Tibetan Dialects And Accents: Storm In A (Butter) Tea Cup

Time stood still at this fundraiser for the Tibetan Children's Village. Alumni performed one Rangzen Shonu song from the 80s after another. Then a young man who looked like a new arrival from Tibet picked up the microphone during a break and began speaking about the self-immolations. He made an ardent appeal to the audience to mobilise the government and the UN for help, urging us since we were in a safe country, to do all we could to support the people in Tibet.

That's when one of my companions, a girl from Lhasa married to a TCV alumnus, said to me in syrupy Tibetan: "I can't understand a word, he is speaking khams skad. Can you understand?"

What the young man said was not in Kham dialect at all. He made an effort to speak Ud skad, the language of Lhasa - albeit with a Kham accent but that was really it.

My companion gave me an incredulous look, "No way, that's not Ukay"! 

I didn't know her that well. Was she just acting snobbish or was her Tibetan really that narrow? What we heard was Tibetan pronounced with an accent. Speaking with an accent and speaking in a dialect are two different animals. An accent is merely pronouncing regular words a bit differently. Instead of "house" pronounced khangpa for example, some say khompa and also khumpa but from the context both are still recognisable as variations of ཁང་པ་ .

A dialect on the other hand has a separate vocabulary, and sometimes also a different grammar. It becomes evident when we think of the little Tsang dialect many Tibetans know and sometimes also make fun of: Ba, ma(m)-ba? Nooks  bè! - Believe me now, Olo?

On a trip I accompanied as an interpreter I was lectured by the Chinese hosts in Toe Ngari that the locals spoke "not the same" Tibetan as in Lhasa and that it would be difficult to communicate. Amazing how the Chinese, who often spend an entire lifetime in Tibet without ever caring to speak the language, believe they must enlighten a native speaker. Tactful is different. But I noticed it is one of the things our colonisers are most fond of emphasizing: How the Tibetan language has so many varying dialects and how they are all mutually unintelligible.

The sinister intention is clear: Undermine our understanding that we are a nation united by a common tongue. Divide et impera. We got you so figured out Tonghzi, comprende?

But as irritating as they are, the Chinese have a point. Seriously: How can we say we are united when we have trouble understanding what the brother in front of our nose is saying? I hate to admit but it's basically an absurd situation with the Chinese wisenheimers annoyingly all confirmed. Therefore on our side, we cannot leave it at that.

So what can we do to improve intra-Tibetan communication and understanding?

In this respect the Tibetan-language news programmes aired by the Voice of America and the Radio Free Asia play a successful forerunner role because they are presented by speakers from a variety of backgrounds and with all kinds of accents. Whatever it is they are speaking, when we pay attention we will notice that it's based on literary Tibetan and not some "dialect". While the VOA Tibetan programme rightly doesn't make any distinction, the RFA news editions are labelled "Amkay", "Khamkay" and also "Ukay", which I find misleading.

Unlike Ukay which is a homogenous dialect spoken in and around Lhasa, Kham Tibetan or Khamkay feels more like an umbrella term. A whole range of dialects, sub-dialects and sub-subdialects are grouped under it almost in an infinite sequence. So we really can't speak of one Kham dialect spoken by all Dotoe people. Similarly there can be no single grand Amdo dialect either because a native of southern Amdo such as Ngaba speaks different Amkay from a person up north in say Labrang.

Dialects, sub-dialects, sub-sub-dialects almost
in an infinite sequence - "Matrioshka-style :--)

So if the news were really aired in a dialect, it would not only be difficult to reach large segments of the population but it would also put the makers of the programme in the politically sensitive situation of having to select one dialect over another. All this can be avoided by using the written language as the basis. And actually that's also exactly what is practiced by RFA Tibetan programme: Their speakers have regional accents but for sure none presents the news in a dialect. Therefore having separate editions such as "Amkay" and "Khamkay" really doesn't make sense: There is no value in differentiating Tibetan according to accents. 

Furthermore, it could confuse people and create artificial barriers because Ukay speakers like my acquaintance may not listen to those programmes thinking they are in a "dialect". So there shouldn't be any distinction at all. Everyone should be encouraged to listen to all editions indiscriminately. It will help us understand better the morphology of our tongue and improve our listening skills.

