September 10, 2025 • 27 mins
Should we read our texts in Tibetan? In English? Using phonetics? Does it make any sense to read phonetics without understanding the Tibetan?
Questions, questions...
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(00:00):
Konchok Sum, A-ro, Guhyagarbha, Gyü Sangwé Nyingpo and Secret Nucleus!
What the (beep) language is this?
Hello to each and every one of you dear listeners.
Thank you for clicking play.
I hope you will feel welcome back if you've listened before, or plain welcome if you're new.
(00:24):
This is the Double Dorje Podcast, Series 2, Episode 7, and I'm still Alex Wilding.
Episode 6 was all a bit serious, you might even say pious.
This episode is not pious, but it deals with the very important practical problem of the language that we
perform our liturgies in.
(00:47):
There are more aspects to this question than you might at first think, and I won't be coming to any
absolute conclusion, but I do want at least to raise some of the issues that need to be weighed up.
Quickly, the general point for every episode, if you like this Double Dorje Podcast, please take a few
seconds out to share, like, follow, subscribe, tell your friends, or whatever, and thank you to those of
(01:13):
you who do so.
It seems almost inevitable that we have to begin by clearing up at least one point of confusion.
Translation, transcription, transliteration, and phonetics.
These are not the same things.
I hope that I didn't really need to include translation in that list, as I think we all know more
(01:38):
or less what that is, but to be complete it is perhaps worth a few words.
Translations between, for example, English and German, which is a field in which I made my own living for
many years, are tough enough.
Not every German concept has an English word, and not every English concept has a German word.
(02:02):
But although German, and for that matter any other European culture, and British culture are different,
that sort of difference is tiny compared to the difference between, say, English and Tibetan cultures and
mindsets.
It's a commonplace when thinking about Buddhism to hear the sentiment that human nature is the same for all
(02:24):
of us, and therefore we need the same practices and teachings, and there surely is some truth in that, but
the way we express that human nature does vary hugely.
To take one example from language, Tibetan is often very unclear about the difference between singular and
plural.
(02:44):
In many cases, that difference is left to understanding the context rather than being explicitly formulated
in the grammar.
That would only be done when there is a very definite lack of clarity.
On the other hand, Tibetan will often distinguish sharply between the social status of the things or people
(03:06):
under discussion.
These distinctions are explicit in the vocabulary and grammar, but would not be made at all in English.
Should it be made in translation?
Do we have to say, “Please let me hang your honourable coat on my miserable coat hook”, rather than simply,
“Let me hang up your coat”?
(03:27):
Is the first version more accurate because it does include the fact that an honorific word was used for the
coat of the honoured guest, but not for my own coat hook?
Or is it in fact less accurate to include that, because the weirdness, even the ugliness, of the first
version, draws far more attention to that status distinction than the original language does in its own
(03:53):
context, where the distinction follows naturally.
In English, if we need to indicate a difference in status between the people involved in some story, we do
it in quite different ways.
So it's bad enough when we're talking about coats and coat hooks.
(04:14):
Unsurprisingly, when it comes to philosophical or poetic or mystical terms, the problem becomes much worse.
But I'm not aiming this episode at the issues of translation in particular.
My own Tibetan is quite rudimentary, and I only want to plant a flag there saying “More difficult than you
(04:36):
might think!”
I include the term transcription because it sounds a bit the same, but provided we use the word properly,
it's not something that we are usually concerned with as practitioners.
Transcription means listening to the spoken word and turning it into the written word.
(04:58):
If you can do that in Tibetan, then you're a million miles in front of me and most of the
rest of us!
Well done!
It's with transliteration and phonetics that I most often see confusion, which is unfortunate because they
(05:20):
are in fact entirely different things.
Transliteration means taking one string of written letters and converting them into a string of letters
using a different form of script.
If only it were as simple as saying that we will assign one letter in our Latin script to each
(05:42):
letter of the Tibetan alphabet, plus perhaps a few special marks because there are 30 letters in the basic
Tibetan alphabet, plus four vowel signs that are not written in their own right, but are always associated
with one of the consonants.
It is not that easy.
An example should make my point clear.
(06:04):
The best known of what we call deities in Tibetan Buddhism must surely be the one we call Chenrezi.
In his usual form, he is white with four arms and his mantra, can you guess?
You probably can.
Yes, it's Om Mani Padme Hum.
His name now has three syllables.
(06:27):
For the first syllable, Chen, the heart of the syllable, so to speak, is the consonant which on its own
is pronounced like a P - P for Peter.
