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What are the acronyms in the dictionary entries? These are from the THL Tibetan to English Translation Tool output: English (JH-ENG) Other's English (JH-OE) Tenses (JH-T) Sanskrit (JH-SKT) Other Tibetan (OT) Def. Tibetan (JH-DEFT) Def. English (JH-DEFE) Div. Tibetan (JH-DIVT) Div. English (JH-DIVE) Syn. Tibetan (JH-ST) Syn. English (JH-SE) Comments (JH-C) Ex. Tibetan (JH-EXT) Ex. English (JH-EXE) Yogacara-bh. Gl. (YOGA) Dan Martin (DM) Jim Valby (JV) Ives Waldo (IW) Richard Barron (RB) Rangjung Yeshe (RY) In addition, other dictionary entries are added over time, such as the Mahāvyutpatti entries. I can't get the Tibetan (or Sanskrit) letters to show up on the web pages? Most modern computer and handheld systems have built-in Tibetan fonts, or then they need to be installed. The Tibetan and Sanskrit data is based on Unicode at this site. There are some issues with more exoteric stacked letters that the Unicode standard might not provide support for, mostly in Tantric literarure. In these cases -- if there's a need -- we either use an image or then Wylie encoding. Could I contribute? I'm definitely interested in reports about issues, mispellings and corrections as well as suggestions for additional material. At this point, especially as the tool used is not designed for multi-user work, any changes and such has to come from a single source. What about all the texts that are not yet ready? Just now it would be less optimal to remove all the unchecked and unprepared pages from the source. Plus it's fascinating to see how more and more additions to the translated words and sentences add more context to texts not yet checked out. What about the odd gaps and other oddities in the Tibetan texts? In order to get the right hyperlinks working in sentences where there might be overlapping hyperlinks, some liberties were taken to add dots (tsek) between Tibetan words. What about the odd characters such as an empty circle and other odd Tibetan or Sanskrit letters? The current Unicode standard for Tibetan and Sanskrit covers a lot of letter but there are still stacked letter combinations that might not be properly rendered based on the font used, the computer system and a multitude of other technical issues. We will fix those along the way. Also, in some cases hyperlinks next to each other with certain stacked letter cause bad characters. Hence the need to separate links in some cases with additional ་ characters. What are those odd page names looking like [MRAD-3]? They are an attempt to make unique pages names -- or chunks -- as notes to the translations so you could click on this link and it opens up its corresponding Tibetan and translation -- easier than to read the whole text even if at some point it is useful to read the whole test. The system is based on the teacher initials and two more letters as part of the text, so that [MRAD-3] means Miphan Rinpoche ADvice to beginners, part 3. Titles end with -T, homages with -H, introductions with -I and dedications with -D. How are the chunks of text broken up? If possible each chunk of the test with a meaningful statement -- to a point where this separate chunk pages could even be used as links for more information from other pages. This is very similar to how commentaries quote from other sources. What is the version number system? It's a continious build version based on each time the web site contents have been modified by changes and additions. The web site has the official released build number. So, version 1.23 is the 123th version of the internal document. Why so few links to other sites and what about the broken links? Everything is impermanent, even web links. In most cases doing an internet search will provide more accurate information about material available. Just use qualified web sites from known and respected lineages, traditions, teachers, monasteries and organizations. This web site has some entry point links to various useful web sites and pages -- if those are broken please contact. Why no phonemics or pages about learning Tibetan? You could find plenty of good tutorials about Tibetan and Sanskrit on Internet or via books so that is covered by other resources. Why does this site have both Wylie Tibetan words and words with Tibetan fonts? Over time most if not all of the content will be in Tibetan fonts. For example, any hyperlinking between words is only done with Tibetan font constructs. It will take time... Also if Tibetan font words are replaced, then the Wylie versions are removed. Where are all the shad (།) characters? This web site took the approach to use shad for sentence like structures and if there are words or listings of words they are omitted with a final tsek (dot) instead. What is KHS That's my signature indicating comments and annotations from my side. What are the copyright rules? Consult the various sources of the translations for the original copyright statements. As for original Tibetan texts, most likely they have not copyright due to age and original intent. |