Amidst this linguistic mixture one of my eastern Tibetan buddies said to my utter surprise that we should just all speak Ukay, it would make communication easier. ­- I am not convinced. Having everyone speak uniformed Lhasan would be culturally impoverishing. It would be like all Anglophones the world over would be expected to speak British English. Where is the local flavor? We are not amused :--)

To push Lhasan as the standard may have been acceptable during the early years of exile when the institutions were dominated by the same crowd who was already in charge in Lhasa. I hear in those days it was common that Dokham folks would have their pronunciation scorned upon or "corrected". But these days with the social demographics in exile tilting towards Easterners pushing Lhasan too hard can become problematic.

When we get down to the linguistics, Ukay is another Tibetan dialect, no more, no less. Expecting everyone to sound like a person from the capital is not only unnatural or culturally impoverishing; if we truly believe in the premise of the equality of the Cholkhas, Lhasan superiority is simply unacceptable. We must meet somewhere in the middle and the effort should be equal for all. This is my opinion.

So the solution to improving intra-Tibetan communication and understanding and reinforcing our common linguistic heritage cannot be to level out dialects or try to eradicate accents. What would really help is to raise the level of education in literary Tibetan so it does not fall behind the vernacular; and we need to increase exposure to all kinds of accents and dialects because the more variations we hear, the smarter we get at recognising the similarities.

The way I see it, fundamentally the Tibetan language situation is diglossia, a special form of bilingualism. While traditional bilingualism describes the simultaneity of two complete languages fit to function for all purposes, diglossia describes the simultaneity of two mutually complementing forms of one language each of which performs a specified function which the other lacks.

In the Tibetan case, diglossia neatly describes the co-existence of oral dialects with the literary language. We have the clear distinction typical of diglossia: Dialect is used in the homes; it's private and related to one's hometown; that's what we speak with our buddies aka phayul jigpa. The literary language by contrast, is used at work and in school; it's public and related to the national level. We use this type of Tibetan when dealing with authorities, in the media or when speaking to Tibetans from other areas.

In public, Dokham folks generally make an effort to sound more Ukay where the pronunciation is closer to the written language. What the lad at the TCV fundraiser did was exactly that. There is this functional specialization of the Tibetan language which is typical for diglossia. No Tibetan would speak dialect in public unless he's a complete country bumpkin who has never left his valley and as a result never had interactions with other Tibetan speakers.

In practice it may be difficult to recognise Tibet's diglossia. Literacy rates are low one reason being that written Tibetan must compete with Mandarin pushed as the standard language by the Chinese state at regular intervals. The result is that we have Tibetan dialect speakers who revert to Chinese instead of literary Tibetan when communicating with Tibetans from other areas. 

Nevertheless, we should not misjudge the issue based on the distortion resulting from the spread of Mandarin. Treating the Tibetan language situation fundamentally as one of diglossia has helped me better understand the nature of our linguistic challenge. Consciously acknowledging Tibet's diglossia can help us concentrate on the content of what's being said rather than getting distracted by the form how it's being said. We will clearly recognise the common ground, the literary language, and not be confused by things that set us apart - a dialect, an accent or a funny intonation. As a result, our idea of the Tibetan language becomes democratic and egalitarian because we apply ourselves to respect it in all its dialectical and accentuated variations.

Looking at the Tibetan language situation as diglossia may also give us a perspective because we realise we are not the only people who face the challenge of a diverging written and spoken language: There is diglossia in many places. Take South Tyrol as an example, which the Dalai Lama visited earlier this year: Locals speak a German dialect but switch to High German when speaking to people from outside the region. In addition, South Tyrolians must also learn Italian as the official language – just like Tibetans have to learn Chinese.

Treating our language situation as diglossia, improving our written Tibetan and become better listeners could also help take Tibetan to the next level above mere sustenance, so the language is fit for the requirements of the time and we don't easily succumb to the dominant language be that Chinese, English or another tongue.

