Name for the Western Rgyalrong languages

[云帆赖]

Dear Guillaume and all,

Thanks for supporting khroskyabs.
khroskyabs is pronounced [tʂʰoscæ] or [tʂʰoscæv] by Wobzi speakers.

Is G.yu Lha in the list? Guillaume, could you let me know her email
address? I think it would be helpful for me to get in touch with her.

Best regards,

Yunfan


2013/11/20 Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>

> 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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མེས་རྒྱལ་གྱི་མེ་ཏོག།

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