Tibet is famous for its unique culture and language, which make it one of the most distinct parts of China. The Tibet Autonomous Region is distinct culturally, linguistically, and even geographically from eastern China, the historical homeland of the Han Chinese people. Ethnic Tibetans comprise the vast majority of Tibet’s population, but that doesn’t mean that the central Chinese government doesn’t have a tight grip over the region, leaving the Tibetan language under threat of the ubiquitous and more prestigious Mandarin Chinese.
Lhasa Tibetan is the official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region, and most children learn the Lhasa Tibetan (or another form of Tibetan) as their first language, with 1.2 million speakers in total. However, with the Chinese government ramping up promotion of Mandarin Chinese in the region, Tibetan could become increasingly threatened. At TranslationServices.com, we don’t want to see the beautiful Lhasa Tibetan language struggle—after all, we know the value it holds to the Tibetan people. So, that’s why we’re proud to have established a Lhasa Tibetan translation team, which is dedicated to quality.
We’re happy to provide free quotes for Lhasa Tibetan translation projects upon request.
Discovering the mysterious language of Tibet
Lhasa Tibetan is a Tibetic language from the Sino–Tibetan language family, meaning it’s related to Chinese. The Tibetic languages are divided into three main branches: Central Tibetan (or Ü-Tsang), Khams Tibetan, and Amdo Tibetan. Lhasa Tibetan (sometimes Standard Tibetan), which hails from the Central Tibetan branch, is somewhat mutually intelligible with Khams but not at all with Amdo, the most conservative of the three branches. Lhasa Tibetan is written in the Tibetan script, an Indic script with a remarkably conservative orthography that harkens back to OId Tibetan phonology.
Lhasa Tibetan is an ergative language, which means that it treats intransitive subjects and transitive objects (absolutive) grammatically the same and transitive subjects (ergative) differently. The absolutive case is unmarked, while the ergative case takes a suffix. In total, Lhasa Tibetan features six cases. Lhasa Tibetan pronouns are divided into three numbers (singular, dual, and plural), feature gender distinction in the third person, and have honorific and pejorative forms for the second person. Lhasa Tibetan also distinguishes between volitional and non-volitional verbs (essentially the difference between “look” and “see” in English), using different suffixes for the two types.
Lhasa Tibetan is a unique and culturally rich language full of grammatical features entirely foreign to English speakers. Our native-speaking Tibetan translators are proud to translate their language for you.
Accommodating your Lhasa Tibetan translation needs
Our Lhasa Tibetan translation team is dedicated to quality and flexibility, and that includes offering services both into Tibetan and out of Tibetan. Would you like to translate content in Lhasa Tibetan into English? This service is ideal for historical documents, academic notes, traditional literature, liturgical texts, and more and is perfect for historians, researchers, and everyday Tibetan people who want to share their culture and history with the world. What about translation from English into Lhasa Tibetan? We offer this for any imaginable content, whether educational material, business content, books, poetry, websites, apps, games, and more. This service works wonders for those who want to help preserve the Lhasa Tibetan language by increasing the amount of content in the language.
We’re excited to translate your Lhasa Tibetan project. Why not to get started?