Once more on the letter ༢

Abstract

W. S. Coblin. in a contribution (2002) to the ongoing discussion about the phonetic value of the Tibetan letter ,; (transcribed as v), has argued that this character has no phonetic value per se but is rather an orthographic device. A review of the previous literature and consideration of Coblin's arguments in contrast agree with the finding that before vowels and the glide -w- the letter v represents a voiced fricative, while before consonants it stands for prenasalization: in the former position. the value [y] is argued for. The use of final -v in Old Tibetan inscriptions suggests that in that position too -v has the value [y]. Finally, with a view to the internal reconstruction of the Tibetan verbal system. consideration is given to the question of whether the various phonetic values of v- represent a unitary phoneme.