Before the P, there's an S for Sheila, but that S is silent, so while it's vital for the meaning
and the spelling, we don't need to worry about it here.
(06:49):
Now, hanging underneath the P, there is the sign for a letter which on its own corresponds to a Y
for Yellow, but in that case, it has a different shape.
Here, it is a certain back and forth flourish underneath the P, and that is why the first actual sound
(07:10):
of this syllable is something like “CH”.
We might write it as CH.
Are you still following?
Good, then you will be ready to learn that there is no vowel sign here, because every consonant inherently
is followed by an A, and that A is therefore not written.
(07:32):
Vowel signs are only added when the vowel is not an A.
Following the things we've described so far, the syllable finishes with a letter that corresponds to N.
You can hear that in the pronunciation, but it's also that N that means that the vowel, the invisible A,
(07:53):
is pronounced more like an E than it is like an A.
For the moment, I'm going to ignore the fact that hardly any of our Western consonants or vowels really
sound like Tibetan consonants or vowels, so we finish up with a syllable that sounds something like CHEN.
Voila!
(08:16):
You may have thought this was chaotic, but that would be a mistake.
The rules are complicated, and to us appear unexpected, but they are largely consistent.
This has meant that it has been possible to define systems that allow this apparently convoluted Tibetan
spelling to be represented unambiguously using the ordinary English style of Latin script available on any
(08:43):
typewriter, not even any funny accents, dots, or other diacritical marks above or below the letters.
It can get more complicated, I don't suppose you're surprised by that, when it comes to mantras or to
Tibetan representations of Sanskrit writing, but for the most part, 25 lowercase Latin letters plus full
(09:04):
stops are all that we need.
If you want to look into this, you will find the best known system, the one still widely in use,
is known as the Wylie system.
The original Wylie system has been extended to make it possible to cover some of the other special cases I
just mentioned, but the basic system is still there.
(09:26):
So far, so good, but let's imagine you have gone to some Buddhist centre for the first time, and you
attempt to join in the chant, and you see things like the following.
I will spell it out and show it on the video version of this episode.
It is s-p-y-a-n, full stop, r-a-s, full stop,
(09:51):
g-z-i-g-s.
Actually, in many systems, a space is used rather than a full stop, but that's another more technical
point.
Now, are you going to try to say
s-p-y-a-n r-a-s g-z-i-g-s?
Of course not.
The rules defining the pronunciation that is derived from this writing are also quite convoluted and
(10:12):
confusing, but again, are by and large quite consistent.
A beginner would, of course, never guess that a halfway reasonable beginner's stab at pronouncing this
Tibetan name, written as, if I may say it, s-p-y-a-n r-a-s g-z-i-g-s,
would be Chenrezig.
(10:34):
So that is transliteration.
One set of letters in Tibetan converted to another set in a Latin script, and it's equally possible to go
back from that Latin script to the original Tibetan.
As I say, it is unambiguous.
Letters across to letters.
This system is very helpful for the purposes of study, but quite useless for liturgical texts for the
(11:00):
general population.
And now it should be clear that there is all the difference in the world between transliteration and
so-called phonetics.
Again, I say so-called for a couple of reasons.
One, as already mentioned, Tibetan sounds do not map one-to-one onto European sounds.
(11:21):
The second is that Tibetan, as spoken by people from Tibet, has a very wide range of dialects and a
wide, wide range of pronunciations when the same words are being used.
Thirdly, this is such a turbulent ocean of confusion that even experienced people will, with the best will
(11:43):
in the world, come up with quite markedly different versions of what they subjectively feel to be a
workable representation of the sounds.
So don't expect any consistency and don't be put off when you find that things are inconsistent.
That said, let's pretend that there are consistent and useful phonetics.
(12:09):
Phonetic representations are therefore normal and useful when people are going to sit down and do some
practice or recitation in, as it were, Tibetan, but they are almost useless for serious study.
There are so many compromises on the way from the Tibetan to this phonetic representation that it is
(12:30):
difficult, and in fact mostly impossible, to make the return journey and accurately reproduce the original
Tibetan.
You should now be able to understand why these recitation texts for Western use look like they often do.
You will see them written in sets of three lines.
(12:54):
The top line is actual Tibetan, which is conceptually straightforward, even if you don't know anything
about the language.
The second line is the phonetics, which we all try to chart together, and the third line is the
translation.
Of course, if the Western language concerned isn't English, the translation will also not be English, and
(13:17):
because European languages often don't call for the same sounds to be made in response to any given letter,
the phonetic line should really be adapted to the target Western language as well.