Not understanding another speaker of Tibetan probably happens all the time. If we leave it at that however and don't make an effort to change it, we also inadvertently reinforce the Chinese perception of the Tibetan language: That it's so diverse that it's mutually unintelligible. If that's what they believe let them, dilettantes. But we should know better. We mustn't fall for what in essence is a storm in a tea cup: All Tibetans share the same written language. Not understanding one another is ridiculous. These are things we have in our hands. Not doing anything would be negligent.

Mountain Phoenix

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Tibetan For Kids: Let's Play "Sho"!

Mountain Phoenix' family playing Sho

Once in a while I go down to our basement to sort out old clothes and items we no longer use. Warm clothes and sturdy shoes go to Tibet. Old summer wear and kids' toys go to the Salvation Army or I try to sell them at a second-hand place and donate the earnings to a school in Tibet. My children love to accompany me on these cleaning-up operations as all sorts of forgotten toys reappear in the process and they play around with rediscovered toys while I sift through all the stuff.

During their latest basement adventure, our old Tibetan dice game set came to light, which my dad had made by hand. He and my granddad used to play it during happy family gatherings such as Losar, the Tibetan New Year. After they passed away, the thing somehow landed in my basement. With no one in my remaining family knowing how to play Sho I wanted to send the game to Tibet. But before I could put the game on the Tibet pile, the kids spied it: "Mami, di kharé rè? Khandres tsegorè? Ngantso tsenyi trosung – koooocheee!"

I explained that I didn't know how to play Sho. In my eyes it was a boring pastime for old men perhaps comparable to Boccia, which is what retired south European Polas play. - Well, if I didn't know, surely Aba knew how to play Sho? They insisted on taking the game upstairs to show their dad. To my surprise, he knew how to play the popular game from Central Tibet. And so he started to teach the kids.

These are the items you need for the game:

1. A dice cup, the Shophor
2. Plenty of sea shells, the Shobu or Dribu
3. A round pad stuffed with Yak hair wool, the Shoten
4. An underlay as buffer when the Shophor with the dice inside hits the Shoten: usually a saddle rug or Taden
5. Two dice, the Sho
6. Three different sets of coins (9 per set) for each player - the Lakhay

The rules of the game are straightforward: Each player selects his Lakhay, places them in the starting area and then puts the dice into the Shophor, shakes it well (sprug sprug btangba) and slams it on the Shoten. The next player lifts the cup to see what value (Shomig) you got; the highest roller goes first. It's played clock-wise with the player using the value of the dice to move their coin(s) forward. Since the game doesn’t use a board, the seashells serve as the counting stock.

The goal is to move each one's coins "home". On your way you must eliminate the other players by sending their coins back to the starting point or blocking their passage. Basically do things with your Sho Alter Ego that you are not supposed to do in real life as a well-behaved Buddhist, ha, ha! A very good description of the Sho rules is given on the website of Tibet Namchen Restaurant in Lhasa. 

We also found a free Sho App created by a Japanese developer. In order to sharpen their grasp of the rules of the game, the tactics and strategy, the kids are now occasionally allowed to play virtual Sho on the iPad. Here is a demo from Youtube. It’s really cute with the winner being cheered and accorded a good old Tibetan Khatag.

Technically, Sho is similar to a Parcheesi, a game I used to play as a kid. But the real thrill of Sho is not the game itself but the theatre coming out of the players during play. It’s packed colourful and humorous Sho terminology called sho bshas or Shobshè. Herein lies the real cultural wealth of the game because every region has its own Sho parlance, which is basically non-stop banter and witty humour that you unleash onto your playmates while you meaningfully shake the Shophor and let it hurtle down on the Shoten with your pitch getting higher and higher as the dice cup gets closer and closer to hitting the Sho-pad.

If you don’t have a witty saying ready, you simply go “dhig, dhig, dhig” as these guys in this Sho video from Youtube making yourself sound a bit like at cockrow with your voice almost breaking the moment your Shophor hits the Shoten.

Since it's so much fun to listen to Shobshè it draws a lot of bystanders who watch the game and laugh along. If you are really good player, they will say of you sho tshapo rtse gi red ("plays hot Sho") which means besides good gamesmanship you're also good at Shobshè.

