About translations and transliterations

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penalvad_uba
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About translations and transliterations

Post by penalvad_uba »

Why transliterations, from same Mantras, differs. There are specific methods being applied or it is just the knowledge amd wisdom of the translator ?

E.G. dudjom tersar transliterations from vajrayana.org and from lotsawahouse differs.

What you thing is better to easy the learning of the Mantra ?
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Ayu
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by Ayu »

It often differs from teacher to teacher.
Therefore the best method is to ask the teacher you want to follow and then simply don't bother about any other variations.
Norwegian
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by Norwegian »

Ayu wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:27 pm It often differs from teacher to teacher.
Therefore the best method is to ask the teacher you want to follow and then simply don't bother about any other variations.
Indeed. The best method is to ask your teacher. That is the source you should care about.
karmanyingpo
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by karmanyingpo »

penalvad_uba wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:07 pm Why transliterations, from same Mantras, differs. There are specific methods being applied or it is just the knowledge amd wisdom of the translator ?

E.G. dudjom tersar transliterations from vajrayana.org and from lotsawahouse differs.

What you thing is better to easy the learning of the Mantra ?
It is true that you should follow how your teacher PRONOUNCES mantra but sometimes different transliterations exist for the same pronunciation

There is no single universal standard way to transcribe or transliterate Tibetan other than Wylie which represents the written form accurately letter by letter even if this means it is not fully transparent to people without Tibetan knowledge how to pronounce the written form

So for example even if two people pronounce "HUNG" the same way some may write "HUM" others "HUNG" The first one is mimicking ṃ in Sanskrit transliteration and the second is representing the "ng" sound Tibetans usually make with the "ng" letter combo. So really in this case how you write it, is more a matter of preference. Another example is the word "teyatha" it can be written many ways: tadyatha, tayatha, tayata, teyata, etc. Some of these DO represent different pronunciations (E vowel sound versus A and this can correlate with regional dialect in Tibet) but writing the second "t" sound as TH or T is personal preference. Really it should be pronounced as an aspirated sound (similar to English T but closer to teeth) regardless of how you transcribe in any case I don't think there is any dialect or lineage that ever uses an unaspirated T (similar to Spanish T) there. But that is getting very precise and many teachers may not care about such level of precision..

All that to illustrate, even when the sound is the same, two people may represent the word using different letters. Sometimes the different letters correlate to different region or lineage variations but sometimes they don't
Important thing is to follow the teacher's pronunciation. How to represent it in spelling is secondary and it varies at times

KN
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KathyLauren
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by KathyLauren »

A translation substitutes the equivalent English language word for the foreign-language word, according to the translator's sense of the meaning.

A transliteration keeps the foreign-language word, but substitutes Roman alphabet letters for the foreign letters, according to a formalized equivalence table. The pronunciation may or may not be obvious from the transliteration (Tibetan, for example, is as bad as English for silent letters and idiosyncratic pronunciations), but you will be able to spell the word correctly in its native alphabet and look it up in a dictionary.

Phonetics keep the foreign-language word, but render it in Roman letters in a way that can be spoken correctly. While the sound may be correct, you will not know the spelling in the original language. Unless you recognize the word from your own knowledge of the language, you will not be able to look it up in a dictionary, because you cannot spell it.

Translations are used when the most important thing is the meaning. Transliterations are used in academic writing, where preserving the exact spelling of the original is important. Phonetics are used when academic rigour is not required, but the writer wishes to preserve the term in its original language, typically when a sufficiently nuanced English word does not exist.

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karmanyingpo
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by karmanyingpo »

KathyLauren wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 8:35 pm A translation substitutes the equivalent English language word for the foreign-language word, according to the translator's sense of the meaning.

A transliteration keeps the foreign-language word, but substitutes Roman alphabet letters for the foreign letters, according to a formalized equivalence table. The pronunciation may or may not be obvious from the transliteration (Tibetan, for example, is as bad as English for silent letters and idiosyncratic pronunciations), but you will be able to spell the word correctly in its native alphabet and look it up in a dictionary.

