Talk:རྒྱམ་ཚྭ

@Wyang: I'm a little confused by the etymology. Is this a coincidence or a respelling? I thought it would just be a simple compound. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:51, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

This is from Sino-Tibetan: a conspectus (1972) by Paul Benedict. Page 57, #186 has:

... Tibetan has rgyam-tshwa ‘a kind of salt, like crystal’ (tshwa ‘salt’), apparently a metathesized form from *gryam (cf. T brgyad ‘8’ for *b-gryad); this is a rare medical term (cited by Csoma de Körös) and may be an early loan from Chinese, in which the indicated vowel shift *u > a is regular (n. 479).

The word rgyam as “sea” doesn't seem to be attested in Old Tibetan, so this theory seems credible. Wyang (talk) 04:09, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

That's very interesting. I think རྒྱམ (rgyam) should reflect this too, but I'm not sure how. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:22, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

I added it as a see-also item there, since no other heading seems appropriate. Wyang (talk) 04:29, 11 November 2016 (UTC)