Tibetan script

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The Tibetan script is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as the Dzongkha language, Ladakhi language and sometimes the Balti language. The printed form of the script is called uchen script (Tibetan: དབུ་ཅན་; Wylie: dbu-can; "with a head") while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday writing is called umé script (Tibetan: དབུ་མེད་; Wylie: dbu-med; "headless"). Besides Tibet, the writing system is also used in Bhutan and in parts of India and Nepal.

The script is romanized in a variety of ways, this article employs the Wylie transliteration system.

[edit] History

Polychrome text left of center is the primary mantra of Tibetan Buddhism, Om Mani Padme Hum. Monochrome text right of center reads "Om Vajrasattva Hum", an invocation to the embodiement of primeval wisdom.

The creation of the Tibetan script is attritubeted to Thonmi Sambhota in the mid-7th century. Thonmi Sambhota was one of the ministers of Songtsen Gampo who was the 33rd king of Tibet.

The form of the letters is based on an Indic alphabet of that period, but which specific Indic script inspired the Tibetan alphabet remains controversial.

Although the Tibetan script is assumed to accurately reflect the pronunciation of Tibetan at the time of its invention, in all modern dialects, in particular Lhasa, the pronuncation and spelling differ significantly, due to phonetic change. This is why some people are in favour of transliterating Tibetan "as it is pronounced". One thus often sees Kagyu instead of Bka'-rgyud.

[edit] Description

The number plate of a car registered in Jammu and Kashmir, in Roman and Tibetan scripts.

The Tibetan script has 30 consonants, which are deemed to possess an inherent sound a. The vowels are a, i, u, e, o. As in other Indic scripts, each consonant letter includes an inherent a, and the other vowels are indicated by marks; thus ཀ ka, ཀི ki, ཀུ ku, ཀེ ke, ཀོ ko. Old Tibetan included a 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.

Syllables are separated by a tseg ་; since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, this mark often functions almost as a space. Spaces are not used to divide words.

Although some Tibetan dialects are tonal, because the language had no tone at the time of the scripts invention, tones are not written. However, since tones developed from segmental features they can ususlly be correctly predicted by the spelling of Tibetan words.

The h or apostrophe (’) usually signifies aspiration, but in the case of zh and sh it signifies palatalization and the single letter h represents a voiceless glottal fricative.

Old Tibetan had no letter w, which was instead a digraph for 'w.

[edit] Consonantal Variations

• The Sanskrit "cerebral" (retroflex) consonants are represented by the letters ta, tha, da, na, and sha turned vertically to give ཊ ṭa (Ta), ཋ ṭha (Tha), ཌ ḍa (Da), ཎ ṇa (Na), and ཥ ṣa (Sa).
• As in other Indic scripts, clustered consonants are often stacked vertically. Unfortunately, some fonts and applications do not support this behavior for Tibetan, so these examples may not display properly; you might have to download a font such as Tibetan Machine Uni.
  • W, r, and y change form when they are beneath another consonant; thus ཀྭ kwa; ཀྲ kra; ཀྱ kya. R also changes form when it is above most other consonants; thus རྐ rka. An exception is the cluster རྙ rnya.

[edit] Tibetan in Unicode

The Unicode Tibetan block is U+0F00 – U+0FFF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks and special symbols used in religious texts (you will need Unicode fonts covering this block installed to view the table properly in your web browser):

[edit] See also

• Tibetan Pinyin
• THDL Simplified Phonetic Transcription

[edit] External links

• The Tibetan Alphabet
• Description of the design of each letter.
• Tibetan Calligraphy - how to write the Tibetan script.
• Jomolhari Font - Unicode compatible. Download
• 2 fonts - not Unicode compatible.
• 2 fonts: 1 Macintosh, not Unicode compatible.
• Origins of tibetan calligraphy: History of tibetan script and guide to tibetan script.
• Omniglot's Guide to the Tibetan writing system
• Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library - articles on Unicode font issues; free cross-platform OpenType font - Unicode compatible.
• free Tibetan fonts project.
• Tibetan writing course.
• Elements of The Tibetan writing system.
• Introduction to Tibetan Orthography, at Kuro5hin