ཁ་སྐད་གསར་བ

ལང་ཚོའི་རྨ། Lang tsho'i rma = acne/pimple

Edit: I was told that this is a callque from Chinese. I think it's important to note the strong influence of Chinese (and English to some extent) on kha skad gsar ba. Some might see this as a "dilution" of the language but ultimately it's nothing but the nature of languages to change according to their greater environment. Even the argument that it's not "pure" doesn't stand when we consider other modern terms like glog klad (computer; from dian nao 电脑) or rtsi 'khor (literally computing machine). I think this only speaks to Tibetan's adaptability and attests to its survival. 

Ancient orthography spells modern subversion

I had recently seen the syllable dgya written in place of the rgya in rgya nag (China) and rgya mi (Chinese) on several occasions by some poets. I asked around a bit but all the only answer I could get was that "they are just the same" which led me to believe that they were anything but the same. So I asked some closer friends and discovered the following: dgya is the ancient spelling (brda' rnying) for dgra, as in dgra bo (enemy). By writing rgya nag instead of dgya nag, they are able to make a subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) political statement while still keeping them as homophones. I have to hand it to them, it's rather clever!

"Child"

Building on the previous post, look at the various words for child:

Classical: byis pa,
Literary: phru gu

Lhasa: phu gu (technically this is not a written form but the way it is pronounced) 

Amdo: zha yas (I'm not sure if this is the correct spelling).

There is also khye'u but I'm not sure how to classify it. Probably similar to phru gu.
Are there anymore beyond these?

Second person pronouns

I'm always amazed at the different ways you can say the same thing in Tibetan. Sometimes you really are saying the same thing but, more often than not, there are subtle connotative differences attached to the expression you choose. The second person pronoun is one of these very words and can even have different regional understandings.

Khyed is technically honorific (zhe sa) but this doesn't seem to be so strict and is used across the board.

Sku nyid is used to be explicit about your honorifics. I feel that there must be other high honorifics but I can't think of any others. If you know some please post them in the comment section!

Khyod is the baseline second person pronoun. However, in Lhasa/central dialects it carries a pejorative connotation and rang is used instead between acquaintances.
A few centralers and even westerners have called me on using khyod but I always respond that khyed is zhe sa and we are friends who don't need any pretense. Haha! Once I told my teacher that I'd use zhe sa to the extent of my knowledge on him but he need not use it for me. He claimed that the Buddha used honorifics with his disciple so what's the matter if he uses them on me. I haven't found any scriptural sources for this (although I don't doubt the exists) but I did find the opposite.

བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་དབང་པོ་རྣམས་ནི་ཤིན་ཏུ་དྭངས། 
Oh Blessed One, your (khyod) faculties are extremely clear!

A variation on khyod has emerged in the Amdo dialects. The postscript da was elided over time (due to what reason I'm not sure) and is now being written as khyo. This is not only happening among the uneducated but by those literati trying to make a point (to give their writing a colloquial flavor; to show pride for the regional background; to demonstrate the richness of the folk tradition or kha skad rgyu rtsal; etc.). What is neat about this new form is that it can be combine with an agentive particle (khyos) or with a genetive particle (khyo'i).

The sad state of Tibetan translations

The Verb "Red"

I remember telling a close (Tibetan) friend that I think the verb red is really amazing, upon which he burst into laughter and told me, “Of course, without red we couldn’t express even the simplest sentences.” It is true that without an existential verb it would be hard, or at least, awkward to voice what we want. But what I meant is that I was impressed at the modern/colloquial flavor that could be introduce to a sentence or entire piece of writing by using red instead of yin. The verb yin has this sense of the text being static, ancient, impersonal. On the other hand, for me at least, red gives me a sense of the writing being more “alive” and the authors more present. This is because the we are able to distinguish first person from second and third persons by using red and yin instead of just yin across the board. At any rate, I think it fair to say that this is just one of the features by which we can distinguish classical and modern writing. It would be fascinating to find the first instances of the usage of red! I wonder how recent it emerged. I did a quick TBRC word search for red and, needless to say, it turned up thousands of texts. There’s no way to arrange according to date (and of course, with the amount of modern republishing, the publishing date is not indicative of the composition date) so I thought I’d look under the genre and subjects subheadings. There was no “canon” genre listed so it would seem that there isn’t a single instance the verb red in the bka’ ’gyur or bstan ’gyur. Perhaps this is not such a revelation but certainly something interesting to consider.   

In a similar vein of explicitly distinguishing persons, I would suggest that an increased usage of pronouns is a defining feature of modern Tibetan. I say this because in some of the fiction I have read (Pema Tseden’s grong khyer gyi ’tsho ba in particular comes to mind) each sentence has the pronoun explicitly written in the same way that an English sentence requires a subject. This stands in stark contrast to classical texts (sutra literature is the first thing that comes to mind) in which the only thing that tells us who is speaking is not a pronoun or verb but simply the context. We always say, “Tibetan sentences don’t require a subject” but I would say they do require one—it’s just that in classical (perhaps to save paper and other materials) there is a tendency to make the subject implicit. There is indeed a significant difference between a implicit subject and a lack of one. I would then wonder if the explicit use of pronouns in modern literary Tibetan is not a result of the modern world (i.e., revolution in printing and publishing) in general and the influence of Chinese (and perhaps, to a lesser extent, English).

Of course, the main critique of this suggestion is that we have to be wary of genre. A modern novel is necessarily going to feature a plethora pronouns compared to a meditation manual. To pit two such divergent types of literature against each other does not make for a fair comparison. It would be more appropriate to compare some legends like the tales of gling ge sar with modern fiction. At any rate, the presence/absence of pronouns relative to the date of the text is something I am going to keep in the back of my mind as I read and encourage others to do the same. 

Distinguishing classical and modern literary Tibetan

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.