In the months of May and June my study of Tibetan language with SINI spent time with modal verbs. Franziska Oertle’s analysis has been for me a site for thoughts to deepen, and here I share a snippet of the process in thinking through འདོད་པ་, which speaks to wishes and wants in colloquial Tibetan.
In conjugating the verb to express wishes and wants, one does not utilise future and present tenses. In other words the connections to future and present moments are not prioritised in the world making through meaning, when it concerns one’s wishes in this language. Instead, it affirms the roads that have been traveled.
In English one could say “I wish…”, or “I want…” when attachment of feelings and emotions occur in real time. Whereas in Tibetan when one expresses the same sentiments, the process of utterance reveal the relation to time, and admits the pre-existence of these attachments, hence makes use of present perfect tense.
What does it mean, in the values of world making through language, for a wish to only exist prior to the utterance of the wish itself?
This statement indicates that when pointing to the future, the utterance comes after the existence of the wish. Stepping into this logic, there is also no present moment for a wish, for the wish needs to have arisen already to be expressed. This is the condition of utterance in this language, values abiding.
These sets of thinking put the act of wishing and wanting directly in relation to time that has existed. They guide one’s conscious discernment of expressing wishes through acknowledgement of its prior manifestation.
This prior existence points to a space, where wishes come into being, all the while holding the agency of it being a verb, an action.
Like markings on a path that aid walks in a forest, wishes become white ribbons tie to the trees, which provides us with an ability to leave behind, move forward, and simultaneously remember, through the capacity to trace. We are urged, in using this language, to remember that the ribbons have been tied, that our actions have something to do with it.
A wish has got to come from somewhere, its own relational map is not undermined. Furthermore, it will still be here when the sentence that is sounding in a present moment seizes to be heard.
“It is a past action with a result in the present”, considering the cycles of causes and conditions, this action of wishing or wanting is therefore non-volitional.
The non-volitional nature of the verb, when used in the context of the past, will then be joined with an auxiliary བྱུང་, which is to further elongate the understanding of how wishes and wants have risen. This auxiliary can be simply understood as “something coming towards the speaker”, and in this case, it was the non-volitional action that has been put in relation to the speaker.
The past is an re-enactment of process, illustrated by the interdependence of experiences.
The profoundness of this language does not end here. As I have written and reflected on before in a post, the framework of Tibetan language is organised through the self (the selflessness of a person) and the other (the selflessness of phenomena), everything one expresses are guided by one’s relationship with the context. So when one embarks on the process of speaking about another’s wants and wishes, the whole world moves along with it.
The auxiliary བྱུང་ that points to “something coming towards the speaker” becomes more solid. Which is understandable as it’s spoken via the third person’s perspective:
I might be able to see what’s coming towards you better, as opposed to the wishes and wants that have risen inside you.
Hence, the auxiliary བྱུང་ becomes the verb, which I use to describe what the other wanted and wished for in the past. As for wants and wishes of the others’ that existed in the past, it is then put into relation with my/the speaker’s perspective, and becomes something that “came into being”.
In one’s distance with the phenomenon, the other’s wishes are observed more as a noun, revealing another relational value in witnessing, as well as values of realising forms of collectivity.
As a filmmaker I am humbled by where this learning path has led me, in thinking about how I am in relation to my wants and wishes in the making, and how those of the others’ are presented, honoured, and together manifested.
Member discussion: