Tibetan script

The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system (abugida) of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and sometimes Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages in close cultural contact with Tibet, such as Thakali.[4] The printed form is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday writing is called umê script.

Tibetan
Type
Languages
Time period
c. 650–present
Parent systems
Child systems
Sister systems
Sharada, Siddhaṃ
DirectionLeft-to-right
ISO 15924Tibt, 330
Unicode alias
Tibetan
U+0F00U+0FFF Final Accepted Script Proposal of the First Usable Edition (3.0)

The script is closely linked to a broad ethnic Tibetan identity, spanning across areas in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet.[5] The Tibetan script is of Indic origin and it is ancestral to the Limbu script, the Lepcha script[6] and the multilingual ʼPhags-pa script.[6]

History

The creation of the Tibetan alphabet is attributed to Thonmi Sambhota of the mid-7th century. Tradition holds that Thonmi Sambhota, a minister of Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century, was sent to India to study the art of writing, to find a system of writing suitable for the Tibetan language. Upon his return, he introduced an alphabet based on the Nagari that was used in Kashmir at the time. The script had 30 consonantal characters, of which 6 were created specifically to match Tibetan phonology.[7] The origin is still debated however; other studies suggest that the Tibetan script was based on an adaption of the Indian Brahmi and Gupta scripts from Khotan, taught to Thonmi Sambhota in Kashmir.[8]

Three orthographic standardisations were developed. The most important, an official orthography aimed to facilitate the translation of Buddhist scriptures, emerged during the early 9th century. Standard orthography has not altered since then, while the spoken language has changed by, for example, losing complex consonant clusters. As a result, in all modern Tibetan dialects and in particular in the Standard Tibetan of Lhasa, there is a great divergence between current spelling (which still reflects the 9th-century spoken Tibetan) and current pronunciation. This divergence is the basis of an argument in favour of spelling reform, to write Tibetan as it is pronounced; for example, writing Kagyu instead of Bka'-rgyud. In contrast, the pronunciation of the Balti, Ladakhi and Purigi languages adheres more closely to the original spelling. Purigi is the closest linguistic heir of Old Tibetan and therefore Purigi pronunciations adhered most closely to the Old Tibetan.

New research and writings suggest that there were one or more Tibetan scripts in use prior to the introduction of the current script by Songtsen Gampo and Thonmi Sambhota. The Tunhong manuscripts (dunhuang manuscript) are key evidence for this hypothesis.[9]

Description

Basic alphabet

In the Tibetan script, the syllables are written from left to right. Syllables are separated by a tsek (་); since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, this mark often functions almost as a space. Spaces are not used to divide words.

The Tibetan alphabet has thirty basic letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants.[6] As in other Indic scripts, each consonant letter assumes an inherent vowel; in the Tibetan script it is /a/. The letter is also the base for dependent vowel marks.

Although some Tibetan dialects are tonal, the language had no tone at the time of the script's invention, and there are no dedicated symbols for tone. However, since tones developed from segmental features, they can usually be correctly predicted by the archaic spelling of Tibetan words.

Unaspirated
high
Aspirated
medium
Voiced
low
Nasal
low
Letter IPA Letter IPA Letter IPA Letter IPA
Guttural/ka//kʰa//ɡa*//ŋa/
Palatal/tʃa//tʃʰa//dʒa*//ɲa/
Dental/ta//tʰa//da*//na/
/tsa//tsʰa//dza*//wa/
Labial/pa//pʰa//ba*//ma/
low/ʒa*//za*//a/ ʼa/ja/
medium/ra//la//ʃa//sa/
high/ha//a/ ꞏa
* – Only in loanwords

Consonant clusters

Tibetan map of the Kizil Caves, Tarim Basin. 13th century CE

One unique aspect of the Tibetan script is that the consonants can be written either as radicals or they can be written in other forms, such as subscript and superscript forming consonant clusters.

To understand how this works, one can look at the radical /ka/ and see what happens when it becomes ཀྲ /kra/ or རྐ /rka/. In both cases, the symbol for /ka/ is used, but when the /ra/ is in the middle of the consonant and vowel, it is added as a subscript. On the other hand, when the /ra/ comes before the consonant and vowel, it is added as a superscript.[6] /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants; thus རྐ rka. However, an exception to this is the cluster རྙ /rɲa/. Similarly, the consonants /wa/, /ra/, and /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants; thus ཀྭ /kwa/; ཀྲ /kra/; ཀྱ /kja/.

