Tibetan Grammar & Vocab 2

Question 1

དུད་ཙི་

Answer 1

“du-tsi” - nectar/amrita

Question 2

སྙིང་བོ

Answer 2

“nying-bo” - heart-essence

Question 3

ཡན་ལག་

Answer 3

“yan-lag” - branch

Question 4

གི་

Answer 4

“ki” - of (connecting particle?)

Question 5

ལས་

Answer 5

“le” - from(?) - connecting particle

Question 6

དང་པོ་

Answer 6

“tang-po” - first

Question 7

རྩི་བ་

Answer 7

“tsi-wa” - root

(note བ (ba) pronounced ‘wa’ at end.)

Question 8

རྒྱུད་

Answer 8

“joot” - tantra

Question 9

བྱ་བ་

Answer 9

“cha-wa” - to do (verb)

Question 10

ཅེས་

Answer 10

“che” - to call/say (verb)

(ས silent as it commonly is at end of syllable)

Question 11

In a two-letter syllable with no vowel, which is the root syllabe?

Answer 11

always the 1st.

Question 12

A letter with a vowel is always the root syllable unless…

Answer 12

Unless it’s a phrase connector.

Question 13

Re root syllables: letter swith superscribed or subscribed letters….

Answer 13

Are always the root letter of the syllable.

Question 14

In a four letter syllable…

Answer 14

The 2nd letter is always the root letter.

Question 15

In a three letter syllable…

Answer 15

The middle letter is usually the root.

Question 16

In a three letter syllable, the middle letter is not the root when…

Answer 16

The last letter is a secondary suffice.

(ས or ད are the only secondary suffixes.)

When this is the case, the root letter can be either the first or second letter.

Question 17

ག ད བ མ འ

These letters are…

Answer 17

The five prefixes. They are never pronounced but sometimes change the sound of the root letter that follows them.

Question 18

གནམ་

Answer 18

“nahm” - Sky

(note silent prefix)

Question 19

གཉིས་

Answer 19

“nyî” - Two

(note silent prefix)

Question 20

དབྱར་ཁ་

Answer 20

“jyar-kha” - Summer

(note silent prefix)

Question 21

བདུན་ཕྲག་

Answer 21

“dün-thak” - Week

(note prefix, which negates asperation but not tone on དུ)

Question 22

མཚོ་

Answer 22

“ts’ho” - Lake

(note silent prefix)

Question 23

མངར་མོ་

Answer 23

“ngar-mo” - Sweet

(note silent prefix)

Question 24

འཁོར་ལོ་

Answer 24

“kor-lo” - Wheel

(note silent prefix)

Question 25

འབྲས་

Answer 25

“trë” - Rice

(note silent prefix and silent secondary suffix)

Question 26

ལྕགས་

Answer 26

“chag” - Iron

(note silent secondary suffix)

Question 27

སེམས་

Answer 27

“sêm” - Mind

(note silent secondary suffix and primary suffix modification of the vowel of root letter)

Question 28

As primary suffixes, ད and ས…

Answer 28

Are silent and modify the root letter’s vowel sound.

(They give the vowel an oomlat–ë for normal a sound, and ï, ü, ê, and ö for other vowels.)

Question 29

As primary suffixes, ན and ལ…

Answer 29

Modify the root letter’s vowel the same way ས and ད do, AND add their own sound (na [en] and la [el] respectively).

Question 30

Pronounce the following subscribed letters:

ཀྱ ཁྱ གྱ པྱ ཕྱ བྱ མྱ ཧྱ

Answer 30

ཀྱ kya ཁྱ khya གྱ gya པྱ chya ཕྱ chhya བྱ jya མྱ nya ཧྱ hya

All are pronouned as their regular consonant sound but with a ‘ya’ (ཡ)

Question 31

Pronounce the following subscribed letters:
ཀྲ ཁྲ གྲ ཏྲ ཐྲ དྲ ནྲ པྲ ཕྲ བྲ མྲ སྲ ཧྲ

Answer 31

ཀྲ tra ཁྲ thra གྲ dra ཏྲ tra ཐྲ thra དྲ dra ནྲ na
པྲ tra ཕྲ thra བྲ tra མྲ ma སྲ sa ཧྲ hra

Most (but not all) have melted ‘tra’ sound.

Question 32

Pronounce the following subscribed letters:

ཀླ གླ བླ རླ སླ ཟླ

Answer 32

ཀླ la གླ la བླ la རླ la སླ la ཟླ da

La (ལ) takes precidence and is pronounced except in the case of ཟླ.