Серия «Тибетский язык», курс 1: Тибетский алфавит, занятие 13

[Speaker 1]
Hi, welcome back to Tibetan Language Class. We've been studying the suffix letters. There are ten suffix letters that close a sound in Tibetan, a syllable or a word.

And we already went through the first five and we gave some examples with different vowel sounds. Those five that we gave here, ka, nga, pa, ma, and ra, give a predictable sound. And then there are five suffix letters which are not predictable.

And without proper training, you can't pronounce them correctly. So, we're going to isolate some of these ten and talk about them separately in this class. And if you learn them, your Tibetan will sound much better.

But someone has to teach them to you. So, ka, nga, the first unusual one is ta, okay? And I'm going to give you an example.

Let me see. This is... yeah, okay, I have an example for you.

This pronunciation, say, ka, ta, ke, okay? So, the effect of d. Now, you have to understand that in the ancient language, this was probably pronounced kad or something like that.

And then in Hasa dialect, which is the dialect which is understood all through Tibet, this d dropped out. So, nobody says kad anymore, okay? Only in the outlying areas like Ladakh or Mongolia, you will hear kad.

Which is actually, the language in the middle of a country or in the cosmopolitan areas of a country tends to develop faster, change faster. And then in the outlying areas, the rural areas, it tends to stay the same. So, if you went to Ladakh or Mongolia, you might hear somebody pronounce the Tibetan as kad.

But in Hasa dialect, main dialect of Tibet, spoken by most Tibetans, which is what I'm teaching, which is what you should learn, we would say ke, say ke, ka, ta, ke, okay? So, in this string of unusual suffix letters, the ones that the effects are not predictable, there will be a good body of them which change the original vowel sound to an umlauted sound. So, let's go through what the effects of an umlaut are.

Umlaut is a German punctual—symbol for pronunciation that might change— this is a, changes to e, say e, a, a, e, umlaut e, okay, e, okay. A, e, there's no umlaut on an e, so there's no change there, okay? E remains the same, okay?

You can't change it with an umlaut, okay? I don't even think it has an umlaut in German. A, e, u changes to, u, say u, umlaut, e, e, like der Führer, okay?

I don't know what it means, the head or the head leader or something like that, okay? U changes to ü, say ü, okay, a, e, u, e, no umlaut, it doesn't take an umlaut, okay? E remains the same, okay?

And then the last vowel is? O. And as in the German schön, which means beautiful, schöner, O changes to ü, say ü, okay?

So we don't really have these sounds that commonly in English, okay? A changes to e, e remains e, u changes to ü, e remains e, and o changes to ü, say ü, okay? So here we have a case where the a has changed to e, so say ka, ta, ke.

Now there's a second thing to say here, which if you learn it, your Tibetan will sound very sweet to Tibetans. There's a thing called linguistic compensation, which means because the d dropped out completely, there was a compensation for it, and they shortened the syllable. So you say ka, say ka, ta, ke, ke, and you cut it short, ke, okay?

Ke, all right? Without that it would be ke, okay? Ke, and you just close—it's a closure of the throat, ke.

It's like ü, okay, ke, and you cut it short. And you have to, or a Tibetan doesn't know what you're saying, okay? This could be six other things if you don't cut it short, okay?

So ka, da, say ka, ta, ke. In pronunciation, which is the closest approximation in normal English sounds, you have no choice but to write what? Just g—it's k, okay?

You can't do anything about it, you can't change it. Okay? Without diacritical symbols, this is the closest you can get in normal English letters, okay?

Which is how we do pronunciation. To add diacritical symbols for people who are not trained linguists is harder for them than to teach them new letters in the Tibetan alphabet. So it's kind of ridiculous, in my opinion, to write a book about something about Tibet and put in a lot of symbols on all the letters which people don't even know.

And it just confuses people. And then less people will use the book. And then you're defeating the purpose of translation.

If fewer people would use the book because you filled it up with weird linguistic symbols, then you have failed as a translator, in my opinion, okay? So, the closest normal English sound is ke, say ke, okay? Ke happens to mean to crack or to smile.