Besides being written as subscripts and superscripts, some consonants can also be placed in prescript, postscript, or post-postscript positions. For instance, the consonants /ʰka/, /ʰta/, /ʰpa/, /ma/ and /a/ can be used in the prescript position to the left of other radicals, while the position after a radical (the postscript position), can be held by the ten consonants /ʰka/, /na/, /ʰpa/, /ʰta/, /ma/, /a/, /ra/, /ŋa/, /sa/, and /la/. The third position, the post-postscript position is solely for the consonants /ʰta/ and /sa/.[6]

Head letters

The superscript position above a radical is reserved for the consonants /ra/, /la/, and /sa/.

  • When /ra/, /la/, and /sa/ are in superscript position with /ka/, /tʃa/, /ta/, /pa/ and /tsa/, there are no changes in the sound. They look and sound like:
    • རྐ /ka/, རྟ /ta/, རྤ /pa/, རྩ /tsa/
    • ལྐ /ka/, ལྕ /tʃa/, ལྟ /ta/, ལྤ /pa/,
    • སྐ /ka/, སྕ /tʃa/, སྟ /ta/, སྤ /pa/, སྩ /tsa/
  • When /ra/, /la/, and /sa/ are in superscript position with /ʰka/, /ʰtʃa/, /ʰta/, /ʰpa/ and /ʰtsa/, they lose their aspiration and become voiced. They look and sound like:
    • རྒ /ga/, རྗ /d͡ʒa/, རྡ /da/, རྦ /ba/, རྫ /dza/
    • ལྒ /ga/, ལྗ /d͡ʒa/, ལྡ /da/, ལྦ /ba/,
    • སྒ /ga/, སྗ /d͡ʒa/, སྡ /da/, སྦ /ba/, སྫ /dza/
  • When /ra/, /la/, and /sa/ are in superscript position with /ŋa/, /ɲa/, /na/ and /ma/, the nasal sound gets high. They look and sound like:
    • རྔ /ŋa/, རྙ /ɲa/, རྣ /na/, རྨ /ma/
    • ལྔ /ŋa/, ལྨ /ma/
    • སྔ /ŋa/, སྙ /ɲa/, སྣ /na/, སྨ /ma/

Sub-joined letters

The subscript position under a radical is for the consonants /ja/, /ra/, /la/, and /wa/.

Vowel marks

The vowels used in the alphabet are /a/, ཨི /i/, ཨུ /u/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant or radical, the other vowels are indicated by marks; thus /ka/, ཀི /ki/, ཀུ /ku/, ཀེ /ke/, ཀོ /ko/. The vowels ཨི /i/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/ are placed above consonants as diacritics, while the vowel ཨུ /u/ is placed underneath consonants.[6] Old Tibetan included a reversed form of the mark for /i/, the gigu 'verso', of uncertain meaning. There is no distinction between long and short vowels in written Tibetan, except in loanwords, especially transcribed from the Sanskrit.

Vowel mark IPA Vowel mark IPA Vowel mark IPA Vowel mark IPA
/i//u//e//o/

Numerals

Tibetan numerals
Devanagari numerals
Arabic numerals 0123456789
Tibetan fractions
Arabic fractions -0.50.51.52.53.54.55.56.57.58.5

Modifiers

Symbol/
Graphemes
NameFunction
ཡིག་མགོ་
yig mgo
marks beginning of text
སྦྲུལ་ཤད་
sbrul shad
separates sections of meaning equivalent to topics and sub-topics
བསྐུར་ཡིག་མགོ་
bskur yig mgo
list enumerator (Dzongkha)
ཙེག་
tseg
morpheme delimiter
ཚིག་གྲུབ་
tshig-grub
full stop (marks end of a section of text)
དོན་ཚན་
don-tshan
full stop (marks end of a whole topic)
བསྡུས་རྟགས་
bsdus rtags
repetition
གུག་རྟགས་གཡོན་
gug rtags g.yon
left bracket
གུག་རྟགས་གཡས་
gug rtags g.yas
right bracket
ཨང་ཁང་གཡོན་
ang khang g.yon
left bracket used for bracketing with a roof over
ཨང་ཁང་གཡས་
ang khang g.yas
right bracket used for bracketing with a roof over

Extended use

A text in Tibetan script suspected to be Sanskrit in content. From the personal artifact collection of Donald Weir.

