So, I was recently meeting with an acquaintance who threw out, in the middle of a conversation, that they really dislike the Wylie system for Romanizing T language and suggesting that it not be used in publication. Now, if you know me, you know quite well that I'm a huge advocate of the Wylie system (to the point where I wonder if this acquaintance was just trying to tick me off). I told this person that I categorically disagreed with EVERYTHING they said. So this week, in lieu of a post based more in cultural differences, or little minutiae I've gleaned, I'm going to provide a defense of the Wylie system. As a warning, I'm not a linguist. Just a pragmatist.
Firstly, what is Wylie? Wylie is a transcription based on the written conventions of the classical T language. It is named after its creator Turrell V. Wylie. The are some notable cons to the Wylie transcription system. Most obviously the clusters of consonants that lead non-specialists to look on the transcribed terms in stunned disbelief. It's this drawback that leads my adviser to tell me (after every single presentation) that the person who devised the system ought to be disemboweled by three-headed dogs on anabolic steroids with demon-monkeys on their back (a moot point since Wylie has already passed). Well, Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but his reaction is similarly visceral. And I understand this reaction. When faced with terms like bsngags, I'll be the first to admit that this transcription system sometimes looks ri-gosh-darn-diculous. But the pros, in my opinion outweigh the cons: 1) It gives specialists a common transcription system regardless of regional focus. I mean, what are your alternatives? Should you Romanize everything based on pronunciations? Let's examine this option, for a moment. Which pronunciation will you use? I'm studying in the A mdo region (with a group of dialects that fit under this same name), so maybe it makes sense to Romanize using some form of system based on A mdo dialect pronunciation. But few foreigners know the A mdo dialect well enough to figure out what I'm talking about. Even T-ologists in the states mostly only speak the central dialect. So can I use an A mdo based transcription? Not really. Nor will it make things much easier. The Wylie bsngags will fit in Amdo as hngag. The Wylie rten 'brel would become shtemdree. That's really no better than Wylie. So no A mdo-based romanization. What about other phonetic transcription systems? It seems ridiculous to me to use a transcription system based on central dialect for a project about A mdo. This, however, seems to be the system employed by a number of publishers so let's talk about it. Well, one problem is that I don't exactly speak the central dialect. I get turned around when I read books that use this romanization. It doesn't make sense to me. In fact, all that it really accomplishes is to make the foreign non-specialist feel a little bit more comfortable (but there are so many diacritics that it won't even really help native English speakers much). It also effectively excludes Anglophone T readers from A mdo and Khams from fully joining in the academic conversation, thus closing off one fruitful avenue for continuing discussion. Perhaps this isn't the most compelling argument. Some may suggest that your audience should be non-specialist academics... 2) Ok, well. Why Wylie then. Doesn't it exclude non-specialists? First of all, English is not written the same way it sounds. Nor is Chinese pinyin, really. These are systems, with standard rules that govern the correct spelling of certain terminologies, characters, and/or (kind of) sounds. Is it really necessary to exclude Wylie because it isn't written the way it sounds but rather the way in which T is written? I'm going to go ahead and say no. The Wylie system makes sense. It is understandable to T people, and easy to teach. It doesn't privilege any one dialect over others, and it allows people within the same discipline a consistent way of writing single terms. This in and of itself is enough reason to support the use of Wylie. But some may still object. Doesn't it keep people from outside the discipline from trying to understand your work and thus keep your from engaging in a larger theoretical dialogue? This is the most common question I get, and I think it absolute malarkey. Here's my take: when you read something about some small ethnic group with a weird language like the Nahuatl (let alone some language with clicks and all that), is the ability to pronounce certain terms really that important to your understanding of the article? I'm going to say, "no." In fact, it really has nothing to do with it. I, for one, just sort of associate a basic grouping of letters that I figure insiders can pronounce (but I can't) with a certain concept. Done. In the end, I wonder if people aren't just trying to blame Wylie for what is in reality a more general issue with the T-ological discipline. My understanding is that, historically, T-ology has had trouble impacting other fields because of a lack of engagement in precisely those larger theoretical issues that determine the value and quality of research in modern academia. When T-ologists then look at older bodies of work from their discipline, it seems like they pinpoint Wylie as a problem (perhaps THE problem) holding the discipline back. This is the easy answer, and (for me) the easy answer is rarely the one you need. The more difficult answer is that other fields have forced their grad students to engage in different theoretical issues and to look at other scholars like Goffman, Bakhtin, Foucault, DeCerteau, Deleuze and Guattari, and Lefebvre for inspiration. Avoiding Wylie won't solve this problem. For me, the correct answer is to continue using Wylie in order to facilitate a larger discipline-wide dialogue, but change the education in programs to include more theoretical discussions in order to also encourage dialogue with other disciplines. P.S.: It is also perhaps worth noting that some people might argue that a central dialect-based romanization system was adopted by T groups in D-town (an area south of the TAR) and that all T people voted on and agreed to use it. To that I say (sarcastically): I wish somebody had told the T people here. They seem strangely unaware that they voted to adopt central dialect romanizations. That's just my humble .02
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |