Saturday 7 January 2012

Orthography (Tshangs-lha)

ཤིང་གླང་མ།
The Tshang-lha word for “pole of wood” is shing glang ma and this is the same word also found in some Tibetan lexicons. See, for example, the Thon mi’i dgongs rgyan (p. 66).

སྲོ་ལོ། 
The Tshang-lha word for “chilly” is sro lo and the orthography found in some Tibetan sources such as the brDa dag (s.v. sro lo sngon po) should be adopted.

དོ།  
In Tibetan do no longer seems to have the meaning of “to equal,” although Tibetan words such as do med and do zla  (brDa dag, s.vv.) seem to suggest that once do had the meaning of “to be equal” or perhaps even “to equal.” See q.v. zlo.

ཟློ།
It is reasonable to adopt the orthography zlo also for the Tshangs-lha verb meaning “to equal.” 

འཕྱེང་། 
In Tibetan ’phying ba means “to tie up” or “to roll up.” Perhaps the orthography for the Tshangs-lha equivalent of the same verb should be ’phyeng. E.g. wa ’phyeng mas “to tie up a cow [to a peg].”

ཀོ་ལོང་།

I wonder how many Tibetans would understand what ko long means. Every person who speaks Tshangs-lha would know what kho long is. It simply means “quarrel” or “dispute.”


Thursday 5 January 2012

Copula (Tshangs-lha)

བགྱི་ལགས།
མང་བགྱི་ལགས།
བཅའ།
མ་ལགས།

ཇང་རྡོ་རྗེ་བགྱི་ལགས། པད་མ་མང་བགྱི།
ཇ་/ཇང་ག་
མན་བཅའ།


བགྱི་བ་ལགས།
མ་བ་ལགས།
མཆོ་བ།
མ་བ།



Interrogative Pronouns (Tshangs-lha)

Interrogative Pronouns:


1. ཨེ་བུ་/བི། (e bu/bi) “who”
2. ཨོ་ག། (o ga) “where”
3. ཨོ་ག་ཁེས་པོ། (o ga khes po) “which* exactly,” cf. Jäschke 1881: s.v. khes pa
4. ཨོ་གཏད། (o gtad) “where to,” cf. Jäschke 1881: s.v. gtad
5. ཧང་། (hang) “what”
6. ཧང་གཏད་/གཏན། (hang gtad/gtan) “how”
7. ཧབ་གཏུར། (hab tur) “how much/many”
8. ཧ་ལ། (ha la) “when”

*Strangely, I am not sure how to say “which” in Tshangs-lha. The same word for “where”?









Where or Where to?

Where or Where to?

ག་གཏད་?

In rDzong-kha, the national language of Bhutan, “where” or “where to” is usually spelt ga ti (or ga sti?check) but I wonder if it goes back to ga gtad with etymology of “in which direction or facing towards what.” See Jäschke 1881: s.v. gtad.