Tibetan Grammar
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
| Articles on Tibetan Grammar |
| 1. Introduction |
| 2. Formation of the Tibetan Syllable |
| 3. Formation of the Tibetan Word |
| 4. First case: ming tsam |
| 5. La don particles |
| 6. La don particles—Notes |
| 7. Originative case |
| 8. Verbs |
| 9. Verbs—Notes |
| 10. Syntactic particles |
Tibetan Grammar
by Stefan J. Eckel
Introduction
Some words about the content and structure
This is a collection of different points on Tibetan grammar which is used in Rigpa Shedra Tibetan language classes. The aim of this collection is to help students understand the structure of a Tibetan sentence. It is not an argument for, nor a defense of, a personal viewpoint on Tibetan grammar.
Sources
This being a collection of points on Tibetan grammar, many ideas and categories are sourced from other works. There are some original contributions such as the category of the (irregular) "verbs of avoidance". A plan exists to give exact sources for every point of grammar and example sentence used.
The main sources are:
- སུམ་རྟགས་འགྲེལ་པ་ནོར་བུའི་མེ་ལོང་མཁན་ཆེན་ཐུབ་བསྟན་བརྩོན་འགྲུས་
- བོད་ཀྱི་བྲད་སྤྲོད་ནག་ཊིགཿན་ག་སངས་རྒྱས་བསྟན་དར་
- བོད་རྒྱ་ཚིག་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ་
- མཁན་པོ་གཞན་དགའི་སྤྱོད་འཇུག་གི་མཆད་འགྲེལ་
- བུདྡྷ་པཱ་ལི་ཏ་མཱུ་ལ་མ་དྷྱ་མ་ཀ་བྲྀཏྟི་
- འཇམ་མགོན་ཀོང་སྤྲུལ་གྱི་ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་ཁྱབ་མཛོད་
- འཇུ་མི་ཕམ་འཇམ་དབྱངས་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་མཁས་འཇུག་
- དྭགས་པོའི་ཐར་རྒྱན་
- Alexander Csoma de Koros: A grammar of the Tibetan Language
- M. Hahn: Einfuehrung in die Tibetisch Schriftsprache
- John Rockwell Jr.: A Primer for Classical Literary Tibetan
- Joe Willson: Translating Buddhism from Tibetan
- Stephan Beyer: The Classical Tibetan Language
- Peter Schwieger: Handbuch zur Grammatik der klassischen tibetischen Schriftsprache
- Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary,
- Illuminator Dictionary,
- Chandra Dass Dictionary,
- Jeffrey Hopkins Tibetan Sanskrit English Dictionary,
- Paul G. Hackett "A Tibetan Verb Lexicon"
Chapters
This 'collection of points on Tibetan grammar' there are many categories and structures which are not covered in Tibetan grammar treatises. Where the English grammar heading or subheading has an equivalent Tibetan grammar term, or belongs to a specific case, this is stated.
Under a heading or subheading there might be extra grammar terms added. These are some of the names used in other books.
Verbs
If Verb forms are given they are given in the following order: past, present, future and imperative (if existing).
After the verb forms the classification into ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ and ཐ་དད་པ་ is given in accordance with the བོད་རྒྱ་ཚིག་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ་ . If it is not given, the reason is that this verb is not considered to be a verb in Tibetan.
In the case of a verb classified as ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ which has the grammar of a transitive verb this is indicated through "(trans.gram.)" after the ཐ་མི་དད་པ་
Word by word translations
Word by word translations are written under the Tibetan words. Not all the meanings of each word are given but usually only what is appropriate in the context. If two or more meanings (not just synonyms) are given these are separated by " ; ".
Spaces are inserted between the Tibetan words in order to accommodate the word by word translation below. These spaces are not punctuations and don't alter the meaning of the Tibetan. Here the convenience of having the word by word translation is given priority over the layout of the Tibetan.
Diacritics
For convenience there are no diacritics used for Sanskrit etc. If you like to use them please kindly add them.
Phonetics
The phonetics and phonetic descriptions given in the first chapters are extremely rough and not intended as a definitive guide for learning pronunciation. It is widely agreed that without a Tibetan tutor it's nearly impossible to learn correct pronunciation. Even with a tutor it is difficult. Keep in mind that the rules given here might not correspond to the explanations of a tutor. Their pronunciation will depend on their dialect, village, house, family, friends, age, education, favourite movies and in some cases, what they had for breakfast.
A Wylie-phonetic hybrid is partially used.