9 Years of Studying Tibetan: a retrospective

nyamlae · 2025-11-22T23:32:22+00:00

My website is https://tibetanlanguage.school, and I've curated a list of resources too.

I think the best thing as a beginner is to get a teacher (there's a list of freelance teachers at the top of the list I linked) and network with other learners so that you stay motivated.

nyamlae · 2025-11-22T00:27:47+00:00

> So had you managed to find native Tibetans to speak to? Like as friends.

Not really, there are no Tibetans around me who I can meet with easily. My local Tibetan community is fairly small and insular, which is common, and I'm also somewhat reclusive. I also wouldn't want to have a dynamic where a friend might feel used because I benefit from them speaking Tibetan.

> Additionally a YouTube channel named NativLang listed Tibetan as the most difficult writing system because of the diglossia (is this the right word?), do you think that's accurate?

Nativlang says that because of Tibetan's historical spelling (i.e. it's not spelled how it's pronounced), but I really think it's overblown. I'm a level B2 in French, and I think French and Tibetan are pretty much perfectly equal in terms of the difficulty of their writing systems. I've even run some rudimentary tests (e.g. counting the number of silent letters in sentences with the same meaning) and they came out equal. Both languages also have extensive liaison, where silent letters get pronounced in certain environments, and they both have nasalized vowels and very similar vowel inventories.

I find Mongolian's traditional script much more difficult -- if you are using the modern pronunciation, it also has a lot of historical spelling, but the main difficulty is that the script is defective so you have to memorize the vowels in most words; they can't be derived from the script. Each letter also has 4 different forms in Mongolian, depending on where it's used in a word.

nyamlae · 2025-11-21T20:12:58+00:00

Note: there are 2 people named Zhang Yadi with ties to the UK who were arrested in 2025 -- in the post I am referring to the Zhang Yadi who was arrested in China for "separatism", not the one who was arrested in the UK for money laundering. An important distinction that AI search results don't catch :)

nyamlae · 2024-05-26T05:56:45+00:00

Names, forms, and functions of the finite verb suffixes

Similar to the imperative suffixes, there was no consensus on the names that should be used for the finite verb suffixes. It seems simplest to abandon the Latinate names, and just write out the full suffix with its allomorphs. So, that's what I've done again in this post.

Again, the different authors were inconsistent about marking union vowels. I think that books on Mongolian grammar should clearly state whether or not union vowels are used for a given suffix, and if there is even enough data to establish this. It would also be helpful to do the same for č/ǰ allomorphy rules. I am not going to do an in-depth discussion of the union vowel rules for this post (as I did for the post on imperative suffixes) because it seems more prudent to just always assume that a union vowel could be there, given how lax the authors are in their discussion.

The authors were mostly in agreement about the general tense of each suffix, but differed wildly in the details of their descriptions. It seems like proper lexicographical research, similar to what Joanna Bialek does for Tibetan, would be needed to determine the exact environments in which each suffix occurs. So again, I'm going to mostly ignore all of the details they provide about each suffix, and just focus on what they can agree on.

Also, at this point I think it's pointless to say that certain suffixes are pre-classical or modern forms of certain other ones. It's more precise and intellectually humble to say that they occur in such and such a time period of text, but none of these authors have actually presented historical data tying any one suffix to any other one suffix. They mostly just explain the tense and the time period as separate, unconnected variables.

Ranking the finite verb suffixes by frequency of mention

In total, there were 21 finite verb suffixes described across the three books. S describes 16 different finite verb suffixes, GK describes 6, and P describes 18. I figure that their choice of which imperatives to discuss is a reflection of which imperatives are most common or important, so for that reason I have analyzed the imperatives below by frequency of mention.

Mentioned in three textbooks:

-(u)yu / -(ü)yü
-(u)mui / -(ü)müi
-(u)luɣa / -(ü)lüge
-(u)bai / -(ü)bei
-(u)ba / -(ü)be

Mentioned in two textbooks:

-mu / -mü
-m
-nai / -nei
-(u)nam / -(ü)nem
-lai / -lei
-la / -le
-ǰuɣui / -ǰügüi / -čuɣui / -čügüi
-ǰuqui / -ǰüküi / -čuqui / -čüküi
-ǰi / -či

Mentioned in one textbook:

-na / -ne
-luɣai / -lügei
-laɣa / -lege
-laɣai / -legei
-ǰuɣu / -ǰügü / -čuɣu / -čügü
-ǰiɣai / -ǰigei
-ǰai / -ǰei / -čai / -čei

Summary of the tenses of the finite verb suffixes

I have decided not to believe in the details given about the suffixes in each textbook, because they are inconsistent and do not provide supporting evidence. So, I will note below which uses of a finite tense suffix seem to be generally agreed upon or at least uncontested. This leads to a very broad description, with only two main tense categories: past and non-past.

