The Tibetan script has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages in close cultural contact with Tibet, such asThakali[5] andNepali.[6] The printed form is calleduchen script while the hand-written form used in everyday writing is calledumê script. This writing system is especially used across theHimalayan Region.
Little is known about the exact origins of Tibetan script.[7] According to Tibetanhistoriography, it was developed during the reign of KingSongtsen Gampo by his minister Thonmi Sambhota, who was sent to India along with other scholars to study Buddhism along with Sanskrit and other brahmi languages.[8][9] They developed the Tibetan script from theGupta script[10] while at thePabonka Hermitage.
Earliest sources on Tibet, such as theOld Tibetan Chronicle, do not mention any Thonmi Sambhota.[13] Scripts predating Songtsen Gampo might have existed but in any case do not appear to be widely used.[13] Researchers postulate that Tibetan kings sought to develop a system of writing as theirterritory expanded. The script resembling the version today was likely developed in the second half of the 11th century.[13][14] New research and writings also suggest that there were one or more Tibetan scripts in use prior to the introduction of the script bySongtsen Gampo andThonmi Sambhota. The incompleteDunhuang manuscripts are their key evidence for their hypothesis,[15] while the few discovered and recordedOld Tibetan Annals manuscripts date from 650 and therefore post-date the c. 620 date of development of the original Tibetan script.
Three orthographicstandardisations were developed. The most important, an official orthography aimed to facilitate the translation ofBuddhist scriptures emerged during the early 9th century. Standard orthography has not been altered since then, while the spoken languagehas changed by, for example, losing complexconsonant clusters. As a result, in all modern Tibetan dialects and in particular in theStandard Tibetan ofLhasa, 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 ofspelling reform, to write Tibetanas it is pronounced; for example, writingKagyu instead ofBka'-rgyud.[16]
The nomadicAmdo Tibetan and the western dialects of theLadakhi language, as well as theBalti language, come close to theOld Tibetan spellings.[14] Despite that, the grammar of these dialectical varieties has considerably changed. To write the modern varieties according to the orthography and grammar ofClassical Tibetan would be similar to writing Sanskrit orthography.[14] 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.[14]
In the Tibetan script, thesyllables are written from left to right. Syllables are separated by atsek (་); since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, this mark often functions almost as a space. Spaces are not used to divide words.[17]
The Tibetan alphabet has thirty letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants.[18] As in otherIndic scripts, each consonant letter assumes aninherent vowel; in the Tibetan script it is /a/. The letterཨ is also the base for dependent vowel marks.
Although some Tibetan dialects aretonal, 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 fromsegmental features, they can usually be correctly predicted by the archaic spelling of Tibetan words.
Components of a Tibetan syllableTibetan map of theKizil Caves,Tarim Basin. 13th century CE
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 assubscript and superscript formingconsonant clusters.
To understand how this works, one can look at the radicalཀ /ka/ and see what happens when it becomesཀྲ /kra/ orརྐ /rka/ (pronounced /ka/). In both cases, the symbol forཀ /ka/ is used, but when theར /ra/ is in the middle of the consonant and vowel, it is added as a subscript. On the other hand, when theར /ra/ comes before the consonant and vowel, it is added as a superscript.[18]ར /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants, thusརྐ rka. However, an exception to this is the clusterརྙ /rɲa/. Similarly, the consonantsར /ra/, andཡ /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants, thusཀྲ /ʈ ~ ʈʂa/;ཀྱ /ca/.
Besides being written as subscripts and superscripts, some consonants can also be placed in prescript, postscript, or post-postscript positions. For instance, the consonantsག /kʰa/,ད /tʰa/,བ /pʰa/,མ /ma/ andའ /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 consonantsག /kʰa/,ན /na/,བ /pʰa/,ད /tʰa/,མ /ma/,འ /a/,ར /ra/,ང /ŋa/,ས /sa/, andལ /la/. The third position, the post-postscript position is solely for the consonantsད /tʰa/ andས /sa/.[18]
The head (མགོ in Tibetan, Wylie:mgo) letter, or superscript, position above a radical is reserved for the consonantsར /ra/,ལ /la/, andས /sa/.
