Tibetan pinyin

The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in the People's Republic of China for personal names and place names. It is based on the Lhasa dialect of Standard Tibetan and reflects the pronunciation very accurately, except that it does not mark tone. It is used within China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin script; for use within academic circles, Wylie transliteration (with v instead of apostrophe) is more commonly used.

Overview

Onsets overview

Independent onset occurred in initial syllable of a word is transcribed as following:

ཀ་ ཁ་
ག་ 		ང་ ཅ་ ཆ་
ཇ་ 		ཉ་ ཏ་ ཐ་
ང་ 		ན་ པ་ ཕ་
བ་ 		མ་ ཙ་ ཚ་
ཛ་ 		ཝ་ ཞ་
ཤ་ 		ཟ་
ས་ 		ཡ་ ར་ ལ་ ཧ་ ཀྱ་ ཁྱ་
གྱ་ 		ཀྲ་ ཁྲ་
གྲ་ 		ཧྲ་ ལྷ་
g k ng j q ny d t n b p m z c w x s y r l h gy ky zh ch sh lh

For more general case, see #Onsets.

Vowels and final consonant

The seventeen vowels of the Lhasa dialect are represented in Tibetan pinyin as follows:

IPA Tibetan
pinyin 		IPA Tibetan
pinyin
i i ĩ in
e ê ẽ en
ɛ ai/ä ɛ̃ ain/än
a a ã an
u u ũ un
o o õ on
ɔ o
y ü ün
ø oi/ö ø̃ oin/ön

Syllable-final -r is usually not spoken, but lengthens the preceding vowel. Syllable-final -n of the written forms usually nasalises the preceding vowel. This is how syllable-final consonants are transcribed:

IPA Tibetan
pinyin
p b
ʔ g/—
r r
m m
ŋ ng

Single syllable orthography

The tone of a syllable depends mostly on its initial consonant. In this table, each initial is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with the vowel a and a tone mark to present tone register (high/low).

Onsets

Below is a comprehensive transcription table of onsets of an initial syllable of a word. If the syllable to transcribe is not the first syllable of a word, see #Onset variation.

IPA Wylie transliteration Tibetan pinyin
pá p, sp, dp, lp b
pà rb, sb, sbr b
mpà lb, ’b b
pʰá ph, ’ph p
pʰà b p
má rm, sm, dm, smr m
mà m, mr m
wà w, db, b[1] w
tá t, rt, lt, st, tw, gt, bt, brt, blt, bst, bld d
ntá lth d
tà rd, sd, gd, bd, brd, bsd d
ntà zl, bzl, ld, md, ’d d
tʰá th, mth, ’th t
tʰà d, dw t
ná rn, sn, gn, brn, bsn, mn n
nà n n
lá kl, gl, bl, rl, sl, brl, bsl l
là l, lw l
l̥á lh lh
tsá ts, rts, sts, rtsw, stsw, gts, bts, brts, bsts z
tsà rdz, gdz, brdz z
ntsà mdz, ’dz z
tsʰá tsh, tshw, mtsh, ’tsh c
tsʰà dz c
sá s, sr, sw, gs, bs, bsr s
sà z, zw, gz, bz s
ʈʂá kr, rkr, lkr, skr, tr, pr, lpr, spr, dkr, dpr, bkr, bskr, bsr zh
ʈʂà rgr, lgr, sgr, dgr, dbr, bsgr, rbr, lbr, sbr zh
ɳʈʂà mgr, ’gr, ’dr, ’br zh
ʈʂʰá khr, thr, phr, mkhr, ’khr, ’phr ch
ʈʂʰà gr, dr, br, grw ch
ʂá hr sh
rà r, rw r
cá ky, rky, lky, sky, dky, bky, brky, bsky gy
cà rgy, lgy, sgy, dgy, bgy, brgy, bsgy gy
ɲcà mgy, ’gy gy
cʰá khy, mkhy, ’khy ky
cʰà gy ky
tɕá c, cw, gc, bc, lc, py, lpy, spy, dpy j
tɕà rby, lby, sby, rj, gj, brj, dby j
ɲtɕà lj, mj, ’j, ’by j
tɕʰá ch, mch, ’ch, phy, ’phy q
tɕʰà j, by q
ɕá sh, shw, gsh, bsh x
ɕà zh, zhw, gzh, bzh x
ɲá rny, sny, gny, brny, bsny, mny, nyw, rmy, smy ny
ɲà ny, my ny
já g.y y
jà y y
ká k, rk, lk, sk, kw, dk, bk, brk, bsk g
kà rg, lg, sg, dg, bg, brg, bsg g
ŋkà lg, mg, ’g g
kʰá kh, khw, mkh, ’kh k
kʰà g, gw k
ŋá rng, lng, sng, dng, brng, bsng, mng ng
ŋà ng ng
ʔá —, db —
ʔà ’ —
há h, hw h