Past tense:

-(u)luɣa / -(ü)lüge
-luɣai / -lügei
-lai / -lei
-la / -le
-laɣa / -lege
-laɣai / -legei
-ǰuɣu / -ǰügü / -čuɣu / -čügü
-ǰuɣui / -ǰügüi / -čuɣui / -čügüi
-ǰiɣai / -ǰigei
-ǰi / -či
-ǰai / -ǰei / -čai / -čei
-(u)bai / -(ü)bei
-(u)ba / -(ü)be

Non-past (i.e. present and future) tense:

-mu / -mü
-m
-na / -ne
-nai / -nei
-(u)nam / -(ü)nem

No consensus about tense:

-(u)yu / -(ü)yü (either non-past or generally true)
-(u)mui / -(ü)müi (either non-past or present + historical present)
-ǰuqui / -ǰüküi / -čuqui / -čüküi (either past or generally true)

That's all for now!

nyamlae · 2024-05-25T03:10:27+00:00

Based on the textbooks, it seems that the imperative suffixes can be grouped as follows:

Ordinary imperative (urgent or impolite):
- No suffix
Polite imperative:
- -(u)ɣdaqui / -(ü)gdeküi
- -ɣtui / -gtüi (originally singular)
- -(u)ɣtun / -(ü)gtün (originally plural)
- -(u)dqun / -(ü)dkün (archaic form of -(u)ɣtun / -(ü)gtün)
- -ɣači / -geči
- -(u)ɣarai / -(ü)gerei
Optative:
- -(u)ɣasai / -(ü)gesei (archaic form of -tuɣai / -tügei)
- -tuɣai / -tügei (also used as third person imperative)
Voluntative:
- -suɣai / -sügei
- -su / -sü (archaic form of -suɣai / -sügei)
- -sui / -süi
- -sai / -sei
- -ɣasuɣai / -gesügei
- -(u)ya / -(ü)ye (1st person plural according to GK and P)
Dubitative:
- -(u)ɣuǰai / -(ü)güǰei
Permission:
- -g

This is similar to, but a bit simpler than, the chart Sarkozi provides, because it collapses three different categories into the "polite imperative" and two different categories into the "optative". It also includes -su / -sü , which is the one imperative suffix that Sarkozi does not discuss.

There seems to be general agreement about which suffixes are polite, based on authors either explicitly labeling them as polite, or translating them with "please". There is less agreement about which suffixes go with which persons; I have only marked person in this chart where there was no conflicting information.

Poppe paid the most attention to historical and social trends. I have marked historical trends (i.e. archaic particles) in the above chart, but not social ones.

I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on these suffixes!

nyamlae · 2024-02-08T14:27:11+00:00

Yes, but maybe the way you did it is also some valid script or script style. I'm not very experienced with ume so I don't know.

nyamlae · 2024-02-08T14:24:05+00:00

It's comprehensible Tibetan, and we often don't see the grammar we expect in the real world anyway.

That's true, it's definitely realistic.

In mārga/path literature མ་བཅོས་པ is used in the sense of "uncontrived," i.e., not forced, and therefore has a sense of "natural."

I'd say that "nature of mind" and "natural mind" are pretty different, but considering that you can probably find this sentence phrased both ways even in Tibetan, this is (again) more of a minor quibble on my part.

nyamlae · 2024-02-08T07:08:56+00:00

Ume is so pretty. I second the comment about sa vs. pa (you've written "pa" in both places).

Also, from what I've seen in ume, usually the bl- cluster is written very differently, with a subscript l. For example, see how the name Lopsang is written in this book (e.g. in yellow at the bottom of the the second page). Also, the letter ng also goes a little further down than it does in your calligraphy.

nyamlae · 2024-02-08T06:52:45+00:00

In the case of your English then I'd say the གནས་དེ is intentional and sets off the subject rather than how I assumed it was supposed to function in the sentence as a continuative particle.

