The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system, or abugida, forming a part of the Brahmic scripts, and used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. Its exact origins are a subject of research but it is traditionally considered to have been developed by Thonmi Sambhota for King Songtsen Gampo.
The Tibetan script has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages in close cultural contact with Tibet, such as Thakali and Nepali. The printed form is called uchen script while the hand-written form used in everyday writing is called umê script. This writing system is especially used across the Himalayan Region.
History Little is known about the exact origins of Tibetan script. According to Tibetan historiography, it was developed during the reign of King Songtsen Gampo by his minister Thonmi Sambhota, who was sent to India along with other scholars to study Buddhism along with Sanskrit.Tibet: A Political History, p. 12. 1967. Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.The White Annals, pp. 70–73. Gedun Choephel, translated by Samten Norboo. 1978. Tibetan Library and Archives, Dharamsala, H.P., India. They developed the Tibetan script from the Gupta scriptClaude Arpi, Glimpses on the Tibet History, Dharamsala: Tibet Museum, 2016. while at the Pabonka Hermitage. This occurred , towards the beginning of Songtsen Gampo's reign. There were 21 Sutra texts held by the King which were translated afterwards. In the first half of the 7th century, the Tibetan script was used for the codification of these sacred Buddhist texts,William Woodville Rockhill, , United States National Museum, page 671Berzin, 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 . for written civil laws, and for a Tibetan Constitution.
Earliest sources on Tibet, such as the Old Tibetan Chronicle, do not mention any Thonmi Sambhota. Scripts predating Songtsen Gampo might have existed but in any case do not appear to be widely used. Researchers postulate that Tibetan kings sought to develop a system of writing as their territory expanded. The script resembling the version today was likely developed in the second half of the 11th century. New research and writings also suggest that there were one or more Tibetan scripts in use prior to the introduction of the script by Songtsen Gampo and Thonmi Sambhota. The incomplete Dunhuang manuscripts are the key evidence for this hypothesis, while the few discovered and recorded Old Tibetan Annals manuscripts date from 650 and therefore post-date the c. 620 date of development of the original Tibetan script.
Van Schaik (2011) states that the Late Gupta script of Nepal and Northern India is to be considered as the most likely primary model for the Tibetan script. Van Schaik concludes that the Tibetan script was likely finalized in the 630s or 640s, around the time the Tibetan Empire began formally developing its written administrative system. Although Tönmi Sambhota’s historical existence cannot be confirmed, the evidence supports the idea that a Tibetan mission or similar effort went to India to study writing. The Tibetan script appears to have developed through two stages of Indic influence: early Gupta forms and later developments associated with Siddhamātṛkā. Van Schaik proposes that Late Gupta forms reached Tibet throughout the 6th century, after which the Tibetan court deliberately undertook a project to create a new script adapted to the phonetics of Tibetan, also incorporating new developments seen in the Siddhamātṛkā found in Northern india. This new script became the first version of the Tibetan script, attested later by inscriptions of the 8th century.
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 letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants.Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 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.
Unaspiratedhigh Aspiratedmedium Voiced<br/ >low Nasallow Letter IPA Letter IPA Letter IPA Letter IPA Guttural Palatal Dental Labial Dental low ; medium high
Consonant clusters
One 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 /kra/ or /rka/ (pronounced /ka/). 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. /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants, thus rka. However, an exception to this is the cluster /rɲa/. Similarly, the consonants /ra/, and /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants, thus /ʈ ~ ʈʂa/; /ca/.
Besides being written as subscripts and superscripts, some consonants can also be placed in prescript, postscript, or post-postscript positions. For instance, the consonants /kʰa/, /tʰa/, /pʰa/, /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 /kʰa/, /na/, /pʰa/, /tʰa/, /ma/, /a/, /ra/, /ŋa/, /sa/, and /la/. The third position, the post-postscript position is solely for the consonants /tʰa/ and /sa/.
