahbreviation for such recurrin g gtmi nat e diphthongs, inS lcad "f wriling {j.IJhuii in right graph posi.ion 4nd repeal ing the SlIme vo.....eI graph; such an ahhreviation In... i~ consislent with Ihe conventions (o r graphic abhreviation u.~ elsewhere in Ih c langu3)!,· That Ih is ......,jS in faetlhe origin of the translite ration convenlion is indicalcd by the fa"1 Ihal il is used 10 ind icate lengt h in SanS kr it vuwels o nly where length i~ in fac t quanlilaliv;:. a.' in If or " bUI not where the so·called tong \'Owel is qualita tively different fmm its sh,)" cquival<:nl, as in ai or au, wherc an in far right posilion, IcprCM:nting a pos t(, nal -d or da·tUl1g "~ Irongd, " is fou nd in some ar(haic manuscripts rceovc ,,;u (rom Celliral A~ia; in !.Orne Wes t Tihcllln
50
THE Cu.ssICAL T18ETAN lANOUAGl:.
processed after the preceding right graph: thus a center graph , a bottom graph , a vowel graph <14>, a right graph , and a faT right graph 
