Re: PhD Programs in Buddhist Studies in Asia
Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2013 7:59 am
Thanks again everyone for the suggestions.
The necessity of oral Tibetan for Tibetan translation and scholarship, that's a huge subject, and I can direct to some links, but my feeling is that yes, it is ideal as a scholar, and pretty much necessary as a translator. A lot of translators who don't speak Tibetan are going to be offended by that, but it's really the truth. And most Tibetan scholars and lamas would agree. There are several reasons. The main one is that if you don't understand something in a text, then how are you going to ask questions about it? By just guessing? I think that's often what usually happens -- translators taking their best guesses. They aren't able to ask a Tibetan scholar about their questions or doubts. So that's the main reason. A lot of English translations are full of mistakes because the translators don't know how to speak Tibetan well enough -- this is a fact. In fact probably the majority of translators in the West need to take 1-3 years of Tibetan classes before they do anything else, in my opinion. Other reasons are that literary Tibetan is very similar to spoken Tibetan, a lot more similar than most people think. It's like the similarity between Middle English/Shakespeare and Modern English. It's mostly mutually comprehensible to someone who knows both well, and the grammar is very similar. So, if you don't know how to speak the language, then how are you going to know how to put the Tibetan into an English register that makes sense and sound good? Of course you can understand the literary grammar well enough, but without knowing how that relates to spoken Tibetan -- and how literary would be "translated" into spoken Tibetan -- you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle. There are other reasons but I'll leave you with those, which if you think about well should be convincing.
As for Classical Chinese, I don't know if what you say is accurate or not, but I would imagine that knowing modern Chinese would help bundles and that many people would say that it's fairly necessary. I'm talking about translation or serious scholarship, not just reading something for fun or for one's practice -- which is fine even in the case of Tibetan if you don't know the spoken language.
Linguistically yes, unless that Mongolian speaks Tibetan.In a similar sense, I wonder with Tibetan if oral skills are ultimately so important. What if you're from Mongolia, but read Tibetan fluently? Are you any less of a scholar than Lhasa-Tibetan speakers reading the same classical texts?
The necessity of oral Tibetan for Tibetan translation and scholarship, that's a huge subject, and I can direct to some links, but my feeling is that yes, it is ideal as a scholar, and pretty much necessary as a translator. A lot of translators who don't speak Tibetan are going to be offended by that, but it's really the truth. And most Tibetan scholars and lamas would agree. There are several reasons. The main one is that if you don't understand something in a text, then how are you going to ask questions about it? By just guessing? I think that's often what usually happens -- translators taking their best guesses. They aren't able to ask a Tibetan scholar about their questions or doubts. So that's the main reason. A lot of English translations are full of mistakes because the translators don't know how to speak Tibetan well enough -- this is a fact. In fact probably the majority of translators in the West need to take 1-3 years of Tibetan classes before they do anything else, in my opinion. Other reasons are that literary Tibetan is very similar to spoken Tibetan, a lot more similar than most people think. It's like the similarity between Middle English/Shakespeare and Modern English. It's mostly mutually comprehensible to someone who knows both well, and the grammar is very similar. So, if you don't know how to speak the language, then how are you going to know how to put the Tibetan into an English register that makes sense and sound good? Of course you can understand the literary grammar well enough, but without knowing how that relates to spoken Tibetan -- and how literary would be "translated" into spoken Tibetan -- you are missing a huge piece of the puzzle. There are other reasons but I'll leave you with those, which if you think about well should be convincing.
As for Classical Chinese, I don't know if what you say is accurate or not, but I would imagine that knowing modern Chinese would help bundles and that many people would say that it's fairly necessary. I'm talking about translation or serious scholarship, not just reading something for fun or for one's practice -- which is fine even in the case of Tibetan if you don't know the spoken language.