Zhang-Zhung language

Marchen;
Type	Abugida
Languages	Zhang-Zhung
Direction	Left-to-right
ISO 15924	Marc, 332
Unicode alias	Marchen
Unicode range	U+11C70–U+11CBF

Zhang-Zhung
Region	Western Tibet and Central Asia
Era	7th–10th century[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Kanauri ? West Himalayish Almora Zhang-Zhung; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xzh
Linguist List	xzh
Glottolog	zhan1239[2]

Zhang-Zhung (Tibetan: ཞང་ཞུང་, Wylie: zhang zhung ) is an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken in what is now western Tibet. It is attested in a bilingual text called A Cavern of Treasures (mDzod phug) and several shorter texts.

A small number of documents preserved in Dunhuang contain an undeciphered language that has been called Old Zhangzhung, but the identification is controversial.

A Cavern of Treasures (mDzod phug)

A Cavern of Treasures (Tibetan: མཛོད་ཕུག་, Wylie: mdzod phug ) is a terma uncovered by Shenchen Luga (Tibetan: གཤེན་ཆེན་ཀླུ་དགའ་, Wylie: gshen chen klu dga' ) in the early eleventh century.[3] Martin (n.d.: p. 21) identifies the importance of this scripture for studies of the Zhang-zhung language:

For students of Tibetan culture in general, the mDzod phug is one of the most intriguing of all Bön scriptures, since it is the only lengthy bilingual work in Zhang-zhung and Tibetan (some of the shorter but still significant sources for Zhang-zhung are signalled in Orofino 1990)."[4]

External relationships

Bradley (2002) says Zhangzhung "is now agreed" to have been a Kanauri or West Himalayish language. Guillaume Jacques (2009) rebuts earlier hypotheses that Zhangzhung might have originated in eastern (rather than western) Tibet by having determined it to be a non-Qiangic language.[5]

Widmer (2014:53-56)[6] classifies Zhangzhung within the eastern branch of West Himalayish, and lists the following cognates between Zhangzhung and Proto-West Himalayish.

Gloss	Zhangzhung	Proto-West Himalayish
barley	zad	*zat
blue	ting	*tiŋ-
diminutive suffix	-tse	-tse ~ -tsi
ear	ra tse	*re
fat	tsʰas	*tsʰos
girl	tsa med	*tsamet
god	sad	*sat
gold ?	zang	*zaŋ
heart	she	*ɕe
old (person)	shang ze	*ɕ(j)aŋ
red	mang	*maŋ
white	shi nom	*ɕi

Scripts

A number of scripts are recorded as being used for writing the Zhang-Zhung language:[7]

Marchen or Greater Mar script (Tibetan: སྨར་ཆེན་, Wylie: smar chen )[8]
Marchung or Lesser Mar script (Tibetan: སྨར་ཆུང་, Wylie: smar chung )
Pungchen or Greater Pung script (Tibetan: སྤུངས་ཆེན་, Wylie: spungs chen )
Pungchung or Lesser Pung script (Tibetan: སྤུངས་ཆུང་, Wylie: spungs chung )
Drusha script (Tibetan: བྲུ་ཤ་, Wylie: bru sha )

However, these scripts appear to have little existence outside of calligraphy manuals. One extant document, a seal originally held at Tsurpu monastery, is written in the Marchen script.[9]

In the words of McKay (2003: p. 447):

"There is also a Zhang-zhung alphabet, but despite its rather unusual appearance to anyone who is unfamiliar with the Indo-Tibetan ornate style of lettering known as lan-tsha, one observes that it is modeled letter by letter upon Thon-mi Sambhota's alphabet of thirty letters."[10]

Unicode

Marchen script was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2016 with the release of version 9.0.

