Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It is taught as an academic program at many universities.
Many of the most well-known resources on the Tibetan languages have been written by linguists such as Nicolas Tournadre (co-author of the Manual of Standard Tibetan) and Kuo-ming Sung (co-author of Amdo Tibetan: A Comprehensive Grammar Textbook). There are also many prominent Tibetan linguists, including:
- སུམ་པ་དོན་གྲུབ་ཚེ་རིང་ Sumbha Dondrub Tsering:
- བོད་ཀྱི་ཡུལ་སྐད་རྣམ་བཤད། (“General Introduction to the Tibetan Dialects”), 2011.
- བསོད་ནམས་དབང་མོ་ Sonam Wangmo:
- IKOS, University of Oslo
- University of Bonn profile
- Research Gate profile
- བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཉི་མ་ Tashi Nyima:
- Peace Research Institute Oslo
- Research Gate profile
- ཚེ་རིང་བསམ་གྲུབ་ Tsering Samdrup:
- SOAS, University of London
- Website
- Research Gate contributions page
Understanding some of the basic principles of linguistics can help you better understand and appreciate the Tibetan languages. I have compiled some open-access resources on Tibetan linguistics on the following pages:
If you want to learn more, you could look into taking university courses on linguistics, or search for open-access textbooks on the topic.
