Серия «Тибетский язык», курс 1: Тибетский алфавит, занятие 12

[Speaker 1]
Hi, this is Geshe Michael Roach with our next installment of Tibetan Language, Learning Tibetan Language, Learning to Translate Tibetan. We finished the main letters of Tibetan alphabet, and we learned the rows and columns, and then we went through the sub-joined letters, the letters that are joined under, and then we did the super-joined letters, which are the letters which are joined on top, and today we'll start the suffix letters. Suffix means, in Tibetan language, that there are letters that come at the end of words or syllables, which close or complete the sound.

And we'll give examples. There are ten of the thirty Tibetan letters can be suffix letters, only these ten that I've written here. So, there's a poem that kids learn in the monastery, it's a...

kang-a-dana-ba-ma-a, ra-la-sa, say kang-a, dana, ba-ma-a, ra-la-sa. One more time, kang-a, dana, ba-ma-a, ra-la-sa. So these are the ten suffix letters.

Now these are a little tricky because some of them, their effect on the syllable is predictable, and some of them are not predictable, and you have to learn the difference. So let's do the predictable ones first, and then we'll cover the unpredictable ones, and we'll see... we might have to break this into two videos, we'll see, okay.

So luckily the first one, ka, right? Please say ka. Right?

Ka, with your eyebrows please. Okay? We'll take the...let's take the example of the main letter ra, say ra. So it's not an English R with the bottom lip on the front teeth, ra, it's not. It's a rolled R like in Spanish I guess, ra, ra. Okay, so ra, ka, and then we have predictably rak, say ra, ka, rak.

So when the ka serves as a main letter, you should think of it as G, a low tone voice G, ka, say ka. But when it serves as a suffix letter, it becomes like a K, so then think of it as rak. Okay, so you should understand that we've been through many classes on the difference between pronunciation and transcription.

The pronunciation is rak, R-A-K. The transcription would be R-A-G, rak, ra-ga-rak, okay? So, this is rak.

The next one is very predictable. Say ra, na, na, rang, okay, rang. So that's predictable, rang.

It sounds like song, rang, okay, rang. The next two are unpredictable, we'll do them later, ta and na. And let's go to pa.

We're adding them to the same main letter. Say ra, pa, rab. Yeah, you can write this in pronunciation, I find P is probably better.

So, what you're noticing is that, in many cases, a third column letter in pronunciation, as a suffix letter, becomes the... the K or the P, the first column, you see what I mean? So, like, rapten is a lama's name, it refers to an elephant that was very stable.

Rab means very much. The Mount Meru is called... Meru means mountain, ri, and rap means super.

And in fact, the SU came into Sanskrit, came from Sanskrit. And the technical name for ri-rap is su-meru, su-meru. Okay, so rap.

Ma is completely predictable. So... Say ra, ma, low tone, ma, ram.

Okay, ram. Yeah, by the way, rak means to depend on somebody. Rang means myself, or self.

Rap means supreme. Ram means or, in certain circumstances, okay? We're going to skip ah for now.

Ra is very predictable. Say ra? Ra.

Ra. Ra. Ra.

Ra. Okay. This could mean, ra means, I don't know, in some cases it means fence, for example.

And ra would mean on the fence, or at the fence. Okay, ra. La and sa are exceptions.

So I guess we can summarize by saying that there are... five of the ten suffix letters, half of the suffix letters are predictable. When you see them, you will be able to predict what the sound is without any further knowledge.

And that's the same if you add the different vowels. So let's add some of the vowels to these, and see what happens to them. So, the order of the vowels, say ah, i, u, e, o.

Ah, i, u, e, o. Ah, i, u, e, o. Wa wa bing bing.

Okay. All right, okay. So let's say, the first, and ah, the first of the five vowels is inherent within every Tibetan letter, unless otherwise, you know, indicated, okay?

Then the second, the first written vowel is called giku. We went through that before, but let's look at this one with a giku. Okay, say ra.

Ra. Giku. Giku.

Ri. Ri. Ka.

Ka. Rik. Rik.

Okay, predictable, rik. And that means mind, like rikpa. With a sa, it means type, or family, or proper, and we're not going there, okay?

We'll study secondary suffixes later, okay? Let's look at the second vowel symbol, or the third vowel, which is called shabkyu. Say ra.

Ra. Shab. Shab.

Kyu. Kyu. Ru.

Ru. Nga. Nga.

Rung. Rung. Okay, rung, predictable.

This rung happens to mean proper or acceptable, okay? Then the next vowel is e. I'm trying to see if it comes on anything.

We can put one here, okay? Say ra. Ra.

Dengbu. Dengbu. Re.

Re. Ra. Ra.

Rare. Rare. Rare means each one, or one by one.

What's the last vowel sound? O. Yeah, r-e-u-a-o, right?

So we can add a... Okay, we'll put one here. Say, ra, naro, ro, pa, rob, rob, rob.

OK? So just remember that these third column letters, which three of them, no, three of them are, sorry, two of them, they become P, or they become first column, sort of first column, as a suffix letter when you're thinking about the sound, but not the transcription. Rob means, a very colloquial word can mean roughly, robs.

If you want to say approximately 10 people came, you could say, me two robs lay on it. Rob, robs. Then oftentimes you say rob some, which gets, recall that, which gets crushed into a single sound, robs.

Contracted into robs, which means roughly. You know, people say, you know, how hard is it to say? You say, oh, gyal robs, it's about 100.

OK? So those are the predictable suffix letters. And in the next class, we'll be going on to the unpredictable suffix letters, which take a lot of skill.

They take a lot of training to pronounce correctly. And there are things going on linguistically that you have to know. So in the next exciting Tibetan language class, we'll be doing the unpredictable suffix letter.

Thank you.