This is visually complicated and if you expect to go in, sit down with an unknown practice text and use
it effectively in this setting, you are likely to be disappointed.
(13:40):
There's just far too much to think about.
Generally speaking, you want to get hold of your own copy of the text that's being used.
You take it home, study it, get to know the meaning as clearly as you can, so that when you
are chanting in your group, you can read the phonetics and still know what is going on.
(14:01):
A miracle!
But, like most miracles, it does take some work to get there.
The most extreme case I've seen of this is a text intended in the first place for use in Hong
Kong, where many of the students were Chinese, but where Westerners were also present.
This text has no less than five lines.
(14:24):
Tibetan at the top, phonetics for English speakers next, phonetics for Chinese speakers below that.
The fourth line contains an English translation, with a translation into Chinese at the bottom.
The upshot is that there is only room for two of these five-fold line groups on any one page.
(14:46):
It's clumsy, it's inconvenient, but what can you do?
And all praise, in any case, to the people who put this text together in the first place.
It was a mighty work!
Well, so much for the mechanics, so to speak, of laying out the text.
What about the language itself?
(15:09):
When we are reading the phonetic line, or at any rate, the line containing our best shot at phonetics,
there is a serious risk that we start to simply parrot it, not paying any attention, drifting off, and not
having time to look at the translation at the same time either.
For that, the only cure I know is the one of studying the text closely at home and getting to
(15:35):
know just what's happening at what stage.
If we have done that properly, we can in fact read the phonetics and cast a bit of an eye
onto the translation at the same time, just to remind us of what is happening.
One of the reasons for sticking with Tibetan is that at many centres there are students from very different
(15:56):
backgrounds.
Not just Chinese and English, but German, French, Italian, Polish, Slovakian, Czech, Spanish, the list goes
on.
English is still indeed the most widely understood of these languages as a result of our colonial past, but
it is foolish and actually unfair to imagine that many of these non-English speaking students actually know
(16:22):
English well enough to appreciate this kind of text, even if they are capable of going into a cafe and
asking for two fried eggs and chips.
Tibetan, being so far from Western languages in its conceptual structure as well as in sound, the number of
ways that it is possible to translate these texts is enormous, and I'm not talking here about bad
(16:46):
translations either.
This of course leads to confusion.
I'm not going to say that it's essential, but I will say that it is hugely advantageous for us to
at least begin to relate to the Tibetan, so that we can come to recognise on the one hand the
idiosyncrasies of any particular translator, and on the other get closer to the intended meaning.
(17:12):
I do in fact have practice texts which only have the so-called phonetic line and translation.
In my view, this is a bad thing.
When translations into Western languages are, to be honest, often actually not so great, the phonetics do
not allow you, in general, to get back to the Tibetan, so you are actually stuck with every
(17:37):
misunderstanding and every weird vocabulary choice that the translator concerned has made.
At the heart of the problem here, we have the language itself.
Tibetan is a quasi-monosyllabic language.
I say “quasi” because a lot of use is made of two-syllable compounds to create a third word with
(18:03):
a related meaning.
Another trick widely used to achieve strict metre in Tibetan is to compress a pair of two-syllable words.
Let's call the syllables of the first word 1a and 1b, and those of the second word 2a and 2b.
(18:24):
If these two words are regularly used together, which I think is what we call a collocation, we'll often
find them abbreviated to just the first syllable of each, which is to say 1a and 2a.
A well-known example would be Dzogpa Chenpo, which is abbreviated more often than not to Dzogchen.
(18:49):
This problem is compounded by the fact that sometimes a grammatical syllable can be semi-optional, to be
understood from the context or, if not clear from the context, from the commentary to the text.
And we mustn't forget that the vocabulary itself is highly loaded, often having layers of connotation
(19:11):
accumulated over centuries.
The net effect of all this is that a skilled Tibetan author is able to write in a seven-syllable
or nine-syllable metre without much difficulty, compressing extensive meaning into lines that are very
suitable for chanting.
This is often done to a melody or, if not, it is still extremely easy for the chanting people to
(19:36):
keep together.
This kind of choral speaking is extremely difficult to echo in English.
In part, it's due to the issue of meaning.
Many words have to be explained.
Some translators attempt to do this within the translation itself, which can make the translation long,
clumsy and wordy.
(19:58):
I was going to offer one or two examples, but I felt that would be too critical of the translators
that I am accusing.
I do actually appreciate how much heavy work goes into this kind of translation.