Rimes

Below is a comprehensive transcription table of rimes of a final syllable of a word. If the syllable to transcribe is not the final syllable of a word, see #Coda variation.

Take "ཨ" to be the consonant (not "◌").

ཨ། ཨའུ། ཨག།
ཨགས། 		ཨང༌།
ཨངས། 		ཨབ།
ཨབས། 		ཨམ།
ཨམས། 		ཨར། ཨལ།
ཨའི། 		ཨད།
ཨས། 		ཨན།
a au ag ang ab am ar ai/ä ai/ä ain/än
ཨི།
ཨིལ།
ཨའི། 		ཨིའུ།
ཨེའུ། 		ཨིག།
ཨིགས། 		ཨིད།
ཨིས། 		ཨིང༌།
ཨིངས། 		ཨིབ།
ཨིབས། 		ཨིམ།
ཨིམས། 		ཨིར། ཨིན།
i iu ig i ing ib im ir in
ཨུ། ཨུག།
ཨུགས། 		ཨུང༌།
ཨུངས། 		ཨུབ།
ཨུབས། 		ཨུམ།
ཨུམས། 		ཨུར། ཨུལ།
ཨུའི། 		ཨུད།
ཨུས། 		ཨུན།
u ug ung ub um ur ü ü ün
ཨེ།
ཨེལ།
ཨེའི། 		ཨེག།
ཨེགས། 		ཨེད།
ཨེས། 		ཨེང༌།
ཨེངས། 		ཨེབ།
ཨེབས། 		ཨེམ།
ཨེམས། 		ཨེར། ཨེན།
ê êg ê êng êb êm êr ên
ཨོ། ཨོག།
ཨོགས། 		ཨོང༌།
ཨོངས། 		ཨོབ།
ཨོབས། 		ཨོམ།
ཨོམས། 		ཨོར། ཨོལ།
ཨོའི། 		ཨོད།
ཨོས། 		ཨོན།
o og ong ob om or oi/ö oi/ö oin/ön

Intersyllable influence

Onset variation

Bare low aspirated variation

Coda variation

Ngoinjug of next syllable
Prenasalization of next syllable

Examples

Sometimes there is intersyllable influence, e.g.:

Tibetan scriptTibetan pinyinWylie (EWTS)Lhasa IPAExplanation
མ་ཕམ་གཡུ་མཚོ།Mapam Yumcoma-pham g.yu-mtsho[mapʰam jumtsʰo]forward shift of prefix མ
ཁྲ་འབྲུག་དགོན་པ།Changzhug Gönbakhra-’brug dgon-pa[ʈ͡ʂʰaŋʈ͡ʂ˭uk k˭ø̃p˭a]

Examples

Tibetan Script Wylie Tibetan pinyin Tournadre other transcriptions
གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ Gzhis-ka-rtse Xigazê Zhikatse Shigatse, Shikatse
བཀྲ་ཤིས་ལྷུན་པོ་ Bkra-shis-lhun-po Zhaxilhünbo Trashilhünpo Tashilhunpo, Tashilhümpo, etc.
འབྲས་སྤུང་ ’Bras-spung Zhaibung Dräpung Drebung
ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ Chos-kyi Rgyal-mtshan Qoigyi Gyaicain Chökyi Gyältshän Choekyi Gyaltsen
ཐུབ་བསྟན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ Thub-bstan Rgya-mtsho Tubdain Gyaco Thuptän Gyatsho Thubten Gyatso, Thubtan Gyatso, Thupten Gyatso

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ as in Namjagbarwa

References