a land of Tibet

Through My Eyes

With the demonstration, tidying up and resting I haven't yet been able to work on the sculpture of Tara Drolma except to continue to keep the clay moist. I thought we could watch another Jigdo video sung by Dronpe. It is called Delek Sam which in the dialect she is singing means "How are You?" the same as Debo yin or Kehrang kusu debo yinpeh in Lhasan dialect.

From Nicholas Tournadre and Sangda Dorje's manual of standard Tibetan we learn that there are dozens of Tibetan dialects many of which are not mutually understandable between the different groups that speak them! For example, there is the spoken Lhasan or Standard dialect that is commonly spoken in exile. Then there is Literary Tibetan which is similar to this but is generally used in literature and religious writings by monks, scholars and other educated people and in fact a person having learned it can read texts going back as far as the twelfth century!

Then there are some eight main other dialects used across the plateau, five in Bhutan, 3 in Nepal, six in India and one in Pakistan.

Then there are slang languages used by particular subcultures and trade groups as well as "secret languages" spoken by small groups of a few thousand people scattered here and there throughout Tibet.

When you add the fact that there are various forms of the language to indicate levels of politeness there are an amazing number of languages spoken in Tibet. Most of them are unified in that they share a common form of the Literary dialect for writing.

We can see Dronpe cultivating the fields with other Tibetan women beneath a wondrous sacred mountain and a huge bunch of dried red peppers! Those peppers are hot; I've eaten a lot of Tibetan food seasoned with them. I like the taste a lot but am still getting used to eating food that hot; peppers from Asia are generally intermediate in heat between the jalepeno's of mexico and the incredible scorching peppers of guatemala like the habanero and the Naga Jolokia of Northern India. Actually according to Wikipedia the heat of pepper is measured in what are called Scoville units. Jalepeno's are about 3000-6000, habaneros are about 300,000 or 100 times as hot! But then the Naga Jolokia is about 1,000,000 scu or 3 times that! The Tibetan peppers are probably about 30-50 times hotter than jalepenos commonly used in the US.

There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one!

* courtesy of A Luminous Diamond (Bright) Crystal Show productions. The information for

the sketches is courtesy of the Footprint Tibet handbook by Gyurme Dorje.

( please click here to return to my spinning for you!)


	Through My Eyes * With the demonstration, tidying up and resting I haven't yet been able to work on the sculpture of Tara Drolma except to continue to keep the clay moist. I thought we could watch another Jigdo video sung by Dronpe. It is called Delek Sam which in the dialect she is singing means "How are You?" the same as Debo yin or Kehrang kusu debo yinpeh in Lhasan dialect. From Nicholas Tournadre and Sangda Dorje's manual of standard Tibetan we learn that there are dozens of Tibetan dialects many of which are not mutually understandable between the different groups that speak them! For example, there is the spoken Lhasan or Standard dialect that is commonly spoken in exile. Then there is Literary Tibetan which is similar to this but is generally used in literature and religious writings by monks, scholars and other educated people and in fact a person having learned it can read texts going back as far as the twelfth century! Then there are some eight main other dialects used across the plateau, five in Bhutan, 3 in Nepal, six in India and one in Pakistan. Then there are slang languages used by particular subcultures and trade groups as well as "secret languages" spoken by small groups of a few thousand people scattered here and there throughout Tibet. When you add the fact that there are various forms of the language to indicate levels of politeness there are an amazing number of languages spoken in Tibet. Most of them are unified in that they share a common form of the Literary dialect for writing. We can see Dronpe cultivating the fields with other Tibetan women beneath a wondrous sacred mountain and a huge bunch of dried red peppers! Those peppers are hot; I've eaten a lot of Tibetan food seasoned with them. I like the taste a lot but am still getting used to eating food that hot; peppers from Asia are generally intermediate in heat between the jalepeno's of mexico and the incredible scorching peppers of guatemala like the habanero and the Naga Jolokia of Northern India. Actually according to Wikipedia the heat of pepper is measured in what are called Scoville units. Jalepeno's are about 3000-6000, habaneros are about 300,000 or 100 times as hot! But then the Naga Jolokia is about 1,000,000 scu or 3 times that! The Tibetan peppers are probably about 30-50 times hotter than jalepenos commonly used in the US. There's a lot more to add but as usual two as one we'll add to the notes later beautiful one! * courtesy of A Luminous Diamond (Bright) Crystal Show productions. The information for the sketches is courtesy of the Footprint Tibet handbook by Gyurme Dorje. ( please click here to return to my spinning for you!)