The Origin of Tibetan Writing and (written) Grammar

I talk about the beginning of Tibetan writing and (studied) grammar through a series of treatises, written by a minister who had extensively studied the Sanskrit models; the analysis of the actual texts starts at 5:45.
As I mention in the video, Tony Duff’s Standard Tibetan Grammar volumes I and II talk about Thonmi’s treatises in depth and feature many commentaries on them, but also about things like their historical context and foreign influence. Outside of these, I made use of John Powers’ Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (part 2, about Tibetan history) for some historical information, as well as some other various articles with some minor contributions
The article which initially inspired me to research this topic was an article by Roberta Raine titled, “Translating the Tibetan Buddhist canon: Past strategies, future prospects”; one can find it on academic sites. It covers many important later events that affected the Tibetan language and translation, so it is worth a read for those interested in the history of translation from Sanskrit to Tibetan.

[@valeryushakov1516]

Re silly ways of enumerating things. What people perhaps don't appreciate is how easily texts are corrupted when copied. Anyone who worked with Tibetan sources have their share of stories about comical and/or devious corruptions and misreadings. When you just list a single letter in isolation it's very easy for it to get mangled, without anyone even noticing whiskey tango foxtrot has happened too (look up e.g. "error correction and detection" in information theory). So long and roundabout ways of referring to things is also a layer of protection. It's much harder to accidentally garble "the last of the first row" than to accidentally write da instead of nga. It's not uncommon for tantras to re-spell mantras letter by letter in this way.

[@grammarfellowhreodbeorht3691]

Great point!

[@mercianthane2503]

Tibetan writing is just beautiful, very beautiful.

[@yoobinator]

On writing in verse, it’s really not too difficult to express yourself with clarity and brevity. Can’t speak for the Tibetan traditions, but the several I’m familiar with view meter and verse like a canvas to write upon. In kinda the same way classroom-English views sentences and paragraphs as natural divisions for an essay. So if you’re steeped in that kinda writing culture and you’re skilled in verse, writing flows naturally and it’s not an impediment at all.

[@yoobinator]

This further lends to what valeryushakov1516 was saying. Thonmi wrote in a roundabout way because he probably wanted to write in a roundabout way. Verse most likely didn’t constrain him in ways that would lead to those issues

[@explainingthoughts7423]

I hope you'll get back to upload videos anytime. I just discovered your channel today cause I was looking for someone commenting on these exact texts and ended watching all your videos. Yours is that kind of quality content that is very much appreciated for those of us who are immersed in these topics.

[@xanadu_mkw2005]

100%

[@tomaszgarbino2774]

200%

[@MaUxxxx]

Thank you for ur work!

[@declanrin7771]

Your research and work is highly appreciated🙏

[@ChristianJiang]

I wonder whether he was simply the first one to have written a grammar of Tibetan, and successive historiography turned him into the guy who invented Tibetan writing. Perhaps Tibetan writing evolved more organically?

[@pensivegrammaticus8876]

It seems to me that Thonmi was a competent classically-trained Sanskrit grammarian who applied his training to a different set of “tokens” (i.e., Tibetan rather than Sanskrit).

[@yimveerasak3543]

Thank you for your research

[@breadbunbun]

I really really like this video and i think it really helps people understand why tibetan writing is the way it is instead of the often rude and condescending manner in which others treat tibetan. However i have one gripe with the video. I don't know if this was intentional, but you seem to be rather negative yourself about the indigenous religion of Tibet before Buddhism. And I don't think that's good, indigenous traditions are just a complex and rich as modern religions like Buddhism. After all, things like Hinduism itself was an indigenous religion at some point.

[@WaMo721]

16:17 it's "ཁང་པ" for house....anyways excellent job on the video

[@9KariKiri6]

The structure and content of the text is typical of most Sanskrit treatises, and reminds of the Ashtadhyayi, which was the one which started the grammar craze. Although A does describe the sounds and pronunciation in detail, its mostly to dictate precise sounds during Vedic ritual recitations for a language which was actually long gone (Vedic Sanskrit), and since Buddhism doesn't have this concept of sound precision to the extent of Vedism, and knowledge of the alphabet was already assumed, i guess that's why they left it out

[@pensivegrammaticus8876]

Is “name” like “nōmen” in Latin grammar?

[@埊]

why does པོད་སྒད even use ་? it makes the text confusing

[@hellboundtruck123]

Can anyone explain, when it is written clearly as bod བོད། why pronounce it as bho བཿོ ? When it is clearly written as chos ཆོས། why pronounce it as chhö ཆོ། when it is clearly written as vajra, why pronounce it as benza? When it is clearly written as jigsmed, why pronounce it jimé. There are no suffix or prefix here….

[@Inescapeium]

Tibetan spelling is dogshit in general

[@Bzdm0]

In “བོད” or bod “d” or “ད” is the suffix and it changes the vowel sound “o” to “ö” hence it’s pronounced “bö”. Same with the word “chos”, “s” is the suffix so it changes the vowel sound to “ö”. “D” is the suffix in Jig-med. As for vajra (བཛྲ) being prounced benza is dependent on the speaker. The letter བ is pronounced either as “ba” or “wa” depending on the context like pillar is ཀ་བ (ka-ba). There maybe a “ba” in pillar/ka-ba but the ba is supposed to be pronounced as wa. In some dialects, people pronounce བ as wa in more words than others and vice versa. I have noted some Amdo Tibetan speakers prounced བོད་པ/bod-pa as wod-pa. Maybe the person that transliterated vajra thought བ would be fit to denote the “va/wa” sound since the latter is used as to denote “va/wa” sound in Tibetan words but the reader is more accustomed to pronouncing the letter as “ba”. Another example would be བབ/descend which I would pronounce as “bab” but I have Tibetans who speak other dialect prounced it as “wab”. The written script and language is uniform but the pronouncation is greatly influenced by the speakers/readers’ native dialect.

[@araj4683]

Tibet is more deeply connected to India then china.

[@potatoboi5780]

No it's nepal lol🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣tibetan script got influence bcuz first king of tibet songsten gompo married nepali princess brikuti of Kathmandu Nepal and later he created own script with help of his queen and some other chinese queen he has........indians put themselves everywhere hahahahahahahahaha😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@tripplehhh2584]

@@potatoboi5780 🤣🤣🤣🤣 songsten is king of Tibet .. he didn’t invented the tibetan language... it was thumi sambhota who was sent to India by songsten to created our Tibetan language.... just clearing up the misinformation 😂😂nice try tho

[@tripplehhh2584]

@@potatoboi5780 princess bhukriti and princes wenchen was giving as tribute from Nepal 🇳🇵 and china 🇨🇳 to Tibet during that era.... both princess are well respected... plays huge role too

[@potatoboi5780]

@@tripplehhh2584 you aren't tibetan lol🤣🤣🤣🤣you must be indian or refugee from tibet...i am nepalese buddhist okay boi i went to thupten choling monastery for 5 years and i know how to write both types of tibetan scripts....

[@tripplehhh2584]

@@potatoboi5780 ouchhh looks like the truth hurt your feelings kid 😂😂😂😂 Buddha was a Indian not nepali tibetan language was founded in India by thomi sambhota not by some nepali princesss