“吐蕃”音原——兼与《“吐蕃”音辨》文商榷

The original pronunciation of“吐蕃”:In reply to“The identification of the pronunciation of‘吐蕃’”

文章就“吐蕃”读音进行考释,认为“蕃”字唐代没有“鄱”方音且无bō音;唐人用吐蕃二字称呼古藏族政权主要缘起吐谷浑;吐蕃的“蕃”律诗中读元韵,元曲中读寒山韵,反映的都是其带-n尾的真实语音,历史上并无吐蕃tǔbō读音,不必因藏族自称bod,就须注音吐蕃tǔbō;藏文史籍中对“吐蕃”的系列藏文音译表明“蕃”历来读-n尾音;“吐蕃”应据其本源音义今读tǔfān。

This paper discusses the six major issues concerning the pronunciation of the word“吐蕃”as mentioned in Xie Renyou(谢仁友)s paper,“The identification of the pronunciation of‘吐蕃’”,and suggests that“吐蕃”should be pronounced as“tǔfān”rather than“tǔbō”.According to ancient Chinese rhyme books,during the Tang dynasty(618-907 A.D.),the character“蕃”did not have the pronunciation of“bō”.Besides,historical records show that the word“吐蕃”originally referred to the state of Tuyuhun(吐谷浑)and was later used to refer to the Tibetans as well.As a result,it should not be a transliteration of the name of Tibet in Turkic,the Tuüp t.Furthermore,the occurrences of the word“吐蕃”in Chinese rhymed poems also suggest that it should have a coda-n.Based on the above,since there is no clear historical evidence of“吐蕃”being pronounced as“tǔbō”,it is not necessary to correlate its pronunciation with the word bod which the Tibetans used to call themselves.The Tibetan transliteration of the word also indicates that“蕃”was always read with a coda-n thus the term“吐蕃”should be read as“tǔfān”.