- \-:l'\

I ~HE CLASSICAL

TIBETAN LANGUAGE

_,, -0-'I'

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 "'produd 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

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. ,..... ................. .. .. ..... .... .... . . ................ 55 I. ArttaIlatory cScIa1ptJoni . ..... . . .. ......... ......... ... ... 55 2. Aroustk 4escriptions ............. ......... . .. ..... ......... 6l 3. 1'be pboDcmk inYentory ...... . .. .... ... ... .............. 6S

6. S,u.bteI .... .. ........................................... . 68 1. Lellll1b colIISuaints ........... .... ........ ....... . ...... 68 2. SJotl'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 .. ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 1. CompollJlds ........ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 103 2. DerivatJons ......... . . . . . . .. . . .. . ... .. . . . . .. . . . 111

1. inlM:r derivation .. . ... ... ........ . ....... . ..... 111 2. Outer derivation ..... .. ..... . . ........... 119 3. Word ramilies ...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 137

2. Borrowin, ....... .. ..... . . ... . .. ....... ............ 138 3. Imitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 4. Honorifta ..... ,.. ..... .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 152

vii

viii THE Cu.ss1CAJ.. TIBETAN L\NOUAOE

8, Innectlons I. Inncelion withtn syllables ... .. . .................. ....... 2. Morphophonemes across syllables .................. . .

9. Phn.ses ..... .. ................... . . ........... . .. . 1. Preliminaries. . . . . . . . . . .. ... ......... ...... 2. Nominals ..................... . ...... . ........... . . . .. ... ) . Phrases ., ......... ..... .... .. . ......... .. . . .....

1. Nominal phrases .............. ..... . ........ .. . . ...... I. Simple nominal phrases ...... . .......... . .....

I. Specifiers ......................... ... . .. . ...... I. Delimiters ........................ . . .. . ......

l. Determiners ..... .. ........... ..... I . Definile determiners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ..

I. Spatial determiners ........ .......... 2. Personal determiners ... .... . ...........

160 161 186

191 191 19' 204 204 204 204 206 206 206 206 1JI1

2. Indefinite determiners ......... . . .. ... ...... 21. 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 ........................... . ......

10. Simple propo$lllons ...... . . ....... .......... ........... I. Syntactic structure .................... . .....

l. Events . .... .... . . .... . .. ........ ... . . ...... 2. Plrticipants ......... . .. : ... .......... . . ........

2. Thematic structure .... . ............ . .....

11. Compkll pnl$!.05ltlons ... . .... .. ... ..... ........... I. Conjoined prOJl'O$itions ........................... . 2. Nominalizalion ............................ .. .. .. ......

1. The nominalizers .... .. .... ............ . . ... . 2. Nominal itt.d propositions as heads ........................ 3. Nominaliled ptoJl'O$ilions IS modirlers ........ .. . . . . ......

J. Re131ive oonSlnK1ions . .... ..... ...... ... : .

218 220 221 230 230 232 234 ,.0 242 242 ,..

252 252 252 ,., 2n

282

'" '" '" 302

"" J09 2. Complement oonstruct iqns .... ...... : .. . . .......... 334

SUMMARY OF CoNTENTS

12. SalIC_ ....... . ......... . .... . .......... ..... ....... 1. Perfonn.ancc. p"nlclc:s ...... . .. . . ...... ... . . . ........ 2. Modal performali...u ........ ........ . ....... .. ...... 3. SlalemenUi .............. . . . . . .. ..... . , ..... 4. Qucstions ... ........... .. . . . S. Commands . ...... . ... . ........

ix

", ", lSI '52 l56 l62

6. Vocatives ........ . ... . . 370

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,. ......... ... .. . .... . . . . ....... . . . . . ...... '"

DrdiC(l(;1JIt For~"'(Jfd by Mllllh~'" IWpsu'u, Ptt{uu

I. Introd .... 1iun

2. lhonsll~",I'on

Contents

.. . .. . ... ...... Y . . ... u:f

....... . . .......... mil

, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I

I. Pl'IOnemic symbols ....... . .. .. . . . . . ...... ..... ...... )

. . . . . . . . .. ....... . . . . ....... 3 . . . . . .... ... . . .... 3

. ..... ... . .... ... . ... .. . 4 .... . .. .. . ..... . . ...... . ... ' . S

2. Digtaplls and diacritics . .... ... . J. Other symbob . . ... Other I. n,uap

..... ... ........ 7 I. Ddining Tibetan .... .. . . . . . . ............... 7

. ....... . ... . .... . ........... 8 . . ............. . . ............ 10

l Tibel2n and relaled langllJges 1. Tibetan and Chinese .. . 2. Tibe tan and Burmese .............. .. . ........ . . . ...... . .. 11 3. Tibetan and the Himala~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 . . . . . . . .... . ... . ........... 31 3. RCQ)llStrllcted va riation$ . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .... ...... 33 4. The pro blem of tl\c preiniliab .................. .......... 34