Phonetics keep the foreign-language word, but render it in Roman letters in a way that can be spoken correctly. While the sound may be correct, you will not know the spelling in the original language. Unless you recognize the word from your own knowledge of the language, you will not be able to look it up in a dictionary, because you cannot spell it.

Translations are used when the most important thing is the meaning. Transliterations are used in academic writing, where preserving the exact spelling of the original is important. Phonetics are used when academic rigour is not required, but the writer wishes to preserve the term in its original language, typically when a sufficiently nuanced English word does not exist.

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Kathy
Hi Kathy

Good catch on distinguishing transliteration and translation

There is also the distinction between transliteration and transcription (which you called phonetics). When the distinction is made, transliteration, is when you change SPELLING from one script to another, transcription is when you change SOUND from one script to another.

So for example "khrid" is a transcription from Tibetan script to latin Script while "tri" is more of a transcription (IE what you describe as phonetics) because it seeks to represent the sound and not so much the original spelling in another script

Even more anal for those of us who are hard core language fanatics... There is also phonetics versus phonemics..... Unfortunately transcription/so-called phonetics provided for Tibetan are often not either of those, which means that distinguishing between for example tʰ ʈ ʈʂ ʈʰ ʈʂʰ tɕ and tɕʰ is at times impossible just using romanizations as they are often provided in texts

But I can not say I blame anyone, deep knowledge of Tibetan is rare and perhaps even rarer is a good grasp of phonetics and phonology in relation to Tibetan proficiency. And this is not really all that important for a practitioner, just for a anal retentive language person like me... I am sure most lamas do not expect for Example an English Speaker to distinguish ʈʂ ʈʰ ʈʂʰ tɕ and tɕʰ properly :thinking: So it is nothing to worry about :twothumbsup: This can become a rabbit hole Ha Ha... so it is probably just best to focus on the deep meaning of practice and follow your teacher's advice as best you can.


KN
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Lingpupa
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by Lingpupa »

Karmanyingpo, I think you may be using "transcription" in a somewhat idiosyncratic way when you say that it's what KathyLauren called phonetics.

Her explanations are, I think you'll find, standard:

1) translation: meaning in one language to corresponding meaning in another. Hopefully! Due to unavoidable compromises is only partially reversible.

2) transliteration: spelling in one script system to corresponding spelling in a different script. Requires a strict code, and must be precisely reversible.

3) phonetics: sound in one language to corresponding written forms in another language. Often not reversible for reasons including, but not limited to, imperfections in the new representation.

The word you introduce, transcription, is usually used to mean writing down typically oral communication. Hansard (this is a GB thing) is a transcription of what has been said in parliament.

You say that "for example "khrid" is a transcription from Tibetan script to latin Script", but usually this would be called a transliteration. A transcription would be listening to a Tibetan say that word and then writing it down, either as "khrid" or using Tibetan script.
All best wishes

"The profundity of your devotion to your lama is not measured by your ability to turn a blind eye."
karmanyingpo
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by karmanyingpo »

Lingpupa wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 3:46 pm
You say that "for example "khrid" is a transcription from Tibetan script to latin Script", but usually this would be called a transliteration. A transcription would be listening to a Tibetan say that word and then writing it down, either as "khrid" or using Tibetan script.
Oops that was my mistake, I mean it is a transliteration
I meant to say that tri is the transcription from spoken sound and khrid is the transliteration from writing.

KN
ma lu dzok pe san gye thop par shok!
Malcolm
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by Malcolm »

karmanyingpo wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:10 pm
penalvad_uba wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:07 pm Why transliterations, from same Mantras, differs. There are specific methods being applied or it is just the knowledge amd wisdom of the translator ?

E.G. dudjom tersar transliterations from vajrayana.org and from lotsawahouse differs.

