CLASSIC TIBETAN MOD.2

Classical Tibetan is offered among the language courses of the Bachelor’s Degree in Language, Culture and Society of Asia and Mediterranean Africa (LICSAAM). This courses aims to provide the students with the required linguistic and philological skills applied to the study of classical Tibetan.
Course objectives and learning outcomes: in depth study of grammatical and syntactical structures of Tibetan language; in depth study of the philological criticism and translation techniques of Tibetan literary texts with exercises that focus on the stylistic difficulties of different genres.
By the end of the course, students will be able to read, translate and understand intermediate literary texts.
Reading Buddhist texts in Tibetan also facilitates a better understanding of important philosophical sources of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.

Learning outcomes:
1) Show evidence of a familiarity with the required intermediate knowledge of Tibetan scripts ( principally dbu can formal style and dbu med semi-formal style) phonology, morphology and syntax to read and translate easy classical Tibetan texts.
2) Demonstrate a facility in critical thinking and reasoning by applying these skills to the analysis of literary sources and to translation problems and issues.
4) Employ basic research skills to access and critically evaluate information that bears on linguistic and literary topics from scholarly sources, vocabularies, including digitalised sources, specialised websites and social networking website for academics.

Basic knowledge of classical Tibetan (consistent with the level acquired during the first mod. of classical Tibetan) and English (for consultancy of the dictionaries and secondary sources).

a) The course aims at concluding the grammar and syntax of classical Tibetan In particular we will study in-depth:

1)Subordinate clauses and semifinal particles:
1.1) Ablative particles “las and las”
1.2) Semifinal or introductive particle “te”
1.3) Particle of general subordination “tu”
1.4) The coordinating particle “ cing”
1.5) Auxiliary verbs
1.6) Structures of Tibetan verbs

b ) Laboratory of literary translations with exercises on selected classics

a) Required readings:
S. Hodge An Introduction to Classical Tibetan, Aris and Philips, , Warminster, 1990
Craig Preston, How to Read Classical Tibetan volume I: A Summary of the General Path, Ithaca, NY, 2003

b) Additional dictionaries:
1) Chandra-Das, Sarat. (reprint 1975). Tibetan-English Dictionary. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Electronic version available on-line.
2) Dictionary on-line:
2.1 “Ranjung yes he dharma dictionary” available at this link: http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Main_Page
2.2 “The Tibetan and Himalayan Library dictionaries” available at this link http://www.thlib.org/reference/

c) Useful websites:
“Tibetan and Himalayan Library": www. thlib.org
“Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines": http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/journals/ret/nonjavascript.php

d) Supplementary materials (grammar summary, hand-writing templates ) will be provided during the course.

Students will be encouraged to partecipate actively during the lessons mainly through reading and translation exercises in order to evaluate the general level of understanding.
The intermediate and the final exams will be both written and oral.
1) The written exam consists in:
a) Transliteration of Tibetan scripts and handwriting exercises
b) Grammar exercises
c) Translation of simple sentences or brief passages of selected easy classical texts
2) Oral exam: students will be asked to read, analyse and translate excerpts of Tibetan texts covered during the course.
IMPORTANT: Extraordinary procedures for online exams due to the current COVID-19 emergency
Exams will be oral: during this semester exams will be conducted remotely on Google meet as explained in the guidelines.

In depth study of the grammatical and syntactical rules of classical Tibetan.
Guided analysis and translation of selected intermediate Tibetan classical texts of different literary genres.

In order to contextualise the translated texts, additional material on historical, literary, religious philosophical issues will be shared on the e learning platform available at mode.unive.it

Italian

Regular attendance during classes is strongly recommended.

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development