A glossary is often a better way of dealing with these highly loaded words, and this information can be
(20:19):
included in footnotes or, perhaps better, endnotes that the practitioner can study in the soothing quiet of
their own reading room.
For instance, the translation “wisdom” is very widely used for the Tibetan yeshe.
Frankly, I don't think it's a good translation, but I don't want to suggest something better because its
(20:41):
meaning is highly context dependent.
We can just use it, kick it around as appropriate, and understand the meaning in any given context.
This, of course, is a standard problem in translating between any languages, but it is particularly
difficult here.
The problem is also one that must be faced by the translators of prose.
(21:03):
I will allow myself a bit of criticism of some of the work of Herbert von Günther, whose attempt to
clarify the depth of meaning in some of these texts resulted in an overlay of terms borrowed from German
existentialist philosophy.
Which of us has time to study that first before tackling Günther's translation of texts which, in their own
(21:29):
context and on their own terms, might be quite direct and straightforward?
I'm not one of them.
Returning to practice texts, we have the problem of metre.
As mentioned above, highly metric texts with lines of seven or nine syllables are completely natural in
Tibetan.
(21:51):
In fact, I did hear that the seven and the nine are metres used for religious texts, and an
eight-syllable metre is used in poetry, song and whatever, but I'm not 100% sure about that.
Choral speaking in English is extremely difficult.
It is natural in English for emphasis to come and go, to be optional, for the lengths of syllables to
(22:16):
vary, and for each individual to have their own way of doing this.
So, to get a good result rather than just a blur, a huge amount of practice under the tutelage of
a choir master - one with a big stick - is needed.
There is a method in which equal time and equal stress is given to every single syllable.
(22:37):
This does make it easy for people to stay synchronised, I'll grant that, but if you want my opinion, and
I suppose you might be slightly interested since you're listening still, the result is horrid.
I hope that any of my Catholic friends will forgive me for borrowing one of their prayers to illustrate
this point.
(23:00):
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our
death.
Amen.
And that was something with relatively simple words.
(23:22):
Try it with ideas like “pristine cognition”.
I suppose of course if you are used to it, you may have come to love it, in which case
that is fine.
It's hardly up to a commentator like me to tell you that it's wrong, but a lot of us do,
I'm sure, find it irritating in the extreme.
(23:44):
As a matter of coincidence, after I'd started to compose this episode, I came across some comments by
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
He's a somewhat strange guy with somewhat strange habits, including a penchant for being controversial for
the sake of stirring things up, but he is often worth listening to in spite of that.
(24:05):
I only stumbled across these words somewhere on Facebook, and I imagine that they were written some time
ago, but he was talking about how rhyme and metre are important.
He described the kind of text that we have been considering with Tibetan phonetics and translation written
in parallel, and oh, ha ha ha, also by coincidence, I noticed that he refers to the phonetics that we
(24:32):
use as a “transliteration”.
Hopefully by now you all know that that was the wrong word.
We are one up!
Transliteration is for study, phonetics is what we try to chant.
Anyway, he points out that it is often the Westerners who like to see these ceremonies, even when performed
entirely by Westerners, being done in Tibetan.
(24:55):
That may be so, but we have just seen some of the reasons why that may in fact be the
best option at the moment.
Dzongsar Khyentse relates how he asked some highly respected lamas, none of whom were fluent in English, to
read aloud a phonetic version of a Shakespeare sonnet.
The penny then seems to have dropped about how difficult it is to handle a foreign language in this way.
(25:20):
We are left to wonder whether these people have really appreciated how profound the difficulties are.
It is simply not possible just to say, “Oh, we'll do a translation and use that.”
It's not that easy.
This puts me in mind of something I heard Tai Situpa say decades ago on one of the actually very
(25:43):
few occasions I attended any of his teachings.
A question was asked about precisely this matter of whether to use a translation or phonetics during formal
practices.
At the time, his opinion was that translations, even when done well, did not generally have the power and
(26:03):
blessing of the Tibetan words of the master responsible for the text.
Wait, he said, until an English-speaking person gets enlightened.
Then you will be able to have English texts full of blessing.
Well, I think, to be honest, he was putting it a bit crudely, over simply, but it is a point
(26:24):
that is still well worth considering.
And with that, we are now at the end of Double Dorje Podcast Series 2 Episode 7.
Please remember, of course, if you appreciate this episode or podcast, do like, follow, subscribe and tell
your friends.
And remember, there are as many ways to translate a text as there are translators.
