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Re: Tibetan orthography (was: Why my conlangs SUCK!!!)

From:Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
Date:Saturday, January 24, 2004, 18:29
At 18:49 22.1.2004, Barry Garcia wrote:

>What i don't get is why when Tibetan is written in the Latin alphabet, >they insist on transcribing the unpronounced consonant clusters, rather
Because the 'silent' consonants provide clues to the correct pronunciation. E.g. written BA is pronounced [p_hA:_L] (aspirated consonant, low tone) while written SBA is pronounced [pA:_L] (*un*aspirated consonant, low tone), PA is pronounced [pA:_H] (unaspirated high tone) BRA is [t`_hA:_L] while PRA is [t`A:_H]; TO is pronounced [to:_H] while TOS is pronounced [t2:_H] etc. etc. Also scholars need to be able to 'reconstruct' the actual spelling in Tibetan characters on the spot, not least since classical Tibetan texts contain many words and morphemes that are homophones in the modern pronunciation. Third the modern 'dialects' differ so much between each other that no single 'phonemic' orthography would do justice to them all. This is, however, does *not* mean that a modest spelling reform would not be posssible, or desirable from some POVs. However Tibetans tend to view the classical language and its spelling as sacrosanct, and that is the end of the story for at least another generation to come. Lastly there are 'phone*ic' that are used in non-linguistic, non-scholarly contexts, and no shortage of systems at that. To take an example my Dharma name is [NA:_LB_oAN_H dz\i~b@] is _ngag.dbang.sbyin.pa_ in transcribed orthography, _Ngawang Jinba_ when I transcribe it 'Englishy' and _Ngawang Dzjinba_ when I transcribe it 'Swedishy'. Note that none of the two simplified transcriptions give any accurate clue to tones, or to vowel qualities! /BP 8^) -- B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~__ A h-ammen ledin i phith! \ \ __ ____ ____ _____________ ____ __ __ __ / / \ \/___ \\__ \ /___ _____/\ \\__ \\ \ \ \\ \ / / / / / / / \ / /Melroch\ \_/ // / / // / / / / /___/ /_ / /\ \ / /'Aestan ~\_ // /__/ // /__/ / /_________//_/ \_\/ /Eowine __ / / \___/\_\\___/\_\ Gwaedhvenn Angeliniel\ \______/ /a/ /_h-adar Merthol naun ~~~~~~~~~Kuinondil~~~\________/~~\__/~~~Noolendur~~~~~~ || Lenda lenda pellalenda pellatellenda kuivie aiya! || "A coincidence, as we say in Middle-Earth" (JRR Tolkien)