S.

“The land of Zhang-zhung, its location and alternative names are discussed; in this Professor Tucci resumes consideration of a problem, which he began long ago in Indo-Tibetica, II. I would only question whether written documents in the language of Zhang-zhung have in fact been found in Central Asia (p. 107). This was just an idea of F.W. Thomas, which to my knowledge has not yet been substantiated. He gave no valid reason for naming as Zhang-zhung the fragments of some early Tibetan dialect, which he edited in JRAS, 1933, 405-10. He has also named Zhang-zhung yet another MS (Stein MS fragment no. 43) of the India Office Library.”

To my knowledge the ascription by Thomas of those texts to the/a/any Zhang-zhung language has still not yet been substantiated. But perhaps he will offer some good arguments in this unpublished book?

I. Introductory and Geographical
II. Historico-geographical
III. Ethnographical
IV. Linguistic
V. The language of the medical mss.

There is also a handwritten assessment of these materials by Hugh Richardson, marked for the attention of Professor Tucci. It runs to several pages, but the most apposite paragraph is this one:

Although the material is, as stated, in an unsatisfactory condition from the aspect of publication, it contains such a mass of information,– geographical, historical and principally linguistic — analysed and presented with by so great a scholar that it must be of value and importance even if published in an incomplete state. But even to do that is a considerable task and seems to me to call for a scholar of linguistics who has at his disposal a first class library of Asian geography, literature and languages.

Anyway, as I mentioned, the ‘considerable task’ is underway, so perhaps this manuscript will see the light of day, one day.

Neither the (purported) ZZ nor the (purported) Nam texts among the “Old Tibetan” manuscripts announce to us the language in which they are written. (I should announce that I’m writing in English!)

I should have been paying better attention, but actually it was proclaimed in print long ago that Thomas left behind an unpublished work on ZZ. Look here (first page):

http://tinyurl.com/cnwh8h

So far the words with identified meaning in these “OT” docs are identified, so it often seems, on the basis of their similarity with Tibetan rather than their similarity with ZZ.

Hence “go” in the documents is identified as having the meaning ‘head’ on the basis of Tibetan “mgo,” ‘head,’ although the regular ZZ word for ‘head’ is “dbu.”

Lots of similar examples in Dr. Takeuchi’s (et al.) paper in “New Research on Zhangzhung and Related Himalayan Languages” (Osaka 2001), pp. 55-56.

About the identification of that other “OT” manuscript as an example of Nam language, Robert Shafer expressed skepticism in his review in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, which is entertaining and recommended reading, really:

http://tinyurl.com/d97y87

Off to do some chores now. Cheers!

Yours,
Dan

I’ve never seen Thomas’ Nam language article, and cannot seem to find anything about “Nam” on the internet (of course it is a difficult term to search for). If it is not very long maybe you could make a scan of the article available on the internet (or privately to me and Dan).

I am not he. I am no specialist in linguistics. However I do intend to go back to Wikipedia and add some more of Thomas’s publications to his page soon (unless someone beats me to it).

Dear Dan,

I can’t evaluate Thomas’s Zhang-zhung work, but I can tell you that there has been a project underway to publish it, and Prof. Takeuchi was behind that project, so I assume he at least thinks it’s still worth publishing. Are you dubious whether this “Zhang-zhung” language is explicitly called that in the sources? As for the “Nam” language, I also don’t know whether the sources justify the name. I suspect that the don’t, entirely, but again, I’m no linguistics expert. Are you implying that it may not be a distinct language? If not, what could it be?

best wishes all round,
S.