The spelling style pronunciation of written Tibetan, and the hazards of using citation forms in the phonological analysis of spoken Tibetan

Abstract

In Love Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama (Yu and Jaw 1930) Jaw (Y. R. Chao) has transcribed the 62 songs from three readings, 'once very slowly for direct listening and transcription and twice naturally to a dictaphone for subsequent transcription by repeated listening' (26). His transcription is remarkable for combining phonemics. including tonemics, with phonetics. including pitch, through symbolizing allophones: it is even more remarkable in being also stylistic: it introduces symbols into the transcription for distinguishing variations in style: (1) 'an asterisk in the transcription . . . means that the symbol or symbols marked by it are, in ordinary speech, not pronounced as transcribed there.