了解象雄语:最基本的途径

Knowing Zhang-zhung:Basic Approach

在涉及藏学的文献中不时会讨论到象雄语~①,象雄语是否是一种死语言。当然从某种意义上说,只要还有人以任何方式使用一种语言,或者尝试学习和使用一种语言,就不能视之为完全死亡。研究者要考虑的问题是:今天我们是否还有可能了解象雄语这种在7世纪或8世纪吐蕃西部象雄王国没落前后绵延几世纪的语言~②。试图回答这一问题需要考虑这种语言早期存在的证据,以及手稿传承、词汇量、藏缅语对比之中的问题,还要考虑专注于词汇而非形态学,用《斯巴卓浦》来说明当前面临的各种障碍。除了这些问题之外,在探索知识的过程中要秉持一定的乐观精神。

On those occasions when the subject of Zhang-zhung language has come up in conversation in Tibet-related contexts, it is a question whether Zhang-zhung is a dead language. Of course in a sense, if anyone anywhere is making any use oral language, or attempts however feebly to learn and make use of it, it cannot be regarded as entirely dead. The question we will consider is the following： Is it possible for us today to know the Zhang-zhung language that existed in the centuries surrounding the seventh-or eighth-century fall of the western Tibetan kingdom of Zhang-zhung？The attempt to answer this question will lead us to consider the early evidence of the language along with problems in manuscript transmission, lexical resources,Tibeto-Burman comparisons and take a look at the hmermost Treasury of Existence to illustrate,however briefly（and however focused on vocabulary, not morphology）, the range of obstacles that rise up to confront us. Despite the problems, I believe our knowledge quest may be undertaken with a certain degree of optimism.