Серия «Тибетский язык», курс 1: Тибетский алфавит, занятие 16

[Speaker 1]
Hi, this is Geshe Michael Roach, returning for the next exciting installment of Prefix Letters in the Tibetan Language. We said there were five prefix letters, ka-da-pa-ma-a, and we were discussing their effects on the columns, which you have already learned. By the way, starting now, as you can see, this information becomes accumulative, and if you haven't had previous classes, you're going to get left behind.

So it's like math. You have to learn addition, subtraction, before you can go on to other functions. And you can't just pick up Tibetan in the middle.

You have to go back. If I'm saying something that you don't understand about columns, go back to the earlier videos and study the columns. Then come back to this class.

So we were talking about... We've covered the effect of these prefix letters on three of the four columns. We said that the nasals, which is the fourth column, are normally low-tone, and when they have a prefix letter, they become high-tone.

We said that the first column, which is already high-tone and unaspirated, can't get any higher, so no change in pronunciation, only change in spelling and meaning. And second column was the same. Second columns are not as frequent, but there are some prefix letters for second columns, and nothing happens because they're already high-tone.

How does second column differ from first column if they're both high-tone? More aspiration in the second column. Almost as if you're tired.

Instead of... Now we're ready to talk about the... which column?

Yeah, we didn't talk about the third column yet. Give me the third column, and don't forget to do the eyebrows. ka, da, da, ba, sa, ka, cha, da, ba, sa.

Let's look at what happens to ka, ja, da, ba, sa. We're going to start another page here. So we have ka, cha, da, and sa.

This is the third column. What are the two characteristics of third column? Low-tone and voiced.

ka, ja, da, ba, sa. When they get a prefix letter, the same thing happens as when they get a head letter. They go from voiced, ka, to the normal English letter.

Think of it that way. Because English letters are unvoiced gutturals. Or an unvoiced third column.

So, ka becomes a real g. Ja becomes a real j. Ta becomes a real d.

Pa becomes a real b. And this was always... So, think of it that way.

The change is not in tone. The tone doesn't change. The amount of voicedness changes.

It goes from eyebrows to no eyebrows. So, let's give an example. We've been talking about the word bliss, ananda, and there's a form of it, which is this one.

Say tau, ga, ra, gar. When you spell out loud, you already reflect the effect on the subsequent letters of the preceding letters. So you don't say tau, ka, ra, gar.

It's a cumulative. You say tau, ga, ra, gar. Real English g.

It becomes gar. Let's give an example of ja. By the way, not every prefix letter can go on every other letter.

There's some that do and some that don't. So, I'm trying to think of one. Unfortunately, I'll have to...

I'm going to give you this example. Say mau, ja, la, jau. There's another effect here I'm going to talk about later.

Jau. This word happens to mean to meet someone. And there's a very sweet Tibetan verb that means to view holy images in a temple.

And they don't say... You don't say, I looked at the thangka. You say, I met the thangka.

Jau. Chun jau means to pay your respects in a temple and meet all the images. Jau.

Okay. Let's think of an example here. Say kau.

No eyebrows. Da. Just the English d.

Da. If it wasn't there? Da.

Okay. Kau. Da.

Ah. No effect. Da.

Okay. Just for spelling. That suffix there is just for spelling.

Da. Da means to transcend or to go beyond. Depa, for example, means past tense.

The time has gone. Dawa. It's a little bit unusual word.

But this is an unusual combination. Okay. Let's look at ba.

Let me think about it. Okay. Let's do this one.

Say au. Au. Ba.

Ah. Ba. Okay.

Ba. This ba means one and only. Ba shik means one and only.

It's—what's the Sanskrit? Do you remember? Fourth chapter, Yoga Sutra.

Kaivalya or Kevalya. Okay. Kaivalya.

And Tibetan ba. Ba shik. Ba.

Okay. Then that one. Let's give you an example.

How do you spell that? I think it's like this. Okay.

I might be misspelling this because it's— So, I was trying to think of a— I misspelled it and I corrected myself. But say mao. Za.

Naro. Zo. Which is like a female yak or a cross between a yak and a cow.

Okay. So, you can milk a zo but you can't milk a yak. So there's no such thing as yak butter.

Of course you're never going to say that. The yak is the male. It's like—anyway.

So, zo. So this is the effect of the prefix letters on the letters of the of the fifth—sorry, third column. And there'll be some exceptions that I'll tell you about later.

What I'd like to do now while we're still on this unit and this video is tell you about the effect of two of the prefix letters, which is unusual. Okay. You want to help me with this?

So, we said that there were two groups of prefix letters and we indicated that two of them are going to do something unusual. And that's ma and a. Okay.

So as prefix letters, these two have some— they do some unusual things. As I can think, it's only with the third column. On the third column, these two prefix letters have an effect that we call prenasal.

And it's very important to recognize, first of all, that this prenasal effect is situation-dependent. You can't say which of the four nasals it's going to be until you see the letters involved. It's like the French prenasalization.

And it's very similar to the Sanskrit nasalization, which is totally misunderstood and mispronounced all over the West. And even in India, ahimsa is incorrect. There's no such sound before an S.

It's ahimsa. Okay? Ahimsa.

So which nasal you use is situation-dependent. And we'll talk about that. It comes from the same row.

So since you know rows now, you know about what the nasals are for that row. Whether it's nga, nya, na, or ma, moving up the throat, that's going to be the prenasal before one of these. So let's give a real example.

And let's pronounce some of the ones we had before more correctly. Okay? So give me the third column, please.

Yeah, gha, ja, ta, pa, sa. So let's take this example, okay? We've been flirting with this word, which probably means flirting in some cases.

Spell it, jor-lok it for me. Spell it out loud. Tao, ga, real English G.

No eyebrows. Tao, ga, ah, ga. Which means?

Ananda, bliss. Okay? Now, if you use one of these two prenasaling prefix letters, on the same combination basically, you would spell it, ao, nga, nga, a, nga.

Okay? This is ga, this is nga, nga. Okay?

And they have totally different meaning. This ga means some, like some people, ga shik, some people went. This ga means bliss.

If you don't know the difference when you're pronouncing them, no one can understand what you're saying, but I'll tell you something more serious. And you've got to consider this. If you mispronounce words in your own mind as you read a page of Tibetan, you won't be able to comprehend the page of Tibetan, because you are not distinguishing between different words.

I heard the example of a German language. People hear jeep and cheap as the same. So, if you say, I want to sell you a cheap jeep, they say cha all the time.

I had a classic example in Thailand. I was working in Thailand. My secretary would call me that someone had come to sell me precious stones.

And in Thai, you cannot distinguish between an R and an L. So, I had a supplier named Rare Gems. I had another supplier named Real Gems.

And I had a third supplier named Leer Gems. But for her, they were all real gems. You see what I mean?

So, if she can't distinguish between the names of those three companies in her mind, what she hears in her own mind, then she'll be confused every time she's talking about them to me. There'll be confusion. And if you don't make these kinds of distinctions, not only in pronouncing Tibetan when you speak to others in Tibetan, but if you cannot make these distinctions in your own mind, as you read in your head, as you sound out the words of something in your head, you will never be a great translator.

You can't be, because all the words are jumbled together. The words of totally different meanings sound the same to you. And then you'll just be ten times harder to translate.

So, it's very important to learn these distinctions. This is a pre-nasalizer. Say, ga.

Nga. Ga. Nga.

Let's do some pre-nasals for the other members of the—which column? Third column. What's the next one?

Ka. Cha. And I gave you already jao, but now I'm going to correct it.

Okay. And we're going to pronounce it more correctly as njao. Okay?

Njao. Njao. The effects of a pre-nasalizing prefix letter are most pronounced in two-syllable words, where the second syllable begins with a pre-nasalizer.

So, for example, we were talking about— there's a special verb in Tibetan language for walking into a temple and getting to know the holy images as if they were living. Okay? That's important spiritual practice.

