Syntactic features of Late Oyirat translated monuments (based on the manuscript with the translation of Tugmud-Gavji Oülgurun Dalai "The sea of parables")

Abstract

The paper describes the syntactic features of the text of the translation of the well-known Buddhist work “The Sea of Parables”, carried out by Kalmyk cleric Tugmud-gavji (Thog-med bka'-bcu, secular name — O. M. Dordzhiev) (1887—1980) in the late 1960s. This work is an example of the translation of the latest stage of the existence of the Oyirat writing among the Kalmyks of the Volga region. In this work we have involved written sources from the Archive of the Kalmyk Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences: a manuscript in Oyirat “Clear Script” (‘Todo bičiq’), called “The Sea of Parables” (Oülgurun dalai, notebooks 1—4, 289 folios), translated by Tugmud-gavji, as well as the Tibetan text 'Dzangs blun zhes-bya-ba theg-pa chen-po'i mdo (‘The Mahāyāna Sutra called “The Wise and the Fool”’), which served as the basis for translation. Based on the analysis of the translation text of Tugmud-gavji in comparison with its Tibetan original, the author of the article notes a number of characteristic syntactic features inherent in the translation language of the Kalmyk literator. They relate to the order of words in the sentence, the types of sentences (according to the purpose of the statement, structural types, etc.). In a number of examples, the translator strictly follows the syntax of the Tibetan original, but, as is almost always observed with the facts of interference, this following is not rigid. In sentences differing in the purpose of the statement, there is a great degree of dependence on the Tibetan original. In the transmission of structural types of sentences, the translator in most examples follows the original. The work demonstrates that Tugmudgavji adheres to the translation technique characteristic of literal (word-to-word) translations of Buddhist texts, which developed in the second half of the 17th century, which was used by Zaya Pandita and which consists in the fact that the author strictly adheres to the original Tibetan text, trying not to release fragments or some words of the original from the translation. Observations indicate a good knowledge of the Tibetan language by the translator and a noticeable Tibetan influence on the written Oyirat language in its formation through the practice of translating Buddhist texts