Found Horizon

A new simplified presentation of a jawbreaking language was available last week at the Oxford University Press, Bombay branch. Tibetan Word Book is also one of the weightiest contributions to the Western study of Tibetan or Bod-skad (pronounced Bho-ka) since Hungary's Alexander Csoma de Kb'ros, originally hoping to discover the Hungarians' remote ancestry, did his arduous philological pioneering in a Tibetan monastery more than a century ago. Authors of the new work are two British civil servants who have worked in Tibet and India, Sir Basil John Gould and Hugh Edward Richardson.

Between Tibetan and other languages--except related Burmese, Chinese, Tai--there is a great and scholar-swallowing gulf. The grammar is exotic plus, the spelling has only the loosest association with the pronunciation (brgyad means eight, is pronounced jay), the literature is virtually unrelated to the contemporary idiom. Through the centuries the Tibetans under their Lamas* have adapted their language very slowly, although they have taken over some words like airplane (the Germans attempted the first test flight across the country) and electric light (Lhasa has a small power plant).

The Gould-Richardson simplification approaches Tibetan along a new trail familiar to children who have played with codes. It breaks down the study of the language into syllables and corresponding numbers. Using both, the student can put together words (lam means road, lam-chak means railroad, lam-yik means passport) and can link up written forms with phonetic values. Handy Tibetan phrases:

> Ma sarparang mindu (The butter is not quite fresh).

> Bu thon-ki-du-ke (Have you worms) ?/-

> Te be be shok (Put it here).

> Goopala trapa katsho yoware (How many monks are there in the monastery)?

> Kho kechsa nge thane hakokimindu (I do not understand his talk at all).

Companion volumes by the same authors list Tibetan syllables according to phonetic values (English alphabetical order), Tibetan verbs, commonplace chater for travelers. But Gould & Richardson lope that their students, will not be unmoved by Tibetan's poetic quality, claim hat the language challenges Chinese in its imagery. The name, for example, of one of he most glorious Himalayan pinnacles, Canchenjanga, third highest in the world, means "The Five Storehouses of the Great Snow."

But engineers are already eying the huge air-cooled motor for an added 300-400 h.p., to get both faster climb and top speeds not far below 500 m.p.h. If that happens, says one British expert on both planes and understatement, the result will be "quite startling."

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