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| Classical Tibetan | |
|---|---|
| Region | Tibet,North Nepal,Sikkim |
| Era | 9th–12th[citation needed] centuries |
Early form | |
| Tibetan script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xct |
xct | |
| Glottolog | clas1254 |
Classical Tibetan is aliturgical language ofTibetan Buddhism that dates from the 9th century. It particularly refers to the language of early canonical texts translated from other languages, especiallySanskrit. It is one of the handful of 'living'classical languages along withArabic,Ge'ez, andNew Persian, though it meaningfully differs fromModern Standard Tibetan.
There are four recognised stages of Tibetan: Archaic,Old,Classical, Medieval andModern. Old Tibetan was used from the seventh century to translate mostlySanskrit texts from theMahāyāna Buddhist canon, though standardization in 816 CE during the reign of KingSadnalegs gave rise to the form of the language known as Classical Tibetan.[1][2] Some medieval writers strayed from this written standard by using more colloquial phrases and words, compound words, and omitting case particles. This process continued to create the current differences between Modern Literary Tibetan and Classical Tibetan.[1]
Thegrammar varies greatly depending on period and geographic origin of the author.[citation needed]
Thephonology implied by Classical Tibetanorthography is very similar to the phonology of Old Tibetan.[citation needed] The following information is based on Hodge's description of Classical Tibetan.[1]
| Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m⟨མ⟩ | n⟨n~'⟩⟨ན~འ⟩[i] | ŋ⟨ng⟩⟨ང⟩ | ||
| Plosive | voiceless | p⟨པ⟩ | t⟨ཏ⟩ | k⟨ཀ⟩ | |
| aspirated | pʰ⟨ph⟩⟨ཕ⟩ | tʰ⟨th⟩⟨ཐ⟩ | kʰ⟨kh⟩⟨ཁ⟩ | ||
| voiced | b⟨བ⟩ | d⟨ད⟩ | ɡ⟨ག⟩ | ||
| Affricate | voiceless | ts⟨ཙ⟩ | t͡ʃ⟨c⟩⟨ཅ⟩ | ||
| aspirated | tsʰ⟨tsh⟩⟨ཚ⟩ | t͡ʃʰ⟨ch⟩⟨ཆ⟩ | |||
| voiced | dz⟨ཛ⟩ | d͡ʒ⟨j⟩⟨ཇ⟩ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɬ⟨lh⟩⟨ལྷ⟩ | h⟨h⟩⟨ཧ⟩ | ||
| voicelesshigh tone | s_˥⟨s⟩⟨ས⟩ | ʃ_˥⟨sh⟩⟨ཤ⟩ | |||
| voicelesslow tone | s_˩⟨z⟩⟨ཟ⟩ | ʃ_˩⟨zh⟩⟨ཞ⟩ | |||
| Trill | voiced | r⟨ར⟩ | |||
| Approximant | voiced | w⟨ཝ⟩ | l⟨ལ⟩ | ||
Prefixes are usually silent with the exception of db- when preceding a, e, or o, where it is realized as [w]. The suffixes -g and -b are devoiced to /k/ and /p/, and the suffixes -d and -s are silent.
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | ɪ⟨i⟩ི | uུ |
| Mid | eེ | oོ |
| Low | ɑ⟨a⟩ - |
/ɑ/, /u/, and /o/ are raised to [ɛ], u [y], o [ø~œ] before the suffixes -d /∅/, -s /∅/, -n /n/, and -l /l/. All vowels are lengthened before the -gs /∅/ suffix.[1]
Nominalizing suffixes —pa orba andma — are required by thenoun oradjective that is to be singled out;
Theplural is denoted, when required, by adding the morpheme-rnams; when the collective nature of the plurality is stressed the morpheme-dag is instead used. These two morphemes combine readily (e.g.rnams-dag'a group with several members', anddag-rnams'several groups').[3]
The classical written language has tencases, listed below, though scholars differ in their analyses.[4] Traditional Tibetan grammarians do not distinguish case markers in this manner, but rather distribute these case morphemes (excluding-dang and-bas) into the eight cases ofSanskrit.-la,-na and-tu etc. are traditionally grouped as thela don particles, as-las and-nas are as’byung khungs.[5]
| Particles | Traditional | Delancey (2003) | Tournadre (2010) | Hill (2011) | Hodge (2015)[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -∅ unmarked morphologically | nominative,vocative | zero marking | absolutive | - | |
| -ཀྱི་-kyi,-གྱི་-gyi,-གི་-gi,-འི་-'i,-ཡི་-yi | genitive | ||||
| -ཀྱིས་-kyis,གྱིས་-gyis,-གིས་-gis,-ས་-s,-ཡིས་-yis | instrumental | ergative/instrumental | agentive | instrumental | |
| -ལ་-la | la-don-gyi sgra (morphemes with the same meaning as la) | locative/allative | dative | allative | oblique (locative/allative) |
| -ན་-na | locative/illative | locative | |||
| -ཏུ་-tu,-དུ་-du,-ར་-r,-རུ་-ru,-སུ་-su | terminative | purposive | terminative | general subordination | |
| -ལས་-las | ’byung khungs (source) | ablative | |||
| -ནས་-nas | elative | prolative | |||
| -དང་-dang | - | - | associative | conjunctive | |
| -བས་-bas | - | - | comparative | - | |
Case markers are affixed to entire noun phrases, not to individual words (i.e.Gruppenflexion).