(26:47):
That doesn't mean that most of them are wrong, but it does mean that we have to pay close attention
to the actual meaning.
Bye.
Konchok Sum, A-ro, Guhyagarbha, Gyü Sangwé Nyingpo and Secret Nucleus!
What the (beep) language is this?
Hello to each and every one of you dear listeners.
Thank you for clicking play.
I hope you will feel welcome back if you've listened before, or plain welcome if you're new.
(00:24):
This is the Double Dorje Podcast, Series 2, Episode 7, and I'm still Alex Wilding.
Episode 6 was all a bit serious, you might even say pious.
This episode is not pious, but it deals with the very important practical problem of the language that we
perform our liturgies in.
(00:47):
There are more aspects to this question than you might at first think, and I won't be coming to any
absolute conclusion, but I do want at least to raise some of the issues that need to be weighed up.
Quickly, the general point for every episode, if you like this Double Dorje Podcast, please take a few
seconds out to share, like, follow, subscribe, tell your friends, or whatever, and thank you to those of
(01:13):
you who do so.
It seems almost inevitable that we have to begin by clearing up at least one point of confusion.
Translation, transcription, transliteration, and phonetics.
These are not the same things.
I hope that I didn't really need to include translation in that list, as I think we all know more
(01:38):
or less what that is, but to be complete it is perhaps worth a few words.
Translations between, for example, English and German, which is a field in which I made my own living for
many years, are tough enough.
Not every German concept has an English word, and not every English concept has a German word.
(02:02):
But although German, and for that matter any other European culture, and British culture are different,
that sort of difference is tiny compared to the difference between, say, English and Tibetan cultures and
mindsets.
It's a commonplace when thinking about Buddhism to hear the sentiment that human nature is the same for all
(02:24):
of us, and therefore we need the same practices and teachings, and there surely is some truth in that, but
the way we express that human nature does vary hugely.
To take one example from language, Tibetan is often very unclear about the difference between singular and
plural.
(02:44):
In many cases, that difference is left to understanding the context rather than being explicitly formulated
in the grammar.
That would only be done when there is a very definite lack of clarity.
On the other hand, Tibetan will often distinguish sharply between the social status of the things or people
(03:06):
under discussion.
These distinctions are explicit in the vocabulary and grammar, but would not be made at all in English.
Should it be made in translation?
Do we have to say, “Please let me hang your honourable coat on my miserable coat hook”, rather than simply,
“Let me hang up your coat”?
(03:27):
Is the first version more accurate because it does include the fact that an honorific word was used for the
coat of the honoured guest, but not for my own coat hook?
Or is it in fact less accurate to include that, because the weirdness, even the ugliness, of the first
version, draws far more attention to that status distinction than the original language does in its own
(03:53):
context, where the distinction follows naturally.
In English, if we need to indicate a difference in status between the people involved in some story, we do
it in quite different ways.
So it's bad enough when we're talking about coats and coat hooks.
(04:14):
Unsurprisingly, when it comes to philosophical or poetic or mystical terms, the problem becomes much worse.
But I'm not aiming this episode at the issues of translation in particular.
My own Tibetan is quite rudimentary, and I only want to plant a flag there saying “More difficult than you
(04:36):
might think!”
I include the term transcription because it sounds a bit the same, but provided we use the word properly,
it's not something that we are usually concerned with as practitioners.
Transcription means listening to the spoken word and turning it into the written word.
(04:58):
If you can do that in Tibetan, then you're a million miles in front of me and most of the
rest of us!
Well done!
It's with transliteration and phonetics that I most often see confusion, which is unfortunate because they
(05:20):
are in fact entirely different things.
Transliteration means taking one string of written letters and converting them into a string of letters
using a different form of script.
If only it were as simple as saying that we will assign one letter in our Latin script to each
(05:42):
letter of the Tibetan alphabet, plus perhaps a few special marks because there are 30 letters in the basic
Tibetan alphabet, plus four vowel signs that are not written in their own right, but are always associated
with one of the consonants.
It is not that easy.
An example should make my point clear.
(06:04):
The best known of what we call deities in Tibetan Buddhism must surely be the one we call Chenrezi.
In his usual form, he is white with four arms and his mantra, can you guess?
You probably can.
Yes, it's Om Mani Padme Hum.
His name now has three syllables.
(06:27):
For the first syllable, Chen, the heart of the syllable, so to speak, is the consonant which on its own
is pronounced like a P - P for Peter.
Before the P, there's an S for Sheila, but that S is silent, so while it's vital for the meaning
and the spelling, we don't need to worry about it here.