4. Defining clUsical Tibetan ... . ..... .. ... . . . .. .... . ...... .... .. 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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... . .... . ........ ... .. .... ... SS

I. ArticulalOry descriptions ........ . .. .. .... . . .. ........... . .... S5 I. Vowels. . . . . .. . .. . .. . .......... . ....... 55 2. ConsonanlS .......... ..... .......... ........... ......... 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 . .............. . . ...... . . .... .. 6& I. Leugtb ronsuainu ........... .. .... . ... . . . . .............. 6& 2. Slot filler ronstraints ............. . ...... .... ... ... . .. 71

1. Are ./. and w postinitla1s1 ....... . . . ................ ... ... . 7 .. 3. Co-oocurrence ronsu'ainu .......... ....... . ..... ...... .. ... 81

I. Constraints on postinitials . .... . .. ... ' .... _ . ........ .. ... . 81 1 P05linitial _y_ . ..... . . ... .. . ......... 81 2. Poslinitial ., .............. .. . .... . . . .... ......... 84

2. Consualnts on preinilials . .... , . . . .... , . ..... .. , ...... 87 3. Stackin, ronslT.lnu ...... . . .......... ' ... .. .. . ..... 89

... Disyllabic stress ,roups , ........ . ,., ... .. . ', . . ......... , 90 I.Qips ..... , ........... . . ..... . . . ... , . . ..... . . . ... ,. 92

J. Word clips , .. , . .... . , . . . ,' , . , ....... .. ,., ...... .... , 92 2. Nominal clips .. ,., .... ....... . ... ...... . . .. . " . 9'l 3. Phrase clips ... . ... , .... , ...... , .. . .... . ,. , ..... . ... 93

1. Coordinate clips .. .. .. . ... ... . ...... , . . ... . ........ 9J 2. Mllominai clips . . . .... . . . . , . . . .... .. .. .. , 94 3. Relalive clips ... , ....... ....... . , ..... . . . ......... 94 4. Verb ..:lips ... .. . .... . . ... .. .. ...... . .. .. ... .. .. , 9S

2. Syllabic cycles ... . ......... . ...... ...... ' . . . . . . . 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 .. , . . . . . . .. .. ... _ . .. .. ....... 102

I. ComPOllnds . . . . . . . . .. ........ . . . . ..... . . .. .. . .. , 103 I. Native rompounds ........ , . , ... , , . ' " ... . . . ' ........ 103

I. NOUN + NOUN - NOUN .... . .... . .. , . .. .. . , ... 103 2. ADJECY'IV + NOUN"'" NOUN ................ .. . ... .. . 104 3. NOUN + ADJEcnvE ..... NOUN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 104 ... ADJECIlVE + AOJEcnvE ..... NOUN ....... . , . . . . . . .. I~ S. NOUN. + VERB - VERB ,. . . ,.. . . . ..... .... 106

2. Ttanslation rompouDds ... ,., . ............... . .......... . 10'7 I . ADJEcnVE + AOJEC'7lVE ..... NOUN .... ... . ' .... ,. 107

xiii

1. NOUN + VI!JlA - NOUN ... . lOS ). 1N11!.HStF11!A + VERB - VERB 110 ~ DcriYaOOIli ... , , ' , HI

1. IlUICt dutvalloa .......................... ........ 111 1. Chlnae olledal caleaory ........ . ....... .. ......... . 111 2. Vok:tlll aad lBMltMry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 112 ). 1lM: IonIIadvc In' "H0t40It.1FK:" . . . II I 4. llIe 1IonDItie In, " HlIMAN IK)()Y rAk1"' ........ ...... . 114 , . llIe fonnIllYe , . " AHIMALR .................... . ... ..... 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 to. 'The formattYe '-4-'~ "1tI1UH1l' c:ou..tt'11VI!" . 119

