Name for the Western Rgyalrong languages

[Guillaume Jacques]

Dear Jesse and all,


pronounced by my Rilong consultant) [rəsɲilonba], [lonba] of course is
> valley, and [rəsɲi] is an alternative loconym for the valley that runs
> along the Xianshui River, so the Daofu valley. I am still working on the
> etymology, but that’s all I have for now. However, my consultant told me
> that she would never say [rəsɲiske].
>

This is an interesting information. I would really like to know where this
name comes from.


> 2. Although the proper Tibetan spelling is rTau, sTau is easy to “derive”
> from the Tibetan spelling. Most Tibetans pronounce it as [tawu] or
> similarly. There are many herders in the grasslands that also pronounce it
> as [stawu]. Conversely, many Tibetans that I have talked to, some living
> inside Daofu and others not, have spelled rTau as sTau!
>

Yes, since the languages of the group clearly distinguish between rt- and
st-, if they pronounce this placename with a st-, the actual pronunciation
should have precedence over the standard Tibetan spelling.

Maybe we can keep Stau for the language variety (mainly) spoken in Rtau
county; even if some villages outside of the county speak a similar
language, this is not a damaging problem. It is very difficult to come up
with non-ambiguous names that perfectly reflect the language situaiton. For
instance, the name Japhug is not the best solution for designating the
language I am studying. These people call themselves kɯrɯ and their
language kɯrɯskɤt, and the name Japhug tɕɤpʰɯ or tɕʰɤpʰɯ (both
pronunciatins are attested) designates the Gsarrdzong/Datshang area and
does not include Gdongbrgyad, whose real name is sɤŋo in Japhug. However,
people speaking Situ call them "Japhug" as a whole, and thus the name
Japhug is not that bad for designating specifically this area.

For the subgroup of Rgyalrongic comprising Stau, I is important to take
time to as other native speakers of these languages whether 'Tre-Hor' is
fitting or whether it is appropriate; Horske is not specific enough in my
opinion (it could equally well designate the Horskad varieties in Tibet).
Another possibily would be Hor-Rgyalrong or Horpa Rgyalrongic.

For Geshizha, the pronunciation appears to be rgefɕe, maybe reflecting
Dge.bshes instead of the spelling Dge.rtsa I have found elsewhere. This
language is clearly distinct from Stau, but I am not sure which name is
better.

Khroskyabs seems to me a good alternative to Lavrung (what is the
pronunciation of this name in Wobzi?). I would like to know what Gyulha
thinks of it.

For the Rgyalrong languages, there is little controversy, but I will still
take some time to discuss existing names. I think it is obvious to
everybody that Chinese-based place names like Chabao, Caodeng or Ribu are a
bad idea: they poorly reflect the local pronounciation (being transmitted
through the filter of Sichuan Mandarin plus Standard Mandarin plus English)
and are unable to represent the local consonant clusters.
Yet, for Situ I think that the Chinese name is the best solution, because
this language is spoken on a huge area and does not appear to have a native
or Tibetan name distinguish it as a whole from the northern Rgyalrong
languages. So Situ is perhaps the only choice we have to encompass the
whole area (the Tibetan equivalent would be rgyal bzhi or something, but it
is not a good idea to invent a name that nobody understands). Japhug (and
Tshobdun, Tawi and Zbu) people call the Situ speakers "roŋba" to
differentiate them from themselves (while calling themselves "roŋwa"...),
but this (as the autonym mentioned by Gyulha) is not specific enough to
serve as a language name, otherwise all languages of the area could be
called "rongba".

For Japhug I provide a discussion above, and for Tshobdun I think there is
no problem.

For Zbu, there are some issues. The Tibetan name of the area Rdzong'bur
seems to me to be made up/recent, while the local Rgyalrong name Zbu is
known by everybody. It is not a perfect name, as this language is spread
over Rdzong'bur and Tawi areas in Mbarkhams and neighbouring areas of
Ndzamthang, but the alternative proposed by Jackson Sun, the name ɕoʁu in
Tshobdun designating speakers of Zbu and latinized as "Showu", does not
seem very appealing to me. Maybe Zbu-Tawi would be better to include all
subvarieties?

Concerning the capitalization, in former publications I used to write
rGyalrong and rTau etc but now I believe that this is useless and that we
should keep the standard capitalization: Zev is right abou that (and
several Tibetologists have independently pointed out that they did not like
this practice either).

If some of you have contacts with Stau/Hor or Lavrung/Khroskyabs speaking
areas, don't hesitate to contact your friends, ask their opinion, and post
it on the list (you can even post the original message in the local
language in IPA transcription or in Tibetan translitteration - there is no
requirement to write exclusively in English on this list, all languages of
Western Sichuan are allowed).

Guillaume


-- 
Guillaume Jacques
CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO
http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
http://himalco.hypotheses.org/
http://panchr.hypotheses.org/

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