Lhasa Tibetan

Lhasa Tibetan^[a] (Tibetan: ལྷ་སའི་སྐད་, Wylie: Lha-sa'i skad, THL: Lhaséké, ZYPY: Lasägä), or Standard Tibetan, or Bhodi skad (བོད་སྐད་) by the natives is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China.^[2] It is an official Tibetan of the Tibetan Autonomous Region.^[3]

Standard Tibetan
བོད་སྐད་
Native to	Lhasa
Region	Tibet Autonomous Region, U-Tsang
Native speakers	(1.2 million cited 1990 census)^[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Kanauri? Bodish Tibetic Central Tibetan Standard Tibetan
Early forms	Old Tibetan Classical Tibetan
Writing system	Tibetan script Tibetan Braille
Official status
Official language in	China Tibet Autonomous Region
Regulated by	Committee for the Standardisation of the Tibetan Language^[note 1]
Language codes
ISO 639-1	bo
ISO 639-2	tib (B) bod (T)
ISO 639-3	bod
Glottolog	tibe1272
Linguasphere	70-AAA-ac
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In the traditional "three-branched" classification of Tibetic languages, the Lhasa dialect belongs to the Central Tibetan branch (the other two being Khams Tibetan and Amdo Tibetan).^[4] In terms of mutual intelligibility, speakers of Khams Tibetan are able to communicate at a basic level with Lhasa Tibetan, while Amdo speakers cannot.^[4] Both Lhasa Tibetan and Khams Tibetan evolved to become tonal and do not preserve the word-initial consonant clusters, which makes them very far from Classical Tibetan, especially when compared to the more conservative Amdo Tibetan.^[5][6]

Registers

Like many languages, Lhasa Tibetan has a variety of language registers:

• ཕལ་སྐད (Wylie: phal skad, literally "demotic language"): the vernacular speech.
• ཞེ་ས (Wylie: zhe sa, "honorifics or deference, courtesy"): the formal spoken style, particularly prominent in Lhasa.
• ཡིག་སྐད (Wylie: yig skad, literally "letters language" or "literary language"): the written literary style; may include ཆོས་སྐད chos skad below.^[7]
• ཆོས་སྐད (Wylie: chos skad, literally "doctrine language" or "religious language"): the literary style in which the scriptures and other classical works are written.^[8]

Grammar

Main article: Modern Standard Tibetan grammar

Syntax and word order

Tibetan is an ergative language. Grammatical constituents broadly have head-final word order:

• adjectives generally follow nouns in Tibetan, unless the two are linked by a genitive particle
• objects and adverbs precede the verb, as do adjectives in copular clauses
• a noun marked with the genitive case precedes the noun which it modifies
• demonstratives and numerals follow the noun they modify

Numerals

Main article: Tibetan numerals

 

Stone tablets with prayers in Tibetan at a Temple in McLeod Ganj

 

Pejas, scriptures of Tibetan Buddhism, at a library in Dharamsala, India

Unlike many other languages of East Asia and especially Chinese, another Sino-Tibetan language, there are no numeral auxiliaries or measure words used in counting in Tibetan although words expressive of a collective or integral are often used after the tens, sometimes after a smaller number.^[9]

In scientific and astrological works, the numerals, as in Vedic Sanskrit, are expressed by symbolical words.^[9]

Tibetan Numerals	༠	༡	༢	༣	༤	༥	༦	༧	༨	༩
Devanagari numerals	०	१	२	३	४	५	६	७	८	९
Bengali numerals	০	১	২	৩	৪	৫	৬	৭	৮	৯
Arabic numerals	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Writing system

Main articles: Tibetan script and Tibetan braille

Tibetan is written with an Indic script, with a historically conservative orthography that reflects Old Tibetan phonology and helps unify the Tibetan-language area. It is also helpful in reconstructing Proto Sino-Tibetan and Old Chinese.

Wylie transliteration is the most common system of romanization used by Western scholars in rendering written Tibetan using the Latin alphabet (such as employed on much of this page), while linguists tend to use other special transliteration systems of their own. As for transcriptions meant to approximate the pronunciation, Tibetan pinyin is the official romanization system employed by the government of the People's Republic of China, while English language materials use the THL transcription^[10] system. Certain names may also retain irregular transcriptions, such as Chomolungma for Mount Everest.

Phonology

The following summarizes the sound system of the dialect of Tibetan spoken in Lhasa, the most influential variety of the spoken language.

