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Translating Buddhism from Tibetan: An Introduction to the Tibetan Literary Language and the Translation of Buddhist Texts from Tibetan Hardcover – January 1, 1992

by Joe B. Wilson (Author)

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This complete textbook on classical Tibetan is suitable for beginning or intermediate students. It begins with rules for reading writing and pronouncing Tibetan, gradually carrying the reader through the patterns seen in the formation of words and into the repeating patterns of Tibetan phrases, clauses, and sentences. Students with prior experience will find the seven appendices—which review the rules of pronunciation grammar and syntax—provide an indispensable reference. It balances traditional Tibetan grammatical and syntactic analysis with a use of terminology that reflects English preconceptions about sentence structure. Based on the system developed by Jeffrey Hopkins at the Unversity of Virginia, this book presents in lessons with drills and reading exercises a practical introduction to Tibetan grammar syntax and technical vocabulary used in Buddhist works on philosophy and meditation. An extremely well designed learning system, it serves as an introduction to reading and translating and to Buddhist philosophy and meditation. Through easily memorizable paradigms the student comes to recognize and understand the recurrent patterns of the Tibetan language. Each chapter contains a vocabulary full of helpful Buddhist terms.

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Editorial Reviews

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"What an impressive production! It is a superb piece of work." -- Richard Hayes, Dept. of Religious Studies, McGill University

Language Notes

Text: English, Tibetan

From the Back Cover

This complete textbook on classical Tibetan is suitable for beginning or intermediate students. It begins with rules for reading, writing, and pronouncing Tibetan, gradually carrying the reader through the patterns seen in the formation of words, and into the repeating patterns of Tibetan phrases, clauses, and sentences. Students with prior experience will find the seven appendices--which review the rules of pronunciation, grammar and syntax--provide an indispensable reference. It balances traditional Tibetan grammatical and syntactic analysis with a use of terminology that reflects English preconceptions about sentence structure. Based on the system developed by Jeffrey Hopkins at the Unversity of Virginia, this book presents in lessons, with drills and reading exercises, a practical introduction to Tibetan grammar, syntax and technical vocabulary used in Buddhist works on philosophy and meditation. An extremely well designed learning system, it serves as an introduction to reading and translating and to Buddhist philosophy and meditation. Through easily memorizable paradigms, the student comes to recognize and understand the recurrent patterns of the Tibetan language. Each chapter contains a vocabulary full of helpful Buddhist terms.

"What an impressive production! It is a superb piece of work."--Richard Hayes, Dept. of Religious Studies, McGill University

About the Author

Joe B. Wilson is an associate professor in the Philosophy and Religion department at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He is the author of Translating Buddhism from Tibetan. Wilson holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD from the University of Virginia. His areas of expertise are Asian religions, Buddhist studies, and Tibetan and Himalayan religions.

Hardcover: 816 pages
Publisher: Snow Lion; 1st edition (January 1, 1992)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0937938343
ISBN-13: 978-0937938348
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 1.9 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 12 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,063,450 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #49 in Indian Literary Criticism
- #357 in Translation Reference
- #2448 in Foreign Language Instruction (Books)

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Eric

Excellent text: Translating Buddhism from Tibetan. & Audio files for this textbook are again available separately: as mp3 files!

Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is indeed the best textbook on literary Tibetan - especially for students who wish to learn to read Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan . Other 5 star reviews have already provided very useful comments regarding this text, so I will just add two notes:
(1) There used to be an audio cassette tape, now unavailable, that was made for this book. Using the tape, the student could HEAR much of the text, in what is essentially Central Tibetan dialect. Shambhala publications, which now publishes this textbook, is offering without charge, mp3 files of the original audio tape for this textbook. You can obtain the two mp3 files and a descriptive index (with timestamps) of the files, by going to Shambhala publications, and searching inside their website for this title.
(2) If you get Translating Buddhism from Tibetan, also get the textbook/workbook "How to Read Classical Tibetan" by Craig Preston, who was a student of Joe Wilson and who uses Wilson's method and approach to learning Tibetan. Start with his (CP's) volume 1 -- as it spoon-feeds the student all the details needed to learn how to work through a translation of a Buddhist text (especially of that genre). It is INVALUABLE as a tool to help the student efficiently practice how to actually carry out a translation. After a student has developed some facility in undertaking a translation, based on having used these two books, there is another book to get, as well: A Tibetan Verb Lexicon by Paul Hackett (another student of Joe Wilson). This book provides translation and examples of a great number of verbs, and includes the category (I through VIII) of each verb, according to Wilson's classification scheme.
... and ENJOY YOUR STUDIES ! You have here an excellent and fairly complete set of materials to help you learn literary Tibetan.

7 people found this helpful

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Constance M

Great entry-level text for practitioner-scholars

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I am presently using Wilson's book as the primary textbook for an intensive Tibetan language course and am about 1/3 through the course. Having a skilled teacher to explain the grammar, syntax, orthography and doctrinal elements, or to expand upon Wilson's explanations of them is a must. (That's no criticism of Wilson's text, just a fact of language acquisition.) Wilson's text is well structured and detailed, and his explanations are quite lucid and accessible. There are audio files available to help with pronunciation recorded by a native Tibetan speaker. For an American English speaker not used to retroflex Ds and Rs, the recordings are indispensable.

The text is intended for those who seek to become skilled translators of literary Tibetan Buddhist texts and commentaries. It is not for those seeking conversational Tibetan skills.

Paul Hackett's "Tibetan Verb Lexicon" is intended (by Hackett) as a companion to Wilson. Hackett complements Wilson well.

Two weeks into my course, I am making good progress. Wilson's text is a large part of my success thus far.

7 people found this helpful

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Mrs. Bluestocking

Extremely helpful for older students

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2010

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book has been a superb aid in learning Tibetan for me. I started learning Tibetan last year at age 48 with Lama David Curtis and Joe Wilson's book (especially the "Tenglish") has been a wonderful support. It really works for me.

3 people found this helpful

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craigm

Either you like Joe Wilson's approach or you don't

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Either you like Joe Wilson's approach or you don't. Focussing on the 'dots' instead of the 'particles' is one approach, but there are arguments for and against it.

However, if you decide to go with that approach then the book is consistent. And well-structured.

One person found this helpful

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Edwin R. Larson

very confusing or major typos

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Beware that Wilson uses Lhasa pronunciation rather than the more widespread Wylie translation. This effects k,g,ng,ny,c,b,p,sh,and s. Since I don't know if the Tibetans are speaking Lhasa it would be much easier to learn one at a time.

One person found this helpful

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Kieran Fox

Unbalanced but necessary - there simply aren't any other options

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2010

Format: Hardcover

I have very mixed feelings about this book, but feel compelled to give it 4 stars nonetheless. Why? Because what you can get here, you simply can't get anywhere else. The only other decent introduction to Classical Tibetan that exists (so far as I know) is that by Stephen Hodge, and it is much smaller and will simply not give you the depth of grammatical knowledge of vocabulary that this book can. Some reviewers have complained about the "Tenglish" approach, but I can't really think of any other way to present Tibetan grammar in a comprehensible way. Goldstein does the same thing, though less explicitly, in his "Essentials of Modern Literary Tibetan" (in all the transliterations) and it works for me.

Another reviewer commented that the book is overly pedantic in its detailed explanations and grammatical quibbling - well, what does one expect from a 700-page tome on archaic (more or less) philosophical grammar and vocabulary? You didn't think Classical Tibetan was going to be a walk in the park did you? In any case you can simply skip over the details when Wilson gets a little too in depth.

The major problem with this book as I see it is that it is fairly unbalanced. Meaning, in the first 7 chapters or so there are essentially no sentence/vocabulary exercises, leaving you to somehow (by rote, was my method) memorize some 150-200 terms that are introduced (and not easy ones - 'non-associated compositional factors' comes up, e.g.). This improves though, with quite a few exercises in the later chapters. This added context and required practice/effort really helps you to memorize the vocab and understand the grammar better. Presumably these were left out of early chapters so as not to discourage the student or to make it easier, but instead it just means you have lots to memorize without much contextual help - a big mistake, in my opinion.

Which leaves me at the final point, which is that this is a necessary book, I think, for anyone interested in Classical Tibetan. The field is simply too small. The only other 'intro' level books really are Craig Preston's "How to Read Classical Tibetan" series (two volumes so far, hopefully more to come), but these really aren't introductions. They presuppose thorough knowledge of how to read Tibetan and an understanding of its grammar, as well a fair vocabulary. He was also a student of Wilson's, so all his terminology and explanations etc. follow Wilson's style and terms.