Head letters The head ( in Tibetan, Wylie: mgo) letter, or 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/, /t͡ʃa/, /ta/, /pa/ and /t͡sa/, there are no changes to their sounds in Lhasa Tibetan, for example: /ka/, /ta/, /pa/, /t͡sa/ /ka/, /t͡ʃa/, /ta/, /pa/, /ka/, /ta/, /pa/, /t͡sa/ When /ra/, /la/, and /sa/ are in superscript position with /kʰa/, /t͡ʃʰa/, /tʰa/, /pʰa/ and /t͡sʰa/, they lose their aspiration and become voiced in Lhasa Tibetan, for example: /ga/, /d͡ʒa/, /da/, /ba/, /dza/ /ga/, /d͡ʒa/, /da/, /ba/, /ga/, /da/, /ba/ When /ra/, /la/, and /sa/ are in superscript position with the nasal consonants /ŋa/, /ɲa/, /na/ and /ma/, they receive a high tone in Lhasa Tibetan, for example: /ŋa/, /ɲa/, /na/, /ma/ /ŋa/ /ŋa/, /ɲa/, /na/, /ma/ When /la/ is in superscript position with /ha/, it becomes a voiceless alveolar lateral approximant in Lhasa Tibetan: /l̥a/,
Sub-joined letters The subscript position under a radical can only be occupied by the consonants /ja/, /ra/, /la/, and /wa/. In this position they are described as (Wylie: btags, IPA: /taʔ/), in Tibetan meaning "hung on/affixed/appended", for example (IPA: /pʰa.ja.taʔ.t͡ʃʰa/), except for , which is simply read as it usually is and has no effect on the pronunciation of the consonant to which it is subjoined, for example (IPA: /ka.wa.suː.ka/).
Vowel marks
The vowels used in the alphabet are /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, and /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant, the other vowels are indicated by marks; thus /ka/, /ki/, /ku/, /ke/, /ko/. The vowels /i/, /e/, and /o/ are placed above consonants as diacritics, while the vowel /u/ is placed underneath consonants. 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 those borrowed from Sanskrit).
Vowel markIPAVowel markIPAVowel markIPAVowel markIPA
Numerical digits
Tibetan numerals Devanagari numerals ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९Arabic numerals 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Tibetan fractions Decimal fractions -0.5 0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 4.5 5.5 6.5 7.5 8.5
Punctuation marks
+ Symbol/Graphemes Name Function yig mgo marks beginning of a text, before a headline, front page of a pecha gter yig mgo used in place of the yig mgo in terma texts yig mgo a phyed used in place of the yig mgo in terma texts dpe rnying yig mgo a variant of the yig mgo found in very old Tibetan texts bskur yig mgo list enumerator (Dzongka) tseg syllable delimiter, also used as a spacer to justify text in pechas shad full stop, comma, or semicolon (marks end of a sentence or clause, and originates from the daṇḍa of Indic scripts) nyis shad marks end of a paragraph or topic (cp. pilcrow) bzhi shad marks end of a chapter or entire section gsum shad same as bzhi shad, but used when the preceding character is ཀ or ག rin chen spungs shad replaces shad after single, orphaned syllables, indicating to the reader that the preceding syllable continues from text on the previous line tsheg shad variant of rin chen spungs shad nyis tsheg shad variant of rin chen spungs shad sbrul shad marks the start of a new text, often in a collection of texts, separates chapters, and surrounds inserted text gter shad replaces shad and variants thereof in terma texts rgya gram shad sometimes used in place of the yig mgo in terma texts che mgo literally, "big head"—used preceding a reference to the Dalai Lama or the name of another important lama or tulku that demands great respect bsdus rtags repetition 'dzud rtags me long can caret (indicates text insertion) ang khang g.yon 'khor left roof bracket ang khang g.yas 'khor right roof bracket gug rtags g.yon left bracket gug rtags g.yas right bracket
Extended use
The Tibetan alphabet, when used to write other languages such as Balti, Chinese and Sanskrit, often has additional and/or modified graphemes taken from the basic Tibetan alphabet to represent different sounds.
Extended alphabet
+ Letter Used in Romanization IPA Comments Balti qa reversed () ṛa reversed () xa () with tsa phru ġa () with tsa phru Chinese fa () with tsa phru va () with tsa phru Sanskrit gha () with subjoined () dzha () with subjoined () ṭa reversed () ṭha reversed () ḍa reversed () ḍha () with subjoined () ṇa reversed () dha () with subjoined () bha () with subjoined () ṣa reversed () kṣa () with subjoined () (Vedic) Sanskrit ẖka : velar visarga before () and () ẖkha ḫpa : labial visarga before () and () ḫpha It is a classical rule to transliterate Sanskrit , , and as Tibetan (), (), () and (), respectively, rather than (), (), () and (). Five of the Sanskrit retroflex consonants, (), (), (), () and (), are represented by reversed forms of their non-retroflex counterparts, (), (), (), () and (). One further retroflex, (), is formed by subjoining retroflex () with (), matching the way its non-retroflex counterpart, (), is formed from () subjoined with ().
Extended vowel marks and modifiers
+ Vowel Mark Used in Romanization & IPA Function Sanskrit ā length mark for vowel a ī length mark for vowel i ū length mark for vowel u ṛ marks vocalic r ṝ marks long vocalic r ḷ marks vocalic l ḹ marks long vocalic l ai marks the diphthong ai au marks the diphthong au ṃ anusvara; marks nasalization or a final nasal sound depending on context m̐ chandrabindu; marks a nasalized vowel ḥ visarga; marks post-vocalic breath