19 
1894.) F. B. Shawe —Tibetan Orthography and Pronunciation. 
leads us to conclude further, that the orthography was carefully and 
accurately fitted on to the pronunciation, that in short we have a 
practically phonetical transcr ipt of the language as spoken by T'on-mi 
Sam-bho-ta and his immediate successors. 
This does not preclude the possibility that the powers of certain 
letters, more especially d, b, g , have undergone some changes. It 
seems not quite improbable that these three letters were originally 
pronounced 9 , v, x> and even then we have no explanation for the fact 
that the juxtaposition of d and b, (S 1 ^) has the effect of mutually 
neutralizing the letters, so that the letter ’a is the result, i. e., a 
spiritus lenis h It is, however, not possible now to trace these changes. 
Those interested in the matter will find hints in Jaeschke’s essays. 
But Jaeschke himself did not venture to express any decided opinion 
on the materials he had to go upon, and it cann ot b e said that our 
knowl edge of Tibetan has been materia lly increase d since his tim e. 
A careful examination of the peculiarities of dialects spoken in secluded 
valleys of Nepal, Sikkim and Bhotan would no doubt produce more 
material. The dialects of Kharns and of the nomads of the plateaus 
in northern Tibet have also not been explored. 
In a mountainous country dialectical variations are as a rule numer¬ 
ous, and in Tibetan-speaking countries not only every valley, but even 
neighbouring villages in the same valley have slightly diverging pro¬ 
nunciations and expressions. These minutiae are most important for a 
study of the development of the dialects and of the phonetics of the 
Tibetan language. They are, however, only obtainable during the coarse 
of many years’ residence in the country. When Tibet is to open to 
Europeans for free travelling and permanent residence, we may hope to 
gain much fuller information, and our present views may possibly require 
to be totally changed. 
Ixo^tL'cciL 
<K, 
lU)u l&Hj HCt jl 
J J v -7/40*1 nu 
r 
jetU/fau 
l Jaeschke. Dictionary p. xv. This is not, however, always the case, for 
dban “power” is usually pronounced # loan *; and in the Ladak dialect 
dbuUpo “poor” is pronounced *bul-po,* certainly very rarely, but the 
word is not commonly used. 
