We throw around the
terms “classical Tibetan” and “literary Tibetan” or talk about such-and-such
text being more colloquial or more classical. But do we actually know what we
are talking about? I for one certainly do not! This has been something I’ve
definitely thought a lot about. What are the defining characteristics of
classical Tibetan? And what would distinguish modern literary writing? And lest
we forget to mention, there is much gray area. For example, we might describe a
modern article as having a strong classical flavor or a classical text that is
very colloquial (I’ve heard this said about a number of classical texts such as
Words of My Perfect Teacher but I haven’t been lucky enough to study
that text or have anyone provide me with such examples). In any case, this is a
topic I hope to explore and even provide some examples or at least short
discussions on over the course of this blog.
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