Vowels

Tournadre and Sangda Dorje describe eight vowels in the standard language:

Vowel phonemes of Standard Tibetan

	Front	Back
Close	i y	u
Close-mid	e ø	o
Open-mid	ɛ
Open	a

Three additional vowels are sometimes described as significantly distinct: [ʌ] or [ə], which is normally an allophone of /a/; [ɔ], which is normally an allophone of /o/; and [ɛ̈] (an unrounded, centralised, mid front vowel), which is normally an allophone of /e/. These sounds normally occur in closed syllables; because Tibetan does not allow geminated consonants, there are cases in which one syllable ends with the same sound as the one following it. The result is that the first is pronounced as an open syllable but retains the vowel typical of a closed syllable. For instance, zhabs (foot) is pronounced [ɕʌp] and pad (borrowing from Sanskrit padma, lotus) is pronounced [pɛʔ], but the compound word, zhabs pad is pronounced [ɕʌpɛʔ]. This process can result in minimal pairs involving sounds that are otherwise allophones.

Sources vary on whether the [ɛ̈] phone (resulting from /e/ in a closed syllable) and the [ɛ] phone (resulting from /a/ through the i-mutation) are distinct or basically identical.

Phonemic vowel length exists in Lhasa Tibetan but in a restricted set of circumstances. Assimilation of Classical Tibetan's suffixes, normally ‘i (འི་), at the end of a word produces a long vowel in Lhasa Tibetan; the feature is sometimes omitted in phonetic transcriptions. In normal spoken pronunciation, a lengthening of the vowel is also frequently substituted for the sounds [r] and [l] when they occur at the end of a syllable.

The vowels /i/, /y/, /e/, /ø/, and /ɛ/ each have nasalized forms: /ĩ/, /ỹ/, /ẽ/, /ø̃/, and /ɛ̃/, respectively, which historically results from /in/, /en/, etc. In some unusual cases, the vowels /a/, /u/, and /o/ may also be nasalised.

Tones

The Lhasa dialect is usually described as having two tones: high and low. However, in monosyllabic words, each tone can occur with two distinct contours. The high tone can be pronounced with either a flat or a falling contour, and the low tone can be pronounced with either a flat or rising-falling contour, the latter being a tone that rises to a medium level before falling again. It is normally safe to distinguish only between the two tones because there are very few minimal pairs that differ only because of contour. The difference occurs only in certain words ending in the sounds [m] or [ŋ]; for instance, the word kham (Tibetan: ཁམ་, "piece") is pronounced [kʰám] with a high flat tone, whereas the word Khams (Tibetan: ཁམས་, "the Kham region") is pronounced [kʰâm] with a high falling tone.

In polysyllabic words, tone is not important except in the first syllable. This means that from the point of view of phonological typology, Tibetan could more accurately be described as a pitch-accent language than a true tone language, in the latter of which all syllables in a word can carry their own tone.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Standard Tibetan

	Bilabial		Alveolar		Retroflex	(Alveolo-) Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ɲ		ŋ
Stop	pʰ	p	tʰ	t	ʈʰ ~ ʈʂʰ ʈ ~ ʈʂ	cʰ	c	kʰ	k	ʔ
Affricate			tsʰ	ts		tɕʰ	tɕ
Fricative			s		ʂ	ɕ				h
Approximant	w ~ ɥ		ɹ̥	ɹ		j
Lateral			l̥	l		ʎ

1. In the low tone, the unaspirated /p, t, ts, ʈ ~ ʈʂ, tɕ, c, k/ are voiced [b, d, dz, ɖ ~ ɖʐ, dʑ, ɟ, ɡ], whereas the aspirated stops and affricates /pʰ, tʰ, tsʰ, ʈʰ ~ ʈʂʰ, tɕ, cʰ, kʰ/ lose some of their aspiration. Thus, in this context, the main distinction between /p, t, ts, ʈ ~ ʈʂ, tɕ, c, k/ and /pʰ, tʰ, tsʰ, ʈʰ ~ ʈʂʰ, tɕʰ, cʰ, kʰ/ is voicing. The dialect of the upper social strata in Lhasa does not use voiced stops and affricates in the low tone.
2. The alveolar trill ([r]) is in complementary distribution of the alveolar approximant [ɹ]; therefore, both are treated as one phoneme.
3. The voiceless alveolar lateral approximant [l̥] resembles the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ] found in languages such as Welsh and Zulu and is sometimes transcribed ⟨ɬ⟩.
4. The consonants /m/, /ŋ/, /p/, /r/, /l/, and /k/ may appear in syllable-final positions. The Classical Tibetan final /n/ is still present, but its modern pronunciation is normally realized as a nasalisation of the preceding vowel, rather than as a discrete consonant (see above). However, /k/ is not pronounced in the final position of a word except in very formal speech. Also, syllable-final /r/ and /l/ are often not clearly pronounced but realized as a lengthening of the preceding vowel. The phonemic glottal stop /ʔ/ appears only at the end of words in the place of /s/, /t/, or /k/, which were pronounced in Classical Tibetan but have since been elided. For instance, the word for Tibet itself was Bod in Classical Tibetan but is now pronounced [pʰø̀ʔ] in the Lhasa dialect.

