Articles

Indian Influence on the Formation of Traditional Tibetan Linguistics Grammatical Terminology

Vostok/Oriens '2014, №5

 
The main source for terminology of different traditional sciences in Tibet was Sanskrit terminology. Most technical terms of the Tibetan grammatical tradition were borrowed from Sanskrit. For the most part they are terms of case grammar translated from Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī. The article describes the use and interpretation of the case grammar terms and terms for kāraka categories by Tibetan grammarians. The article focuses on one of the first grammatical treatise “Sum cu pa” and its main commentaries – “Mkhas mchog si tu’i zhal lung” by Dngul chu dharma bha dra (1722–1851) and anonymous commentary “Sum rtags gzhung mchan legs bshad nor bu’i phreng ba” (the eighteenth – nineteenth centuries). The article also deals with Tibetan terms for function words and morphemes as well as some general scientific terms of Sanskrit origin.

Keywords: history of linguistics, Tibetan language, Tibetan linguistic tradition, Tibetan grammatical terminology

Pages: С. 106–112