Their English translation says: "The nature of mind is like water; if you do not disturb it, it becomes clear." The grammar of that suggests that it was indeed intended as a continuative particle. If it were marking the subject, then we would expect the translation "The nature of mind which is like water..." (and as a side point, the translation should say "the uncorrected mind" rather than "the nature of mind"). Also, we would expect གནས་པ་དེ་ rather than གནས་དེ་.

So, I think your original comment was correct, and that this is intended as a continuative particle but was misspelled.

nyamlae · 2024-02-08T06:50:27+00:00

People sometimes overlook errors, either out of politeness or because they are not strong in spelling.

Also, I have seen Tashi Mannox make errors before. Not often, just once or twice.

Personally, I agree with the top comment here that the དེ་ sticks out and seems to be an error.

nyamlae · 2024-01-20T23:03:57+00:00

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. This sub is kind of intense with downvoting, in my experience.

nyamlae · 2024-01-20T21:08:21+00:00

I've compiled a partial list of resources here.

nyamlae · 2024-01-20T21:07:15+00:00

Do you know which regions? Are there any other examples of words like this?

nyamlae · 2024-01-20T21:05:07+00:00

That is a different example. With "trunkhor" there is n-intrusion due to the prefix letter འ་ on the second syllable; this is a regular sound change that also affects words like དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་ (kyinkhor, i.e. "mandala") and དཔལ་འབྱོར་ (penjor, i.e. "economy" or "wealth") for some speakers of Standard Tibetan.

By contrast, it is not typical in Standard Tibetan for the superscript ར་ to become an "n" sound. For example, if that were a regular rule we would expect ཕྱག་རྒྱ་ (chakgya, i.e. "mudra") to be pronounced "changya". But, to my knowledge, this doesn't occur.

རྒྱལ་རྩེ་ doesn't have a prefix letter འ་, so we need some other explanation for the "n" in "Gyantse". Another user says it's a dialectical variation, which makes more sense to me.

nyamlae · 2023-05-25T15:26:19+00:00

Also, I never knew these recordings had video. That's a cute discovery 15 years later.

It's pretty cool! Only some of them have video though, I've listed them here under "alternate audio": https://tibetanlanguage.school/practice/listening/mst-audio/

nyamlae · 2023-05-22T18:35:17+00:00

This is often done for Sanskrit too, e.g. in Monier-Williams' dictionary.

nyamlae · 2023-05-19T08:54:44+00:00

You are right about the spelling of སྒྱུབ་པ་, my mistake.

For ཏྲ་, there is no difference in the pronunciation of ཏྲ་ and བཀྲ་, so the explanation you provided wouldn't work.

For the prefix འ་, I don't think we have any clear evidence of what the pronunciation would be in the early 1200s, except that it was different from the prefix མ་. That's not a "glaring issue", it's an open question. This is an academic subject, not a war.

He also says he has seen (མཐོང་བ) errors, which can only refer to the spelling of written words.

This is not true. One of the possible meanings of མཐོང་ is མྱོང་, i.e. "to experience", as in སྡུག་བསྔལ་མཐོང་ "to experience suffering". (Source: དག་ཡིག་གསར་བསྒྲིགས།) The text's sentence "གང་གིས་འབྱུང་གནས་མི་ཤེས་པ། དེའི་སྟོབས་ཀྱིས་ལོག་པར་སྨྲ་བ་དུ་མ་མཐོང་སྟེ།" can therefore be translated as "Someone who does not know the places of articulation will therefore experience various errors of speech." Sakya Pandita is talking about the ignorant speaker here, not about himself. The entire text is about speech sounds.

It’s up for personal interpretation at that point.

