IS 
F. B. Shawe —Tibetan Orthography and Pronunciation. [No. 1, 
than it at present has, even within the memory of living man. In a 
slightly different dialectical form it occurs again in a small district in 
Kunawur, being separated from Lahaul by large districts where Hind! 
or Tibetan dialects are spoken. This is the so-called Tibarskad, v. Cun¬ 
ningham, Ladak,£>. 397 ff, As regards grammatical construction and the 
majority of vocables (especially such primitive words and ideas, which 
every language must possess previous to the development of civilisation) 
it certainly does not belong to the Tibetan family. But it has accepted 
a large number of Tibetan words ; and whilst part of these has the 
original pronunciation corresponding to the old orthography, another 
part has the now usual pronunciation. The dialect of Tibetan (now) 
spoken in Lahaul by the same persons (as those who speak Bunan) 
is more nearly related by far to the dialects of the surrounding districts and 
to that of central Tibet than the first class of Tibetan words which have 
found their way into Bunan. These latter point to a much earlier 
period of the language. In speaking Tibetan the Laliauli uses, e. g ., 
* cug-po * for “ rich; ” if speaking Bunan he says *p , yug-po* without 
~\r- 
knowing that both are one and the same (Tibetan) word g*T *4* p’yug-po.” 
Of further examples given by Jaeschhe the following are the most 
striking. In speaking Bunan the Laliauli says: * kres * “ hunger ” 
"N. 
(Tibetan H5|M' bhres , usually pronounced * tes *), and * log-him * 
“ to read” (Tibetan 31*1’*4’ hlog-pa, usually pronounced *loh-pa *) ; 
he is, however, unaware that these Bunani words are borrowed from 
"V" CN 
Tibetan, and therefore when speaking Tibetan he uses Itogs-gri 
(pronounced * tog-ri*) for “hunger” and *l<MQ!f r «8*sr ysil-ces (pronounced 
* sil-de*) for “to read.” In speaking Bunan he says * gram-pa* 
“cheek” (Tibetan: QS13TS4’ Q gram-pa ), * gyogs-pa* “quick” (Tibetan: 
mgyogs-pa ), * p'yag-p'ul-hum* “to adore” (Tibetan: 
gErsjQTZF p’yag-p’ul-ba) ; in speaking Tibetan he says: * dam-pa, 
gyoh-pa , d’aJc-p’ul-de.* 
Against all this mass of evidence tending to prove that Tibetan 
orthography was intended to represent the spoken word, we have really, 
as far as I know, only two arguments, firstly, some peculiarities in 
the transcription of Sanscrit words, and secondly, that the dialect 
especially of U-Tsang, has lost all traces of this original pronunciation. 
This fact is certainly very striking, and is probably almost, if not quite, 
j without a parallel. Still, considering all that must be said on the other 
| side, it would seem that we must really accept the present orthography 
as a fairly correct representation of Tibetan pronunciation of the 7th 
or 8th century A. D. Indeed the great variety of prefixes, etc., employed 
