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January 19, 2012 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
I previously wrote a post explaining how to use the CSS @font-face rule to render unicode Tibetan text in html without the use of any special spans or divs to mark the text. To keep up with a growing interest in Slavic languages, I’ve added a @font-face rule in order to render all the cyrillic on my site in a similar fashion using the Neon true type font included in Sorin Paliga’s Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic and Glagolitic Keyboard Layout Kit.
A new problem I came across was the cyrillic unicode picking up all my standard latin range numerals, leaving the dates on my posts looking a bit off. I remedied this by defining a third @font-face rule to display the numerals using my default fonts. I am less than happy with this solution and think there must be a more elegant way to do this, so if anyone knows, please share. The rules as they stand now are as follows:
@font-face {
font-family: OCS;
src: local(“Neon”), url(neon.ttf) format(‘truetype’);
unicode-range: U+0400–0481;
}
@font-face {
font-family: NUMERALS;
src: local(“Georgia”);
unicode-range: U+0030-0039;
}
The rule in action gives the following results:
Lowercase – старословѣньскъ ѩзыкъ
Uppercase – СТАРОСЛОВѢНСКЪ ѨЗЫКЪ
Category Old Church Slavonic (старословѣньскъ ѩзыкъ - staroslověnĭskŭ językŭ), Technology | Tags: , css, staroslověnĭskŭ językŭ, technology, старословѣньскъ ѩзыкъ | No Comments
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October 15, 2011 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
In a post today, Christopher Culver shared an interesting article on the current state of classical language studies in India. Despite the sad statistics on the global reduction of university posts for classicists and the deterioration of Indian scholasticism, the author’s obvious passion had an uplifting effect. I found the following quote in particular to be quite inspirational:
This general aspect of pedagogy in the classics—of understanding human being as mediated by language—is complemented by, perhaps inseparable from, a particular, political aspect of such pedagogy. It can be argued—and, as I read him, Antonio Gramsci tried to argue—that in the era of the capitalist and corporatist university, the most radical education is the most radically noninstrumental. This is not simple contrariety. The discipline of learning a nonmodern language and learning it well is at once personally transformative and (in the widest sense of the term) politically oppositional: “Pupils did not learn Latin and Greek in order to speak them, to become waiters, interpreters or commercial letter writers,” Gramsci reflected; rather, they studied in order to learn not a particular vocational skill but, first, the discipline of work as such rather than this or that particular job, and second, the possibility of acting in the world in a disinterested, even anti-profit manner (Gramsci 1986: 37-40; Entwistle 1979: 170-172; Borg and Mayo 2003). Moreover, teaching students to confront the difficult and the noninstrumental, teaching them the patience to listen to unfamiliar voices and to continue to listen until they make sense—to teach slow reading in a fast world—is one way of teaching them, as Gramsci suggested, to think for themselves. And nothing is quite so radical a political act as that.
Category Saṃskṛtam (संस्कृतम्) | Tags: | No Comments
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July 23, 2011 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
Recently, while updating my blog’s theme, I began to wonder if there was a way to use CSS to automatically detect and apply a nice cross-platform Tibetan font to any unicode Tibetan text on the site. I found a solution to my query in a CSS rule I had never used before, the @font-face rule. This rule was originally added to the CSS specification to provide a mechanism for developers to push fonts to client programs (in this case web browsers); thus, providing greater control over the appearance of text on webpages. It is described by the WC3 team as follows:
The @font-face rule allows for linking to fonts that are automatically activated when needed. This allows authors to select a font that closely matches the design goals for a given page rather than limiting the font choice to a set of fonts available on all platforms. A set of font descriptors define the location of a font resource, either locally or externally, along with the style characteristics of an individual face. Multiple @font-face rules can be used to construct font families with a variety of faces. Using CSS font matching rules, a user agent can selectively download only those faces that are needed for a given piece of text.
Now lets take a look at this in action in order to illustrate how this works. Below is the rule I implemented for my solution:
(more…)
Category Technology, Tibetan Language (བོད་སྐད་) | Tags: , bod skad, css, technology, Tibetan Language, unicode, བོད་སྐད་ | 1 Comment
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December 29, 2010 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
In the summer of 2010, I went to Slovenia with my wife. We stayed at my friend Peter’s home in Ljubljana. Here are a few photos from the trip.
(more…)
Category Travels | Tags: | No Comments
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April 29, 2010 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
The teaching titled Parting from the Four Clingings is a wonderful upadeśa originating in Sachen Kunga Nyingpo’s pure vision of the bodhisattva of wisdom, Mañjuśrī.
ཚེ་འདི་ལ་ཞེན་ན་ཆོས་པ་མིན།
If clinging to this life, one is not a practitioner.
ཁམས་གསུམ་ལ་ཞེན་ན་ངེས་འབྱུང་མིན།
If clinging to the three realms, there is no renunciation.
བདག་དོན་ལ་ཞེན་ན་བྱང་སེམས་མིན།
If clinging to one’s own benefit, there is no bodhicitta.
