Tibetan to Setswana: preserve what a question actually asks
Who and what request different kinds of answer
Jäschke’s historical Tibetan grammar distinguishes སུ་ for who from ཅི་ for what and also records regional alternatives. Reading the interrogative expression within its source construction is necessary before selecting a Setswana question word.
Unisa’s Setswana lesson distinguishes Mang? from Eng? for who and what. These are not merely stylistic ways to make a sentence interrogative. A Tibetan question asking for a person’s identity should not become a request to identify an object or activity. The intended answer type matters even where the source leaves other participants unexpressed.
A purpose question can contain a source expression glossed what
Jäschke illustrates ཅི་ལ་ in a question asking what someone comes for. The particle and predicate contribute to the meaning; interpreting the isolated interrogative as a standalone what would miss the purpose relationship.
Unisa separately lists Goreng? for why. Selecting a Setswana why-type question therefore requires understanding the Tibetan utterance as asking for a reason or purpose. It should not be chosen merely because a broad dictionary entry happens to mention why, nor avoided merely because the source contains a word elsewhere glossed what. The complete source question establishes the relation being requested.
When is different from the temporal condition when
The Setswana lesson gives Leng? for an interrogative when. This asks the listener to identify a time. It is not a universal replacement for every Tibetan clause that an English intermediary might introduce with when.
Jäschke’s historical grammar also describes temporal and conditional clauses, including ན་ with if or conditional-when interpretations. A Tibetan instruction about what to do when a condition holds is different from a question asking at what time an event occurs. Replacing a source condition with an interrogative target word can turn an instruction into a request for information.
A question about knowledge must not become a claim of witnessing
Garfield and de Villiers’s spoken Tibetan analysis concerns how the relevant knowledge holder has access to information. In questions, the addressee’s knowledge can be relevant rather than simply the speaker’s. That evidential dimension remains distinct from whether the question asks who, what, why, or when.
A Tibetan question can request the reason for an event without asserting that the speaker witnessed it. It can also ask someone with personal knowledge to identify a participant. The Setswana question word selects the answer sought, while any important source distinction about knowledge needs its own faithful expression. Keep these decisions separate so that a correct-looking interrogative does not imply evidence absent from the source. In this direction, the whole question—including its predicate, relational material, and intended answer—must guide the target wording, rather than an isolated Tibetan syllable or a general English gloss.
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