deb ther

This is the RYI Dictionary content as presented on the site http://rywiki.tsadra.org/, which is being changed fundamentally and will become hard to use within the GoldenDict application. If you are using GoldenDict, please either download and import the rydic2003 file from DigitalTibetan (WayBack Machine version as the site was shut down in November 2021).

Or go directly to http://rywiki.tsadra.org/ for more upcoming features.

དེབ་ཐེར
annal, chronicle, records, documents, records, catalogues, registers, lists, books [RY]

annals, chronicle, records, documents, records, catalogues, registers, lists, books [IW]

register, documents, catalogues, anything recorded in writing or stitched together [JV]

historical book, annals [RY]

1) annals, historical annals, recorded annals, chronicles, historical chronicles, recorded chronicles, records, historical records; 2) record books, documents, historical documents, catalogs, historical catalogs, catalog of records, registers, historical registers, recorded registers, listings, historical listings, recorded listings; 3) books, scrolls. Borrowed from Middle or Early New Persian دفتر‎ (daftar), meaning "account book" and usually meaning "notebook", "list" or "register" in Modern Persian, which in turn is from Aramaic דפתרא‎ / ܕܦܬܪܐ‎, and ultimately from Ancient Greek διφθέρᾱ (diphthérā, “parchment”, "scrolls" or "pages"); which itself is possibly from Proto-Hellenic dipʰtʰérā, related to διψάρα (dipsára, “writing-tablet; piece of leather”) and Mycenaean Greek 𐀇𐁇𐀨 (di-pte-ra), and probably connected with δέφω (déphō) or δέψω (dépsō, “to soften (with the hand)”). Compare with Old Persian 𐎮𐎡𐎱𐎡 (dipi), Akkadian 𒁾 (ṭuppu, “tablet, document, letter”), Sumerian 𒁾 (dub, “tablet”) and even Arabic and later Persian and Hindi كِتَاب (kitāb, "book", "message", "scripture", "recorded accounts" etc.). The word also exists as a Persian loanword in Arabic as دَفْتَر (daftar). There is also an irregular spelling with གཏེར (deb gter) (rather than ther) based on a Tibetan 'folk etymology' connecting it to the meaning "treasure", due to the accidental similarity of the Persian-Greek -tar/-thérā with the Tibetan word. Thus it appears that this Greco-Persian etymology is also the ultimate origin of deb, which is the main Tibetan word for "book", as the monosyllabic deb is derived as a shortened form of the longer word deb ther. The main native Tibetan word for "book" (which is not a foreign loan word) is dpe cha. It is worth noting that the pronunciation of the Tibetan version of this word arguably sounds more like the original Greek diphthér(ā) than the Persian daftar, perhaps intentionally trying to imitate the Greek form, but also partly due to the general lack of the f sound in Tibetan (but especially as a final consonant, since pha is pronounced as fa in some dialects of Tibetan but is never a final consonant). This word probably entered Tibet via the Silk Road trading routes, and therefore may have originally meant "account book" or "record book" in the mercantile sense.

"Since the word debter (deb-ther) appears in a number of important historical titles, it may be good to know that although the word entered Tibetan language during the Mongol Period, it is ultimately related via Greek to the English word diphtheria. Both the Greek word and the English mean skin, source of parchment as writing material. Of course word origins are not in control of their destinies, and it is doubtful Tibetan texts were ever normally inscribed on animal parchment. Still, if the word came to mean "annals" it is only in the broad sense we might simply translate as history, and not the specific meaning of annals as seen in the 'Old Tibetan Annals'. However, the red of 'Red Annals' might really refer to the color of the binding elements of the original manuscript. What is important is not to vainly imagine that the Red, Blue and White Annals that are quite important historical works bear much resemblance to annals in the strict meaning. The later Blue Annals (TH223) doesn’t even have a particularly chronological arrangement, since most of the chapters chronicle different schools and lineages of Tibetan Buddhism. It is likely the Tibetan use of the word was first inspired by a legendary lost book on the history of the Mongols that once circulated in the courts of the Mongol Empire known as the Golden Book, or Altan Debter.[10] It is interesting to note how this word debter has been reduced to its first syllable deb in modern Tibetan language where it is the most-used word for book, especially codices bound in European rather than Asian styles." (Dan Martin, Tibetan Histories, 2020). Erick Tsiknopoulos