འཛིན་པ་བྱུང་ན་ལྟ་བ་མིན།
If grasping arises, there is no view.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: , Dharma, Tibetan Language, ཆོས་ | No Comments
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February 22, 2010 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
Last Friday I launched a site dedicated to the 21 Tārā-s at the request of Khenpo Migmar Tseten. A brief description from the homepage:
This site has been launched as an act of devotion to Āryatārā, and to celebrate the completion of the new series of 21 Tārā thangkhas and the new translation of the The 21 Praises to Tārā commissioned by Khenpo Migmar Tseten. Āryatārā (Tib. རྗེས་བཙུན་སྒྲོལ་མ་) is a female Buddha venerated by all Vajrayāna Buddhists worldwide.
The site features a gallery containing images of the 21 thangkas along with the text of the 21 Praises in English, Tibetan and Sanskrit (devanāgarī) and Khenpo Migmar’s teaching schedule . In the future we will be adding professionally photographed images of the thangkas, lineage charts of the major lineages of the 21Tārā-s, as well as teachings, and publications.
Enjoy:
http://www.tarastotra.com
Category Dharma (धर्म | ཆོས་), Saṃskṛtam (संस्कृतम्), Tibetan Language (བོད་སྐད་) | Tags: , 21 Praises to Tārā, bod skad, chos, Dharma, Khenpo Migmar Tseten, Lama Migmar, samskṛtaṃ, sanskrit, Tārā, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Language, देवनागरी, ཆོས་, བོད་སྐད་ | No Comments
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November 21, 2009 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
данзанравжаа - Danzan Ravžá
Today I came across this quote from the 19th century Mongolian Lama Danzan Ravjaa, thought it was pretty wonderful and decided to share.
“The intention to critique the Dharma and the intention not to discredit the Dharma are the poorest and narrowest of intellectual viewpoints”
Category Dharma (धर्म | ཆོས་), Mongolian History, Mongolian Language (Монгол хэл) | Tags: , Dharma, Mongolian History, mongolian language, Монгол хэл | No Comments
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August 6, 2009 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan: A Language Primer
The conclusion to the 4 year Tibetan Medicine Program at Shang Shung Institute America
is a 3 month clinical study at the Qīnghǎi/Tso Ngon (མཚོ་སྔོན་) Medical College in Xīníng, Qīnghǎi Prefecture, PRC. (The first class of students has just graduated this week 
)
One of the difficulties students have encountered there is in understanding the Amdo dialect (ཨ་མདོ་སྐད་ | a mdo skad). During the evolution of the spoken Tibetan language, the other 2 major dialects, u ke (དབུ་སྐད་ | dbu skad) and kham ke (ཁམས་སྐད་ | khams skad) dropped pronunciation of certain characters in the words, and adopted a 2 tone system. In Amdo this did not occur, leaving this dialect mostly unintelligible to Tibetan speakers from the other two regions. The vast majority of Tibetan language materials for non-native speakers focuses on the dbu skad that was spoken in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa (ལྷ་ས་ | lha sa). So most students have learned Tibetan in this dialect, or learned the Kham dialect, or some hybrid, using these materials.
Luckily for those of us yet to make the trip to Qīnghǎi, it appears there is a little known language manual focusing on contemporary a mdo skad. I’m ordering my copy, and will try to post a review of the material and how it compares vis á vis the excellent Manual of Standard Tibetan.
Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan: A Language Primer at Amazon.com
Category Uncategorized | Tags: , bod skad, gso ba rig pa, Tibetan Language, Tibetan Medicine, Tibetan Medicine (གསོ་བ་རིག་པ་), བོད་སྐད་ | No Comments
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June 1, 2009 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center has announced on their blog that they are opening access up to the བཀའ་འགྱུར་ (bka’ ‘gyur ) བསྟན་འགྱུར་(bstan ‘gyur) at:
http://tbrc.org/kb/public.xq
Following the instructions in the blog entry, one can build custom downloadable volumes from these collections.
This is awesome
Category Dharma (धर्म | ཆོས་), Tibetan Language (བོད་སྐད་) | Tags: , bod skad, Dharma, Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Language, ཆོས་, བོད་སྐད་ | No Comments
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February 23, 2009 by འཇམ་དབྱངས་ནོར་བུ་ (Jamyang Norbu)
I’ve recently begun working on a glossary of Indo-Tibetan medical terms. The primary sources of the terms are Vāgbhaṭa’s Aṣṭāñgahṛdayam, and gyu thog yon tan mgon po gsar ma’s bshad pa’i rgyud.
The terms are entered and searchable in IAST saṃskṛtam transliteration, unicode देवनागरी, Tibetan Wylie transliteration, unicode བོད་སྐད་, and English. The majority of English translations are culled from a Tibetan-English Medical Glossary prepared for students at the Shang Shung Institute by Löppon Malcolm Smith.
Category Āyurveda (आयुर्वेद), Tibetan Medicine (གསོ་བ་རིག་པ་) | Tags: , Ayurveda, gso ba rig pa, samskṛtaṃ, Tibetan Medicine, Tibetan Medicine (གསོ་བ་རིག་པ་), देवनागरी, བོད་སྐད་ | No Comments