The Tibetan Writing System and Phonetic Change
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- In this video, I show how the Tibetan writing system worked at its beginning, and justify the idiosyncrasies of the Modern Standard Tibetan writing system by considering the phonetic evolution of Old Tibetan since the script's creation and standardization.
This video applies specifically to Modern Standard Tibetan, which is based on the dialect of Tibetan spoken in Lhasa. There are other dialects of Tibetan which have differing phonologies.
Most of the information regarding Old Tibetan phonology and evolution was pulled from Stephan Beyer's "The Classical Tibetan Language" as well as Nathan Hill's writings on Old Tibetan and on the Sino-Tibetan family. Nicolas Tournadre's "Manual of Standard Tibetan" was also referenced with regards to the modern language.
I'm glad there's finally a good video about Tibetan that doesn't resort to saying it's the most convoluted writing system lol
It's actually not that complicated and illogical, but it displays a lot of historical spelling, which makes it difficult to predict its reading for a non-tibetan speaker... That being said, it looks awesome, and the way it works is very interesting imo!
It's so interesting to know most of the Indic languages still keep unaspirated/aspirated/unvoiced/unvoiced consonants while the neighboring languages like Thai or Tibetan which borrowed Devanagari-derivative scripts slowly lose four distinct consonantal articulation and developed onset pitch accent or tones (except Punjabi). A parallel phonetical development, for example is seen in the sound shift from the Archaic Chinese to modern Cantonese: Voiced initials change into low register tones with aspirated consonants while unvoiced, unaspirated initials developed into high register tones.
Very helpful video, as a beginner learning to pronounce modern/standard Lhasa Tibetan! Thank you! 🙏
There is a parallel to the non-pronounced suffix affecting the vowel quality (eg. མ་ /ma/] vs མད་ /mä'/) in Southern Italian languages/dialects. While standardized Italian (ie. Tuscan grammar with Roman phonology) has "buono" (m.) va. "buona" (f.) for "good" with the final vowel indicating gender, in many Southern dialects the final vowel is muted or destressed into a schwa, so the penultimate vowel takes on a different quality to indicate grammatical gender. Examples (Accetturese dialect): "bbune" ['b:unə] (m.) vs. "bbone" ['b:onə] (f.) for "good" and "frédde" ['fred:ə] (m.) vs. "frèdde" ['frɛd:ə] (f.) for "cold". It's fascinating how spoken languages evolve to "fill in the gaps" left by features that were lost over time! And it seems that modern Tibetan has one of the best written examples of sound change. It all seems systematic, contrary to popular videos decrying its 'disorder', and you start out your video. Thai is similar, in this respect, but has many more homophones than Tibetan. Trashi Delek!
Thank you 🎉 I was in Mcleod Ganj in '89. This fills the gaps
Thank you for your Hard Work and teaching..
Thank you for this recommendation, youtube. Very cool.
Thank you for this video.
25:20 This isn’t a source for that, but an example of analogous evolution in another language. In the video “History of the Japanese Language” by LingoLizard, it is stated that the Old Japanese P (a bilabial plosive like B is) became an F-like sound in Early Middle Japanese, which (when between vowels) later became W. This W then dropped out when before any vowel except A (since the syllables wi/we/wo had merged into i/e/o centuries prior, so the Old Japanese original W had also already ceased to exist before non-A vowels, and wu never existed).
There are, however, some points of disanalogy, as Japanese is not a tonal language and (if the glide Y and deceased glide W don’t count as clusters) its syllable structure never allowed consonant clusters in any position.
Japanese is not a tonal language, but at least a pitch accent language, as attested from the documents of Heian Period. Though I am not a scholar, a synchronic or diachronic approach to languages are most likely a good start to understand seemingly chaotic spelling problems.
@@joshyam4026 BTW do you know Tibetan? I’m asking because there’s a point in the video which has a discrepancy between what the guy’s voice says and what the onscreen text says.
