Tibetan script


The Tibetan script is an abugida of Indic origin used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi and sometimes Balti. It has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages in close cultural contact with Tibet, such as Thakali. The printed form is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday writing is called umê script.
The script is closely linked to a broad ethnic Tibetan identity, spanning across areas in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. The Tibetan script is of Indic origin and it is ancestral to the Limbu script, the Lepcha script and the multilingual ʼPhags-pa script.

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. The origin is still debated however, other studies suggest that Tibetan script was based on an adaption of the Indian Brahmi and Gupta scripts from Khotan, taught to Thonmi Sambhota in Kashmir.
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, in particular in the Standard Tibetan of Lhasa, there is a great divergence between current spelling 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 Burig languages adheres more closely to the original spelling.
New research and writings suggest that there were Tibetan script, prior to Songtsen Gampo and Thonmi Sambhota. The Tunhong manuscripts are key evidence for this hypothesis.

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. 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.

Consonant clusters

The 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 /kra/ or /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. /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 /wa/, /ra/, and /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants; thus /kwa/; /kra/; /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, 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/.

Head letters

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

Vowel marks and numerals

The vowels used in the alphabet are /a/, /i/, /u/, /e/, and /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant or radical, 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 transcribed from the Sanskrit.
Vowel markIPAVowel markIPAVowel markIPAVowel markIPA

Tibetan numerals
Arabic numerals0123456789
Tibetan fractions
Arabic fractions0.51.52.53.54.55.56.57.58.59.5

Modifiers

Extended use

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
Baltiɽa
Baltixa
Baltiɣa
Sanskritgha
Sanskritjha
Sanskritṭa
Sanskritṭha
Sanskritḍa
Sanskritḍha
Sanskritṇa
Sanskritdha
Sanskritbha
Sanskritṣa
Sanskritkṣa

Vowel MarkUsed inRomanization & IPA
Sanskritā
Sanskritī
Sanskritū
Sanskritai
Sanskritau
Sanskritṛ /ṛ/
Sanskritṝ
Sanskritḷ
Sanskritḹ
Sanskritaṃ
Sanskritaṃ
Sanskritaḥ

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. There are various ways of Romanization and transliteration systems created in recent years, but failed to represent the true phonetic sound. While the Wylie transliteration system is widely used to romanize Standard Tibetan, others include the Library of Congress system and the IPA-based transliteration.
Below is a table with Tibetan letters and different Romanization and transliteration system for each letter, listed below systems are: Wylie transliteration, Tibetan pinyin, Dzongkha phonetic, ALA-LC Romanization and THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription.

Input method and keyboard layout

Tibetan

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

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 and the Department of Information Technology 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 consonants are entered using the Shift key.
The Dzongkha 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+1000-U+104F. However, in 1993, in version 1.1, it was removed. The Tibetan script was re-added in July, 1996 with the release of version 2.0.
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: