SHORTENED WORDS SKUNG YIG IN TIBETAN U MED (DBU MED) WRITING

• Authors: Chasnar Thupten Kunga
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In Tibetan writing there are no special signs separating individual words. Instead the Tibetans use dots in U chen (dbu chen) and vertical short lines in U med (dbu med) writing styles to separate syllables in a word. However, polysyllabic words, having two or more syllables separated by several separating signs mentioned above, can be compressed in one contraction and marked by a separating dot or a vertical short line. These contractions are called 'Shortened Words' - skung yig in Tibetan. We can find a few different names for the script used in Shortened Words. In the Monlam software program they are called Dpe yig, Ts h e t a n z h a b s d r u n g calls them Gzab yig, R i n c h e n r g y a mtsho names them Bar bris and the letter writing competition organized by Tibet House in Delhi at the end of the 1980s, called them Khams yig. Shortened Words served as a very unique style of copying Tibetan Buddhist prayers and rituals. It was practiced in order to minimize time consumed by scribing and to save materials which were difficult to obtain in Tibet in the past. The present paper discusses the examples of Tibetan Shortened Words found in the Pander Collection kept at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

Keywords

EN

PANDER COLLECTION (JAGELLONIAN UNIVERSITY IN KRAKÓW); TIBETAN SHORTENED WORDS

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Rocznik Orientalistyczny
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 63
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 68-72
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Chasnar Thupten Kunga

• Thupten Kunga Chashab, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydzial Orientalistyczny, Zaklad Turkologii i Ludów Azji Srodkowej, ul. Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10PLAAAA08783