In Sho terminology, every Shomig or value the dice show is known by a different name. 3 for instance would not just be gsum but “sugu” and 4 would not be bzhi but “tsigi”; 5 lnga would be “kha”; 6 drug would be “lug”; 7 bdun would be “ri”; 8 brgyad would be “sha”; 9 we don’t know but 10 bcu is "chu"; 11 bcu gcig is “doge” and 12 bcu gnyis is “jangpa”.  

We don’t know yet what these codes signify and they probably vary from region to region but the thing is you have to be able to make up a witty phrase containing the code for the value you are invoking when you shake the dice in the cup and the cup then comes smashing down on the pad. So it’s something linguistically challenging with every region using their own local sayings around these codes.

Since this is what gives Sho its particular appeal, my partner started to call around to find someone who could teach him more about Shobshè so he could then teach the kids. This is when we heard that there are little booklets on sale in Lhasa containing the Sho parlance popular in Central Tibet.  That was great news. These are cultural jewels which need to be protected and people were doing it. So our next goal has become to get hold of such a booklet and appropriate the new vocabulary so we would be in a position to teach our kids the real thing: Sho jargon!

A really nice plus of Sho is that it is a friendly, not very competitive game where the stake is reasonable such as buying the winner a beer, on that level. Camaraderie and having a good time are in the foreground. If you remember that Tibetans are sometimes capable of gambling away entire homes, Sho is very reasonable. Sho is also a mobile game, which can be carried with you wherever you go. It's mainly played outdoors on fine days for rest, relaxation and fun. You often find people sitting under a tree or on a meadow playing this old Tibetan game.

Parcheesi

The other day, the Lhasan lady who lives in our neighbourhood, stopped by to bring us some homemade sweets and share the latest news from the Tibetan capital. When she saw how the kids got out the Sho-set asking their dad to play and she switched the topic exclaiming: "Ta Pala-la rogpa yakpo rashag!"

She obviously thought he taught the children so he would have gambling buddies to entertain himself. Where the lady comes from, gambling and senselessly killing time is so widespread it's considered a normal activity. But when she heard that he taught them the game so they could do simple calculations in Tibetan, she was very amused.

So this is the story how an old Tibetan parlour game called Sho became the latest addition to our collection of Tibetan language training tools for kids. And this particular tool could even be used to teach arithmetic in Tibetan on an elementary level. Once again I was taught better: Sho is not only for laid-back old males after all. It could be applied to teach kids how to work on their Tibetan without a major effort from the kids' side. Brilliant!

The crux is for you as the parents not to satisfy yourselves once your kid has understood the rules of the game. The real challenge is to naturally let the whole game take place in Tibetan language. So focus and prepare ahead. Make sure you have looked up all the words you don't know yourself or ask an authoritative native speaker. Then start to unleash the vocabulary on your kids naturally while playing. They will absorb it without even knowing it.

Some parents worry that asking their kids to retain Tibetan is an additional burden because children are already under pressure from regular school. Some more utilitarian-minded parents are also saying Tibetan is not one of the languages that look good on a CV. It's extremely important to fit in and perform well wherever you live, very true. And something like business administration looks definitely better on a CV than "Tibetan”, that’s clear as daylight. I wouldn't list Tibetan as an asset either when it's not relevant for a job. But I also say it's not a zero-sum game: Most of the time, the Tibetan thing is not something we do for the job; it's something we try to do for the family and the soul.  

Even when Tibetan is not a powerful business language, it can still have a positive effect on our overall ability to perform because multilingualism is said to cause structural differences in brain networks that enhance mental abilities. Just like a musician's brain can be altered by the long hours of practice needed to master an instrument, in people who are multilingual, biological differences in auditory nervous system appear and enhance attention and even working memory. That's a promise worth continuing to work on Tibetan, is it not?

And not only will your kids be multilingual but they are also said to become very good at determining what is and what is not relevant. They have a more resilient brain, are more proficient at multitasking and setting priorities. Perhaps they’re also better at withstanding ravages of age as a range of recent studies suggest. And they delay Alzheimer as they protect memory and are less likely to have cognitive problems.