Verbal system

The Lhasa Tibetan verbal system distinguishes four tenses and three evidential moods.^[11]

	Future	Present	Past	Perfect
Personal	V-gi-yin	V-gi-yod	V-pa-yin / byuṅ	V-yod
Factual	V-gi-red	V-gi-yod-pa-red	V-pa-red	V-yod-pa-red
Testimonial	-------	V-gi-ḥdug	V-soṅ	V-bźag

The three moods may all occur with all three grammatical persons, though early descriptions associated the personal modal category with European first-person agreement.^[12]

Counting system

Lhasa Tibetan has a base-10 counting system.^[13] The basic units of the counting system of Lhasa Tibetan is given in the table below in both the Tibetan script and a Romanisation for those unfamiliar with Written Tibetan.

Written Tibetan	Tibetan (Roman)	Arabic numerals		Written Tibetan	Tibetan (Roman)	Arabic numerals		Written Tibetan	Tibetan (Roman)	Arabic numerals
གཅིག་	chig	1		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག་	nyishu tsa chi	21		བཞི་བརྒྱ་	zhi gya	400
གཉིས་	nyi	2		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩགཉིས་	nyishu tsa nyi	22		ལྔ་བརྒྱ་	nyi gya	500
གསུམ་	sum	3		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩགསུམ་	nyishu tsa sum	23		དྲུག་བརྒྱ་	drug gya	600
བཞི་	zhi	4		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩབཞི་	nyishu tsa zhi	24		བདུན་བརྒྱ་	dün gya	700
ལྔ་	nga	5		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་ལྔ་	nyishu tsa nga	25		བརྒྱད་བརྒྱ་	gye' gya	800
དྲུག་	drug	6		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩདྲུག་	nyishu tsa drug	26		དགུ་བརྒྱ་	ku gya	900
བདུན་	dün	7		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩབདུན་	nyishu tsa dün	27		ཆིག་སྟོང་	chig tong	1000
བརྒྱད་	gye'	8		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩབརྒྱད་	nyishu tsa gye'	28		ཁྲི	khri	10,000
དགུ་	gu	9		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩདགུ་	nyishu tsa gu	29
བཅུ་	chu	10		སུམ་ཅུ	sum cu	30		སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་གཅིག	sum chu so chig	31
བཅུ་གཅིག་	chugchig	11		བཞི་བཅུ	ship cu	40		བཞི་ཅུ་ཞེ་གཅིག	ship chu she chig	41
བཅུ་གཉིས་	chunyi	12		ལྔ་བཅུ	ngap cu	50		ལྔ་བཅུ་ང་གཅིག	ngap chu nga chig	51
བཅུ་གསུམ་	choksum	13		དྲུག་ཅུ	trug cu	60		དྲུག་ཅུ་རེ་གཅིག	trug chu re chig	61
བཅུ་བཞི་	chushi	14		བདུན་ཅུ	dün cu	70		བདུན་ཅུ་དོན་གཅིག	dün chu dhon chig	71
བཅོ་ལྔ་	chonga	15		བརྒྱད་ཅུ	gye' cu	80		བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་གཅིག	gye' chu gya chig	81
བཅུ་དྲུག་	chudrug	16		དགུ་བཅུ	gup cu	90		དགུ་བཅུ་གོ་གཅིག	gup chu go chig	91
བཅུ་བདུན་	chubdün	17		བརྒྱ་	gya	100		བརྒྱ་དང་གཅིག	gya tang chig	101
བཅོ་བརྒྱད་	chobgye'	18		རྒྱ་དང་ལྔ་བཅུ་	kya tang ngap cu	150
བཅུ་དགུ་	chudgu	19		ཉིས་བརྒྱ་	nyi gya	200
ཉི་ཤུ།་	nyishu	20		སུམ་བརྒྱ་	sum gya	300
								འབུམ	bum	100,000
								ས་ཡ	saja	1,000,000 (1 Million)
								བྱེ་བ	che wa	10,000,000
								དུང་ཕྱུར	tung chur	100,000,000^[14]
								ཐེར་འབུམ	ter bum	1,000,000,000 (1 Billion)

