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Tibetan Language
Jason_PDK
Explorer
I'm just wondering does anyone else learn Tibetan or have an interest in the language?
In general, even knowing a little Tibetan is beneficial in deepening an understanding of the Dharma. . . For those who learn Tibetan, there is no limit to their studies or to what they can learn.
-- Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
Thanks
Jason
In general, even knowing a little Tibetan is beneficial in deepening an understanding of the Dharma. . . For those who learn Tibetan, there is no limit to their studies or to what they can learn.
-- Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
Thanks
Jason
0
Comments
There is also mahayana* and Theravada, which focuses on using Pali texts....
(*some consider Vajrayana separate, others consider it to be a branch of Mahayana Buddhism, as opposed to being a third distinctive path....)
I follow Jodo Shu and have a huge interest in the language.
Jason
see if this helps.
http://www.nitartha.org/dictionary_search04.html
You might like to see whether there are also any on-line courses, such as this one...
http://www.learntibetan.net/
and putting it more delicately, I have to say that I, like Fivebells, also take issue with that statement.
Most of the actual terminology you'll see here will be in Pali as Theravadins contribute.
I've been an adherent of Vajrayana for about 30 years and never needed to know any Tibetan. Someone may come along and say that intellectual knowledge of languages and so forth and studying intellectual concepts too much does not do much for the actual practice of Buddhism, and to an extent, I agree. But I think (probably) the renderings from Tibetan to English have been perfectly adequate in getting the meaning across.
"The Tibetan Language is rich enough to accurately express great treatises including the sutras and commentaries. Even today it appears that Tibetan is the only language in the world that can fully communicate the entire Buddhist teachings contained in the Hinayana, Mahayana and Tantric canons. Therefore Tibetan is a very important language and it is especially important in relation to Buddhism."
Plus I'm very interested in Tibetan Buddhism.
Jason
That's a very good thing. I was not at all interested in Theravada before I started posting on this forum, but now that I understand it better, I feel very differently about it. It's always good to expand one's horizons.
After all the Buddha said, "Make a proper investigation first."
I like to look at all traditions.
Jason
There are texts available in Tibetan that aren't available in English. I've studied three different languages in my lifetime, and I can tell you that it would take years of serious study of a language to be able to be able to get information from a text that you couldn't get more easily in other ways. I've encountered any number of people who have studied a language for a couple of years and own a dictionary, and they've all been unreliable translators.
In regard to the DL's statement that Tibetan is the only language that can fully express the Dharma, I have two objections. First, any one trained in linguistics will tell you that a concept that can be expressed in one language can be expressed in any other language. It took time for Indian Buddhists to figure out how to express various Buddhist concepts in Sanskrit. It took time for Tibetan Buddhists to figure out how to express various Buddhist concepts in Tibetan. It took time for Chinese Buddhists to figure out how to express various Buddhist concepts in Chinese. It would take time to figure out how to express various Buddhist concepts in any language, but it can be done.
Second, there are Buddhist texts that exist only in Chinese translation, and the Chinese have translated as broad a range of texts as the Tibetans. So if the DL was simply commenting on what's available in Tibetan, then his statement is also true of Chinese.
If reading Tibetan is important enough to you to spend a few years seriously studying it, then go for it. If you would just like learn a little Tibetan, then go for it, but don't expect to get any special knowledge of Buddhism that you couldn't have gotten some other way.
Both Trangu and the DL grew up speaking Tibetan, and I'm sure that they can express themselves more precisely and easily in Tibetan, as well as comprehend more easily in Tibetan. They are also more familiar with the texts available in Tibetan than with texts in other languages. They seem to have made their personal circumstances the basis for generalizations that don't necessarily hold for other people.
Jason
That said, however, if you're still interested in trying, Snow Lion has a textbook and DVD set that will take you through the equivalent of 2 university years of Tibetan language. Price: $150. However, this is spoken Tibetan. Literary Tibetan is a whole different ball of wax. I studied both in the university. A course in spoken Tibetan will do nothing to help you read texts. The literary language is much older (almost like another language: comparing Russian to Church Slavic, the language they use in the Orthodox Church), and requires much dictionary work, even for specialists. If there's a university anywhere near you with a Tibetan Studies department, you'd do better to take courses from them, than buying Snow Lion's colloquial Tibetan course.
Jason