this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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Tibet is the romanized name for the region (based on Latin Tibetum). Tibetans call the Tibetan plateau "Bö" and Central Tibet "Ü-Tsang."
The original Tibetan Empire (circa 600-800 or something) stretched across the regions of Amdo (modern-day Qinghai), Ü-Tsang (modern-day Tibet Autonomous Region), and Khan (split between TAR and Sichuan). Xizang is a more or less direct transliteration of Ü-Tsang, the territory that makes up the vast majority of the modern-day TAR.
Tibet refers to the entire plateau (also referred to as the Qinghai-Xizang plateau or the Himalayan Plateau) and Xizang refers to the territory made up by the TAR. Xizang has, for as long as I can remember, been the Chinese name for the TAR.
This is manufactured outrage with a clickbait title... About what can be expected from Newsweek.
Edit: for some additional context, China is usually pretty good about keeping local names. See: Ürümqi (Wulumuqi) from the name of Dzungar village there, Kashgar (Kashigaer/Kashi) which has had the same name for millennia and Harbin (Haerbin) from the name of the Manchu village there (among others). Understandably, because Hui and Uyghurs still live in Urumqi and Kashgar, Manchu still live in Harbin, and Tibetans still live in Xizang.
@zerfuffle
It really helps if you read the article before posting.
Xizang is as much a "Chinese word" as Tsawwassen or Denali is an "English word." It's literally a direct phonetic transliteration of the Tibetan name used to describe the land occupied by the TAR.
And it's being used to try to distance themselves from the long standing international opposition to their illegal occupation and annexation of Tibet, and the genocide done to achieve it.
Maybe Westerners shouldn't get their panties in a twist about someone not using a name created by the West because Western colonialists couldn't figure out a better transliteration?
Okay, let's use the name that the legitimate government of Tibet, the Central Tibetan Administration, endorses.
Oh look, it's "Tibet".
The legitimate government of Tibet... According to who? Even the British (who had just finished shipping opium to China, looting Chinese palaces, and had every reason to antagonize the Chinese) didn't recognize the independence of Tibet.
Regardless, this is the same Tibetan government that supported a caste system and ethnic discrimination, right? That Tibetan government? The same one whose leader has been called out by American media for being a pedophile?
According to Tibetans.
Yawn. Nothing but whataboutism from you, huh? "Who cares if China did multiple genocides and illegal annexations and disappears people who protest the government, the Tibetan government is also bad, so China should be allowed to ethnic cleanse them!"
No government is good, but other humans being bad isn't an excuse to go and be bad as well. And let's not pretend that China gives a crap about anything except expansion of their resources and influence. You're not impressing anyone by defending a genocidal regime, it just comes off as being incapable of actually critically assessing your own side. You're no different than the MAGA crowd who think America can do no wrong.
The same 6 million Tibetans living in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan? Those Tibetans? The same Tibetans who are the ethnic majority in TAR and make up a significant proportion of the population of Qinghai?
Oh, you meant the Central Tibetan Administration, which nets about 100 people a year leaving China. The same one that's seeing people return to China because the economic prospects elsewhere are worse.
Edit: the TAR, which is governed by Losang Jamcan as Congress Chairman, Yan Jinhai as Government Chairman, and Pagbalha Geleg Namgyai as CPPCC Chairman... All Tibetan. The Tibetan deputies to the National People's Congress... Also Tibetan. Life expectancy increased from 36yo to 72yo. GDP/capita and disposable income/capita growing rapidly YoY. Billions of dollars in infrastructure investment, including the Lhasa HSR. Interesting strategy for a genocide, that's for sure.
There is No War in Ba Sing Se!
Yawn
@zerfuffle transliterations still belong to the transliterating language, eg "Bombay" or "Peking" may not sound English but they are.
It's unclear from the article what the Tibetan government-in-exile spokesperson would like it to be called.
The god king of a ethnostate with enshrined caste system and slavery? I don’t really care what he thinks.
The spokesperson is hardly a god king.
Ah, so he’s not the god king, just the representative of the god king in absentia, thanks for clarifying that for me. Doesn’t change that I don’t respect anyone who represents or is integrated into a caste-based ethnostate, but it’s good information nonetheless.
Sure, I'm not asking you to respect anything in particular.
The only placenames mentioned in the article are Chinese or English.
Got me wondering what the actual Tibetans would call it (both those inside Tibet and those outside it).
That's fair, but I think it loses the distinction between different transliteration strategies. For example, phonetic transliteration preserves far more of the original language than other methods. Transliteration is a necessary component of language: most common languages lack glottal stops and clicks, but it's still important to be able to refer to places that are named with glottal stops and clicks.
In that regard, the TAR has always been referred to as Xizang in Chinese because the TAR covers the Ü-Tsang region. The lands of greater Tibet from the peak of the Tibetan Empire are now parts of Qinghai, Sichuan, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Kashmir. The unified region of greater Tibet has, in recent history, always been དབུས (Ü) and གཙང་ (Tsang). This is pronounced ue-tsang according to Tibetan Pinyin (phonetic transcription) and Xizang according to transliteration - running through the possibilities, I'm struggling to find an exonym in Mandarin that would be closer in pronunciation.
The traditional name of the region is བོད་ (Bhö). The name Tibet is itself an import from the English. Given the degree of funding the Tibetan government-in-exile receives from the US (an English-speaking country), I'd suggest that the Tibetan government-in-exile has a strong financial incentive for maintaining English...
@zerfuffle the exiles seek the political goodwill of other nations, so presumably they also have a strong incentive to be intelligible to people in those nations. Would be interesting to know if they call it Bhota when they are in India.
When I am fundraising I use names people recognise.
Absolutely, there's a good point.
Doesn't change the fact that ethnic Tibet and the TAR are not necessarily the same territorial entity. Tibetans make up a significant proportion of the population of Qinghai, for example.