In Chinese
Chinese language names for "Tibet" include ancient Tubo (Chinese: 吐蕃; pinyin: Tǔbō; Wade–Giles: T'u-po) or Tufan (Chinese: 吐蕃; pinyin: Tǔfān; Wade–Giles: T'u-fan) and modern Xizang (Chinese: 西藏; pinyin: Xīzàng; Wade–Giles: Hsi-tsang), which now specifies the "Tibet Autonomous Region".
Tubo or Tufan "Tibet" is first recorded in the (945 CE) Book of Tang describing the Tibetan King Namri Songtsen (Gnam-ri-slon-rtsan) sent two emissaries to Emperor Yang of Sui in 608 and 609.
This ancient Tubo/Tufan transliteration of "Tibet" is written with four variant Chinese characters: tǔ 土 "earth; soil; land" or tǔ 吐 "spit out; vomit" and fān 番 "times, occurrences; foreign" (anciently pronounced bō 番 "bold; martial") or fān 蕃 "hedge, screen; frontier; foreign country" (usually pronounced fán 蕃 "luxuriant; flourishing"). The latter two fān Chinese characters are used interchangeably for "foreign" words, e.g., fānqié 番茄 or 蕃茄 (lit. "foreign eggplant") "tomato". Fán is sometimes translated as "barbarian" meaning "non-Chinese; foreign".
Contemporary Chinese dictionaries disagree whether 吐蕃 "Tibet" is pronounced "Tǔbō" or Tǔfān – a question complicated by the homophonous slur tǔfān 土番 (lit. "dirt barbarians", possibly "agricultural barbarians") "barbarians; natives; aborigines". The Hanyu Da Cidian cites the first recorded Chinese usages of Tǔfān 土番 "ancient name for Tibet" in the 7th century (Li Tai 李泰) and tǔfān 土番 "natives (derogatory)" in the 19th century (Bi Fucheng 薜福成). Sinological linguists are engaged in ongoing debates whether 吐蕃 is "properly" pronounced Tubo or Tufan. For example, Sino-Platonic Papers has been the venue for disputation among Victor H. Mair, Edwin G. Pulleyblank, and W. South Coblin .
The Chinese neologism Tǔbó 圖博 (written with tǔ 圖 "drawing; map" and bó 博 "abundant; plentiful") avoids the problematic Tǔfān pronunciation, and is used by authorities such as the Central Tibetan Administration.
Stein discusses the fan pronunciation of "Tibet".
The Chinese, well informed on the Tibetans as they were from the seventh century onwards, rendered Bod as Fan (at that time pronounced something like B'i̭wan). Was this because the Tibetans sometimes said 'Bon' instead of 'Bod', or because 'fan' in Chinese was a common term for 'barbarians'? We do not know. But before long, on the testimony of a Tibetan ambassador, the Chinese started using the form T'u-fan, by assimilation with the name of the T'u-fa, a Turco-Mongol race, who must originally have been called something like Tuppat. At the same period, Turkish and Sogdian texts mention a people called 'Tüpüt', situated roughly in the north-east of modern Tibet. This is the form that Moslem writers have used since the ninth century (Tübbet, Tibbat, etc.). Through them it reached the medieval European explorers (Piano-Carpini, Rubruck, Marco Polo, Francesco della Penna).
This Fan 蕃 pronunciation of "B'i̭wan" illustrates the difference between modern Chinese pronunciation and the Middle Chinese spoken during the Sui Dynasty (581-618 CE) and Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) period when "Tibet" was first recorded. Reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciations of Tǔbō and Tǔfān "Tibet" are: t'uopuâ and t'uop'i̭wɐn (Bernhard Karlgren), thwopwâ and thwobjwɐn (Axel Schuessler), tʰɔ'pa and tʰɔ'puan (Edwin G. Pulleyblank "Early Middle"), or thuXpat and thuXpjon (William H. Baxter)
Xizang 西藏 is the present-day Chinese name for "Tibet". This compound of xi 西 "west" and zàng 藏 "storage place; treasure vault; (Buddhist/Daoist) canon (e.g., Daozang)" is a phonetic transliteration of Ü-Tsang, the traditional province in western and central Tibet.
Zang 藏 was used to transcribe the Tsang people as early as the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 CE), and "Xizang" was coined under the Qing Dynasty Jiaqing Emperor (r. 1796-1820 CE). Zang abbreviates "Tibet" in words such as Zàngwén 藏文 "Tibetan language" and Zàngzú 藏族 "Tibetan people".
The People's Republic of China government equates Xīzàng with the Xīzàng Zìzhìqū 西藏自治区 "Tibet Autonomous Region, TAR". The English borrowing Xizang from Chinese can be used to differentiate the modern "TAR" from the historical "Tibet".
Read more about this topic: Definitions Of Tibet, Names