The Tibetan alphabet, when used to write other languages such as Balti and Sanskrit, often has additional and/or modified graphemes taken from the basic Tibetan alphabet to represent different sounds.

Extended alphabet

LetterUsed inRomanization & IPA
Baltiqa /qa/ (/q/)
Baltiɽa /ɽa/ (/ɽ/)
ཁ༹Baltixa /χa/ (/χ/)
ག༹Baltiɣa /ʁa/ (/ʁ/)
གྷSanskritgha /ɡʱ/
ཛྷSanskritjha /ɟʱ, d͡ʒʱ/
Sanskritṭa /ʈ/
Sanskritṭha /ʈʰ/
Sanskritḍa /ɖ/
ཌྷSanskritḍha /ɖʱ/
Sanskritṇa /ɳ/
དྷSanskritdha /d̪ʱ/
བྷSanskritbha /bʱ/
Sanskritṣa /ʂ/
ཀྵSanskritkṣa /kʂ/
  • In Balti, consonants ka, ra are represented by reversing the letters ཀ ར (ka, ra) to give ཫ ཬ (ka, ra).
  • The Sanskrit "retroflex consonants" ṭa, ṭha, ḍa, ṇa, ṣa are represented in Tibetan by reversing the letters ཏ ཐ ད ན ཤ (ta, tha, da, na, sha) to give ཊ ཋ ཌ ཎ ཥ (Ta, Tha, Da, Na, Sa).
  • It is a classical rule to transliterate Sanskrit ca, cha, ja, jha, to Tibetan ཙ ཚ ཛ ཛྷ (tsa, tsha, dza, dzha), respectively. Nowadays, ཅ ཆ ཇ ཇྷ (ca, cha, ja, jha) can also be used.

Extended vowel marks and modifiers

Vowel MarkUsed inRomanization & IPA
Sanskritā /ā/
ཱིSanskritī /ī/
ཱུSanskritū /ū/
Sanskritai /ai/
Sanskritau /au/
ྲྀSanskritṛ /ṛ/
Sanskrit/ṝ/
ླྀSanskrit/ḷ/
Sanskrit/ḹ/
Sanskritaṃ /ṃ/
Sanskritaṃ /ṃ/
ཿSanskritaḥ /ḥ/
Symbol/
Graphemes
NameUsed inFunction
srog medSanskritsuppresses the inherent vowel sound
palutaSanskritused for prolonging vowel sounds

Romanization and transliteration

Romanization and transliteration of the Tibetan script is the representation of the Tibetan script in the Latin script. Multiple Romanization and transliteration systems have been created in recent years, but do not fully represent the true phonetic sound.[10] While the Wylie transliteration system is widely used to Romanize Standard Tibetan, others include the Library of Congress system and the IPA-based transliteration (Jacques 2012).

Below is a table with Tibetan letters and different Romanization and transliteration system for each letter, listed below systems are: Wylie transliteration (W), Tibetan pinyin (TP), Dzongkha phonetic (DP), ALA-LC Romanization (A)[11] and THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription (THL).

Letter W TP DP A THL Letter W TP DP A THL Letter W TP DP A THL Letter W TP DP A THL
kagkakakakhakkhakhakhaga*k*kha*ga*ga*ngangnganganga
cajcacachachaqchachachaja*q*cha*ja*ja*nyanynyanyanya
tadtatatathatthathatada*t*tha*da*da*nannanana
pabpapapaphapphaphapaba*p*pha*ba*ba*mammamama
tsaztsatsatsatshactshatshatsadza*c*tsha*dza*dza*wawwawawa
zha*x*sha*zha*zha*za*s*sa*za*za*'a-a'aayayyayaya
rarrararalallalalashaxshashashasassasasa
hahhahahaaaaaa 
* – Only in loanwords

Input method and keyboard layout

Tibetan

Tibetan keyboard layout

The first version of Microsoft Windows to support the Tibetan keyboard layout is MS Windows Vista. The layout has been available in Linux since September 2007. In Ubuntu 12.04, one can install Tibetan language support through Dash / Language Support / Install/Remove Languages, the input method can be turned on from Dash / Keyboard Layout, adding Tibetan keyboard layout. The layout applies the similar layout as in Microsoft Windows.