(06:49):
Now, hanging underneath the P, there is the sign for a letter which on its own corresponds to a Y
for Yellow, but in that case, it has a different shape.
Here, it is a certain back and forth flourish underneath the P, and that is why the first actual sound
(07:10):
of this syllable is something like “CH”.
We might write it as CH.
Are you still following?
Good, then you will be ready to learn that there is no vowel sign here, because every consonant inherently
is followed by an A, and that A is therefore not written.
(07:32):
Vowel signs are only added when the vowel is not an A.
Following the things we've described so far, the syllable finishes with a letter that corresponds to N.
You can hear that in the pronunciation, but it's also that N that means that the vowel, the invisible A,
(07:53):
is pronounced more like an E than it is like an A.
For the moment, I'm going to ignore the fact that hardly any of our Western consonants or vowels really
sound like Tibetan consonants or vowels, so we finish up with a syllable that sounds something like CHEN.
Voila!
(08:16):
You may have thought this was chaotic, but that would be a mistake.
The rules are complicated, and to us appear unexpected, but they are largely consistent.
This has meant that it has been possible to define systems that allow this apparently convoluted Tibetan
spelling to be represented unambiguously using the ordinary English style of Latin script available on any
(08:43):
typewriter, not even any funny accents, dots, or other diacritical marks above or below the letters.
It can get more complicated, I don't suppose you're surprised by that, when it comes to mantras or to
Tibetan representations of Sanskrit writing, but for the most part, 25 lowercase Latin letters plus full
(09:04):
stops are all that we need.
If you want to look into this, you will find the best known system, the one still widely in use,
is known as the Wylie system.
The original Wylie system has been extended to make it possible to cover some of the other special cases I
just mentioned, but the basic system is still there.
(09:26):
So far, so good, but let's imagine you have gone to some Buddhist centre for the first time, and you
attempt to join in the chant, and you see things like the following.
I will spell it out and show it on the video version of this episode.
It is s-p-y-a-n, full stop, r-a-s, full stop,
(09:51):
g-z-i-g-s.
Actually, in many systems, a space is used rather than a full stop, but that's another more technical
point.
Now, are you going to try to say
s-p-y-a-n r-a-s g-z-i-g-s?
Of course not.
The rules defining the pronunciation that is derived from this writing are also quite convoluted and
(10:12):
confusing, but again, are by and large quite consistent.
A beginner would, of course, never guess that a halfway reasonable beginner's stab at pronouncing this
Tibetan name, written as, if I may say it, s-p-y-a-n r-a-s g-z-i-g-s,
would be Chenrezig.
(10:34):
So that is transliteration.
One set of letters in Tibetan converted to another set in a Latin script, and it's equally possible to go
back from that Latin script to the original Tibetan.
As I say, it is unambiguous.
Letters across to letters.
This system is very helpful for the purposes of study, but quite useless for liturgical texts for the
(11:00):
general population.
And now it should be clear that there is all the difference in the world between transliteration and
so-called phonetics.
Again, I say so-called for a couple of reasons.
One, as already mentioned, Tibetan sounds do not map one-to-one onto European sounds.
(11:21):
The second is that Tibetan, as spoken by people from Tibet, has a very wide range of dialects and a
wide, wide range of pronunciations when the same words are being used.
Thirdly, this is such a turbulent ocean of confusion that even experienced people will, with the best will
(11:43):
in the world, come up with quite markedly different versions of what they subjectively feel to be a
workable representation of the sounds.
So don't expect any consistency and don't be put off when you find that things are inconsistent.
That said, let's pretend that there are consistent and useful phonetics.
(12:09):
Phonetic representations are therefore normal and useful when people are going to sit down and do some
practice or recitation in, as it were, Tibetan, but they are almost useless for serious study.
There are so many compromises on the way from the Tibetan to this phonetic representation that it is
(12:30):
difficult, and in fact mostly impossible, to make the return journey and accurately reproduce the original
Tibetan.
You should now be able to understand why these recitation texts for Western use look like they often do.
You will see them written in sets of three lines.
(12:54):
The top line is actual Tibetan, which is conceptually straightforward, even if you don't know anything
about the language.
The second line is the phonetics, which we all try to chart together, and the third line is the
translation.
Of course, if the Western language concerned isn't English, the translation will also not be English, and
(13:17):
because European languages often don't call for the same sounds to be made in response to any given letter,
the phonetic line should really be adapted to the target Western language as well.