What you thing is better to easy the learning of the Mantra ?
It is true that you should follow how your teacher PRONOUNCES mantra...
That's one opinion, not a truth. There are other opinions as well.
karmanyingpo
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by karmanyingpo »

Lingpupa wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 3:46 pm Karmanyingpo, I think you may be using "transcription" in a somewhat idiosyncratic way when you say that it's what KathyLauren called phonetics.

Her explanations are, I think you'll find, standard:

1) translation: meaning in one language to corresponding meaning in another. Hopefully! Due to unavoidable compromises is only partially reversible.

2) transliteration: spelling in one script system to corresponding spelling in a different script. Requires a strict code, and must be precisely reversible.

3) phonetics: sound in one language to corresponding written forms in another language. Often not reversible for reasons including, but not limited to, imperfections in the new representation.

The word you introduce, transcription, is usually used to mean writing down typically oral communication. Hansard (this is a GB thing) is a transcription of what has been said in parliament.

You say that "for example "khrid" is a transcription from Tibetan script to latin Script", but usually this would be called a transliteration. A transcription would be listening to a Tibetan say that word and then writing it down, either as "khrid" or using Tibetan script.
Here is more info on my usage. It is not too idiosyncratic, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translite ... nscription

In linguistics (but not often else where) phonetic is distinguished from phonemic. Phonetics dealing with sounds on the surface level and phonemic (phonology) dealing with sound systems that are abstractions to explain what appears on the surface.

So for example the P in "spit" and "pit" are different phonetically in English (first is not aspirate, the second is), but they are not phonemically different as they are perceived as the same sound and are treated as such in the English sound system or phonology. On the other hand, B and P (as in Bad and Pad) are distinct phonemes in English. In contrast the same phonetic distinction of aspirate P and unaspirated P (example of PIT and SPIT) carries a phonemic distinction in languages like Hindi and Tibetan, so you can look at sounds that are phonetically different, but one language may treat them as 1 phoneme or as 2 phonemes or 3 etc.

According to this usage, phonemic is closer to what most people mean when they usually say phonetics in colloquial usage. However, in the case of Tibetan transcription/transliteration, it is often neither phonemic nor phonetic since it often collapses both phonetic and phonemic distinctions like the ones I listed as examples for sounds often represented with various letters and letter combos, t, tr, ch, chh

Edit, want to clarify again that I don't believe this info is very important for most practitioners and don't consider the other usage of these terms to be wrong, just a different way of using the terms. Just wanted to respond to the discussion at hand and offer some of this information to those who may be curious about this side of language

KN
Last edited by karmanyingpo on Tue Apr 06, 2021 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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karmanyingpo
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Re: About translations and transliterations

Post by karmanyingpo »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 4:14 pm
karmanyingpo wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:10 pm
penalvad_uba wrote: Mon Apr 05, 2021 5:07 pm Why transliterations, from same Mantras, differs. There are specific methods being applied or it is just the knowledge amd wisdom of the translator ?

E.G. dudjom tersar transliterations from vajrayana.org and from lotsawahouse differs.

What you thing is better to easy the learning of the Mantra ?
It is true that you should follow how your teacher PRONOUNCES mantra...
That's one opinion, not a truth. There are other opinions as well.
I do not disagree but is it not a safe bet in most cases to follow how your teacher pronounces mantra even if this is not an absolute rule? Seems safer to bet on copying your teacher's pronunciation than to bet on not copying your teacher's pronunciation.

The only reasonable exception I can think of is people trying to re construct historical Sanskrit pronunciation and in so doing abandoning traditional Tibetan renditions... FPMT and Lama Zopa Rinpoche seem to be in favor of this approach for example

Or perhaps another exception would be if the teacher is a non native speaker of Tibetan and has introduced another layer of a non Sanskrit language's influence into pronunciation and one seeking to return to the lineage pronunciation before that

KN
ma lu dzok pe san gye thop par shok!
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