Thank you so much! This is a great talk. It's illuminating to see the new ("illogical") way of writing explained as a result of phonetic changes and shifts. Although, not being a linguist, I did have to stop it quite a few times to let it "sink" and to look up the linguistic terms you are using. I just started learning Tibetan. Ultimately, I aim to be able to read classical Tibetan works. However, I like to pronounce things correctly. Could you recommend where one could hear the right pronunciation guidance (spoken by native speakers)? Not just the consonants but also new sounds that are the results of subscripts, etc.? Thanks a lot!
Really clearifing and enjoyable ❤️💐
Just from a simple historical linguistics/phonology lens, it's pretty clear that /wang/ comes from /dbang/ > /dvang/ > /zwang/ > /wang/.
I would love to see or read about Tibetan phonology.
22:39 I think that whole section about pre-initial consonants causing low tone aspirates to lose aspiration but gain voice is overly convoluted. Yes, modern Tibetan considers voicing secondary, but obviously the synchronic answer is it's voicing that conditioned tone. It was underlyingly /d/ that usually becomes low /tʰ/, but the m in the cluster /md/ prevented aspiration. Or something on those lines.
Btw, do you know what taut and loose mean in this video? I tried looking it up (just the first term) but couldn’t find any sources listing a definition related to phonology. I found some where the Google snippet previews for pages displayed some (seemingly contradictory) definitions, but I didn’t find those definitions when actually opening the webpages.
@@darkblade4340 what timecode minutes is that said?
@@kori228The first time is around 16:29
@@darkblade4340ah that's basically a more phonetic explanation of tonogenesis by glottal fold tension/pressure. The usual example of onset consonant tonogenesis is voiceless = high, voiced = low. Final consonant tonogenesis is final stops (especially a glottal stop) condition a rising/high tone; final fricatives condition a falling/low tone.
But it's actually more complicated than that, it has to do with tension/pressure of the glottal folds. There's both voicing and phonation. I don't have a reference, but iirc it's: consonants that require closing the glottis cause a buildup of pressure that conditions a high pitch upon release (or condition a creak-to-phonation low>high=rising pitch), while consonants with an open glottis doesn't have that tension so it's kinda neutral. If the glottis is vibrating (i.e. voiced) or extra breath is forced through (i.e. breathy) though, it causes the sound to be murmured, lowering the pitch.
Depending on where the consonant that conditions this phonation contrast is, it can lead to different pitch contours. An onset open-glottis voiced/breathy consonant will likely start low (though a open-glottis voiceless consonant like fricatives or aspirated stops start high), while a final open-glottis will likely end low. An onset tense glottis likely starts high (or creak-to-phonation low-high=rising) while a final tense-glottis can end high or low (it doesn't need to release the pressure at the end, so it may just end low creak without releasing into phonation).
@@kori228 So what is a basic definition of the terms taut and loose within the context of this video, and the specific letters which fall into each description? Thank you for the previous reply.
thank you
A small typo: 17 min 13 sec: what you say is correct (voiced consonants got reanalyzed as low tones), but the slide says the opposite.
Another typo at 21:00
What about 30:51, when there’s another discrepancy between what he says and what the slide says?
interesting
BUDDHA BLESS THE TIBETANS
Great video! How/where did you study Tibetan?
Thanks! At the time of making this video, I had only self-studied from some textbooks (mostly Tournadre's book for practical purposes). Since then I've been taught more formally by a native teacher but I'm always a supporter of learning languages independently, especially when getting started.
@@grammarfellowhreodbeorht3691 that’s great! I’m also going through the same book. And I second the part about self tutelage :)
@@grammarfellowhreodbeorht3691id like to learn tibetan, its a chill language
Sanskrit had independent vowels but they can't be base letters whereas independant consonants could be.
it's good for the SCs of Tibetan and the Tibetan script... however, you cannot pronounce any of the vowels correctly 😭😭
So just like English /wr/ simplifies to /r/
10:39😹😹.....its pronouced "lob-dra"....or how kids these days pronounce "lop-ta"