Old Tibetan

Old Tibetan
Region	Tibet
Era	7th–11th centuries, after which it became Classical Tibetan
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Kanauri? Bodish Tibetan Old Tibetan
Writing system	Tibetan script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	otb
Linguist list	otb

Old Tibetan refers to the period of Tibetan reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century.

In 816 CE, during the reign of King Tride Songtsen, literary Tibetan underwent a thorough reform aimed at standardizing the language and vocabulary of the translations being made from Indian texts, and this resulted in what we now call Classical Tibetan.^[1]

Phonology

Old Tibetan is characterised by many features that are lost in Classical Tibetan, including my- rather than m- before the vowels -i- and -e-, the cluster sts- which simplifies to s- in Classical Tibetan, and a reverse form of the "i" vowel letter (gi-gu).^[2]

Case system

Case morphology is affixed to entire noun phrases, not to individual words (i.e. Gruppenflexion). Old Tibetan distinguishes the same ten cases as Classical Tibetan:^[3]

• absolutive (morphologically unmarked)
• genitive (གི་ -gi, གྱི་ -gyi, ཀྱི་ -kyi, འི་ - 'i, ཡི་ -yi)
• agentive (གིས་ -gis, གྱིས་ -gyis, ཀྱིས་ -kyis, ས་ -s, ཡིས་ -yis)
• locative (ན་ -na)
• allative (ལ་ -la)
• terminative (རུ་ -ru, སུ་ -su, ཏུ་ -tu, དུ་ -du, ར་ -r)
• comitative (དང་ -dang)
• ablative (ནས་ -nas)
• elative (ལས་ -las)
• comparative (བས་ -bas)

However, whereas the locative, allative, and terminative gradually fell together in Classical Tibetan (and are referred to the indigenous grammatical tradition as the la don bdun), in Old Tibetan these three cases are clearly distinguished.^[4]

Traditional Tibetan grammarians do not distinguish case markers in this manner, but rather distribute these case morphemes (excluding -dang and -bas) into the eight cases of Sanskrit.

Personal pronouns

Old Tibetan has three first person singular pronouns ང་ nga, བདག་ bdag, and ཁོ་བོ་ kho-bo, and three first person plural pronouns ངེད་ nged, བདག་ཅག་ bdag-cag, and འོ་སྐོལ་ 'o-skol. The second person pronouns include two singulars ཁྱོད་ khyod and ཁྱོ(ན)་འདའ་ khyo(n)-'da' and a plural ཁྱེད་ khyed.^[5]

References

Works cited

• Hill, Nathan W. (2010a), "Overview of Old Tibetan synchronic phonology", Transactions of the Philological Society 108 (2): 110­–125,  
• —— (2010b), "Personal pronouns in Old Tibetan", Journal Asiatique 298 (2): 549–571,  
• —— (2011), "The allative, locative, and terminative cases (la-don) in the Old Tibetan Annals", New Studies in the Old Tibetan Documents: Philology, History and Religion, Old Tibetan Documents Online Monograph Series 3, Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, pp. 3–38. 
• —— (2012), "-bas, and -nas, -las"Tibetan , Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 41 (1): 3–38, archived from the original on 2014. 
• Hodge, Stephen (1993), An Introduction to Classical Tibetan (revised ed.), Warminster: Aris & Phillips,  

• Old Tibetan Documents Online, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies: transliteration of selected Old Tibetan and Classical Tibetan texts.
• International Dunhuang Project: includes images of many of the texts.