Tibetan Grammar: Si tu Paṇchen and the Tibetan adoption of linguistic knowledge from India

The present dissertation is a critical study of key grammatical concepts in the linguistic tradition of eighteenth century Tibet. It addresses the question, how Tibetan grammarians adopted and, in the process, modified Sanskritic grammatical knowledge for the analysis of the written Tibetan language. The investigation is centered on the topic of case grammar and focuses on the work of Si tu Paṇchen Chos kyi ’byung gnas (1700-1774), a relatively late author who claims the status of a Sanskrit expert and one of the most important grammarians in the tradition. Important findings of the thesis suggest that multiple, sometimes competing factors (historical, linguistic, conceptual, methodological) interacted in the Tibetan adoption of the Sanskritic case model. This adoption was neither direct nor uncritical, but mediated by Tibetan grammarians through the theoretical and methodological foundation of Tibetan case grammar, in particular the case functions' validity across languages. The study reveals significant transformations of originally Sanskritic linguistic knowledge, including the understanding of the notion of case (rnam dbye, vibhakti) as such, as well as the conception of cases. The study also highlights the heterogeneity of the Tibetan grammatical tradition and the constant re-negotiation of adopted terminology and theories throughout the centuries. The main purpose of the current work is to raise awareness that this area of Tibetan intellectual history deserves closer attention with regard to both our understanding of Tibetan grammatical models in particular and Tibetan scholastic knowledge production in general. From a broader perspective, this dissertation serves as a case study of the processes and mechanisms that are involved in the travel of concepts – in this particular case grammatical concepts – across cultural-linguistic boundaries

Smart lexicography for low-resource languages: lessons learned from Sanskrit and Tibetan

Traditional lexicography requires titanic efforts and enormous resources. For many languages, such resources have never been available. As a result, they have received only limited lexicographic coverage. Today, these languages can take advantage of many of the same digital tools and strategies that have simplified and expedited dictionary-making for mainstream languages. However, the resource gap remains evident even in the digital era, with basic corpus processing tasks that lie at the foundation of contemporary ‘smart lexicography’ still constituting a challenge for many under-resourced languages. Drawing on my own experience in Sanskrit and Tibetan lexicography, this paper aims to offer some guidance as to the advantages and limitations of the application of smart lexicography to under-resourced languages. In particular, this paper suggests that in order to optimize resources, it may be advisable to prioritize high-quality lexical annotation of the corpus over highly curated dictionary entries, and to let digital tools take care of the lexicographic representation of the annotated linguistic information

The Syntax of Colophons

The present volume focuses on the colophons found in several pothi manuscripts from Central, South and South East Asia. Its contributions discuss the colophons’ defining features, thus exposing their ‘syntax’, focusing particularly on the tracing of recurring patterns. The information extrapolated from colophons is further analysed to obtain a better understanding of these distinct manuscript cultures

The Syntax of Colophons

The present volume focuses on the colophons found in several pothi manuscripts from Central, South and South East Asia. Its contributions discuss the colophons’ defining features, thus exposing their ‘syntax’, focusing particularly on the tracing of recurring patterns. The information extrapolated from colophons is further analysed to obtain a better understanding of these distinct manuscript cultures

Tibetan Buddhist English: a corpus approach to the Tibetan Buddhist genre of shastra within the Kagyu Shedra curriculum

Against the backdrop of the argument of the incomprehensibility of Buddhist English language to non-specialist audiences due to the high frequency of Sanskrit loanwords and unexplained terminology and a general lack of data-driven, empirical research on the use of Buddhist English beyond Buddhology and translation studies, this thesis investigates the following research questions: (1) What are pervasive linguistic features of the genre shastra in Tibetan Buddhist English? (2) Based on question 1, what are the characteristics of such linguistic features? (3) What is the link between such linguistic features and their situational context of Tibetan Buddhist shastras? (4) How do the linguistic features of Tibetan Buddhist shastras compare to other written registers? Compilation and frequency-based analysis of a small specialised corpus of Tibetan Buddhist Shastras (commentaries) identified four typical linguistic features: lexical closure, low type-token ratio (TTR), frequent use of the indefinite pronoun one and the frequent use of Sanskrit loanwords. Analysis was carried out following Biber and Conrad’s (2013) framework for register analysis, comprising situational, linguistic and functional analyses. Lexical closure properties in the corpus provided a reliability measure for the findings of the study. Together with a low frequency of personal pronouns and a high frequency of the generic pronoun one, they aligned with characteristics of general and academic written registers. Existing characteristics of written registers have been challenged for their disassociation of high TTR and the use of the specific pronoun one, which in Buddhist English were found to be features of written register, indicative of the frequent repetition of titles and headings and frequent anaphoric referencing to aid the Buddhist practice of memorisation. The high frequency of loanwords proved to align with the claim of incomprehensibility of Buddhist language for a non-specialist audience, yet the relationship between situational and linguistic analysis indicated that such shortcomings of Buddhist English are mitigated through the common Buddhist practice of textual study as part of so-called “Shedras in the West”. Contributions include the provision of empirical data on the under-investigated register of Buddhist English Shastras, and to register classifications of written and academic registers. Methodological contributions were made through provision of a first-ever corpus-based study of Buddhist English, thereby testing the validity of established corpus approaches in a small specialised context. Theoretical contributions included an evaluation of Biber’s multidimensional analysis framework (1988, 2007), calling for an extension of the existing frameworks to account for the deviations in the findings based on the Buddhist English register shastra. Furthermore, the study provides a template for the calculation of lexical closure as a measure for representativeness in small corpora. Additional contributions are made by illustrating the pedagogic application of corpus data in the classroom by means of sample classroom tasks

Methods in Contemporary Linguistics

The present volume is a broad overview of methods and methodologies in linguistics, illustrated with examples from concrete research. It collects insights gained from a broad range of linguistic sub-disciplines, ranging from core disciplines to topics in cross-linguistic and language-internal diversity or to contributions towards language, space and society. Given its critical and innovative nature, the volume is a valuable source for students and researchers of a broad range of linguistic interests

Medieval Multilingual Manuscripts

Medieval manuscripts combining multiple languages, whether in fusion or in collision, provide tangible evidence for linguistic and cultural interactions. Such encounters are documented in this volume through case studies from across Europe and Asia, all the way from Ireland to Japan, exploring the creativity of medieval language use as a function of cross-cultural contact and fluidity in this key period of nation-formation (9th-14th centuries CE)

Indic Manuscript Cultures through the Ages

Stemming from the Sanskrit Manuscripts Project that ran in Cambridge (UK) in 2011-2014 and led to the cataloguing and partial digitization of the rich collections of South Asian manuscripts in the University Library, these essays explore the manuscript culture of India and beyond – Nepal, Cambodia, Tibet – from a variety of angles: books as artefacts, works of art, commodities, staples of tradition, and of course as repositories of knowledge