This is visually complicated and if you expect to go in, sit down with an unknown practice text and use
it effectively in this setting, you are likely to be disappointed.
(13:40):
There's just far too much to think about.
Generally speaking, you want to get hold of your own copy of the text that's being used.
You take it home, study it, get to know the meaning as clearly as you can, so that when you
are chanting in your group, you can read the phonetics and still know what is going on.
(14:01):
A miracle!
But, like most miracles, it does take some work to get there.
The most extreme case I've seen of this is a text intended in the first place for use in Hong
Kong, where many of the students were Chinese, but where Westerners were also present.
This text has no less than five lines.
(14:24):
Tibetan at the top, phonetics for English speakers next, phonetics for Chinese speakers below that.
The fourth line contains an English translation, with a translation into Chinese at the bottom.
The upshot is that there is only room for two of these five-fold line groups on any one page.
(14:46):
It's clumsy, it's inconvenient, but what can you do?
And all praise, in any case, to the people who put this text together in the first place.
It was a mighty work!
Well, so much for the mechanics, so to speak, of laying out the text.
What about the language itself?
(15:09):
When we are reading the phonetic line, or at any rate, the line containing our best shot at phonetics,
there is a serious risk that we start to simply parrot it, not paying any attention, drifting off, and not
having time to look at the translation at the same time either.
For that, the only cure I know is the one of studying the text closely at home and getting to
(15:35):
know just what's happening at what stage.
If we have done that properly, we can in fact read the phonetics and cast a bit of an eye
onto the translation at the same time, just to remind us of what is happening.
One of the reasons for sticking with Tibetan is that at many centres there are students from very different
(15:56):
backgrounds.
Not just Chinese and English, but German, French, Italian, Polish, Slovakian, Czech, Spanish, the list goes
on.
English is still indeed the most widely understood of these languages as a result of our colonial past, but
it is foolish and actually unfair to imagine that many of these non-English speaking students actually know
(16:22):
English well enough to appreciate this kind of text, even if they are capable of going into a cafe and
asking for two fried eggs and chips.
Tibetan, being so far from Western languages in its conceptual structure as well as in sound, the number of
ways that it is possible to translate these texts is enormous, and I'm not talking here about bad
(16:46):
translations either.
This of course leads to confusion.
I'm not going to say that it's essential, but I will say that it is hugely advantageous for us to
at least begin to relate to the Tibetan, so that we can come to recognise on the one hand the
idiosyncrasies of any particular translator, and on the other get closer to the intended meaning.
(17:12):
I do in fact have practice texts which only have the so-called phonetic line and translation.
In my view, this is a bad thing.
When translations into Western languages are, to be honest, often actually not so great, the phonetics do
not allow you, in general, to get back to the Tibetan, so you are actually stuck with every
(17:37):
misunderstanding and every weird vocabulary choice that the translator concerned has made.
At the heart of the problem here, we have the language itself.
Tibetan is a quasi-monosyllabic language.
I say “quasi” because a lot of use is made of two-syllable compounds to create a third word with
(18:03):
a related meaning.
Another trick widely used to achieve strict metre in Tibetan is to compress a pair of two-syllable words.
Let's call the syllables of the first word 1a and 1b, and those of the second word 2a and 2b.
(18:24):
If these two words are regularly used together, which I think is what we call a collocation, we'll often
find them abbreviated to just the first syllable of each, which is to say 1a and 2a.
A well-known example would be Dzogpa Chenpo, which is abbreviated more often than not to Dzogchen.
(18:49):
This problem is compounded by the fact that sometimes a grammatical syllable can be semi-optional, to be
understood from the context or, if not clear from the context, from the commentary to the text.
And we mustn't forget that the vocabulary itself is highly loaded, often having layers of connotation
(19:11):
accumulated over centuries.
The net effect of all this is that a skilled Tibetan author is able to write in a seven-syllable
or nine-syllable metre without much difficulty, compressing extensive meaning into lines that are very
suitable for chanting.
This is often done to a melody or, if not, it is still extremely easy for the chanting people to
(19:36):
keep together.
This kind of choral speaking is extremely difficult to echo in English.
In part, it's due to the issue of meaning.
Many words have to be explained.
Some translators attempt to do this within the translation itself, which can make the translation long,
clumsy and wordy.
(19:58):
I was going to offer one or two examples, but I felt that would be too critical of the translators
that I am accusing.
I do actually appreciate how much heavy work goes into this kind of translation.