2. 0u11Cl ckriYIl lotli . . . . 119 1. Sylllbk formatha ............. . .... .... .............. 119

1. The fonnItM lIid "NESS" ...... . ..... . .............. Jl9 1. Tbe formatfve 'pG "'EJUON HAV!NO TO DO wmi" ......... ' 120 ). The formative -mkJo.M "SJuu.EO IN" 120 4. 1'be Ionutfve ,mo-d/w " 810 OCD Of" .' ............... 121 5. 1k fonnalive -lUll "POSSESSIHO" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 121 6. 1lIe fotmatte .ytU "LESS" . . . . 122 7. 1be ronutive -h-.(I "OIMtNtmVE" . . ... 122 a. Sa fonIWIliel . .. .. ... ' 123

I. The tonN.ltva __ "fEMAl.." aad 'pbo"MALE" . .. ..... 121 1. An'-l ~ ton!IatiWI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 124 3. 1'be formIltva __ Ind __ " F1!MAl" . 125 4. Nlma ......... .. ......... . ................ 126 5. OCOVlpby ............. . ............ . . ...... 127

9. 1lIe formative ,l'Ho " ADJECT1VFlACarr" .... 127 10. Tbe forClUltive ' 111 "I'UCE WHfJl" .................. 129 11. Tbe formative /III " NONll'lAL" .. : ... 130 12. The forlllltive ' E "ADlI,ClT\IE" ............ ' ........ 131 13. 'The torl'Dltie -4/r.4-.k#-.p " NOIJ1ll" . 133 .~.~~ .... .......... . ...... ~

1. Nominal reduplictl ioa .... ......................... 134 ~ Verb tcduplkaooll ................................ 1

1. Word familia ........... .. .... . ....... . . ........ 117 2. 8oJl'O'lriaI .................. . ....... . . .... . . . ..... 138

1. 'lhlIsfm ................ .. ...... ,.. ...... . . . ....... 139 2. ReproductioN ............ ........... , . . . . . . . . . . . .. 142

1. to.lI tralUlltlona ................... ,..... . ........ 142 2. Loaa aatiolll .. .. . .... .. .... .... ..... ..... 143

). MIIc4 fonIII ............. .. ...... ... . ............... 145 .. BKlfonIU .. . ... . ... .... , . . .. .. ... . . ... ...... .. ........ . , ..

3. ImltatloDl . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 I. lAtefjecdolU ......... ...... ,., .. ...... , ., .. , .... . . 147 2. OnomatOpoeia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 147 3. Poetic word play . . . . . . . 148

4. HonoriHa .. .. .. . ........ .. ..... . .......... . .. ............ 1'2 1. The use of bonorifia ............ . . ....... . . . . ...... 1'2 2. ElepQOt and social vector ........ ... .... ..... . .. ........... 1' 3 3. Primary bollOtifia ....... . ...... . . ........ . . . . ...... 1S4 4. DelK>tation Ind connotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 155 , . E upbemisll!. ........ ... .. .... ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 156 6. Secundlry bonori~a . ........ . .. .. . . . . .... . . . . ...... 156 7. Kinship tenns .. . ........ . ..... ... . ........ 157

&. IIIIIcJaIonI ...... .. ........... . . 160 I . Innect lon within syllables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

I. Ttnse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 161 2. Roou Ind Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 162 3. 1}-pcs o f innectlonal NJe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 162 4. 'O"ansitive Ind int ransitive verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 163 5. Plradipns ................... . ........... . . . . . .... . . 164 6. Aft"1lI Nics . . ..... ....... . . ........ .. . . .. . .. ... . . . 166

1. Tbe prerLll N . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 2. The preflll G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 3. The prefo b. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 4. Tbc , ufflJl: '$ ....... . . . .. ... . ... . . . .. ... . . . . ..... 168

7. Root rules .............. . .... . .... . . . . . ........ ...... 169 I. \fQice dwimila tio n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 170 2. UnstoPpinl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 171 1. ublal N ics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . ................ . ..... 173

8. TIle Pft5ent stem t:kl4rdt ... .. .. . . ... . ........ . . ..... 175 9. &ceptions Ind irrclularities . ... ........ . . . ........ ... .. 176