Scholarship

In the 18th and 19th centuries several Western linguists arrived in Tibet:

• The Capuchin friars who settled in Lhasa for a quarter of century from 1719:
  • Francesco della Penna, well known from his accurate description of Tibet,^[15]
  • Cassian di Macerata sent home materials which were used by the Augustine friar Aug. Antonio Georgi of Rimini (1711–1797) in his Alphabetum Tibetanum (Rome, 1762, 4t0), a ponderous and confused compilation, which may be still referred to, but with great caution.^[15]
• The Hungarian Sándor Kőrösi Csoma (1784–1842), who published the first Tibetan–European language dictionary (Classical Tibetan and English in this case) and grammar, Essay Towards a Dictionary, Tibetan and English.
• Heinrich August Jäschke of the Moravian mission which was established in Ladakh in 1857,^[8] Tibetan Grammar and A Tibetan–English Dictionary.
• At St Petersburg, Isaac Jacob Schmidt published his Grammatik der tibetischen Sprache in 1839 and his Tibetisch-deutsches Wörterbuch in 1841. His access to Mongolian sources had enabled him to enrich the results of his labours with a certain amount of information unknown to his predecessors. His Tibetische Studien (1851–1868) is a valuable collection of documents and observations.^[16]
• In France, P. E. Foucaux published in 1847 a translation from the Rgya tcher rol-pa, the Tibetan version of the Lalita Vistara, and in 1858 a Grammaire thibétaine.^[16]
• Ant. Schiefner of St Petersburg in 1849 his series of translations and researches.^[16]
• Theos Casimir Bernard, a PhD scholar of religion from Columbia University, explorer and practitioner of Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism, published, after his 1936/37 trip to India and Tibet, A Simplified Grammar of the Literary Tibetan Language, 1946. See the 'Books' section.

Indian indologist and linguist Rahul Sankrityayan wrote a Tibetan grammar in Hindi. Some of his other works on Tibetan were:

1. Tibbati Bal-Siksha, 1933
2. Pathavali (Vols. 1, 2, 3), 1933
3. Tibbati Vyakaran, 1933
4. Tibbat May Budh Dharm, 1948

• Japanese linguist Kitamura Hajime published a grammar and dictionary of Lhasa Tibetan

Contemporary usage

In much of Tibet, primary education is conducted either primarily or entirely in the Tibetan language, and bilingual education is rarely introduced before students reach middle school. However, Chinese is the language of instruction of most Tibetan secondary schools. In April 2020, classroom instruction was switched from Tibetan to Mandarin Chinese in Ngaba, Sichuan.^[17] Students who continue on to tertiary education have the option of studying humanistic disciplines in Tibetan at a number of minority colleges in China.^[18] This contrasts with Tibetan schools in Dharamsala, India, where the Ministry of Human Resource Development curriculum requires academic subjects to be taught in English from middle school.^[19] Literacy and enrollment rates continue to be the main concern of the Chinese government. Much of the adult population in Tibet remains illiterate, and despite compulsory education policies, many parents in rural areas are unable to send their children to school.^{[citation needed]}

In February 2008, Norman Baker, a UK MP, released a statement to mark International Mother Language Day claiming, "The Chinese government are following a deliberate policy of extinguishing all that is Tibetan, including their own language in their own country" and he asserted a right for Tibetans to express themselves "in their mother tongue".^[20] However, Tibetologist Elliot Sperling has noted that "within certain limits the PRC does make efforts to accommodate Tibetan cultural expression" and "the cultural activity taking place all over the Tibetan plateau cannot be ignored."^[21]

Some scholars also question such claims because most Tibetans continue to reside in rural areas where Chinese is rarely spoken, as opposed to Lhasa and other Tibetan cities where Chinese can often be heard. In the Texas Journal of International Law, Barry Sautman stated that "none of the many recent studies of endangered languages deems Tibetan to be imperiled, and language maintenance among Tibetans contrasts with language loss even in the remote areas of Western states renowned for liberal policies... claims that primary schools in Tibet teach Mandarin are in error. Tibetan was the main language of instruction in 98% of TAR primary schools in 1996; today, Mandarin is introduced in early grades only in urban schools.... Because less than four out of ten TAR Tibetans reach secondary school, primary school matters most for their cultural formation."^[22]

Machine translation software and applications

An incomplete list of machine translation software or applications that can translate Tibetan language from/to a variety of other languages.

