ལ་པཎ་ཟང་འབལ་གག་ས་སར་ཐབས།གནའ་དང་གག་ས་ས་སར་རགག་པ་ཟང་ད་ང་ད་འབལ་ནས་བད་བརད་བརད་བཀའ་བསན་དབན་སགན་སད་ད་ང་ད་ས་སར་བའག་སར།།

FIT 2014 :: Craig Meulen on behalf of Esukhia Tibetan Language Serviceswwwesukhia.org & www.flowingriver.de

Uniting ancient wisdom and modern technology to support translation of the Tibetan Buddhist canon

Aim :: What you are going to hear

● Translation history of Tibetan Buddhist canon

● Monumental achievements of Lotsawa-Pandita teams

● Current efforts to prevent loss of a great cultural heritage

● Blending advantages of modern technology with insights of ancient wisdom

● “Ideal Couple” / “Ménage à Trois” / “Group Marriage” team translation

● Appeal for help to develop software and translator training

Why don’t you go out and do something less boring instead?

● Berlin has a lot to offer!

● Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom in the Asian Art Museum

● Momos in Little Tibet restaurant

● You’re staying? Then let’s proceed.

Esukhia :: Who we are

Esukhia :: What we do

The Presenter

● Craig Meulen● Professional translator from German to English, specialising in

– humanitarian aid– environment– Buddhism

● TESOL-certified English teacher● Esukhia: teacher training and curriculum development● Struggling to learn Tibetan

The Tibetan Language :: བད་སད་ཡགག

● Isolating language with weak inflection

● Syntactical complexity of literary Tibetan due to “transcategorical and optional nature of the use of case markers”

● Tibetan uses pragmatics to encode meaning

● Word order and contextual understanding thus markedly important

● Modern Tibetan exists as a diglossia

● One literary language but many spoken languages / dialects

History

No one speaks the language that the Buddha spoke.

Without translation, what would we know of the Buddha’s teachings?

History :: Buddhist Canons

● Buddha 'Awakened One' lived and taught in north-eastern India during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE

● No single 'Bible' as in Christianity, many collections of teachings (canons)● Buddhism spread throughout Asia but later declined in India● Pali tradition and canons survived in Thailand and Burma, for example● Sanskrit canons mostly destroyed; survived only in the form of their

translations elsewhere● Tibetan and Chinese canons most complete

History :: Translation into Tibetan

● 2 distinguishable phases of Sanskrit-Tibetan translation

● "Early propagation" 7th century CE

– King Songtsen Gampo united Tibet

– significant state sponsorship, continuing for several generations until the mid-9th century.

● "Era of fragmentation"

● “Late propagation” 11th century CE

– local rulers and some very notable translators

– 13th century, significant central authority again

– renewed support for monasteries and translation

Translation into Tibetan :: Characteristics

● 5000 highly specialised texts

● 73 million words

● two dissimilar languages

● over 870 translators and scholars involved

● praise by modern historians: “masterpiece of teamwork, terminology and consistency“

Translation into Tibetan :: Characteristics :: 1st Wave

● invention of Tibetan orthography modelled upon Sanskrit

● Lotsawa-Pandita partnerships

● Two comprehensive translation guides:

● Mahavyutpatti, “The Great Volume of Precise Understanding or Essential Etymology”

● Madhyavyutpatti, “The Second Tome on Grammatical Composition”

Team Translation :: Ancient :: Lotsawa-Pandita

Translation into Tibetan :: Characteristics :: 2nd Wave

● great individual achievements – less central support and oversight● less consistency● further major language reforms – revision of standardized spelling,

vocabulary, and grammar● during each of these revisions, existing translations were updated to reflect

the new standards

Tibetan Literary Tradition :: Characteristics

● literary language has been more or less frozen since

● oral transmission remained a vital characteristic of the Buddhist tradition in Tibet

● most monastics and even many great masters were illiterate

● oral tradition essential for understanding these texts

Translation into Western languages :: Characteristics

● Translators included academics, lay practitioners, monks and nuns

● Strong influences from the particular groups who were cultivating contact with Buddhist cultures, e.g.

● colonialists and Christian missionaries

● generations influenced by Jungian and Freudian psychology

History :: Translation from Tibetan

● Leading masters recognised that historical and geopolitical developments could lead to Tibetan canon being lost to humanity

● In one or two generations, too few people with sufficient understanding of the language or contents.

● Three keynote conferences were held and the 84000 project was launched to ‘rescue’ this Buddhist literary heritage:– 2008 Light of Berotsana– 2009 BLHP, Bir, India– 2011 Tengyur Translation, Sarnath, India– 84000 Project

Translation from Tibetan :: Characteristics :: Types of Translators

● academics, whose expertise is often philology, buddhology or philosophy

● Buddhist practitioners

● often cannot actually speak Tibetan

● treat the language as “Classical Tibetan”(i.e. a dead language)

Esukhia's opinion is that this attitude:

● undervalues the importance of the oral tradition

● ignores the pragmatic nature of Tibetan

● prevents vital collaboration with emic scholars

Translation from Tibetan :: Characteristics :: Standards :: Terminology

“Strong resistance amongst the current

generation of translators to adopting

a standardised Tibetan-English

terminology comparable to the

Mahavyutpatti Sanskrit-Tibetan list.”

(Trisoglio)

Translation from Tibetan :: Characteristics :: Standards :: 84000 Project Workflow

Team Translation :: Why?

● FIT World Congress: profession “demands a diverse range of expertise”● Task instead of profession: “range of expertise” met by team instead of one

person● Truly remarkable individuals exist, but more often:● either language expert● or expert in subject matter ● Mastery of both source and target languages

Team Translation :: Modern :: Esukhia models

Team Translation :: “Ideal Couple”

● native Tibetan scholar – receives supplementary training in linguistic basics– common Tibetan-to-English translation issues– Sanskrit-to-Tibetan translation issues

● professionally trained translator with high level of spoken Tibetan– can debate the finer points of the source texts with their scholar partner– has studied Buddhism and Tibetan culture

Team Translation :: “Ménage à Trois”

● a Tibetan native scholar

● an English translator with expertise in literary Tibetan

● an interpreter with fluency in both Tibetan and English to mediate between the other two – enables discussion of the finer points of the source texts

Team Translation :: “Group Marriage”

● a group of 4 or more who represent the full range of skills necessary– collaborate closely

– online tools allow team members to stay in touch wherever they may be

● in addition to the scholar-translator core, extra roles include– target-language final editor

– interpreter

– Sanskrit expert

Requirements for Success :: Translator Training

Training for translators (non-Tibetans):

● spoken language training to understand meaning given by pragmatic structures

Training for native Tibetan scholars:

● training in the 'Western' academic approach

● studies in comparative religion

● translation issues, including Sanskrit-to-Tibetan and Tibetan-English

Requirements for Success :: Linguistic Foundations

Requirements for Success :: Linguistic Foundations

Modern Technology :: Authoring Tools' Compose '

● Assists Tibetan-language writers who compose native literature or TSL learning material

● Spellchecks

● Readability assessment

● Inter-register thesaurus (incl. honorifics, dialects, literary, standard spoken)

Modern Technology :: Authoring Tools' Compose '

Modern Technology :: Authoring Tools' Compose '

Modern Technology :: Translation Tools' Reader '

● Viewing platform for the scriptures

● Entire Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center online library is marked up and forms corpus

● Unique emic resource for understanding terminology

● Inter-textual definitions and etymologies a click away

● Oral explanations integrated

● Mark-up enables searches and filters particular to this project:- e.g. tradition, date, source, and term type

Modern Technology :: Translation Tools' Reader '

Modern Technology :: Translation Tools' Reader '

Modern Technology :: Translation Tools' Bridge '

● Translation environment tool, specific features to facilitate teamwork

● Search and terminology tools

● Discuss translation issues in forums

● Teamwork via sharing options for drafts and finished translations (synced to the library via Reader)

● Team communication via social media, private messaging, video chats and conferencing

Conclusion and Appeal for Help

● Tibetan is endangered

● Insights of Buddhist canons might be lost to humanity

● Amongst Tibetans, canon-specific expertise, general reading comprehension and writing skills are all in decline

● End of a living tradition?

● In future, potential for and quality of translations reduced

● Tibetan translators should not have to re-invent the wheel regarding modern technology, translator training etc.

Appeal for Help :: Translator Training

● Program development– teacher training, material development, testing, curriculum

● Logistics– speaking environment, location of trainable teachers, funding, facilities, student prerequisites

● Language learning – materials for A1-B2 learners– specialist materials for Buddhist topics

● Teacher training– foreign-language methodology

Appeal for Help :: Software and Translation Tool Development

Specific current needs:

● Architecture of the software

● Spoken corpus

● Analysis of native language levels

● Collaboration platforms – translation environment tools

● Streamlining 'translation memory' or corpus of scriptures and commentaries

● Authoring software incl. readability guides

Thank you for your attention!

ཐགས་སང་གནང་བར་བཀའ་དགན་ཆ་ཞང་ད།

Contact:Esukhia, Attn. Dirk Schmidt Craig Meulen

contact@esukhia.org craig@flowingriver.de

www.esukhia.org www.flowingriver.de