THL Toolbox > Essays >How to Handle Non-English Passages or Entire Texts

How to Handle Non-English Passages or Entire Texts

Contributor(s): David Germano, Steven Weinberger

Overview

This page addresses the issue of citations of passages in an Asian language, such as Tibetan, Chinese, Sanskrit, Mongolian, Nepali, Pali, or Hindi, including an entire text or a lengthy section included in an appendix. There are four types of situations in which passages/entire texts are included in an essay.

The first scenario is that you have translated a passage from, for example, a Tibetan text, and you have included that translation in the body of the essay or in a footnote/endnote. In this case, you are NOT required to provide the original text for readers. However, we encourage scholars when possible to provide the corresponding Tibetan text, since it greatly facilitates other scholars’ reading and assessment of your work. If you do have the Tibetan text available to you, please include it not in the body of the essay but rather in a footnote/endnote. If the translation is also in a footnote/endnote, then please provide the Tibetan text in the same note as the translation but following it in parentheses. Apply the appropriate Word style to the passage (“Lang Tibetan, tib”; “Lang Sanskrit, san”; “Lang Mongolian, mon”; “Lang Chinese, chi” – see the full list of such styles below). Please consult the section below on how to render Tibetan, which must be in THL Extended Wylie transliteration. For details on applying the Word style to a passage, see the “How to Apply Microsoft Word Styles” section of Applying the First Word Styles.

The second scenario is that you simply wish to cite for example a Tibetan-language passage which is pertinent to your argument, but which you have not translated per se. In this case, please put the Tibetan in a footnote/endnote and apply the “Lang Tibetan, tib” Word style, as detailed above. Unless really crucial, and short, please do not put the Tibetan passage in the body of the essay.

The third scenario is for example that you provide an entire Tibetan text in translation as an appendix. In this case, we encourage you strongly, but do not require you, to provide the corresponding Tibetan text itself in an electronic edition within the appendix. If you do so, this should in fact be in a Unicode Tibetan font rather than THL Wylie transliteration. It should also follow conventions for THL’s Tibetan e-text editions as outlined in Tibetan Texts.

The fourth scenario is that you simply want to provide a Tibetan text in an edition within an appendix. If you do so, this should in fact be in a Unicode Tibetan font rather than THL Wylie transliteration. It should also follow conventions for THL’s Tibetan e-text editions as outlined in Tibetan Texts.

Word Styles for All Languages

Here is a list of Word styles to use for longer strings of text in various languages:

Tibetan Text of Passages Should be in Wylie

Remember that all Tibetan, including longer passages as well as all individual words, names, and so forth, must be in THL Extended Wylie. Use a forward slash (/) for a shad. Additionally, after each shad, enter an underscore (_); this will be displayed online as a space. Remember that, in Wylie transliteration, every space is a tshegs. For this reason, always remember to enter a space between a nga and a shad. Also, do not enter any extra spaces within Wylie, because every space will be a tshegs when this is displayed as Tibetan. So a Tibetan passage of which the original reads

should look like this in the footnote/endnote of the essay (and it should have the Word style “Lang Tibetan, tib” applied to it, which will make it display as pink text):

de thob pa la gling gsum gyi skyes pa bud med dang /_dang por mi’i rten la
lam spyangs pa’i ’dod lha kha cig gi rten la mthong lam gsar du skye’i/

Note: for strings of Tibetan text, remember to follow THL Extended Wylie conventions for Tibetan punctuation.

Provided for unrestricted use by the Tibetan and Himalayan Library