The Unicode block for Marchen is U+11C70–U+11CBF:

Marchen^[1]^[2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
U+11C7x	𑱰	𑱱	𑱲	𑱳	𑱴	𑱵	𑱶	𑱷	𑱸	𑱹	𑱺	𑱻	𑱼	𑱽	𑱾	𑱿
U+11C8x	𑲀	𑲁	𑲂	𑲃	𑲄	𑲅	𑲆	𑲇	𑲈	𑲉	𑲊	𑲋	𑲌	𑲍	𑲎	𑲏
U+11C9x			𑲒	𑲓	𑲔	𑲕	𑲖	𑲗	𑲘	𑲙	𑲚	𑲛	𑲜	𑲝	𑲞	𑲟
U+11CAx	𑲠	𑲡	𑲢	𑲣	𑲤	𑲥	𑲦	𑲧		𑲩	𑲪	𑲫	𑲬	𑲭	𑲮	𑲯
U+11CBx	𑲰	𑲱	𑲲	𑲳	𑲴	𑲵	𑲶
Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Old Zhangzhung

F. W. Thomas suggested that three undeciphered Dunhuang manuscripts in a Tibetan script were written in an older form of the Zhang-zhung language. This identification has been accepted by Takeuchi Tsuguhito (武内紹人), who called the language "Old Zhangzhung" and added two further manuscripts.[11] However, David Snellgrove, and more recently Dan Martin, have rejected Thomas's identification of the language of these texts as a variant of Zhang-zhung.[12]

Two of these manuscripts are in the Stein collection of the British Library and three in the Pelliot collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale. In each case, the relevant text is written on the reverse side of a scroll containing an earlier Chinese Buddhist text.[11] The texts are written in a style of Tibetan script dating from the late 8th or early 9th centuries. Takeuchi and Nishida claim to have partially deciphered the documents, which they believe to be separate medical texts.[13]

gollark: Oh, that.

gollark: https://i.osmarks.tk/memes-or-something/

gollark: my meme library is conveniently web-accessible.

gollark: Well, I have a bunch of programming-related memes, but they're not that.

gollark: no.

References

Zhang-Zhung at MultiTree on the Linguist List
Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Zhangzhung". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Berzin, Alexander (2005). The Four Immeasurable Attitudes in Hinayana, Mahayana, and Bön. Study Buddhism. Source: (accessed: June 6, 2016)
Martin, Dan (n.d.). "Comparing Treasuries: Mental states and other mdzod phug lists and passages with parallels in Abhidharma works of Vasubandhu and Asanga, or in Prajnaparamita Sutras: A progress report." University of Jerusalem. Source: (accessed: Monday March 1, 2010)
Jacques, Guillaume (2009). "Zhangzhung and Qiangic Languages". In Yasuhiko Nagano (ed.). Issues in Tibeto-Burman Historical Linguistics (PDF). Senri Ethnological Studies. 75. pp. 121–130.
Widmer, Manuel. 2014. "A tentative classification of West Himalayish." In A descriptive grammar of Bunan, 33-56. Bern: University of Bern.
West, Andrew (30 April 2011). "N4032: Proposal to encode the Marchen script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF).
West, Andrew (2013-10-22). "N4491: Final proposal to encode the Marchen script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF).
West, Andrew (1 January 2008). "Zhang Zhung Royal Seal".
McKay, Alex (2003). The history of Tibet, Volume 1. Volume 9 of International Institute of Administrative Sciences monographs The History of Tibet. Source: (accessed: Sunday November 1, 2009), p.447
Takeuchi, Tsuguhito (2002). "The Old Zhangzhung Manuscript Stein Or 8212/188". In Christopher Beckwith (ed.). Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages. Leiden: Brill. pp. 1–11. ISBN 978-90-04-12424-0.
Martin, Dan (2013). "Knowing Zhang-zhung: the very idea" (PDF). Journal of the International Association for Bon Research. 1: 175–197.
Takeuchi, Tsuguhito; Nishida, Ai (2009). "The Present Stage of Deciphering Old Zhangzhung". In Nagano, Yasuhiko (ed.). Issues in Tibeto-Burman Historical Linguistics (PDF). Senri Ethnological Studies. 75. pp. 151–165.