Classical Tibetan

Classical Tibetan refers to the language of any text written in Tibetic after the Old Tibetan period and before the modern period, but it particularly refers to the language of early canonical texts translated from other languages, especially Sanskrit. The phonology implied by Classical Tibetan orthography is basically identical to the phonology of Old Tibetan, but the grammar varies greatly depending on period and geographic origin of the author. Such variation is an under-researched topic.

In 816, during the reign of King Sadnalegs, literary Tibetan underwent a thorough reform aimed at standardizing the language and vocabulary of the translations being made from Indian texts, which resulted in what is now called Classical Tibetan.

Nouns

Structure of the noun phrase

Nominalizing suffixes — pa or ba and ma — are required by the noun or adjective that is to be singled out;

The plural is denoted, when required, by adding the morpheme -rnams, when the collective nature of the plurality is stressed the morpheme -dag is instead used. These two morphemes combine readily (e.g. rnams-dag 'a group with several members', and dag-rnams 'several groups').