西藏點解叫tibet?

Tibet 此字彙，不論英文或其他歐洲語言均以之稱呼西藏，此字源於一阿拉伯詞Tubbet，而Tubbet 此字又源自土耳其文Töbäd (Töbän 的眾數形式)，經由波斯人傳至阿拉伯地區，同時，此土耳其文亦傳至古時的中國，因此古時中國人稱西藏為吐蕃。

額外資料:
The exact derivation of the name is, however, still unclear. Some scholars believe that the named derived from that of a people who lived in the region of northeastern Tibet and were referred to as 'Tübüt'. This was the form adapted by the Muslim writers who rendered it Tübbett, Tibbat, etc., from as early as the 9th century, and it then entered European languages from the reports of the medieval European accounts of Piano-Carpini, Rubruck, Marco Polo and the Capuchin monk Francesco della Penna.

PRC scholars favor the theory that "Tibet" is derived from tǔbō.

In Chinese


圖片參考：http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Himalayas-Lhasa15.JPG/260px-Himalayas-Lhasa15.JPG


Tibetan plateau
The PRC's Chinese name for Tibet, 西藏 (Xīzng), is a phonetic transliteration derived from the region called Tsang (western -Tsang). The Chinese name originated during the Qing Dynasty of China, ca. 1700. It can be broken down into “xī” 西 (literally “west”), and “zng” 藏 (from -Tsang, but also literally “Buddhist scripture,” or “storage” or possibly "treasure"[12]). The pre-1700s historic Chinese term for Tibet was 吐蕃. In modern Standard Mandarin, the first character is pronounced "tǔ". The second character is normally pronounced "fān"; in the context of references to Tibet, most authorities say that it should be pronounced "bō", while some authorities state that it should be pronounced as "fān".[13] Its reconstructed Medieval Chinese pronunciation is /t'obwǝn/, which comes from the Turkic word for “heights” which is also the origin of the English term “Tibet”.[8][9] When expressing themselves in Chinese, many exiled Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama's government in Daramsala, now use the term 吐博 Tǔb.


圖片參考：http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Nomads_near_Namtso.jpg/250px-Nomads_near_Namtso.jpg


Pastoral nomads camping near Namtso in 2005
The government of the People's Republic of China equates Tibet with the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). As such, the name “Xīzng” is equated with the TAR. Some English-speakers reserve “Xīzng”, the Chinese word transliterated into English, for the TAR, to keep the concept distinct from that of historic Tibet.[citation needed]The character 藏 (zng) has been used in transcriptions referring to Tsang as early as the Yuan Dynasty, if not earlier, though the modern term "Xizang" (western Tsang) was devised in the 18th century. The Chinese character 藏 (Zng) has also been generalized to refer to all of Tibet, including other concepts related to Tibet such as the Tibetan language (藏文, Zngwn) and the Tibetan people (藏族, Zngz).

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