Go into a temple and meet the images, the paintings and statues as if they were real people. And that verb is called meeting the dharma. So, what's the first word?

Cha. Good. But it's longer.

Cha. Now you're going to pronounce it more correctly because cha means to cut. Cha means the dharma.

So, now, pre-nasalize between them. Chenjao. So it comes out— it comes out sounding as if there were an n-suffix letter on the first syllable, like ganden monastery, but there's not.

That's the effect of a pre-nasal second syllable. It's really cha n-jao. And when you say them fast together, it comes out chenjao.

And ga n-den, monastery, but it comes out ganden. It sounds—and then Tibetans are always misspelling it because it sounds like an n on the end of the first— then they don't know what it means. Okay, so say chenjao.

Chenjao, to meet the dharma. So, we had a jao in the previous class, but now we're pronouncing it more correctly. n-jao.

n-jao, okay? By the way, this is also a word. And how would you pronounce it?

n-jao. Okay, because these both create the same effect, pre-nasal. This is n-jao, and this is n-jao.

They are not pronounced differently. They are spelled differently because this has a different meaning. This one means to weigh something, to take the measure of something, okay?

It's called n-jao. To weigh a package, for example, it would be called a jiao. And this is jiao, to meet somebody, okay?

Got it? All right then. So we've got ka, cha—what's our next one?

Da. The next letter in the third column is da. We had da, meaning—I think I'll adjust that to go, I think, ancient word.

But let's put a different prefix letter on it. Da, and... n-da.

Da, n-da. And if you were going to jor-lok it, listen to the jor-lok. A-un.

A-un-da. Okay, you don't say a-o, da. You say—you already anticipate the pre-nasal, and you say a-un-da, a-da, n-da.

Okay, n-da, okay? So these have two different means. I think I gave you the wrong meaning last time.

Da meaning to be, I think. Ancient word to be. Very ancient.

And n-da meaning to go beyond. Okay, to transcend. Okay, so correct me in the last video.

This da means to be. And yin-da. And n-da means to transcend.

Okay, n-da. And then there's another word which you can guess. Jor-lok, please.

[Speaker 2]
Ma-un-da.

[Speaker 1]
Good, nice. Say ma-un-da. Ma-un-da.

Ma-un-da. Ah. Da.

N-da. N-da, okay? Now I want to show you another principle about pre-nasals.

When there's an open vowel in the first syllable of a pre-nasal second syllable, the effect is even more pronounced of a nasal between the two. So, there's a nice example for this one. By the way, this n-da means an arrow.

So how do you pronounce this? Say men-da. Men-da.

You know me. Fire. So what's a men-da?

Fire arrow. It's a Tibetan word for a rifle. Okay, fire arrow.

Okay, men-da. Alright, and you say men-da. You don't say me-n-da, and you don't say me-da.

Because they have no idea what you're saying. Men-da. Say men-da.

Fire arrow. Okay, good. So we've covered ka, cha, da.

What do we got next? Yeah, I gave you this one... already.

And it's... now jor-lok it for me. It's a nasal.

Okay, meaning alone. Kaivalya. Kevala.

Okay, by itself. By itself. Ka, cha, da, ba, dza.

And then I'll throw one more in here, and we'll have one more class on Prefix Sanskrit. We still got some more to talk about. Say mao.

Mao. Dza. Dza.

Ah. Ah. Dza.

Dza. Dza means a friend. The colloquial is what?

Chokpo. Chokpo. Chokpo.

And the honorific is dza. Okay, meaning... It can also mean...

wise. No, I'm sorry, that's a different one. So this dza means friend.

What I'd like to cover in the next class, and then we'll conclude our study of prefix letters, is to show you where we pull the nasal sound from in the alphabet, because that will help you. So, if we have a prenasal, where do we pull it from? And then we have to talk about a very few exceptional prefix letters in certain conditions that have totally unexpected sound.

Okay, we'll do that in our next exciting prefix letter video.