Tibetan script
The Tibetan script is a way of writing that is used for different Tibetic languages like Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Balti, Ladakhi, and Purgi. It's also been used for some languages not from Tibet but close to its culture, like Thakali, Sanskrit and Old Turkic. The printed form is called uchen script, and the cursive form used for everyday writing is called umê script. People use this writing system in the Himalayas and Tibet.[3]
| Tibetan | |
|---|---|
 A text in Tibetan script suspected to be in Sanskrit. From the personal artifact collection of Donald Weir. | |
| Script type | |
Time period | c. 650–present |
| Direction | left-to-right  |
| Languages | |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian
|
Child systems |
|
Sister systems | Sharada, Siddham, Kalinga, Bhaiksuki |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Tibt (330), Tibetan |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Tibetan |
Unicode range | U+0F00–U+0FFF Final Accepted Script Proposal of the First Usable Edition (3.0) |
The script is closely connected to the Tibetan identity, which includes people from areas in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. The Tibetan script comes from the Gupta script.[4]
Alphabets
In Tibetan writing, the syllables go from left to right, and a mark called a tsek (་) separates syllables. Because many Tibetan words have only one syllable, this mark is almost like a space. They don't use spaces to separate words.
Basic Alphabets
The Tibetan alphabet has thirty main letters, also called "radicals," for consonants. Like in other Indic scripts, each consonant letter has a built-in vowel, which is /a/. The letter ཨ is also the starting point for adding extra vowel marks.
Even though some Tibetan dialects have tones, the language didn't have tones when they made the script. There are no special symbols for tones. But because tones came from certain features in the language, you can usually tell the tone by looking at how Tibetan words were spelled in the past.[5]
| Unaspirated high |
Aspirated medium |
Voiced low |
Nasal low | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letter | IPA | Letter | IPA | Letter | IPA | Letter | IPA | |
| Guttural | ཀ | /ka/ | ཁ | /kʰa/ | ག[lower-alpha 1] | /ɡa/ | ང | /ŋa/ |
| Palatal | ཅ | /tʃa/ | ཆ | /tʃʰa/ | ཇ[lower-alpha 1] | /dʒa/ | ཉ | /ɲa/ |
| Dental | ཏ | /ta/ | ཐ | /tʰa/ | ད[lower-alpha 1] | /da/ | ན | /na/ |
| Labial | པ | /pa/ | ཕ | /pʰa/ | བ[lower-alpha 1] | /ba/ | མ | /ma/ |
| Dental | ཙ | /tsa/ | ཚ | /tsʰa/ | ཛ[lower-alpha 1] | /dza/ | ཝ | /wa/ |
| low | ཞ[lower-alpha 1] | /ʒa/ | ཟ[lower-alpha 1] | /za/ | འ | /ɦa/[6] ⟨ʼa⟩ | ཡ | /ja/ |
| medium | ར | /ra/ | ལ | /la/ | ཤ | /ʃa/ | ས | /sa/ |
| high | ཧ | /ha/ | ཨ | /a/ ⟨ꞏa⟩ | ||||
- These voiced values are historical. They have been devoiced in modern Standard Tibetan.
Vowels
| Vowel mark | IPA | Vowel mark | IPA | Vowel mark | IPA | Vowel mark | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ི | /i/ | ུ | /u/ | ེ | /e/ | ོ | /o/ |
Extended alphabet
When the Tibetan alphabet is used to write languages like Balti, Chinese, and Sanskrit, they sometimes add or change letters from the regular Tibetan alphabet to show different sounds.
| Letter | Used in | Romanization & IPA |
|---|---|---|
| ཫ | Balti | qa /qa/ (/q/) |
| ཬ | Balti | ɽa /ɽa/ (/ɽ/) |
| ཁ༹ | Balti | xa /χa/ (/χ/) |
| ག༹ | Balti | ɣa /ʁa/ (/ʁ/) |
| ཕ༹ | Chinese | fa /fa/ (/f/) |
| བ༹ | Chinese | va /va/ (/v/) |
| གྷ | Sanskrit | gha /ɡʱ/ |
| ཛྷ | Sanskrit | jha /ɟʱ, d͡ʒʱ/ |
| ཊ | Sanskrit | ṭa /ʈ/ |
| ཋ | Sanskrit | ṭha /ʈʰ/ |
| ཌ | Sanskrit | ḍa /ɖ/ |
| ཌྷ | Sanskrit | ḍha /ɖʱ/ |
| ཎ | Sanskrit | ṇa /ɳ/ |
| དྷ | Sanskrit | dha /d̪ʱ/ |
| བྷ | Sanskrit | bha /bʱ/ |
| ཥ | Sanskrit | ṣa /ʂ/ |
| ཀྵ | Sanskrit | kṣa /kʂ/ |
References
- Daniels, P.T. (January 2008). "Writing systems of major and minor languages".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - Masica, Colin (1993). The Indo-Aryan languages. p. 143.
- Laufer, Berthold (1918). "Origin of Tibetan Writing". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 38: 34–46. doi:10.2307/592582. ISSN 0003-0279.
- "Tibetan script | writing system | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2023-11-25.
- Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
- Hill, Nathan W. (2005b). "Once more on the letter འ" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 28 (2): 111–141.; Hill, Nathan W. (2009). "Tibetan <ḥ-> as a plain initial and its place in Old Tibetan phonology" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 32 (1): 115–140.