Are these not very practical, utilitarian reasons for parents and children alike to keep our grip over the Tibetan language and deepen our knowledge from year to year? - Forget about the worry that learning more than one language will confuse a kid. It is an unfounded worry coming from monolingual folks who lack imaginative power.

The dice is cast. I won't send my old man's Sho-set to Tibet. It wasn't a good idea to begin with: They have more than enough gambling material there already. Instead, I will keep the game here letting my partner use it as a language and arithmetic training tool for our elementary age children.

With Losar around the corner the whole family will be together. After many, many Sho-less Tibetan New Years, once again it will be time to zestfully swing the dice-cup while murmuring magic words invoking defeat for the others and victory for oneself. This time around, the players will be a lot younger, but the groove will be the same.

Para sho, Para sho, Para sho!

Happy Losar everyone!

Mountain Phoenix

Related Essays

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Bashè Forever

Tibetan For Kids - 10 Ways To Keep The Language Alive


All written content on this blog is copyrighted. Please do not repost without seeking my prior written consent. 

Welcome To Babylon

A lady from the immigration office that handles asylum cases rang me the other day. Whether I could confirm that there are two ways of spelling a Tibetan place name and whether those two names were referring to one and the same place? – Oh my goddess! Why did they contact a private person? And how did they get my name?

It showed how determined the authorities were to limit the stream of asylum-seekers into the country: They were expanding their investigative methods in unconventional ways using their personal network outside of their work: They got my name from one of my former colleagues whose mom was friends with the lady on the phone.

They had a case, she said, where the applicant claimed his place of origin called “Ganzi” in some documents, was the same place spelled "Kardze" in other documents - whether it was really true that there were two such greatly differing ways to write one and the same place name?

Maybe she suspected the person wanted to obtain asylum by fraud, I don't know. So I confirmed whatever I could and whatever its worth, in the hope it helps.

She could follow that the discrepancies in the spelling resulted from two different ways of romanising a Tibetan place name - via Chinese (Ganzi) or directly from Tibetan (Kardze). But if the lady had got a hint on how much chaos really reigned, she would have shook her head in disbelief: I saw at least two more variations floating around - “Kandze” and “Garze” – and I also had to think of how grossly negligent the Tibetans could be when it came to place names.

It was easier when I was growing up: People didn’t need to think much about each other’s place of origin. As descendants of “old-established” exiles, we were “Tibetans” most of the time and if there ever was a need to differentiate then you were Ü-Tsang, Amdo or Kham and that was that.

But with the opening of China and thousands of Tibetans socialised within the New China coming out, the entire exile demographics changed and apart from the three historical Cholkha you now heard a whole lot of new place and region names, some of them in half a dozen variations.

When it is a pure headache for Tibetans to keep track, how bad could it get for the lady handling asylum cases?

I never heard older folks use the name Kardze as their place of origin for that matter. They say they are something that to me sounds like “Driu”-Khampa. I don’t know whether the term is related to the old Tibetan name of the region drehor (“Trehor”) or whether it’s from a place spelled in Tibetan as bre’o and also dre’o, which old maps show as an area within Trehor - near Rongpatsa and Dargay Gompa in case that helps.

Wide-spread illiteracy and the isolation of communities in the old days add their bit to the ambiguity over place names. What mattered to folks back then were the toponyms in their immediate surroundings such as a particular mountain nearby, a specific forest, or a pasture. Trying to figure out names now, decades later and from afar, at times feels like a guessing game.

To add to the spelling ambiguity, Kardze is not only the name of the largest Tibetan prefecture outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, it is also the name of a county within that prefecture, plus the name of a town that is the county seat.  Was there perhaps a shortage of good names when the communists began to rearrange the administrative units?

A friend, who hails from Kardze town, tells me the name is a contraction of the Tibetan karpo (“white”) and dzebo (“graceful”) - actually a rather unlikely and funny name for a macho Khampa place. It sounds more like a name for a Tibetan cosmetics line: “Fair & Lovely”!

The town Kardze, however, is not the capital of the Prefecture Kardze. That privilege goes to Dartse(m)do, a formerly important trading-town on the old Sino-Tibetan border. But in present-day Tibet, folks who hail from Dartsedo would tell you they are from Kangding.

