Customer Reviews

The Classical Tibetan Language (S U N Y Series in Buddhist Studies)

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This book is a work of considerable erudition and depth on the historical dimension of classical Tibetan. It may be of great interest to anyone who already has a sound knowledge of the classical Tibetan language, but any potential buyer should be aware of what it is not. It is NOT an introduction to the classical Tibetan language. It is NOT a Tibetan grammar. As a matter of fact, the only Tibetan characters you will find in this books are in tables reproducing classical texts. All the textual examples are transliterated into Latin characters, which I personally find very irritating. For anyone interested in learning classical Tibetan the most appropriate first buy is, in my opinion, Wilson's "Translating Buddhism from Tibetan".

It's not a typical grammar text. It won't give you prescriptive rules and exercises and it doesn't try to force Tibetan into procrustean bed of grammatical categories of European languages. Instead it aims at helping the reader to develop an intuition about the language and is very successful at that. Abundant examples with clear and thorough explanations lead you through all aspects of the Classical Tibetan from alphabet to poetry. This book will definitely help you crystallize your understanding of Tibetan grammar.