Mac OS-X introduced Tibetan Unicode support with OS-X version 10.5 and later, now with three different keyboard layouts available: Tibetan-Wylie, Tibetan QWERTY and Tibetan-Otani.

Dzongkha

Dzongkha keyboard layout

The Dzongkha keyboard layout scheme is designed as a simple means for inputting Dzongkha text on computers. This keyboard layout was standardized by the Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC) and the Department of Information Technology (DIT) of the Royal Government of Bhutan in 2000.

It was updated in 2009 to accommodate additional characters added to the Unicode & ISO 10646 standards since the initial version. Since the arrangement of keys essentially follows the usual order of the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet, the layout can be quickly learned by anyone familiar with this alphabet. Subjoined (combining) consonants are entered using the Shift key.

The Dzongkha (dz) keyboard layout is included in Microsoft Windows, Android, and most distributions of Linux as part of XFree86.

Unicode

Tibetan was originally one of the scripts in the first version of the Unicode Standard in 1991, in the Unicode block U+1000U+104F. However, in 1993, in version 1.1, it was removed (the code points it took up would later be used for the Burmese script in version 3.0). The Tibetan script was re-added in July, 1996 with the release of version 2.0.

The Unicode block for Tibetan is U+0F00U+0FFF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks and special symbols used in religious texts:

Tibetan[1][2][3]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+0F0x
 NB 
U+0F1x
U+0F2x
U+0F3x ༿
U+0F4x
U+0F5x
U+0F6x
U+0F7x ཿ
U+0F8x
U+0F9x
U+0FAx
U+0FBx ྿
U+0FCx
U+0FDx
U+0FEx
U+0FFx
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points
3.^ Unicode code points U+0F77 and U+0F79 are deprecated in Unicode 5.2 and later

See also

Notes

  1. Daniels, P.T. (January 2008). "Writing systems of major and minor languages". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. Masica, Colin (1993). The Indo-Aryan languages. p. 143.
  3. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63062039
  4. http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/kailash/pdf/kailash_09_01_02.pdf
  5. Chamberlain 2008
  6. Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  7. William Woodville Rockhill, Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, p. 671, at Google Books, United States National Museum, page 671
  8. Berzin, Alexander. A Survey of Tibetan History - Reading Notes Taken by Alexander Berzin from Tsepon, W. D. Shakabpa, Tibet: A Political History. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967: http://studybuddhism.com/web/en/archives/e-books/unpublished_manuscripts/survey_tibetan_history/chapter_1.html.
  9. Phuntsok, Thubten. བོད་ཀྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་སྤྱི་དོན་པདྨ་ར་གཱའི་ལྡེ་མིག "A General History of Tibet".
  10. See for instance
  11. ALA-LC Romanization of Tibetan script (PDF)

References

  • Asher, R. E. ed. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Tarrytown, NY: Pergamon Press, 1994. 10 vol.
  • Beyer, Stephan V. (1993). The Classical Tibetan Language. Reprinted by Delhi: Sri Satguru.
  • Chamberlain, Bradford Lynn. 2008. Script Selection for Tibetan-related Languages in Multiscriptal Environments. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:117–132.
  • Csoma de Kőrös, Alexander. (1983). A Grammar of the Tibetan Language. Reprinted by Delhi: Sri Satguru.
  • Csoma de Kőrös, Alexander (1980–1982). Sanskrit-Tibetan-English Vocabulary. 2 vols. Reprinted by Delhi: Sri Satguru.
  • Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  • Das, Sarat Chandra: "The Sacred and Ornamental Characters of Tibet". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 57 (1888), pp. 41–48 and 9 plates.
  • Das, Sarat Chandra. (1996). An Introduction to the Grammar of the Tibetan Language. Reprinted by Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
  • Jacques, Guillaume 2012. A new transcription system for Old and Classical Tibetan, Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 35.3:89-96.
  • Jäschke, Heinrich August. (1989). Tibetan Grammar. Corrected by Sunil Gupta. Reprinted by Delhi: Sri Satguru.
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