How Dartsedowas can be so brainless and voluntarily use that dreadful Chinese name is a mystery only they are able to penetrate. Doesn’t it mean “subjugation of Kham”? Arrog Khampa, what happened to your famous pride? Linguistics is a political battlefield, if you still haven’t noticed. Why do you shoot yourself in the foot?


It was in Dartsedo where we met up with a relative from Lhasa last summer. Since it wasn’t possible to obtain permits to enter the Autonomous Region, he came down to Kham. While we were sitting in a restaurant over a cup of tea, he received a call on his cell phone and we heard him say: “Sorry, but, I’m in China at the moment ( … rgyanag-la yod)”.

A Chinese has a reason to be sinocentric: Dartsedo is in Sichuan and Sichuan is about as Chinese as can get; but to hear your own relative say something so disparaging was a shock. The same relative dropped a strange remark when we were strolling through the Barkhor on an earlier visit: “These days there aren’t many Lhasans in Lhasa,” he said, “the city is full of Chinese and Khampas”.

“Thanks for lumping in your Eastern Tibetan brothers and sisters with the archenemy, dear uncle”. Had I not recalled Asian etiquette of respecting the elders that’s what I would have said.

Not only was my uncle not on top of our geography but his remarks also made me wonder whatever happened to all those grandiose incantations of “Tibetan unity”: Every other singer in Tibet seems to have no other topic to sing about but this one. Still the message didn’t get through to people like my relative. In his mind, the only “Tibetans” far and wide were the ones like him from Ü-Tsang or Central Tibet.

Remember how Gedun Choephel wrote about the sense of superiority he encountered in Lhasa when he arrived full of expectation from his rural Amdo backwaters? And remember how Bapa Phuntsog Wangyal noticed the same air of superiority when he left his native Kham to lobby the government in Lhasa to back his socialist ideas?

My relative’s comment only confirmed the extent of our ancestors’ neglect: They never cared enough to foster a pan-Tibetan national consciousness encompassing all the Tibetan regions while they were still in control of the country. How are we supposed to create that awareness now that we are living split up into dozens of administrative units, scattered all over the globe, sometimes even unable to use our own tongue as the medium of communication? Sometimes it felt like trying to get spilled milk back into the pot.

I’m getting off track.

There’s another twist to the whole story of toponyms with unaware or indifferent people perpetuating weird names through frequent usage.

Look at Gyalthang bordering the Kardze Prefecture in the south. It is part of the Dechen Prefecture or Diqing in Chinese, which sometimes even locals confuse with Deqin, a town further north which is actually Jol in Tibetan - are you still following me?

Similar to Dartsedo, Gyalthang was an important trading town.  It’s one of the few Tibetan places with a historical Chinese name, Zhongdian. In the late 1990s the place was rebaptised “Shangrila” aka Xianggelila to attract tourists. Now you come across Gyalthangpas who Tibetanised it and tell you in all sobriety that they are – hold on tight – “Shangrilawa”!

The new name also comes up in the dialogue that precedes the song Gasho-la (“Common, rejoice!”) by the area’s best-known singer Yangchen Lhamo. Listen up:

Ashi khyö gawa rey? - Madam, where are you from?
Nga ni Gyalthangpa rey. - I am a Gyalthangpa
Gyalthang se-na gabar rey? - Where is this place called “Gyalthang”?
Shangrila rey. - It’s Shangrila.
Khyö Shangrilawa rey! - Oh, so you are a “Shangrilawa”!

An entirely useless feature of this video is the Chinese subtitles. They don't make sense to Chinese readers since the characters merely replicate the sound of the Tibetan words. The average Tibetan can't make sense of it either since we're dealing with a local Tibetan dialect rendered in Chinese characters. Nobody can make sense - only "Shangrilawas" - grin.  Had they added Tibetan subtitles, ordinary mortals would learn what they’re singing about and recognise similarities between dialect and High Tibetan; an interregional connect would have been possible. So much for trying to see beyond one’s own nose... and we are left wondering: “Gasho-la about what?”

In the case of “Shangrila” the name is so fake you simply smell the rat. In other cases though, ambiguity sneaked into a place name slyly and even locals become insecure about their place’s real name.

