Tibetan language belongs to the Tibetan branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. It is distributed in four regions: Tibet Autonomous Region of China, Sichuan Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai and Yunnan Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. There are also Tibetan speakers in four countries: Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan. The Tibetan language is divided into three major dialects: Uizang dialect (i.e. Lhasa dialect), Kang dialect (Dege dialect, Changduo dialect), and Amdo dialect.

Table of contents

Basic situation

Distribution area

Three major dialects

Origin

Evolution of the ancient linguistic period

Medieval linguistic period

Medieval linguistic period

Modern linguistic period

Characteristics

Grammar

Chinese Relations

Text

Speech

Vowels

Letters

Pinyin system

Basic situation of the transcription system

Distribution area

Three major dialects

Origin

Evolution of the ancient linguistic period

Medieval linguistic period

Medieval linguistic period

Modern linguistic period

Features

Grammar

Chinese relations

Text, phonetics, vowels, letters, pinyin system, transliteration system, expand and edit basic information of this paragraph

Total number of users: 6 , 150,000 Language classification: Sino-Tibetan - Tibeto-Burman - Himalayan branch - Tibetan language group - Tibetan

Edit this paragraph Distribution area

Mainly distributed in China Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and other provinces as well as India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim.

Edit this section of the three major dialects

There are three dialects of Tibetan: Uizang, Kham, and Amdo. The differences between the various dialects are Tibetan

Compared big. There are also differences between the Tibetan language in China and abroad. Tibetan language is divided into three major dialects: Uizang dialect (i.e. Lhasa dialect), Kham dialect (Dege dialect, Changduo dialect), and Amdo dialect. Only the Ando dialect has no distinguishing tones. There are certain difficulties in speaking in different Tibetan dialects, but the same writing system is used (the phonetics of ancient Tibetan are recorded). Used in: China, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, mainly in Tibet, Kashmir, and Baltistan.

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The issue of the origin of Tibetan language and writing is still being debated in academic circles, but there are mainly several opinions. The Buddhist community believes that it was created by Tunmi-Sangbuza; Tibetan native Bon religion believes that it was created by Xinrao Miwoqi, the founder of Bon religion; some scholars believe that it was born out of the Kashi Mila script (now Kashmiri script) or more The text is either Xiangxiong Mawen or Li Yuwen (Yu Tianwen). According to Buddhist historical records, in the first half of the 7th century AD, Tunmi Sambuza and 15 other young Tibetan people were appointed by Songtsen Gampo, the 33rd Tibetan king, to go to India (today's India) to study Sanskrit and Indian languages. . Due to the acclimatization, only Tunmi Sambuza did not die due to illness. He learned Sanskrit and Tianzhu from Li Jing and Larabai Sanga successively. His serious and assiduous professionalism earned him the honorific title "Sambuza" (meaning "Sambuza") from the people of Tianzhu. For virtuous Tibetans). Tibetan language

After returning to his hometown, in accordance with Songtsan Gampo's will, Tunmi-Sangbuza sorted out the 30 consonant letters and 4 syllables of Tibetan based on the characteristics of Sanskrit letters and Tibetan phonetics. The phonetic alphabet is called the 30 consonants and 4 vowels of Tibetan language. Tunmi Sambuza also compiled "Thirty Verses on the Fundamentals of Grammar" and completed the work of organizing and standardizing Tibetan writing.

Evolution of this paragraph

The ancient linguistic period

1. The ancient linguistic period - the period of the ancient Zhangzhung civilization, the elephants that served the ancient Tibetan civilization Xiong Linguistics.

It is introduced in Legs bzhad rin bo chei gther mstod and Mr. Namkha Norbu’s history of ancient Zhangzhung and Tubo civilizations. The "brda sprod nyi shu bdun pa" spread in later generations can be seen as the inheritance and development of this language research tradition. Although it is given a sectarian color and its dissemination is somewhat limited, its value as a historical document of linguistic science and a linguistic school that has never been abandoned should not be denied at all. More importantly, through its description and rule summary of verbal facts, we can often recognize some partial knowledge about an ancient civilization carrier that is generally considered to be dead - the Shang Shung language and characters.

