Page 177 - Tibetan Thangka Painting Methodsand Mat, Jackson

Glossary

Thi~. glossary was compiled for the benefit of those who Literary Approximate Defmition
wish to study thangka painting with an artist from Tibet, Spelling pronunciation
but who have never learned any Tibetan. In the text of
ba bla pha bla orpiment yellow
the book all the terms have been cited in their literary
bar bris phar tree intermediate sketch
Tibetan forms, and these are listed alphabetically in the
first column below. To the uninitiated these literary bead pir jay bir outlining brush
spellings appear to be veritable tongue-twisters. But bod ljang phD jang Tibetan green
fortunately their modern colloquial pronunciations are (malachite)
much easier. bod mthing pho thing Tibetan blue (azurite)
In the middle column below we have given an
'bol gdan boo den padded cushion
approximate pronunciation for each of these terms.
The phonetic system we have used is non-technical bris thang tree thang painted thangka
and in some ways oversimplified. It should, however, 'bru mdangs dru dang granular shading
be enough for most students since they will in any btsag dza(k) red ochre
case have to ascertain how each word is pronounced
btso rna dzo ina realgar orange
in the dialect of their own teacher. (The pronunciations
vary considerably from' dialect to dialect). btsod dZQ madder
The first important thing to note about our byug mdangs chuCk) dang "spread-on shading",
phonetic system is that the vowels indicate approx- shading applied
imately the following sound values: through a smooth
transition
a - as in father byug pir chuCk) bir brush used for apply-
ing main coats of
i-as in machine, but short
colour
u - as in tube
cha chen cha chen the larger main unit
e - as in bed
of measure, made up
0- as in go
of twelve smaller units
ay - as in say, but short (cha chung or sor)
ee - as in see cha chung cha chung the smaller main unit
o- as in the French peu of measure, also called
ii - as in the French due sor
chang chang home-brewed beer
Regarding the consonants, the letter g is always
char mdangs char dang "rain shading", an
"hard" as in gate. Combined with other consonants, h
unusual type of sky
indicates aspiration except in the combination sh, which shading applied with
is pronounced as in shell. Thus the combinations ph and vertical strokes
th are pronounced as in pot and top. Aspirated tsh has chos gos cho kho upper robe of a fully
here been written as ts (as in Patsy) to avoid confusion ordained monk
with sh. As an initial, r is pronounced with some
chu pir chu bir "water brush", a
friction. brush loaded with
One source of trouble for beginners is that Tibetan water used for dilu-
has a series of unvoiced, unaspirated consonants that ting
appear in an initial position, something unknown in chu'i rtsa chiiU dza rhubarb roots
Engbsh. Here the unvoiced and unaspirated Tibetan
chu ris chu ree drawings of water,
syllables ka, ca, ta, pa, and tsa have been indicated by especially of waves
the voiced unaspirated equivalents: ga, ja, da, ba and
cog la rna joCk) la rna cinnabar
dza. Also ng as an initial (the same sound as in singing),
and lh do not occur in English. Another major omission da chu tha chu synthetic cinnabar
in our system is the absence of any indication of tones. 'dam dam "gesso"
Once again, we encourage the student to follow his or
'dam khri dam tri gesso knife
her own ear in learning the pronunciation of the teacher.
dar ba da ra buttermilk
Those who invest a little extra time at the beginning
studying Tibetan will be amply repaid later. dar mtshur thar tsur alum

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