It’s happening in Mili bordering Konkaling. Tibetan texts before the Chinese takeover all spell the name unequivocally as rmili. But these days, one sees “Muli” more often which is the romanisation of the Chinese characters: mu (“wood”) and li (“land”). As usual, the Chinese name is mimicking the Tibetan sound of the word, but co-incidentally Mili also has tons of precious timber, which the Chinese have been logging incessantly since they took control, and so the Chinese name imitation “Muli” gets a pseudo-rational complexion which appears so logical that it entered the Tibetan language: Now you can also spell it rmuli in Tibetan and locals have become so used to it that they will tell you both variations of the name are correct.

Help!

Miliwas are exotic birds even among Khampas, let alone Tibetans in general. So who is supposed to care if Mili folks themselves don’t bother? Especially for a peripheral area like Mili, the risk is that the territory clearly identifiable as “Tibet” shrinks with locals down the generations not knowing anymore for sure whether their area is really Tibetan or not.

Lack of awareness and traditionally low literacy rates in the mother tongue are a curse the Tibetans are carrying around with themselves wherever they go. But especially in border areas such as Mili, the consequences can be grave.

Of course the Chinese are the main culprits of the naming chaos. On the one hand, it is a physical impossibility to render Tibetan names through Chinese characters which are tailored to the replicate the sounds typical of that language. The best-meant shot will always retain a degree of fuzziness. On the other hand, squeezing Tibetan proper names into Hanyu Pinyin, which was invented to romanise Chinese with its specific linguistic characteristics, distorts Tibetan toponyms even further.

And sometimes, the Chinese beat themselves at how best not to accurately reproduce a Tibetan proper name, when out of sheer ignorance, they translate a Tibetan name into English based on the meaning of the Chinese characters although those characters where initially chosen for their sound.  The result can be hilarious as the example of Dondrup Ling monastery shows.

Dondrup Ling means something like “island of the one who established the purpose”. It’s located in a place called Kongtsera (aka Pongzera aka Benzilan, etc., etc.). The place is known in Tibet for producing beautiful wooden Tsampa bowls - you can buy them in the Barkhor. But guidebooks list the name of the monastery as “Eastern Bamboo Forest”. There is however neither trees nor bushes on the surrounding hills, let alone a bamboo forest, and one wonders how the monastery ended up with such a name. Turns out it is the English translation of the meaning of the Chinese characters used to phonetically express the Tibetan: dong (“east), zhu (“bamboo”), lin (“forest”) => Dongzhulin = Dondrup Ling - tataaa!

Welcome to Babylon and the Babylonian confusion of tongues coming out of China, where official Chinese linguistic barbarism meets local Tibetan unawareness!

While it’s bad enough to have to put up with the Chinese screwing up our place names and our language, there is no reason why we should support that by acting lapo (“washy”). Obviously the Chinese don’t have an incentive to clean up but we do since places and their names are the very foundation of our identity. We derive our sense of community and physical belonging directly from a specific piece of land. So perpetuating wrong names and wrong concepts out of carelessness and insensitivity erodes the Tibetan identity.

Since we are the ones whose collective identity is at stake, we should also be the ones to make a collective effort. If we don’t get on top of our language including correct toponyms, the Chinese will continue to portray Tibet to the world uncontested with all their linguistic and conceptual limits - and we are left standing, unable to prevent further deterioration, helplessly accelerating our own demise.

Those who are aware of the problem should try and do something about it, so those who are unaware become sensitised and get a chance to adapt.

We could start with our own Phayul or our parents and grandparents birthplaces in Tibet. What is the old Tibetan name? What does it mean? What were the neighbouring places called? Which were important landmarks? And so and so forth.

Gradually we extend it to the phayuls of our friends, our neighbours and to any place we’ve heard of until we cover the whole plateau. A positive side-effect of this exercise is that in the course of time, a geography emerges for our identity, and the big topic “Tibetan unity” is filled with meaning.

Since it’s going to be Losar soon, we could make it a Tibetan New Year resolution to work on place names and add that to the list of action items of the Lhakar movement.

Losar Tashi Deleg!

Mountain Phoenix

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