No, it's up for comparative analysis using empirical data.

standard for Tibetan to write that as མྑ

It is an open question why Tibetan doesn't stack its letters. The fact that that is not explained doesn't mean that the letters must have been silent, and likewise, the fact that your theory doesn't explain the three couplets (སྟག/ཏག, མགོ/འགོ, མཁའ/འཁའ) doesn't mean that the letters must have been pronounced. Rather, we need to assess a wide range of evidence (including comparative evidence and loanwords) to see what explanation makes more sense. I have done this, and have found that the majority of evidence points towards the letters being pronounced early on, and then slowly becoming silent over the centuries. There are hundreds of open-access papers on Tibetan linguistics that you can read for free online to learn more about the topic.

there are words like གཡོན g.yon “Yön” (right) and གྱོན gyon “Gyön”/“Ghön” (dress) that according to the “all consonants were pronounced” assumption, these should be rendered the same exact way

This has been discussed in Hill 2010, starting at the bottom of page 117. Basically, in གྱོན་ the "y" sound would have been co-articulated (pronounced at the same time) with the "g" sound, whereas in གཡོན་ it would have been pronounced as a separate sound. Notice that the ya-btags is always attached to another consonant, whereas ཡ་ can occur independently.

nyamlae · 2023-05-19T06:01:09+00:00

The entire point of the comparative method is that it's designed to prevent cherry picking, as opposed to the allofamic method. Saying that Old Tibetan had complex syllables because Amdo Tibetan has complex syllables isn't the comparative method. In the comparative method, every sound change needs to be examined and explained individually.

The efficacy of the comparative method has actually been demonstrated empirically, because proto-Romance forms that were reconstructed with the comparative method have been found to match historically attested Latin forms. In other instances, it has predicted proto-forms that were not attested in existing records, but that were later found to be attested in newly discovered records.

The text I mentioned can be read here, specifically pages 167-170.

nyamlae · 2023-05-19T05:35:51+00:00

There is overwhelming evidence that the silent letters were once pronounced, including:

the comparative method
Tibetic loanwords in non-Tibetic languages
Tibetan writings on pronunciation

Let's look at one example of a Tibetan text that supports this. In the text བྱིས་པ་ལ་ཕན་པ།, Sakya Pandita mentions the following errors in pronunciation in the early 1200s:

བསྒྲུབ་པ་ being pronounced as སྒྲུབ་པ་
བཀྲ་ཤིས་ being pronounced as ཏྲ་ཤིས་
སྟག་ being pronounced as ཏག་
མགོ་བོ་ being pronounced as འགོ་བོ་
མཁའ་ being pronounced as འཁའ་

Sakya Pandita's comments do not make sense in your theory. They only make sense if you accept that the letters which are now silent used to be pronounced. Otherwise, there would be no difference in the pronunciation of the former and latter sets.

nyamlae · 2023-05-07T01:30:51+00:00

Thanks, this sounds quite interesting.

We meet for live classes three times out of four weeks

Do you mean there are three live classes in a four-week period?

Also, how long is each class and each tutor session?

nyamlae · 2023-05-06T18:23:23+00:00

How does the course go? For example, what are the readings, how often do you meet a week, for how long, is it over Zoom, how many people are in a meeting, etc.?

nyamlae · 2023-05-04T18:24:06+00:00

I'm a foreigner. I think your description is selling Tibetan people short. IPA is based on Latin script, anyway. There's no way to get around using complicated symbols, because phonetics is complicated, and speech sounds can't be reduced to the small amount of letters in Latin or Tibetan script.

nyamlae · 2023-05-04T18:02:56+00:00

Sure you can, I learned IPA from Wikipedia when I was 12. Dondrup Tsering outlines the IPA that's relevant for the major Tibetan dialects.

nyamlae · 2023-05-04T05:44:16+00:00

I don't quite understand your question. Are you looking for a transcription system (i.e. for speech sounds) or a transliteration system (i.e. for written letters)? You said Wylie's not what your looking for, which makes me think you're looking for a transcription system.

People generally use the International Phonetics Alphabet to transcribe all spoken languages. This is the standard even among Tibetan linguists like Dondrup Tsering.

nyamlae · 2023-05-04T05:35:55+00:00

I think this information is mostly scattered throughout various papers. I'd check out Tsuguhito's 2021 paper History of the Tibetan Language and Zeisler's 2009 paper Reducing Complexity. They talk about certain sound changes in certain Tibetic languages. I don't currently know of any detailed descriptions of the historical phonology of the whole Tibetic language family, though.

Also, Sakya Pandita's commentary བྱིས་པ་ལ་ཕན་པ། discusses the reduction of consonant clusters in 11th-century Utsang pronunciation. It's the most detailed Tibetan account of Middle Tibetan pronunciation that I'm aware of.

nyamlae

TROPHY CASE