Medieval Linguistics Period

2. Medieval Linguistics Period - Sambuza Grammar Era: a parallel period between Tubo Sanskrit and Tibetan grammar: this is the period when Tibetan linguists learned and moved closer Ancient Indian linguistics, and then applied its theories and methods to establish a standard writing and grammatical system consistent with Tibetan language. Tunmi Sambuzha is the most outstanding representative of this period. His linguistic works and the new standard writing he created are immortal milestones in the history of the development of Tibetan linguistics. For Tubo Zanbu, the meritorious service of this "Father of Tibetan" was to enhance the prestige and power of the increasingly powerful Tubo dynasty. It may also be to defeat the civilization tradition of the hostile forces - the Zhangzhung civilization and establish the Tubo civilization. The new flag of culture. For the people of the snow-covered plateau and the far-reaching long river of civilization, the virtues of the "language heroes" are unparalleled. Tunmi studied in India for 13 years. After returning to China, he specially arranged to stay in Maru Palace near Lhasa to systematically analyze and study the phonetic system and pragmatic rules of his native language. The king must have provided all the facilities and services these linguists—Thunmi and his assistants—necessitated. By sifting through various languages ??and scripts in ancient India at that time, the sage decided to choose ancient Indian scripts with highly developed philology and grammar and a complete alphabet system as the basis, and transformed them according to the phonetic characteristics of the medieval Tibetan language in his hometown of Yalong or the new location of Lhasa. , removed unnecessary phonetic letters, added several new phonetic letters, and successfully "created a set of pinyin characters that basically reflected the phonetic appearance of Tibetan at that time, which was used to record Tibetan language, engage in translation and writing, and left a legacy Vast literature and classics" (edited by Dai Qingxia, 1998 "Research on Chinese Minority Languages ??in the Twentieth Century", Shuhai Publishing House: P69). To accompany this newly created text, Tunmi created eight linguistic works, most of which were destroyed in conflicts with civilizations or lost due to other reasons. The main works that have been spread to this day are "Thirty Ode to Grammar" and "On the Organization of Characters" 》. The former focuses on the classification of Tibetan consonants and vowels, case grammar, grammatical categories and classification of function words, etc.; the latter is Chapter 6 of the second part of the eight basic works, focusing on phonetic structure, letter collocation, and verb inflection. Change rules, semantic and syntactic relationships between nouns and verbs, etc. The two developed into the core of the Tibetan phonetic and grammatical research system. Ji Quzhou's "Eight Volumes of Statement", "Collection of Translation Names" and "Two Volumes of Yuhe" compiled by the great translators Ga, Jue and Xiang with the support of the Tubo royal family, etc., have also preserved for us more. What a valuable language document. In the middle of the 9th century, Buddhism and the ancient Indian civilization suffered major disasters, which also led to the fragmentation of the Tubo royal family and soon had the opportunity to rise again in Tibet. The Guge Kingdom, located in Houzang, became an important center for the development of Buddhism. The so-called representative translators of the post-propagation period of Buddhism, Rinchen Zangpo, etc., promoted the inheritance of language disciplines and the study of Tibetan language

Pandita Midi Jambei Yeshi composed "smra sgo mthon cha", which further supplemented the grammar and phonetic theory. In response to the actual development of the Tibetan language, the Russian translator wrote "Common Orthography" and began to cancel the post-post consonant -d and the small "a" (v) at the end of the syllable consonant in written records, establishing a courageous breakthrough in Tibetan linguistics. It is a model that pays attention to recording oral facts and also adapts to the social needs of spreading and developing Buddhist culture and spirit more popularly.