• 藏译通 - Zangyitong, a mobile app for translating between Tibetan and Chinese.^[23]
• 青海弥陀翻译 – A Beta-version WeChat Mini Program that translate between Tibetan language to/from Chinese. (invitation from WeChat users only)
• 腾讯民汉翻译 – A WeChat Mini Program that translate between Tibetan language to/from Chinese.^[24]
• THL Tibetan to English Translation Tool - A webpage that annotates Tibetan text various English meanings and translations, with 10+ dictionaries integrated.^[25] A downloadable version is also available.^[26]
• 中国社科院 藏汉(口语)机器翻译 - A demonstrative website (slow in response) translating Tibetan to Chinese, developed by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It works well on Tibetan text from official Chinese News websites.^[27]
• Panlex - A multilingual translation website with a few Tibetan words.^[28]
• Microsoft Translator - Has a Option to Translate Tibetan.

See also

•  China portal
•  Asia portal
•  Languages portal

• Central Tibetan
• Amdo Tibetan
• Khams Tibetan
• Languages of Bhutan

Notes

1. • The name "Lhasa Tibetan" is the preferred name, as in Chapter 19: Lhasa Tibetan, The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd edition (2017), edited by Graham Thurgood and Randy J. LaPolla.
   • It is sometimes referred to by learners as "Standard Tibetan" (Tibetan: བོད་སྐད་, Wylie: Bod skad, THL: Böké, ZYPY: Pögä, IPA: [pʰø̀k˭ɛʔ]; also Tibetan: བོད་ཡིག་, Wylie: Bod yig, THL: Böyik, ZYPY: Pöyig^{[citation needed]})

1. Tibetan: བོད་ཡིག་བརྡ་ཚད་ལྡན་དུ་སྒྱུར་བའི་ལས་དོན་ཨུ་ཡོན་ལྷན་ཁང་གིས་བསྒྲིགས་, Wylie: bod yig brda tshad ldan du sgyur ba'i las don u yon lhan khang gis bsgrigs; Chinese: 藏语术语标准化工作委员会

References

1. Standard Tibetan at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. DeLancey, Scott (2017). "Chapter 19: Lhasa Tibetan". In Graham Thurgood and Randy J. LaPolla (ed.). The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd edition. ISBN 9780367570453.
3. "Fifty Years of Democratic Reform in Tibet". Official Chinese government site. 2009-03-02.
4. Gelek, Konchok (2017). "Variation, contact, and change in language: Varieties in Yul shul (northern Khams)". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (245): 91-92.
5. Makley, Charlene; Dede, Keith; Hua, Kan; Wang, Qingshan (1999). (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 22 (1): 101. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05.
6. Reynolds, Jermay J. (2012). (PDF) (PhD thesis). Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University. p. 19-21. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-12.
7. Kellner, Birgit (1 January 2018). "Vernacular Literacy in Tibet: Present Debates and Historical Beginnings". Anfangsgeschichten / Origin Stories. 31: 381–402. doi:10.30965/9783846763469_017. ISBN 9783846763469. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
8. Waddell & de_Lacouperie 1911, p. 919.
9. Waddell & de_Lacouperie 1911, p. 920.
10. Germano, David; Tournadre, Nicolas (2003). "THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription of Standard Tibetan". The Tibetan and Himalayan library. Retrieved Dec 24, 2022.
11. Hill, Nathan W. (2013). "ḥdug as a testimonial marker in Classical and Old Tibetan". Himalayan Linguistics. 12 (1): 2.
12. Hill, Nathan W. (2013). "Contextual semantics of 'Lhasa' Tibetan evidentials". SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics. 10 (3): 47–54.
13. Tournadre, Nicolas; Dorje, Sangda (2003). Manual of Standard Tibetan: Language and civilization. Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1559391898. OCLC 53477676.
14. lywa (2015-04-02). "Tibetan Numbers". www.lamayeshe.com. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
15. Waddell & de_Lacouperie 1911, p. 920, note 1.
16. Waddell & de_Lacouperie 1911, p. 920, note 2.
17. Lobe Socktsang, Richard Finney. (9 April 2020). "Classroom Instruction Switch From Tibetan to Chinese in Ngaba Sparks Worry, Anger". Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Retrieved 12 April 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
18. Postiglione, Jiao and Gyatso. "Education in Rural Tibet: Development, Problems and Adaptations". China: An International Journal. Volume 3, Number 1, March 2005, pp. 1–23
19. Maslak, Mary Ann. "School as a site of Tibetan ethnic identity construction in India". China: An International Journal. Volume 60, Number 1, February 2008, pp. 85–106
20. "Report reveals determined Chinese assault on Tibetan language". Press Release – 21st February 2008. Free Tibet. Retrieved 7 February 2010.
21. Elliot Sperling, "Exile and Dissent: The Historical and Cultural Context", in TIBET SINCE 1950: SILENCE, PRISON, OR EXILE 31–36 (Melissa Harris & Sydney Jones eds., 2000).
22. Sautman, B. 2003. "Cultural Genocide and Tibet," Texas Journal of International Law 38:2:173-246
23. . Xinhuanet.com. Archived from the original on November 27, 2019. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
24. "腾讯推出民汉翻译小程序". New.qq.com. 2019-04-30. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
25. "The Tibetan and Himalayan Library". Thlib.org. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
26. "The Tibetan and Himalayan Library". Thlib.org. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
27. "藏语自然语言处理展示台". Tibetan.iea.cass.cn:8081. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
28. "PanLex Translator". Translate.panlex.org. Retrieved 2020-01-17.