And we had it in the first Panchen Lama's Angel-Devil text because he said ke mo ne, which means what? Ke mo ne, you're a laughing stock. Okay, ke mo means to laugh, but ke means to crack open, right?

See what I mean? You crack—okay. All right, ke.

So, kangar pa na. The next unpredictable one is na, okay? And let me think of a letter.

We can say... Say la. Na.

Same rule, same rule. So what does this become? Len, say len.

Len. Okay, good. Len.

So, if you use a na as a suffix letter, it will change the inherent a to e, okay? Len. There are two synonyms, len.

One has an i vowel, a dengbu, la, dengbu, len, na, len. And this one does not, but they are pronounced the same. This len means to give an answer.

The other len means to take something, like dong len, okay? Ti len means question and answer session, okay? So, this is the word len.

Kangar pa na, ba, ma, a, ra. Ra is an e. La.

And let me think of a word. Yeah, this is—here's a good one. A same effect.

So, say da. Da. Don't say d, right?

It's not a d. Da. La.

Tel. Tel. Tel, okay?

This tel, telwa means slow. And it's an ancient word for slow. It came in the Lam Rim as...

Yeah, in Telmjor, which means leisure and fortune. So, it came to mean leisure, to have the time, because things are slowed down. Okay, so tel.

Kangar pa na, ba, ma, a, ra, ra, ma, sa. Okay, one more example, which is very similar. Say, sa.

Then, let me think of an example. We can use... How about...this is an easy one. How would you pronounce it? Ma. Sa.

Ma. Sa. Haitham, right?

Ma. Sa. Me.

Okay. Now, sa is the brother of da, okay? Sa is the brother of da.

When you use a da suffix letter, it drops out, and you have the umlaut effect. When you use a sa, the compensation is... It drops out, and it gets longer.

So, da shortens the sound, sa lengthens the sound. Sa lengthens the sound. So, this is say, ke, but cut it short as if someone hit you in the chest.

Ke. Ke. And this is me.

Me. Okay. And it's very subtle, but if you do it correctly, Tibetans will...

and they won't know why, but they will love your pronunciation. They'll say, I understand Nig, but I don't understand this other person. And it's because you're lengthening the sa's and you're cutting short the da's in linguistic compensation for them having dropped out.

So, you would say ma's only in Ladakh or Mongolia or other rural areas of the Tibetan language. This happens to mean, ma means mother, and sa is the instrumental particle meaning by the mother. Me means it was done by my mom.

Okay, by my mom. Me, me che shak. My mom did it.

Me. You have to make it longer. I think it'd be kind of fun to...

let me think of an example. Yeah, here's an example. Let's compare two words that have the suffix letters.

Let's compare them, okay? Say na, da, ne. Sorry, ne, ne.

And then say na, sa, ne. Okay, ne, good. Please say again.

Na, da, ne. Na, sa, ne. Okay?

This ne means to be ill, okay? To be sick. And this ne means from.

It also means barley, okay? Don't ask me why. Roasted barley is?

Sampa. But before you roast it, it's ne. Okay, ne.

So there you have a really good example that you can teach your students. Na, da, ne. Not high tone, because that would be a head letter or a prefix letter.

Na, sa, ne. Okay, ne, okay. Good, good, nice.

Now, tough question for you. How about the simplified pronunciation in a normal book about Tibet where you want the reader to be confident or you want them to— you want to make it easy for them to get through the book with a rough approximation which is the closest English sound to what you're working with. So, how would you write this one?

Ne, okay, ne, ne. And this one? Same.

Okay, and you have to get used to that. The only difference is this is shorter and this is longer. There's no way to show that in normal English letters.

So, rather than driving people crazy with some kind of special mark that says, you know, or, you know, or, you know, which people do, and then they make— then the book becomes unintelligible. Nobody can understand the book. Okay, say ne, ne, ne, ne.

But in simplified pronunciation, the same. Okay, cool. I don't know how long that took, but I think we'll stop there for this class.

And we'll go one more class on the suffix letters because we still have— we still have one more to talk about, okay? All right, see you next class.