Серия «Тибетский язык», курс 1: Тибетский алфавит, занятие 8

[Speaker 1]
Hi, welcome back to the Tibetan language series. Today we're going to start the subjoined letters. We finished the head letters, and now we're going to go to the subjoined letters.

The three letters that are typically subjoined are YA, LA, and LA. Although we could also treat some other variants involving AH. Okay, we'll talk about that later.

But we're going to talk basically about how these three letters can be joined to the bottom of other letters to change the pronunciation and to change the spelling and give them a different meaning. And you can imagine the first attempts to make a Tibetan typewriter were a disaster. I helped.

It was a long process. Then the computer got better. Unfortunately, the letters change sometimes.

So, I'm going to start with YA because alphabetically that would come first. To appreciate YA, you have to understand that this shape came from an original Sanskrit shape which was more like this. So this is the Sanskrit YA.

And when you take a normal Tibetan letter like KA and you add a YA to it, it doesn't look like this letter under KA. It looks more like a piece of the Sanskrit under the KA. So that's useful to know.

So we're going to go like this, and then we're going to add... We're going to add a... This piece came from the Sanskrit letter YA.

So, please pronounce KA. And now we have KA... KA...

YATAK... which means with a YA attached to the bottom of it. Say KA...

YATAK... becomes KYA. KA...

YATAK... KYA. Okay, good.

That's how it's easy. This one is very predictable. Let's get some more examples.

The second column in Tibetan can take a YA. It could not take a head letter normally, but it does take a YA, a subjoint letter. So we have here...

What's this? KA... KA...

Still high tone. High tone, aspirated. KA...

KA... Like cop, or copper, or caught you. And then we can add a...

How you draw these is something we'll have to be studying later together. Sometimes with a YATAK you'll have to have a little connector line to get it in there. But normally you would go for the right-hand side of the letter and connect it there.

If it's not low enough, you would make a little joiner. So, this is drawn like this. Okay, say KA...

KA... YATAK... YATAK...

KYA... KYA... KA...

KA... YATAK... YATAK...

KYA... Okay, here we take a third column. By itself it's...

KA... KA... KA...

Okay, KA... KA... Good, okay.

And if you add a YATAK, it'll go here. And it'll be KA... KA...

KA... YATAK... YATAK...

KYA... Okay, with a head letter takes away the guttural and the aspiration, but a sub-join letter does not. It's still...

It's still... KA... KA...

KA... YATAK... YATAK...

KYA... Okay. I'm just getting it in my head.

The second row doesn't take YATAK. KA... KA...

KA... The third row... KA...

KA... KA... KA...

KA... But that's a long story. I want to teach you how one of the nasals takes a YATAK.

NGA... NGA... NGA...

NGA... Only one of them takes a YATAK, okay? And that's this one.

Sorry, it's a little sloppy. What's this letter? MA...

MA... MA... Say MA.

MA... Okay, MA low tone. MA...

MA... It means mother, okay? If you mispronounce it and say MA, it can mean sore or he's sad, okay?

So you've got to be careful, all right? MA... MA...

It takes a YATAK. Okay? You would expect it to be what?

NGA... NGA... Okay, NGA.

Like meow. The word for cat in Chinese is meow, meow, meow, meow. Okay?

MAO... MAO... You'd expect it to be NGA, but instead, it changes to...

this, okay? What's that? NGA...

NGA low tone. NGA, okay? And that's just, you know...

When people complain about that, I say, talk to Tumi Sambodha. You know, he lived like 1,200 years ago. You work it out with him, don't blame me.

I didn't make this, okay? There's another set of exceptions which I'm going to cover in this video, which might make it slightly longer than I'm supposed to do. But that's okay.

The first row is the KA row, right? Go across the first row for me. KA...

KA... KA... KA...

KA... The second row is... CHA...

CHA... Go slow. CHA...

Second one? CHA... CHA...

Third one? CHA... CHA...

Fourth one? CHA... CHA...

Okay. Now I want you to give me the labial row, which is the fourth row. KA, CHA, TA...

PA... PA... Okay, give it to me.

PA... PA... PA...

PA... PA... PA...

Use your eyes. I love PA. And?

MA... MA... MA...

Okay, so we have... This is the second row of the Tibetan alphabet, and this is the fourth row of the Tibetan alphabet. Now there's a trick.

When these four letters from the fourth row, KA, CHA, TA, PA, take a yatak, they do something very strange. So I'm just going to cover them together. Okay?

Now we gave them all yataks. We gave them all subjoined yas. Now, the pronunciation jumps up two rows.

Just think of it that way. It's so easy. Okay?

I like to draw it this way. Okay? Equals.

Equals. Equals. Equals.

Okay, that's it. Equals sign. Okay?

So let's jorlok, let's read it together, CAT, count it together. Ready? PA...

PA... Yatak...

[Speaker 2]
Yatak... CHA... CHA...

[Speaker 1]
CHA... Okay, not... What would you expect?

PA... PA... Okay, you'd expect PA.

In Sanskrit transliteration, it is PA, but we'll talk about that later. PA Yatak CHA. Okay?

PA... PA... Yatak...

Yatak... CHA... CHA...

Keep the aspiration, keep the high tone. This is non-aspirated high tone. CHA...

CHA... PA Yatak CHA. CHA...

This is high tone aspirated. PA Yatak CHA. CHA...

PA Yatak CHA. PA... PA...

Yatak...

[Speaker 2]
Yatak...

[Speaker 1]
CHA... It keeps the eyebrows. PA...

PA... Yatak... Yatak...

CHA... It jumps up two rows. Okay?

MA... MA... Yatak...

[Speaker 2]
Yatak...

[Speaker 1]
Yatak... Okay, got it? You okay with that?

I'll give you one more exception, and I think we can close up this video. And if I think of any more exceptions, I'll put them on the next video. Okay?

When pa comes after a certain prefix letter, which is da, it changes, okay? For example, this should be pronounced bang, okay? Bang.

But the B changes to W. After D, the B changes to W. We'll talk about it more later when we get to prefix letters.

So this was not pronounced bang, it's pronounced wong, okay? Wong. So the B changes to W only after D.

But if it has a yatak, and I'll give you a real example. If it has a yatak, it changes to ya, ya, but a little bit high tone, say it. So this is pa, this part is pa, yatak, ya, and this is pronounced yer, okay?

This is pronounced yer. So I don't want to hear you saying yer there, and I don't want to hear you saying beer there, okay? It's yer, okay?

A very famous example is the word yin. Yin means like realm of reality or something, it's a beautiful word. Che yin is Dharmadhatu, for example, the realm of ultimate reality.

It's called yin, say yin. Okay, good. So yer.

Cha. Okay, don't say cha. Okay, that concludes yatak.

We'll go on to a la sub-join letter, which also has some weird changes. And we'll go on to the la sub-join letter later in this series. Thank you, and good night.