The propaganda department of China’s State Council, its central government, last
week released a white paper on “Governance of Xizang in the New Era.” Though the
term “Tibetan” is used to refer to the region’s people and geographical features
like the Tibetan Plateau, Xizang is used exclusively when referring to the
southwestern region’s official name. “The Chinese government was desperate
enough to propagate Xizang to create a Tibet of Chinese characteristics which is
unknown to the world,” Tenzin Lekshay, a spokesperson for the Central Tibetan
Administration, the Tibetan government-in-exile, said of Beijing’s report.
Lekshay said the Sino-Tibet conflict was long-running and that changing the name
would complicate rather than improve the situation.
That’s fair, but I think it loses the distinction between different transliteration strategies. For example, phonetic transliteration preserves far more of the original language than other methods. Transliteration is a necessary component of language: most common languages lack glottal stops and clicks, but it’s still important to be able to refer to places that are named with glottal stops and clicks.
In that regard, the TAR has always been referred to as Xizang in Chinese because the TAR covers the Ü-Tsang region. The lands of greater Tibet from the peak of the Tibetan Empire are now parts of Qinghai, Sichuan, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Kashmir. The unified region of greater Tibet has, in recent history, always been དབུས (Ü) and གཙང་ (Tsang). This is pronounced ue-tsang according to Tibetan Pinyin (phonetic transcription) and Xizang according to transliteration - running through the possibilities, I’m struggling to find an exonym in Mandarin that would be closer in pronunciation.
The traditional name of the region is བོད་ (Bhö). The name Tibet is itself an import from the English. Given the degree of funding the Tibetan government-in-exile receives from the US (an English-speaking country), I’d suggest that the Tibetan government-in-exile has a strong financial incentive for maintaining English…
@zerfuffle the exiles seek the political goodwill of other nations, so presumably they also have a strong incentive to be intelligible to people in those nations. Would be interesting to know if they call it Bhota when they are in India.
When I am fundraising I use names people recognise.
Doesn’t change the fact that ethnic Tibet and the TAR are not necessarily the same territorial entity. Tibetans make up a significant proportion of the population of Qinghai, for example.
That’s fair, but I think it loses the distinction between different transliteration strategies. For example, phonetic transliteration preserves far more of the original language than other methods. Transliteration is a necessary component of language: most common languages lack glottal stops and clicks, but it’s still important to be able to refer to places that are named with glottal stops and clicks.
In that regard, the TAR has always been referred to as Xizang in Chinese because the TAR covers the Ü-Tsang region. The lands of greater Tibet from the peak of the Tibetan Empire are now parts of Qinghai, Sichuan, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Kashmir. The unified region of greater Tibet has, in recent history, always been དབུས (Ü) and གཙང་ (Tsang). This is pronounced ue-tsang according to Tibetan Pinyin (phonetic transcription) and Xizang according to transliteration - running through the possibilities, I’m struggling to find an exonym in Mandarin that would be closer in pronunciation.
The traditional name of the region is བོད་ (Bhö). The name Tibet is itself an import from the English. Given the degree of funding the Tibetan government-in-exile receives from the US (an English-speaking country), I’d suggest that the Tibetan government-in-exile has a strong financial incentive for maintaining English…
@zerfuffle the exiles seek the political goodwill of other nations, so presumably they also have a strong incentive to be intelligible to people in those nations. Would be interesting to know if they call it Bhota when they are in India.
When I am fundraising I use names people recognise.
Absolutely, there’s a good point.
Doesn’t change the fact that ethnic Tibet and the TAR are not necessarily the same territorial entity. Tibetans make up a significant proportion of the population of Qinghai, for example.