A glossary is often a better way of dealing with these highly loaded words, and this information can be
(20:19):
included in footnotes or, perhaps better, endnotes that the practitioner can study in the soothing quiet of
their own reading room.
For instance, the translation “wisdom” is very widely used for the Tibetan yeshe.
Frankly, I don't think it's a good translation, but I don't want to suggest something better because its
(20:41):
meaning is highly context dependent.
We can just use it, kick it around as appropriate, and understand the meaning in any given context.
This, of course, is a standard problem in translating between any languages, but it is particularly
difficult here.
The problem is also one that must be faced by the translators of prose.
(21:03):
I will allow myself a bit of criticism of some of the work of Herbert von Günther, whose attempt to
clarify the depth of meaning in some of these texts resulted in an overlay of terms borrowed from German
existentialist philosophy.
Which of us has time to study that first before tackling Günther's translation of texts which, in their own
(21:29):
context and on their own terms, might be quite direct and straightforward?
I'm not one of them.
Returning to practice texts, we have the problem of metre.
As mentioned above, highly metric texts with lines of seven or nine syllables are completely natural in
Tibetan.
(21:51):
In fact, I did hear that the seven and the nine are metres used for religious texts, and an
eight-syllable metre is used in poetry, song and whatever, but I'm not 100% sure about that.
Choral speaking in English is extremely difficult.
It is natural in English for emphasis to come and go, to be optional, for the lengths of syllables to
(22:16):
vary, and for each individual to have their own way of doing this.
So, to get a good result rather than just a blur, a huge amount of practice under the tutelage of
a choir master - one with a big stick - is needed.
There is a method in which equal time and equal stress is given to every single syllable.
(22:37):
This does make it easy for people to stay synchronised, I'll grant that, but if you want my opinion, and
I suppose you might be slightly interested since you're listening still, the result is horrid.
I hope that any of my Catholic friends will forgive me for borrowing one of their prayers to illustrate
this point.
(23:00):
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our
death.
Amen.
And that was something with relatively simple words.
(23:22):
Try it with ideas like “pristine cognition”.
I suppose of course if you are used to it, you may have come to love it, in which case
that is fine.
It's hardly up to a commentator like me to tell you that it's wrong, but a lot of us do,
I'm sure, find it irritating in the extreme.
(23:44):
As a matter of coincidence, after I'd started to compose this episode, I came across some comments by
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.
He's a somewhat strange guy with somewhat strange habits, including a penchant for being controversial for
the sake of stirring things up, but he is often worth listening to in spite of that.
(24:05):
I only stumbled across these words somewhere on Facebook, and I imagine that they were written some time
ago, but he was talking about how rhyme and metre are important.
He described the kind of text that we have been considering with Tibetan phonetics and translation written
in parallel, and oh, ha ha ha, also by coincidence, I noticed that he refers to the phonetics that we
(24:32):
use as a “transliteration”.
Hopefully by now you all know that that was the wrong word.
We are one up!
Transliteration is for study, phonetics is what we try to chant.
Anyway, he points out that it is often the Westerners who like to see these ceremonies, even when performed
entirely by Westerners, being done in Tibetan.
(24:55):
That may be so, but we have just seen some of the reasons why that may in fact be the
best option at the moment.
Dzongsar Khyentse relates how he asked some highly respected lamas, none of whom were fluent in English, to
read aloud a phonetic version of a Shakespeare sonnet.
The penny then seems to have dropped about how difficult it is to handle a foreign language in this way.
(25:20):
We are left to wonder whether these people have really appreciated how profound the difficulties are.
It is simply not possible just to say, “Oh, we'll do a translation and use that.”
It's not that easy.
This puts me in mind of something I heard Tai Situpa say decades ago on one of the actually very
(25:43):
few occasions I attended any of his teachings.
A question was asked about precisely this matter of whether to use a translation or phonetics during formal
practices.
At the time, his opinion was that translations, even when done well, did not generally have the power and
(26:03):
blessing of the Tibetan words of the master responsible for the text.
Wait, he said, until an English-speaking person gets enlightened.
Then you will be able to have English texts full of blessing.
Well, I think, to be honest, he was putting it a bit crudely, over simply, but it is a point
(26:24):
that is still well worth considering.
And with that, we are now at the end of Double Dorje Podcast Series 2 Episode 7.
Please remember, of course, if you appreciate this episode or podcast, do like, follow, subscribe and tell
your friends.
And remember, there are as many ways to translate a text as there are translators.
(26:47):
That doesn't mean that most of them are wrong, but it does mean that we have to pay close attention
to the actual meaning.
Bye.
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