A Textbook in Classical Tibetan is the first comprehensive course book in the Classical Tibetan language written in English. The textbook describes the grammar of pre-16th-century Classical Tibetan works for beginners and students of intermediate level. It is intended to cover the most essential topics that can be mastered within two semesters of an academic class. Classical Tibetan is a written Middle Tibetan language that has been in use in Tibet from the 9th century. Until the early 20th century it served all purposes, from administrative, to medical, to religious. Nowadays Classical Tibetan remains an important part of religious identity and services for communities also outside of cultural Tibet, foremost in India, Nepal, and Bhutan, but also elsewhere, most importantly in Europe, North America and Australia.The main body of the textbook consists of an introduction to the Tibetan script, eighteen lessons, and a reading section. Each lesson elucidates several grammatical topics which are followed by an exercise and a word list. The chapter readings contain four supplementary readings. In addition to the main parts of the textbook, a brief introduction to Tibetic languages provides linguistic context for the language taught in the textbook, whereas the chapter Translations of Exercises and Readings contains translations and explanatory notes to the exercises provided at the end of each lesson, as well as to the readings.A Textbook in Classical Tibetan is essential reading for both undergraduate and graduate students without any knowledge of Classical Tibetan, but also for those who would like to deepen their experience of the language by reading annotated excerpts from well-known pieces of Tibetan literature.
Joanna Bialek is a research associate in the Department of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Germany.
AcknowledgementsIntroductionStructure of the textbookLanguage historyTibetic languages and their genetic affiliationGeographic distribution of Tibetic languagesCharacterisation of Tibetic languagesTibetic languages in diachronyWritten vs spoken Tibetic languagesClassical TibetanTibetan scriptHistoryThe scriptSyllableNumbersPunctuation marksWord order in dictionariesTibetan transliteration of Indian scriptsLesson 1WordTibetan as an agglutinative languageParticles. An overviewNounAdjectiveDemonstrativeIndefinite particleNoun phraseGrammatical caseExerciseWord listLesson 2Word order in a clauseAbsolutiveCopula ཡིན་ and its negation མིན་NumberPersonal pronounsExerciseWord listLesson 3LocativeDativeCopula ཡོད་ and its negation མེད་GenitivePossessive pronounsFinal particle འོ་ExerciseWord listLesson 4Tibetan verbs. An overviewIntransitive verbsTerminative caseExerciseWord listLesson 5Transitive verbsTibetan as an ergative languageErgativeComitativeTranslation of clausesExerciseWord listLesson 6ElativeDelativeNegationImperativeProhibitiveExerciseWord listLesson 7Nominal particlesཔ་ ~ བ་ particleཔ་ particleཔོ་ ~ བོ་ particleཔོ་ particleམ་ particleམོ་ particleཀ་ ~ ཁ་ ~ ག་ particleཀོ་ particleGeneral remarksExerciseWord listLesson 8ConverbsCoordinative particleNon-controllable transitive verbsSpeech registerAdverbsExerciseWord listLesson 9Gerundial particleFocus particleDiminutive particleAppositionExerciseWord listLesson 10Concessive particlePostpositions and postpositional phrasesPossessive particle ཅན་Adjectives ལྡན་ and བཅས་ExerciseWord listLesson 11QuestionsNominalisationRelative clausesExerciseWord listLesson 12Case converbsVerb + case particleVerb + པ་/ བ་ + case particleReadingLesson 13Direct speechIndirect speechInterjectionsCompoundsModal verbsCausative verb འཇུག་ReadingLesson 14PassivePossessive attributesComplex attributesEllipsisOmission of coreferential argumentsImpersonal clauseOther pronounsReadingLesson 15Morphology of transitive and intransitive verbsOther converbial particlesLight verbsIncorporationIdiomsMeasure words Comparative and superlativeDouble case particlesErgative in quotationsReadingLesson 16Auxiliary particle ཀྱིན་Analytical verb constructionsConcessive auxiliary རུང་Purposive particle རྒྱུ་ReadingLesson 17Clause chainingDeterminersReduplicationNumeralsReadingLesson 18Impact of Sanskrit on Classical TibetanMetricsReadingReadingsReading I: Householder Dbyig-pa-čanReading II: The descent of Tibetan people from a monkey and a rock-ogressReading III: The death of Mi-la Ras-pa’s fatherReading IV: A Treasury of Aphoristic JewelsTranslations of exercises and readingsExercisesReadingsLinguistic glossaryAppendicesAppendix A: Writing instructionsAppendix B: Transliteration systems. A comparative tableAppendix C: Combinations of sub-, pre-, and superscripts with base lettersAppendix D: ParticlesAppendix E: Semantics of converbial particlesAppendix F: Analytical verb constructionsAppendix G: Syntactic structuresGlossarySymbols and AbbreviationsSiglaReferencesSubject index