Medieval Linguistics Period

3. Medieval Linguistics Period - the establishment and development period of linguistics: This is based on the disciplinary theory and starts from the needs of Buddhist theory and teachings , the stage of comprehensively researching and disseminating Sanskrit grammar, and independently recording and analyzing Tibetan language, which is also an important process for the localization of language disciplines. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the division of Tibetan dialects became increasingly obvious. Sakya Sonam Zemo (1142-1182) wrote "Tibetan Reading Enlightenment", which described the standard Tibetan phonetics and laid the foundation for the development of Tibetan dialects based on Buddhist culture. The theoretical basis for the formation and continuation of standard Tibetan language (chos skad); later, in the 13th century, Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen wrote "Enlightenment Interpretation - Limeng" and "Orthographic Spelling Treasure Sea", which transformed the language Research is extended to higher levels. Their description of the structure, pronunciation and phonetic characteristics of Tibetan compound consonants provides comprehensive linguistic scientific information for modern people to study the chronological language. With the large-scale spread of Buddhism and the unprecedented development of monastic scholastic education, the teaching and research of statement theory have continued to receive more attention. Buddhist scholars have raised the knowledge accumulation of inner enlightenment, Yin Ming and statement to the same position and incorporated it into the main body of Buddhist higher education. System, Tibetan linguistics has been continuously developed and improved. The most outstanding linguistic scholar is none other than Karma Situ: Situ Quejigennai. This 17th-century scholar who was proficient in Sanskrit traveled to India, Nepal and many other foreign lands to conduct comprehensive research on ancient Indian statements. After collation with scholars from India and Nepal, the book "The Treatise on the Eight Precepts of the Moon" and "The Treatise on the Wonderful Sound" were re-translated. In particular, the commentary on the Yue Bajie Theory is deeply analyzed and accurate, surpassing the explanations of Indian scholars, and is known as the treasure of maxims; the title of the work is "Situ Sheng Guang Zhu si tu sgra vgrel chen mo", and the number is three A large volume containing his complete works, which has been handed down to this day. Under the initiative of senior government officials at the time, he traveled continuously throughout the Tibetan areas and the border areas of China for 14 years, conducting in-depth research on Tibetan language and communicative symbol grammar. At the age of 36, he revised and completed the famous grammar book "" "Garma si tuvi sum rtags vgrel chen mkhas pavi mgul rgyan mu tig phring mdzes." (garma si tuvi sum rtags vgrel chen mkhas pavi mgul rgyan mu tig phring mdzes.) He wrote a detailed exegesis of the works of Tumi Sambuzha, which is the "Thirty Verses" on Tibetan grammar. " and one of the authoritative works on "Character Organization". His extensive commentaries on the statement and his detailed explanation of Tibetan grammar are known as the two major works of Situ’s semiotic communication and occupy a high position in the study of traditional Tibetan Sanskrit grammar and Tibetan language. The fifth Saiduo Lobsang Cschen Gyatso was also a master of traditional Tibetan linguistics. He made a thorough and rigorous comparison of the grammatical works of previous generations of scholars and put forward many unique insights (in the last century, the compiler also based on his For the first time, this work uses a clear table format to classify various grammatical phenomena, phonetic collocation forms and word change rules, which has become a direct result of many people's reference and citation now). Equ Damabaza, Kyodun Rinchen Tashi, Zhade Rinchen Dongzhu, etc. are also outstanding Tibetan linguists. Zhou Wei's "Grammar Research in Ancient Tibet" (Journal of Southwest University for Nationalities, Issue 4, 1999, P29-34) and his doctoral thesis gave a comprehensive introduction to these scholars and works. Through the linguistic part of "Gan" in the Dege, Natang, Lhasa and Beijing editions, as well as the indexes of historical linguistic masterpieces by Maurgei Sangmudan and Caidan Xia Rong, we can comprehensively appreciate these advanced language studies. amazing achievements.

Modern Linguistics Period

4. Modern Linguistics Period - the emergence and development period of early descriptive linguistics: This is based on the recording and analysis of Tibetan language facts. The experimental stage of establishing and consolidating localized modern linguistics. Represented by Gendeng Qunpei.