1. Scrib:ll erron . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . .... .. . .. .......... . .. 177 2. Mlllt iple ( !u.s mcmbenhip ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 3. MUltiplc underlien .......... . . . . . ... . . 182 4. Connict of rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III !Ii. $lIpplction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 184 6. RCJVilr irrc,uilrilies .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 185

2. MorpbopboftC lDtI ICfOIoS syllablc& . . . . . . . . . . 186 I . Articulatory ISIlmilallon ....... .... .... . . .. ... . . . . .... 116 2. Oravity dwimiialion ............... . .. .. ; . . . . . . 117 3. Sooorlnc::e ISSlmUltion .. . . ... . ........... .... .... .... ...... 1M

9. nr- ....... .. ............. ... . . .... . .. . . .... . . . . .... . ... . . . 1. PrcUmlaariel ..... ... ........ .. ...... . .... . . . . . ...

1. Syfttu l&d morpholol)' ..... ...

,.,

'" 191

2. Overview of tile syntax .... ... . 1. The "Thlegl"f.m Principle ......... .

1. The eliminalion of redun4ancy 2. Old and new inform.lion ..... . 1. TIle omission of role partk 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. Nominal phrases . ........ .. . . . . .. . .... ... .

I. Simple nominal phrases .. . . .. . . . . ...... . . I. Specifiers . . .......... . . .. . . .. .

I. Delimiters ..... . . . .. . .. . 1. Determiners . . .

t . Definite dete rminen 1. Spalial determiners ......... . . 2. Person.l dete rminers . . .

I . U nmarked and specialized fo rms 2. Honorific delerminen ... J. Speaking roles 4. HumilirlC$ ..... . S. From humililie to personal determiner 6. Sexmarked personal determiners . ... ....... . . 7. Personal delerminer taib . ......... . . . . 8. The archaic determiner 0-1,1

2. Indefinite determiners 1. Headless indefin ites 2. Indefinite adverbs .

2. Reflexives 2. Quanlifiers ............ . ......... . .

I . Numerals 1. From one to ninely nine ...... .. .. 2. aipped numerall ....... . 3. Numerals as selecton ....... . 4. Large numbers ................ . . S. Fra'tlQn~ . . . . ... 6. Collect ive nouns Ind adjectives . .. ... . . 7. Ordinall . . 8. Dis tributives .. 9. Weighl5 and measurcs . .

10. Pagination .. .

191 194 194 I"

"" 199 199 199 200 100 201 203

"" 2IJ.I

"" 2f)4

.'" 206 ,I '" 207

". "" 2IU 112 112 21.'

' 14 ' 1< ' 16 216 2IK 22

T HE Cu.ssICAL TIBETAN lANGUAGE

2. PluDIs ................ . ....................... . J. 1b~ liurs ....... . ...... . .................. . 4. Selectors .. ..... ............ ........ .. .. ....

2. AdnomiNiIs ..................... .. .............. I. Basic modification patlerru . .. ..... ........ ..... 2. lfpes of modifica tion .... .......... ..... .......... J. Recursion ....................................... 4. Headless adnomiNils ..... . . . . ...................

2. Conjoined nominal phrases ........... .............. ..... 2. Verb phrua .................... . ... ....... .. ....

I . NegatiOD ... . .................... ..................... I . 1brm negations .......................... . ..... 2. An idiom with MED ..... . .. . 3. Universal nela tion .... .. ... .... . .. .................. 4. Double negation .................. ..................

2. Adverbs. . . . . .. .... .. ..... .... .. ......

10. Simple pt'Oposllions .. ..... . . .. ......... l. Syntactic st ructure .................... . . ..............

1. EventS .............................. .. ... . . ... . ... I. Equations ............. . . ............ .... ...... 2. lhnsitive and intrlfls itive verbs .......... . . .. ... J. Ergat ivity ..... .. .................... ... . . . ....... 4 ... 'Ttns.e" .. .... . .................... . . . .....

I. The lem.e system . ....... . . . . ..... . . .... ...... 2. Periphrastic forlllS ....... ........... . ........

2. Panicipanl5 . . . . . . . . . ... ....... . . ...... I. The patient role ............. . .............. . ....... 2. The lIgency role ............. . ...... ... . ..... J. The locus and source roles .... ............. . .... ...... 4. The acoompaniment 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. IdentmcaHon and definition wil ~ -STt . . _ . ..

I I . Co.pln pl'OJlO"iltions ................. .. . ... ...... . . . . 1. Conjoined propositions . . ... . . . . . . . . ...... . ... . ... . .