Further reading

• Bernard, Theos C. (1946), A Simplified Grammar of the Literary Tibetan Language, Santa Barbara, California: Tibetan Text Society.
• Das, Sarat Chandra (1902), Tibetan–English Dictionary (with Sanskrit Synonyms), Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, ISBN 9788186142820.. Reprinted by Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, ISBN 81-208-1713-3.
• Hodge, Stephen (2003), An Introduction to Classical Tibetan, Orchid Press, ISBN 974-524-039-7.
• Jäschke, Heinrich August (2004), A short practical grammar of the Tibetan language, with special reference to the spoken dialects, London: Hardinge Simpole, ISBN 1-84382-077-3. " ... contains a facsimile of the original publication in manuscript, the first printed version of 1883, and the later Addenda published with the Third Edition."—P. [4] of cover./ First edition published in Kye-Lang in Brit. Lahoul by the author, in manuscript, in 1865.
• —— (1866). Romanized Tibetan and English dictionary. Retrieved 2011-06-30.(Original from Oxford University)
• —— (1881). A Tibetan–English dictionary, with special reference to the prevailing dialects: To which is added an English-Tibetan vocabulary. London: Unger Brothers (T. Grimm).
• —— (1883). Heinrich Wenzel (ed.). Tibetan grammar. Trübner's collection of simplified grammars. Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). London: Trübner & co.
• Kopp, Teresa Kunkel. 1998. Verbalizers in Lhasa Tibetan. PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Arlington.
• Waddell, Lawrence Austine; de Lacouperie, Albert Terrien (1911). "Tibet § Language" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 919–921.
• Naga, Sangye Tandar. (2010). "Some Reflections on the Mysterious Nature of Tibetan Language" In: The Tibet Journal, Special issue. Autumn 2009 vol XXXIV n. 3-Summer 2010 vol XXXV n. 2. "The Earth Ox Papers", edited by Roberto Vitali, pp. 561–566.
• Sandberg, Graham (1894). Hand-book of colloquial Tibetan: A practical guide to the language of Central Tibet. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.(Original from Harvard University)
• Tournadre, Nicolas; Dorje, Sangda (2003), Manual of Standard Tibetan, New York: Snow Lion Publications, ISBN 1-55939-189-8.
• Hahn, Michael. "Foundational Questions of Tibetan Morphology." The Tibet Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, 1 July 2008, pp. 3–19.
• Review of Becoming Bilingual in School and Home in Tibetan Areas of China: Stories of Struggle (2018). China Review International, Vol. 25, No. 1, 48–53.

External links

 

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Research on Tibetan Languages: A Bibliography

 

Tibetan edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Translations of Tibetan texts, Tibetan language courses & publications by Erick Tsiknopoulos and the Trikāya Translation Committee.