He started working at the Royal Institute of Tibetan Language

Asia in the UK, where he came into contact with and tried to introduce modern linguistic theories and methods into the field of Tibetan studies. Preliminary and sporadic analyzes were conducted on consonant characteristics, the formation and written advantages of standard Tibetan, and the distribution of Tibetan dialects, in order to develop historical comparative techniques for local language research and contemporary language descriptions. However, due to his early death (Mr. Du Yongbin His works provide a good platform for readers who do not understand Tibetan to understand the legendary story of this pioneer of Tibetan humanism. It is indeed worth reading). The achievements of this new field are not as good as those of traditional grammar research. . In the past 1,300 years, the Tibetan language has undergone four reforms. These four reforms occurred in the 7th century AD, 8th century AD, 8th century AD and 1070 AD respectively. The four reforms successively organized and standardized Tibetan characters and grammar, unified the wording and terminology, and established the writing method of Tibetan characters. After the peaceful liberation of Tibet, in order to promote the learning, use and development of the Tibetan language, the state and government spent nearly 20 years on research and formulated the "Several Regulations on the Learning, Use and Development of the Tibetan Language in the Tibet Autonomous Region (Trial)" in 1987. In 1988, Tibet formally established the Tibetan Language Work Steering Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region, which is concurrently led by the main leaders of the party committee and government. Tibetan language work steering committees have been established in all cities and towns. At the same time, the international standard for Tibetan coding was adopted by the International Standards Organization in 1997, becoming the first Chinese minority script to have an international standard.

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Tibetan is the language used by the Tibetan people in my country and belongs to the Tibetan branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Modern Tibetan has the following characteristics: 1. The initial consonants of voiced consonants tend to be voiced, and the voiced initial consonants retained in some areas are derived from the voiced basic consonants in the initial consonants of ancient complex consonants; 2. The initial consonants of complex consonants tend to be simplified and disappear, and only the initial consonants of complex consonants tend to be simplified and disappeared. Preserve compound consonants with prefixed consonants in some areas; 3. The number of single vowels and finals increases, especially nasalized vowels; 4. Vowels have different lengths and have a complementary relationship with tones; 5. There are nasalized and non-nasalized vowels. Nasalization of two types of true compound vowel finals; 6. Consonant endings tend to be simplified, resulting in the simplification of finals with consonant endings; 7. There is a relatively complete and stable tone system, and the number tends to increase; 8. The predicate is postpositioned Expression system (that is, the grammatical meaning of the predicate is expressed by the part after the predicate); 9. There are rich reduction changes between the construction and the morphemes of the configuration; 10. The verb only retains simplified inflections, and it has lost its independent expression The function of grammatical meaning; 11. Verbs have rich aspect categories; 12. Judgment verbs and existential verbs have two lexical forms expressing different persons. Tibetan

; 13. Verbs have impersonal and directional categories; 14 , a single part expresses negation (that is, adding a negative component before or after the negated word); 15. There are abundant particles, and often have two forms: reduced and independent; 16. Adjectives and partially derived nouns have word-forming suffixes ; 17. There is a difference between honorific and non-honorific speech.

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Tibetan grammar is quite rich, verbs are divided into four tenses, and the tense system presents many exceptions, which means that Tibetan has inflections, please refer to : (Tibetan uses the Latin transliteration system recognized by China) Eat present tense za Past tense zos Future tense bzav Command tense zos Read present tense klog Past tense bklags Future tense bklag Command tense klogs It can be seen from this that compared with other dialects of Chinese, Tibetan grammar is closer to the grammar of comprehensive languages ??such as inflectional languages. On the other hand, the basic word order of Tibetan is SOV (subject-object-verb), and it has rich case changes, and it itself is an ergative language. -absolutivelanguage), which means that the subject of its transitive verb is in the ergative case (the subject of the Tibetan transitive verb must be added with the suffix -gi, -gyi, -kyi, -'i or -yi, and this suffix is ??the same as the Tibetan tool The case is used by the same person), while the grammatical case of the subject of the intransitive verb and the object of the transitive verb (neither added a suffix) is the passive case