1. Conjunctions. . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . .. ... ... . . . . 1. The alternative conjunction ... ...... . '1.. The adven.ative conjunction '.. . . . . . . . . .. . ... .

I. Dialect varionts ... .. , . . . .. . . . . 1. The wonJinative conjl.lllctio:l . .. . ' . .... . . . . ..

2J() 2J() 232 234 234 2J5 236 23' 240 242

'" '" '" 246 247 248

252 252 252 25S 258 25' 26' ,., ,.2 263 263 2M 267 270 272 272 m m 278 2'"

1. Simultaneous and periphrastic con.muaions 2. Dialect variants .................... .. ..... .. . ...

2. Gapping .............................. " ....... . ... .... 2. Nomililiution ..... . ................. ........... .... ......

1. The nominali:o.eR ............ ..... . ........................ .

xvii

290 291 293 ,.. 29S

1. Paticnt-ntcrcd nominalizeR ........................... _ ... 296 1. 1be nominalizer -~ "rATIEHT OF rRorosmor-lH 296 2. The nomililizeR -O-dog/-dgu/-u1uJd "ALL rATIEHTS OF

PROl'O$mOr-r" .......... .... ................. m 3. The nomililizer .1>Iphro "REMAINDER OF PATIENT OF

rRorosmON" ... . ..... .. ....................... 298 2. Ploposilion-o:nterc4 nominalizen ....... ... , ................ 299

1. The nomllilizer -hi ....... 299 2. The nominalizer sa "ruo.CE WHERE rRorosmoN" ............ 300 3. The nominalizer -grog:J '"liEU wml rROl'OSmON" ............ 301 4. The nomililizeR mkJuuJ/-mi '"PERSON INVOLVED IN

rROPOsmON" ....... . ....... ............ ...... 301 2. Nominalized propositions as heads ........... .. .......... . .... 302

I. Multiple embedding .................. . ............. 303 2. 1be omission or1'O .................... . ....... ..... . lOS 3. Propositional adverbs ............. , ... . . , .. ...... 307

3. Nominalized propositions as modifien ............. ........... 308 1. Relative construc.:1ions ................... .. . .. ... .. .... 309

1. Discunus on English relativiution ............... . ..... . 310 2. Rclalive prop

xviii TilE ClASSiCAl TIBETAN LANGUAGE

S. On translltint Sanskrit vcrbs 1. Simple fo rms .... 2. Pe riphru tie fornu

12. Smtrncu 1. Pe rformance ~rticlcs 2. Modal pcrrormativc:s . ) . Sta te menu ............. .

I. The $Iatement panicle .. . 2. RIunc1Jncy ). n..: promise ~nicle 1OU ...... . . 4. The WoIrnin, ~rticle A-re _ . ... ... . .

4. Questions _ .. ............. . . 1. The qLICStion panicle _ .. . 2. Questions and alternat ives . . _ ... .. ..... . . . .. . ). Info rmat ion questions 4. 'The doubt particles .... .

S. O lmmand.5 ......... . I. The command ~rticle . . 2. Polite and elepnt command! .. 3. Impersonal oommands ..... . 4. Requesu ........ . S. Linked imperatives 6. 'The info rmal command 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 names 4. Epithe ts ... S. Namcs and epithets in vocative phra.ses

13. ~ 1M Kftt(1K'C . . ........ I . Exelamatio ll5 .... . . _ ........ _ . . .

I . Hypolhelical e.prcssions ...... . . 2. Hypothetical e llip5i5 ... ) . ElIelamatioll5 in PtJ lo 4. ElId3matio ns in -rr - ...

2. Conne

4. yan in IIIe K lling 5101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ;\lUI 5. Proposiliomll oonnccliyu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lllO

.l. Senlences as pallcnu ........... .. ............. . ...... . . . ... .'QO I. Quote openet5 ................ . . . .............. .'ul 2. 11M: quote clalcr TkJ ... ........... ...... .......... .'