There are personal, demonstrative, interrogative and reflexivepronouns, as well as anindefinite article, which is plainly related to the numeral for "one."[6]
As an example of the pronominal system of classical Tibetan, theMilarepa rnam thar, exhibits the following personal pronouns.[7]
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First person | ང་nga | ངེད་nged |
| First + Second | རང་རེ་rang-re | |
| Second person | ཁྱོད་khyod | ཁྱེད་khyed |
| Third person | ཁོ་kho | ཁོང་khong |
The plural (ཁྱེད་khyed) can be used as apolite singular.[7]
Verbs do not inflect for person or number. Morphologically there are up to four separate stem forms, which the Tibetan grammarians, influenced by Sanskrit grammatical terminology, call the "present" (lta-da), "past" ('das-pa), "future" (ma-'ongs-pa), and "imperative" (skul-tshigs), although the precise semantics of these stems is still controversial. The so-called future stem is not a true future, but conveys the sense of necessity or obligation.
The majority of Tibetan verbs fall into one of two categories, those that express implicitly or explicitly the involvement of an agent, marked in a sentence by the instrumental particle (kyis, etc.) and those that express an action that does not involve an agent. Tibetan grammarians refer to these categories astha-dad-pa andtha-mi-dad-pa respectively. Although these two categories often seem to overlap with the English[citation needed] grammatical concepts of transitive and intransitive, most modern writers on Tibetan grammar have adopted the terms "voluntary" and "involuntary", based on native Tibetan descriptions.[citation needed] Most involuntary verbs lack an imperative stem.
Many verbs exhibit stem ablaut among the four stem forms, thusa ore in the present tends to becomeo in the imperativebyed,byas,bya,byos ('to do'), ane in the present changes toa in the past and future (len,blangs,blang,longs 'to take'); in some verbs a present ini changes tou in the other stems ('dzin,bzung,gzung,zung 'to take'). Additionally, the stems of verbs are also distinguished by the addition of various prefixes and suffixes, thussgrub (present),bsgrubs (past),bsgrub (future), 'sgrubs (imperative). Though the final-s suffix, when used, is quite regular for the past and imperative, the specific prefixes to be used with any given verb are less predictable; while there is a clear pattern ofb- for a past stem andg- for a future stem, this usage is not consistent.[8]
| Meaning | present | past | future | imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| do | བྱེད་byed | བྱས་byas | བྱ་bya | བྱོས་byos |
| take | ལེན་len | བླངས་blangs | བླང་blang | ལོངས་longs |
| take | འཛིན་'dzin | བཟུངས་bzungs | གཟུང་gzung | ཟུངས་zungs |
| accomplish | སྒྲུབ་sgrub | བསྒྲུབས་bsgrubs | བསྒྲུབ་bsgrub | སྒྲུབས་sgrubs |
Only a limited number of verbs are capable of four changes; some cannot assume more than three, some two, and many only one. This relative deficiency is made up by the addition of auxiliaries or suffixes both in the classical language and in the modern dialects.[9]
Verbs are negated by two prepositional particles:mi andma.Mi is used with present and future stems. The particlema is used with the past stem; prohibitions do not employ the imperative stem, rather the present stem is negated withma. There is also a negative stative verbmed'there is not, there does not exist', the counterpart to the stative verbyod'there is, there exists'.
As with nouns, Tibetan also has a complex system of honorific and polite verbal forms. Thus, many verbs for everyday actions have a completely different form to express the superior status, whether actual or out of courtesy, of the agent of the action, thuslta'see', hon.gzigs;byed'do', hon.mdzad. Where a specific honorific verb stem does not exist, the same effect is brought about by compounding a standard verbal stem with an appropriate general honorific stem such asmdzad.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Waddell, Lawrence Austine;de Lacouperie, Albert Terrien (1911). "Tibet § Language". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 919–921.
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