Tibetan to Lower Sorbian: preserve the noun group before choosing number and endings
Find the complete Tibetan referent
A Tibetan noun group can contain more information than the first recognizable noun suggests. Garrett and Hill’s corpus study of Classical Tibetan distinguishes demonstratives, numerals, plural markers and other modifiers, with case markers closing the noun phrase. Its findings concern written Classical Tibetan materials; they should not be treated as a complete description of every modern spoken variety.
When translating a passage that identifies particular participants, first establish which modifiers belong together. A number, a demonstrative and a following case marker must be interpreted as part of the source construction rather than distributed among separate Lower Sorbian phrases simply because the output sounds smoother. Otherwise, a statement about those two participants can quietly become a statement about an unspecified group.
Two participants deserve attention in Lower Sorbian
The Lower Sorbian documentation project identifies an actively used dual category alongside the language’s inflectional system. Consequently, a source reference to two participants deserves a different review from an unspecified plural. The Tibetan study separately recognizes cardinal numerals and plural expressions; these are clues to inspect, not automatic instructions to paste a corresponding target ending.
Consider an instruction addressed to a pair of visitors. Work out whether both visitors are addressed together, whether one is being told about the other, or whether the sentence describes a larger party containing two visitors. Those readings establish different participants before Lower Sorbian number is chosen. A numeral visible in the source is not enough to settle the number of every noun and verb in the sentence.
Check lexical entries after identifying the construction
The Sorbian Institute’s Lower Sorbian portal provides spelling resources, dictionaries, a text corpus and pronunciation material. These serve different purposes: a dictionary can help identify a word, while a corpus can show it inside an attested construction. Neither a plausible German intermediary nor an Upper Sorbian spelling should be accepted as Lower Sorbian evidence without checking the actual resource.
For a Tibetan institutional name or descriptive title, identify whether the expression names an office or merely describes its holder. Garrett and Hill illustrate that a compound and a noun-plus-adjective sequence can differ in this respect. Searching the entire intended Lower Sorbian expression is more informative than approving each component independently and assuming the combination preserves the title.
Use the source distinction to guide the final comparison
Compare the Tibetan and Lower Sorbian versions around the same referent: who is identified, how many individuals are involved, and which description singles them out? If the source leaves a participant count open, do not invent exactly two merely because two people were mentioned in a previous sentence. Conversely, do not lose an explicit pair inside a broad plural paraphrase.
For an older Tibetan passage, keep a note of the noun-group analysis and the Lower Sorbian dictionary or corpus entry used. That creates a useful record of the actual decision: the intended people or object, rather than a list of isolated word equivalents. It also makes a later correction possible without treating every similar-looking Tibetan sequence as the same construction.
Language references