tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post2678623326928748951..comments2024-03-22T14:47:42.501+02:00Comments on Tibeto-logic: Turkish & Mongolian LoanwordsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-45372177167733343972019-04-04T11:57:27.228+03:002019-04-04T11:57:27.228+03:00Hi Dirk, Well, you tell us. Do you think the vow...Hi Dirk, Well, you tell us. Do you think the vowel difference between the Mongolian and Tibetan words could be a result of Mongolian or Turkic vowel harmony? As I understand the phenomenon shifts between front and back vowels do take place. But if it's a single-syllable word, there is no other verb for it to harmonize with, and no reason for the shift to take place. I'm not terribly clear on those points, or if it makes sense to speculate along those lines. But yes, I think the Mongolian ger (in Russian yurt) may really connect to Tibetan gur. We'll let the historical linguists hammer out the details. As always, thanks for writing and hope to hear more from you.<br /><br />Yours<br />rTenDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-25346264194777453702019-03-26T17:00:47.864+02:002019-03-26T17:00:47.864+02:00how about:
yurt / ger / གུར་ ? how about: <br /><br />yurt / ger / གུར་ ? Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06554999589001296764noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-86620940120893446802016-10-01T22:19:18.392+03:002016-10-01T22:19:18.392+03:00Here are the words that I found since I have a Tib...Here are the words that I found since I have a Tibetan Family<br />Tibetan : Kang - Snow <br />Turkish : Kar - Snow<br />Tibetan : Chu - Water<br />Turkish : Su - Water<br />Tibetan : Ninni - Go To Sleep<br />Turkish : Ninni - To Sleep<br />Tibetan : Katsooe - How Much<br />Turkish : Katcha - How Much<br />Tibetan : Telek - Wish<br />Turkish : Dilek - Wish<br />Tibetan : Tashe : Good<br />Turkish : Yahshe : good<br />Tibetan : Ama - Mother<br />Turkish : Ana - Mother<br />Tibetan : Tsoung - Onion<br />Turkish : Tsogan - Onion<br />Tibetan : Chockh - Many<br />Turkish : Chockh - Many<br />Turchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01248999130868470501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-30273383049360500972015-12-24T10:48:24.992+02:002015-12-24T10:48:24.992+02:00Larry Clark's article "The Turkic and Mon...Larry Clark's article "The Turkic and Mongol Words in William of Rubruck's Journey," Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 93, no. 2 (Apr 1973), pp. 181-189, has a little discussion about bogta and related terms. Bogta was borrowed into Tibetan as 'bog-to, and used for special hats worn by some of the lesser officials of the Lhasa government (an instance of a word being borrowed along with the object it denotes).Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-55235794908259368202015-04-28T15:05:10.703+03:002015-04-28T15:05:10.703+03:00Dear Anon.,
I liked the story, which rings like tr...<br /><br />Dear Anon.,<br />I liked the story, which rings like truth even if it is meant to be a joke (truth = joke? That works for me).<br />I'm not so sure, though, that the hemp theory holds water. The only discussion I know about is G. Kara's in his essay "A Sbra-nag Glossary in Grum-Grzimajlo's Travel," glossary no. 218 on p. 354. He has it coming to Tibetan via Amdo area, and indirectly coming there from China via Mongolia. I don't get any sense of the time frame, but it may have happened in recent history. Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the story. <br />Yours,<br /> D. <br /><br />PS: One problem with investigating this word is that when and if you try to word-check for it in Tibetan-languages databases you get a zillion hits on the gang-zag that means 'person.'<br /><br />PPS: I forgot to say, Kara's essay was published in Louis Ligeti, ed., Tibetan and Buddhist Studies: Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Alexander Csoma de Koros, Munshiram Manoharlal (Delhi 2000, reprint of 1984 ed.), vol. 1, pp. 321-362.<br />Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-86448406280265344512015-04-28T11:49:21.374+03:002015-04-28T11:49:21.374+03:00Hi there,
as for the word gang zag as pipe, a Lam...Hi there,<br /><br />as for the word gang zag as pipe, a Lama from Ladakh once told me the following story: Once a trader from Baltistan came to Ladakh for business and came across two monks who were were heatedly debating about "gang zag". On his way back they were still fighting, so he approached them and gave each of them a pipe (for smoking), saying "now you each have one gang zag, don't quarrel anymore!" <br />The story was to show the practicality/straightforwardness of Baltistan people. <br />I assume actually that the word is from Indic gañjā; hemp. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-82797207168090304502015-04-03T11:57:08.743+03:002015-04-03T11:57:08.743+03:00I was reconsidering if it might not be possible, a...I was reconsidering if it might not be possible, as Anon. suggested in his comment, that Tibetan bde-legs (in the common greeting Tashi delek!) might be a disguised (or 'Tibetanizing') borrowing from a Turkic language. I'm still thinking about it. Something about it feels right (but what to do with Mvy. 2747?).Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-59490984655223823022015-04-03T11:08:03.058+03:002015-04-03T11:08:03.058+03:00Dear Dorji, Hope you had a pleasant trip. You'...Dear Dorji, Hope you had a pleasant trip. You're right, I just checked and found Mvy. no. 4943, lcags-kyi tho-lum, "tho-lum of iron," with the tho-lum corresponding to Sanskrit guḍa. Checking the Vienna site there are quite a few occurrences (many more with the spelling thu-lum than tho-lum) in very many types of scriptures and treatises, so no doubt you're right, it had to have been an old borrowing, likely going back to at least the early 9th century. I should move it out of the Mongolian loanwords and into the Turkic list, therefore. I'd have to study all the examples closely to be sure, but by far the most common usage is in phrases about how painful and undesirable it would be to swallow an iron thu-lum that is blazing hot, and this suffering often appears to be associated with a specific hell. (It occurs in the Mvy. in a section on hell terminology.) It's remarkable, for sure, but I don't think we ought to be too amazed to find such an early borrowing from Turkic tongues. There are some examples in the Dunhuang documents, after all, like the cog and yol I mentioned. But even accepting it as an early loanword, it isn't necessarily the case that Tibetans in those times understood it in the same way as the Turks. I mean, it doesn't seem likely that anything so huge as an animal-skin ingot could reasonably be introduced into something so small as the human digestive system! Maybe translating as cannonball or something of the same shape only smaller would make more sense here, do you think?<br />Yours,<br />DDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-88717151914968468062015-04-03T09:53:38.181+03:002015-04-03T09:53:38.181+03:00Dear Dan, very interesting stuff. Just two tiny p...Dear Dan, very interesting stuff. Just two tiny points: (a) If thu lum is a loanword, it must have been lent rather early. We encounter words such a lcags kyi thu lum in Indian works in Tibetan translation, i.e. as a Tibetan translation of Sanskrit ayoguḍa. (b) In my mother tongue, something spherical is called tu lum pi = thu lum pi. This seems to be somehow related with thu lum. Dorji Dorji Wangchuk (Kuliśeśvara)https://www.blogger.com/profile/02042613761261634658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-26252995868821434912015-02-04T17:00:23.060+02:002015-02-04T17:00:23.060+02:00Dear Anon, Thanks for writing! Of all these thing...Dear Anon, Thanks for writing! Of all these things you mention the one that interests me the most is Tibetan tham-ka, ordinarily with the meaning of 'seal' (as in a sealed letter or other document). I'm fairly sure this entered Tibetan during the Mongol period, although I should look into this further and try and figure if this is really the case. It would go together with the borrowing 'jam, for the postal system the Mongols introduced throughout their Eurasian empire. But the original Mongolian meaning of tamga is, I believe, those curious clan symbols you can still see in use in Mongolia today. I think I have a photo I took of a monument with these symbols all over it. Let me go try and find it.<br />Thanks for writing.<br />Yours,<br />DDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-77838258778173178182015-02-04T01:04:20.706+02:002015-02-04T01:04:20.706+02:00Hello, I d like to have some input. Originally Tur...Hello, I d like to have some input. Originally Turkish And Marrying A Very Fine Lady From Tibet We found out some similar words used in both cultures<br /><br />Chu - Su - Water<br />Chok-ii (A Ladys Name Usually)- Chock Iyi - Very Good<br />Tilek - Dilek - Good Wish<br />Tamgha - Damga - Stamp<br />Katshoo - Katcha - How Much?<br />Tsong - Sogan - Onion<br />ta- at- horse<br />chat- chati- roof<br /><br />and further south from tibet, especially in india, thanks to Urdu language, much more similar words appear..<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-87794748836943151052015-01-06T23:57:04.186+02:002015-01-06T23:57:04.186+02:00Dear Sm,
A good point. Let's think about it.
...Dear Sm,<br />A good point. Let's think about it.<br />Another relevant question to ask is if the word was used much if at all in Tibetan. My impression is that it was of local use, and probably in Ladakh, which would support your idea that it may have come into Tibetan via India. I just did a search of TBRC's etext repository, and didn't come up with a single real example of its use. Of course, we have to keep in mind that not every kind of Tibetan text is necessarily well represented there, but still, it makes you wonder... My only testimony for its existence in Tibetan is in Francke's "Antiquities of Indian Tibet," vol. 2, p. 146, and he says it was borrowed from Urdu, along with quite a few other borrowings that can be found in the Royal History of Ladakh (ལ་དྭགས་རྒྱལ་རབས་). So yes, as far as this word is concerned, you're completely right. It very probably did not go directly from Mongolian to Tibetan and likely went through Persian and Urdu. And in Tibet it was of limited use if it was used at all. This is not the case with most of the other words in the list, however! Thanks for writing and let me know what you think/<br />Yours,<br />DDanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10453904366382251766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32671574.post-9395861292459944682015-01-06T14:36:35.708+02:002015-01-06T14:36:35.708+02:00Dear Dan,
Thank you for this very interesting post...Dear Dan,<br />Thank you for this very interesting post. As soon as I read the word no-kar my interest was peeked as this word is commonly used in Hindi (naukar) (and in Persian too). My first thought, I must confess, is that it can't be entirely right that it's Mongolian derived. A quick google search did the trick, though, and it turns out that I should not have doubted you. However, Dirk Kolff informs us on the Mongolian origins of this words in his Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan(2002, p. 196): "Naukar was originally a Mongolian word meaning retainer, comrade, a soldier in the service of a Mongolian clan he did not belong to by birth, a free warrior. In the latter sense it was still used in Turkish in nineteenth-century Khiva and Bokhara. In Persian it was used at least since the thirteenth century." It appears that only later on in the Indian subcontinent the word started to mean "servant". So, if indeed the Tibetan word no-kar has the sense of "servant", then while the origin of the word is no doubt Mongolian, it seems perhaps more likely that the word made its way into the Tibetan language via the subcontinent and not via the Mongolian tribes. What do you think about this?<br /><br />sMad yul maAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com