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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 Lhasa Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi language, Jirel language and Balti language. Its exact origins are a subject of research but is traditionally considered to be 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 language and Nepali language. 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.
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 their key evidence for their 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.
Three orthographic Standardization 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 been altered since then, while the spoken language sound change 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.
The nomadic Amdo Tibetan and the western dialects of the Ladakhi language, as well as the Balti language, come close to the Old Tibetan spellings. Despite that, the grammar of these dialectical varieties has considerably changed. To write the modern varieties according to the orthography and grammar of Classical Tibetan would be similar to writing Sanskrit orthography. However, modern Buddhist practitioners in the Indian subcontinent state that the classical orthography should not be altered even when used for lay purposes. This became an obstacle for many modern Tibetic languages wishing to modernize or introduce a new spelling reform of Tibetan.
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.
| Dental consonant | |
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/.
| + |
| marks beginning of a text, before a headline, front page of a pecha |
| used in place of the yig mgo in terma texts |
| used in place of the yig mgo in terma texts |
| a variant of the yig mgo found in very old Tibetan texts |
| list enumerator (Dzongka) |
| syllable delimiter, also used as a spacer to justify text in |
| full stop, comma, or semicolon (marks end of a sentence or clause, and originates from the danda of Indic scripts) |
| marks end of a paragraph or topic (cp. pilcrow) |
| marks end of a chapter or entire section |
| same as bzhi Danda, but used when the preceding character is ཀ or ག |
| replaces Danda after single, orphaned syllables, indicating to the reader that the preceding syllable continues from text on the previous line |
| variant of rin chen spungs Danda |
| variant of rin chen spungs Danda |
| marks the start of a new text, often in a collection of texts, separates chapters, and surrounds inserted text |
| replaces Danda and variants thereof in terma texts |
| sometimes used in place of the yig mgo in terma texts |
| literally, "big head"—used preceding a reference to the Dalai Lama or the name of another important lama or tulku that demands great respect |
| repetition |
| caret (indicates text insertion) |
| left roof bracket |
| right roof bracket |
| left bracket |
| right bracket |
| + |
| qa (/q/) |
| ɽa (/ɽ/) |
| xa (/χ/) |
| ɣa (/ʁ/) |
| fa (/f/) |
| va (/v/) |
| gha |
| jha |
| ṭa |
| ṭha |
| ḍa |
| ḍha |
| ṇa |
| dha |
| bha |
| ṣa |
| kṣa |
| + |
| ā |
| ī |
| ū |
| ai |
| au |
| ṛ /r̩/ |
| ṝ |
| ḷ |
| ḹ |
| aṃ |
| aṃ |
| aḥ |
| + |
| suppresses the inherent vowel sound |
| used for prolonging vowel sounds |
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) and THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription (THL).
| nga | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| nya | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| na | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ma | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| wa | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ya | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| sa | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| * – Only in loanwords | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Mac OS X introduced Tibetan Unicode support in version 10.5, now with three different keyboard layouts available: Tibetan-Wylie, Tibetan QWERTY and Tibetan-Otani.
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 Dzongka 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 Dzongka keyboard layout is included in Microsoft Windows, Android, and most distributions of Linux as part of XFree86.
The Unicode block for Tibetan is U+0F00–U+0FFF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks and special symbols used in religious texts:
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