No, this isn’t another Sharon Stone-esque gaffe/political comment, but something rather more innocent. I was enjoying the Kurt Russell movie Soldier (兵人 in Chinese) on Chinese video sharing site Youku the other week (right, I enjoy campy sci-fi) when an interesting comment caught my eye. Now normally Youku comments are about as worthwhile as Youtube comments (i.e. completely worthless drivel), but this one was special – it was written in Tibetan.

(click for big)

I only have a smattering of classical Tibetan, but it seems that the author is saying that they enjoyed the film (གློག་བརྙན་ཆེན་པོ་འདུག, lit. “great movie!”), but they want some help with the subtitles, and hope that the film (or perhaps more films?) can support the Tibetan script.

Full text (Tibetan）:

གློག་བརྙན་ཆེན་པོ་འདུག་་་་་་ད་དུང་མང་ཙམ་འཁོ་འདོན་གནང་རོགས་་་་
བོད་ཡིག་རྒྱབ་བྱས་གློག་བརྙན་འཚལ་ཐུབ་ཀྱི་རེད་བསམ་བསམ་མ་འབྱུང་་་་་ཧ་ཧ་་་་

ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ།

If anyone with better Tibetan wants to correct me, or provide a fuller translation, I’d be very happy. Note that at the end of the second line, ཧ is ‘ha’ in the Tibetan alphabet, so ཧ་ཧ is the somewhat universal 哈哈, haha!

So, how many people watching Soldier on Youku are going to be able to read Tibetan? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that saying the same thing in Chinese would have given the author a larger audience.

Has anyone seen other ‘languages of China’ represented on Youku comments (or similar sites)?