In short: yes there are problems, sometimes it is a bore and overly pedantic, there are not nearly enough exercises for a self-learned... but you need this book if you want to learn Classical Tibetan. So get it and wade through it - it is worth it.

13 people found this helpful

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Dr Konrad Schneckenhauer

Useful, despite many dreadful faults and annoyances

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 29, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This enormous textbook (808 pages, 4.7cm thick) sets out with a noble goal: to teach you how to read Tibetan Buddhist texts in Tibetan.

Unfortunately the book has several maddening faults.

- Explanations are presented piecemeal, in often garbled and disorganised form. Wilson seems to be one of those people who cannot organise their thoughts.

- In addition to being disorganised, the explanations are maddeningly verbose. It is very hard to extract the essential information from all this chatter. The information is all there, but you have to work hard to find it. It would be possible to revise and restructure this book to make it a quarter of its present length, and it would be a far superior product.

- Wilson goes far too deeply into rhetoric, logic and Buddhist doctrinal vocabulary, at far too early a stage. This means that the beginner is very soon burdened with specialised doctrinal concepts and enormous vocabulary lists of specialised terms, which may not be what you want when you are only just managing to grasp the complexities of the language.

- There are many errors and misprints throughout the book. In particular, the transliteration of the words in each lesson's vocabulary lists have frequent errors.

- The vocabulary lists for each lesson appear to have been constructed almost at random. They do not contain all the words presented during the course of the lesson, and they contain many words never mentioned in the lesson.

- Some words are not listed in any vocabulary list nor even in the glossary of words at the back of the book.

- Although there are drills giving specimen sentences illustrating what has been taught in the current lesson, they are rather skimpy. So there is not enough practice material. This makes it hard to get accustomed to the grammar and structures being taught.

- Wilson makes the grammar seem exceptionally cumbersome by trying to force it into the mould of Sanskrit grammar. This is entirely inappropriate, and causes needless distortions and complexities. Tibetan and Sanskrit are quite different languages, and Tibetan - like any language - should be described on its own terms. This is a major fault with the book, because it puts a complex filter between the learner and what is, really, a far simpler language than Wilson would have you believe.

I have pondered at length how many stars to award this book. On the one hand, it does have dreadful faults. On the other hand, if you are prepared to work hard, you can learn Classical Tibetan from this book, and it is probably the most thorough English-language textbook available. So my verdict is 2½ stars, and because Amazon doesn't allow half stars, I've rounded that up to 3 stars, because the book is - even with all the annoyances it thrusts at you - very thorough and detailed.

If you are familiar with German, then I would recommend Christine Sommerschuh's 'Einführung in die tibetische Schriftsprache', which takes a much more pragmatic approach. If you buy her book, you can get supplementary materials such as glossary and the key to the exercises from the associated website. The one disadvantage of her book, as compared with Wilson's, is that she doesn't transliterate all new words as they appear, which makes hard work for the complete beginner. Even with this, my one gripe, she has produced a five-star book.

3 people found this helpful

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Anthony P

Tremendous, flawed accomplishment that could be easily rectified

Reviewed in Canada on September 13, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book needs to be read in streams. Each chapter deals with many levels of meaning, and I truly think that after chapter 8 no chapter can be read in its entirety by a novice although the material is tremendous. So, someone needs to organise different syllabi based on the level of the reader.

Otherwise, I really like this book.

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OTTO

Excelente

Reviewed in Brazil on November 23, 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Se você quer aprender a linguagem tibetana, especialmente se com fins de ler os textos budistas vajrayana originais ou textos budistas vertidos em tibetano, eis um livro que quando começamos a manusear, ler e estudar te convence de que sim... vou aprender tibetano! Excelente!

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Darrick Okkelberg

Great text

Reviewed in India on December 16, 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Great text for laying down a solid foundation in Tibetan studies.

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pigletyjy

good item

Reviewed in Canada on October 24, 2012

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I bought it as a textbook to study Tibetan. It is good item and in very good condition, brandly new, but I have waited a little bit long....anyway, thank you

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