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 interpreta-tion 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 authorship-epic. 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 enumera-tion of the S

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 Conspru.s (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1912), as edited and annotaled by James Matisoff, and David Bradley, ProtoL%ish, Scandinavian Institute of Asian StudieJ Monograph Series No. 39 (London: Curzon Press, 1979). Comparative cita-lions 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 acknow-ledging 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 generow help, encouragement, and 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, originally 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 l imitation bas made tbe descriptive wk much easier. A RECOGNmON (lRA,MMAR sud! as this need not incorponte the output oonstnints required in I rRooucnoN GRAMMAR, under the as.sllmption UtilI II reader limply will not encounter synlatlical1y ill formed seqllCllCai, wbereas I beginninl speaker 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 or conut1ltS$ 10 be interpreted wben encountered. 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 reflt 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.NOUAOE

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:

OLOlTAL VElAR PALATAL RETROFLEX DENTAL ,.....IAL

STUPS FRICATIVES 1 h

k g z '1 < j f I r 4 I ,

d s ,

p b f , Tabk 1. 7hvu/i(mltion of COtlS(JNJIW

HIGH

LOW

FROI

4 TIlE ClASS[(".A1. TmETA.~ LANGUAGE

pf), ASPIRATES (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 rounded 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) .fiji "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-mol1lsdag 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 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~sitory purposes only, by a slash, as when discussing the written form for Old Tibetan heu "cal f," but will nnt otherwise be transcribed, for

TIVJoISLITERATION 5

reasons that will be made clear in the main body of the text-thus, normally, Ok! Tibetan 00 "light" rather than , beu "caW' rather than , and mda "arrow" rather than .

A hyphen will be used 10 indicate that the syllables which it connects ronstitute a single WORD, as in Old Tibetan Ndfignen "world," or a single snSS 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.

J will use a period to distinguish a stop preinitial followed by an initial glide, as in Old Tibetan g.ron "left" > New Tibetan (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 MORPHO-PHONEMIC 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 < bGAJ)-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 Bern-hard Karlgren's Gml'MUlIQ Serico Rmsa, 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 ~ well-known Tibc:to-Burman languages; I have followed, as best I could, the trans-criptions 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 -,S/1" 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

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 lUiflft 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 Tibetan (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 descendanls 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-Sino-Tibetan, 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 correspond-ences 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. Usli oruu, Phllnoi "'ON, Bis ll ?tI"'Jft, Akha malt, Mpi "')'!Iii. Rgyaro~g bra- rubIa, and perhaps Old Chinese Om ;} " hone." However, in ~ral archaic tClt\Ji (rom Cen tral Asia, we Ond, to Ollr delight, alongside Old Tibetan no 'borsc," Ihe word ,",aol, which apparently means something very mIlCh lite "hone"-for eumple, in a mythological tat from Ihe ~ves near Tun-huang, in the couplct no-slwd IIi rsll~ruhtr, mulitslwd IIi rshtrrshff "In hone language, yes,ll lltruhtr! in 51004 language, yes, tshtr1sMrf' 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," or, again, 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 correspondell

TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT 9

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 liUJ, 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 recon-structions have been cited as the most triumphal vindication of Indo-European 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 li terally 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 S~r:J. What are we to make of this?

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 Gurun&. /lobbn4 docs not Ippear 10 be I loan word from Nepali, where the word for M anl" is ilmilo.. Nepali b an Indo-Aryan language nOI very dimnlly related to Hindi.

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-lanluaae-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, then Ihe Chi nese and TihetuBurman 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

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 Bur-mese 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

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 Tibeto-Burman 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 Tibeto-Burman 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 PrOloBufinese 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 ProlOBurmese siy ratller than with. Burll\C:5e St, and Old Tibet. n gl7N "give" with ProlOBurmese 'piy rather 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 "silverH with ProloBurmese nuy rather than with Burmese 11-. Old Tibetan stm.1 ''snake'' with ProtoBurmese 'mf1ly rather than with Burmese mfWt. and Old Tibetan dgur "crooked" with ProtoBurmese klly rather than with Burmese low.

./ 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 aln 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 "nonpronominalized" Himalayan languages. with the pronominalized languages further subdivided into eastern and western branches. The pronominalized languages fuse subject and object pronouns to the verb, where 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;: (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. GurungThakali 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 other 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 inneetions, bllt rllher thll the non pronominalized languages Io5t the inncclioru tllc:y once had.

16 THE ~ICAL TlSETAN lANOUAGE

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.shQmo iiai tsIuJ14 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 rluijr1a 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 Hsifan

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 meaM "foet us,"

t2 K1L1m (not to \lC oonfW>ot'id wilh the ](balt\ll dialecu or Tibell.nj i$ spoU:t. III ... esl Ne~J by Mapn 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 .

