Himalayan Linguistics

In contrast to other Modern Tibetan auxiliaries, the linguistic history of the so-called ‘factual’ marker red cannot be traced. Two scholars have independently pointed to the occurrence of red in the 15^th-century Mi.la.ras.paḥi rnam.thar. In all likelihood, this occurrence is the result of an editorial intervention. However, this text reveals an interesting distribution of five different verba dicendi, ingeniously used by the author of the text, to help understanding who talks to whom. Another suggested occurrence of red in the Padma thaŋ.yig is the result of an unfortunate misreading. On the other hand, some editions of the Gser.gyi phreŋ.ba do contain a single instance of red as a copula, which cannot be further analysed. The problematic status or red in all these texts demonstrates that in the reconstruction of the linguistic history of a language, the philological method cannot be set aside. Scribal errors or editorial interventions as well as unfortunate misreadings can only be detected when different editions are compared. In the appendix, I shall comment on the so far earliest use of ‘factual’ red in an 18^th-century text, which is not widely known.