Серия «Тибетский язык», курс 1: Тибетский алфавит, занятие 9

[Speaker 1]
Hi, welcome back to Tibetan Language Class. Today we're going to be doing something new. We've been covering the sub-join letters, we already finished the super-join letters, the letters that get joined on top, and then we're in the middle of the sub-join letters, so the letters that get joined below, Tibetan letters to make new sounds.

So, we've covered already the YATAK, which means the Y sub-join letter, and then today we're going to do the RATAK. Please say RA... RATAK.

RA... RATAK. Please remember RA is formed like ruffles of ridges, right?

Like Spanish RA, and not like American RA. American R is made with the front teeth on the lip. RA.

Really good, really good. And then in Spanish it's RA, RA, and it's with the tongue on the palate. So please say RA...

RA... RATAK. RA...

RATAK. RATAK means a RA letter is sub-joined or joined under another letter to make a new letter, okay? So that's the second of the three big sub-join letters.

There are also two minor sub-join letters that we're going to talk about today if we have time. So, I'm going to take the first three letters of the Tibetan alphabet, which are... GA, first column, right?

GA, and then... KA, and then... KA, okay?

And then we're going to take the... This is the first row of the Tibetan alphabet, part of the first row, which we learned already. And then what was the second row...

third row? Started with TA, okay? Say TA...

TA... TA... TA...

TA... Okay, good. So we have TA...

TA... and TA. Now, I'm going to sub-join a RA letter.

RATAK. RATAK means to glue on at the bottom, right? And the way we're going to sub-join it is, we're going to take the RA letter, which looks like this, right?

By the way, the Sanskrit would look like this. And in either case, we'll take the... chop off the bottom of it...

until we get a slash that looks like that, okay? And we're going to connect that slash to the bottom of this T, T-row, the TA-row. So we're going to connect it here.

And we'll connect it here. Now, there's no place to connect it to TA because it's already full at the bottom, so we make a little connector line, and then we add a RATAK, okay? So, let's read these three letters together.

Say TA... RATAK... TA...

RATAK... I mean, TAK means join on the bottom. And then TA...

RATAK... Now, the way you pronounce this is very interesting. The transcription is T-R-A...

T-H-R-A... D-R-A... And then a lot of foreigners mispronounce them like TRA or TRA or DRA.

And that's all wrong. You guys know how to make a retroflex sound, right? Retro...

retro means back. Flex means bent. So retroflex is a linguistic category of sounds for consonants, where you bend your tongue back.

So watch my tongue. And you bend it back. And then you say these letters again.

Say T without the RATAK. TA... TA...

TA... TA... Now turn your tongue back and hit the bottom of the front of the tongue on the top of the mouth.

Hit the bottom of the front of the tongue on the top of the mouth. TA... TA...

TA... And it should look a little stupid with your mouth. TA...

TA... TA... Okay?

[Speaker 2]
TA...

[Speaker 1]
And it ends in sort of a dumb smile. TA... Okay?

So that's TA... Say TA... RATAK...

TA... Then it's perfect, okay? Then it's perfect.

It's not a TRA, and it's not the English, which is... How do you say T-R-U-C-K? That's a palatal.

You say CHRAK. It's a CH. We don't say TRAK, okay?

We say CHRAK, which is crazy. T-R-U-C-K. T-R is C-H-R.

CHRAK. CHRAK, okay? So it's not TRA, it's not TRA, it's TA.

TA. Single sound. Tip of your tongue, up here.

TA... TA... And you just drop your mouth.

TA... TA... RATAK...

TA... TA... RATAK...

TA... TA... It's like you're tiring.

TA... And then the sexy voice sound in the throat. TA...

You got to do your eyebrows. TA... Like you're trying to hit on a girl.

TA... RATAK... TA...

TA... What are you doing tonight? TA...

Say TA... It's voice down here, guttural. TA...

It's not D. It's not an English D, okay? So we got TA-RATAK...

TA... TA-RATAK... TA...

TA... RATAK... TA...

Okay? Those are the three sounds, alright? Now we get something very strange.

A RATAK cannot be added to all Tibetan letters. It is added only to some Tibetan letters, and I'll show you which ones. The first three letters of the Tibetan alphabet can take a RATAK.

And they are joined in the way you would expect. These two have stems that make it convenient to add a RATAK. This one doesn't have a stem on the lower right hand of the letter, so we added an extension, and then we put a RATAK, okay?

So this is... by itself is what? KA...

Say KA... Tired. KA...

KA... And then voiced. KA...

KA... Yeah. Nice.

His son has a nice eyebrows going. Okay, say KA... KA...

KA... Okay, good. Now, if it gets a RATAK, you would expect it to be what?

Something like KRA, okay? And here's the surprise. They equal...

these, okay? So, let's do this one together.

[Speaker 2]
KA...

[Speaker 1]
RATAK... TA... KA...

RATAK... TA... KA...

RATAK... TA... Okay?

So you just jump from the first row to the third row, and then you can remember. We had a similar thing happening with the yataks, right? With a different row.

So here you see, this is going to be hard to remember. By the way, I'm not mentioning Sanskrit, okay? Sanskrit...

If this was Sanskrit written in Tibetan letters, you would say KRA, and KRA, and KRA, okay? But, I'm not going to talk about that yet. So these are the normal RATAKs that you'll see.

There are two RATAK exceptions, okay? There are two strange RATAKs that you should know. Let's talk about SA...

and MA. Say, SA... MA...

SA... MA... Both can take a RATAK, you have to add an extender, and you add the RATAK to them, okay?

Now, the exception is, these are the only two other letters that take a RATAK, okay? Aside from those six we talked about already, that I can remember right now. The RATAK on these two letters has no effect on the pronunciation at all, okay?

So let's... Jorlok. What's Jorlok?

Let's spell out loud, C-A-T-K. Jorlok means SA... SA...

RATAK... SA... No change.

We don't say SRA, okay? Although in some rural parts of Tibet, like in Ladakh or Mongolia, they might say SRA. Because that's the way it was a thousand years ago.

And in the middle of Tibet, which is considered the primary language-speaking area, Utsang, this R sound has dropped out. So, if you say SRA to a Nisbari, they won't know what you're talking about, okay? Say, SA...

RATAK... SA... MA...

RATAK... MA... And with that, you have completed the RA sub-join letter, okay?

Now we'll be going on to LA as a sub-join letter in the next video. See you then.