TIBETAN IN CoNTEXT 17

languages. The annals of the Han Dynasty note the e)[istence of o ne group of lchyan, located far from China, callel.! the pywarkhya;;', 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 thobhywall > I'u-fan "agricultural barbarians," a term which ca me to be used regularly for the Tibetans,

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 eumple. in .1 mythic lext from Ihe caves near Tun.hllllng we find db,,wn bdun " . NbrtJgs:'n drt;kJs Msal4 ''The tiene! of the wastes, Dre.da, dem.anc1s seven hairs from his I\e.a

T IBHAN 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 ,dong 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 City 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 tran-scriptions 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 Tibetan 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/

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 laphug. 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; ~allma 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 New Tibetan (Ladakll) fa (l.lIua) fa, Olo;! Tibetan sprin "cloud" > New Tibetan (Ladakh) fill (Lhasa) {iN. Similarly, Old l1belan skod wlanguage" > New Tibetan (Ladakh) sAm (Lhasa) /c.c, Old Tibetan lo/ " raceH > New TIbet. n (Ladakll) 10/ (Lbasa) Je. Old Tibeun mfShon 'n .. me" > New Tibetan (Lao;!akh) tshon (Lh4ISa) uht:N.

;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 from Urdu danntJn "nledicine," but Il'Ic scmanlics are certainly not obvlous.

TiBETAN IN CoN"ffiXT 21

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 my 1 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, marked 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" and 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 differences, 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 often clear, and tile distinClion is frequenlly polilic;:al lalller tllan tinguislic: DUICIl, for aample, is a language, bUI Yiddish is otlen c:aUe4 II dia tea of Gelman, which prom pled Uric! Weinreich 10 define II dia lect as a language without an army or nail)'. "Bhutanese:" may thllS be a ian&uage ralher lhan a diaJecI by virtue or Ihe ract tha t the independen t kingdom UsuC:$ il$ own postage stamps.

By the WlIIy, it is often the cue tll,l1 one dialt in a language is picked out as normalive and Olher dialccu stigmatized: in the cue of Tibelan, the speech or Lhasa Ciay is frequent ly pUI forward as lhe prcstige dialect. It is nol 'lear 10 me tilat Ill is view is II all widespread oUlSilk of Lhasa Ci ty; the view is, lIowcvc:r, fuund among lhose foreign linguis ls whose informants Ire fro m Lhasa, I nd amon, those fore igners whose work or sympalllie5 lie wlIh tile Lhasa poli ti

22 Tilt:: CL\SSICAL TmurAN lANGU .... 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 another 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 mark 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 features with which we can make a beginning, and which provide examples of Ihe .sons or questions that still remain 10 be asked. The follOwing sections will bric ily discuu three phonological features of th is sort ill New Tibetan- thc: palalaiizatlu!l of labials, p{J~tinitials and 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 upper 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 hrow~~n if indirCClly-on thc qUC5lion o f varia lion in O ld Tibetan. wnich we ... iII dilOCuss in lhc ntAI sect ion. Thus we ha~ not discussed the oe.oelopmenl of appa(enlly phonemic loncs in Lnasa City-both lonc REGIS1EI.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 cnl lonal shapa; Ilt:VClOl'inr. tro m syllabic final l'OWCis, sJ ides. and Stops in Old Tibetan. Phonemic lone, or O)UrK, is fOllnd in ma ny lanr.uagcs , C5pcdally in Soutl'lC&S1 AsIa, wncre lOne has appa rently spread amonr. lan&wogC5 which arc nol ,cACtically related , bllt only in gco,raphtcal proXimity. Moreover, to nal s)'$tCIN haw; apparently appc:;trcd and di~ppcan:d , and Ihcn appeared apin, in panieular lan,uar.e fam ilies. Thcrc is no reason 10 believe Ihac Old Tib\:tl n had lones; if Prolo-Tibetan eYer ha4 phonemic lOnes, the systcm ltad dilappcarcd lon, 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 northeast. 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 from 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 appear fairly consistent- thus, for example. Old Tibetan phyjba "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, from 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 of 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 an isogIoss grouping the western dialect of Ladakh with the central Tibetan dialects with regard to this one 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 and 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 excep-tions 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. Presum-ably 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 dental finals, bUI has retaine~ 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 different 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 and west; the second iso-gloss 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 fronting does not occur-for 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 f