Whenར /ra/,ལ /la/, andས /sa/ are in superscript position withཀ /ka/,ཅ /t͡ʃa/,ཏ /ta/,པ /pa/ andཙ /t͡sa/, there are no changes to their sounds in Lhasa Tibetan, for example:
རྐ /ka/,རྟ /ta/,རྤ /pa/,རྩ /t͡sa/
ལྐ /ka/,ལྕ /t͡ʃa/,ལྟ /ta/,ལྤ /pa/,
སྐ /ka/,སྟ /ta/,སྤ /pa/,སྩ /t͡sa/
Whenར /ra/,ལ /la/, andས /sa/ are in superscript position withག /kʰa/,ཇ /t͡ʃʰa/,ད /tʰa/,བ /pʰa/ andཛ /t͡sʰa/, they lose their aspiration and become voiced in Lhasa Tibetan, for example:
རྒ /ga/,རྗ /d͡ʒa/,རྡ /da/,རྦ /ba/,རྫ /dza/
ལྒ /ga/,ལྗ /d͡ʒa/,ལྡ /da/,ལྦ /ba/,
སྒ /ga/,སྡ /da/,སྦ /ba/
Whenར /ra/,ལ /la/, andས /sa/ are in superscript position with the nasal consonantsང /ŋa/,ཉ /ɲya/,ན /na/ andམ /ma/, they receive a high tone in Lhasa Tibetan, for example:
The subscript position under a radical can only be occupied by the consonantsཡ /ja/,ར /ra/,ལ /la/, andཝ /wa/. In this position they are described asབཏགས (Wylie:btags, IPA: /taʔ/), in Tibetan meaning "hung on/affixed/appended", for exampleབ་ཡ་བཏགས་བྱ (IPA: /pʰa.ja.taʔ.t͡ʃʰa/), except forཝ, which is simply read as it usually is and has no effect on the pronunciation of the consonant to which it is subjoined, for exampleཀ་ཝ་ཟུར་ཀྭ (IPA: /ka.wa.suː.ka/).
Thevowels used in the alphabet areཨ /a/,ཨི /i/,ཨུ /u/,ཨེ /e/, andཨོ /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant, the other vowels are indicated by marks; thusཀ /ka/,ཀི /ki/,ཀུ /ku/,ཀེ /ke/,ཀོ /ko/. The vowelsཨི /i/,ཨེ /e/, andཨོ /o/ are placed above consonants as diacritics, while the vowelཨུ /u/ is placed underneath consonants.[18]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 inloanwords, especially transcribed from theSanskrit.
A text in Tibetan script suspected to beSanskrit in content. From the personal artifact collection of Donald Weir.
The Tibetan alphabet, when used to write other languages such asBalti,Chinese andSanskrit, often has additional and/or modifiedgraphemes taken from the basic Tibetan alphabet to represent different sounds.
InBalti, consonants ka, ra are represented by reversing the lettersཀ ར (ka, ra) to giveཫ ཬ (qa, ɽa).
TheSanskritretroflex consonants ṭa, ṭha, ḍa, ṇa, ṣa are represented in Tibetan by the lettersཏ ཐ ད ན ཤ (ta, tha, da, na, sha)
It is a classical rule to transliterate Sanskritca,cha,ja,jha, to Tibetanཙ ཚ ཛ ཛྷ (tsa, tsha, dza, dzha), respectively. Nowadays,ཅ ཆ ཇ ཇྷ (ca, cha, ja, jha) can also be used.
In addition to the use of supplementary graphemes, the rules for constructing consonant clusters are amended, allowing any character to occupy the superscript or subscript position, negating the need for the prescript and postscript positions.
Romanization and transliteration of the Tibetan script is the representation of the Tibetan script in theLatin script. Multiple Romanization and transliteration systems have been created in recent years, but do not fully represent the true phonetic sound.[note 1] While theWylie transliteration system is widely used to RomanizeStandard Tibetan, others include the Library of Congress system and the IPA-based transliteration (Jacques 2012).
The first version of Microsoft Windows to support the Tibetan keyboard layout is MSWindows Vista. The layout has been available inLinux since September 2007. InUbuntu 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 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 theUnicode andISO 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 ofXFree86.
Tibetan was originally one of the scripts in the first version of theUnicode Standard in 1991, in the Unicode block U+1000–U+104F. However, in 1993, in version 1.1, it was removed (the code points it took up would later be used for theBurmese script in version 3.0). 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:
^Masica, Colin (1993).The Indo-Aryan languages. p. 143.
^Chelliah, Shobhana Lakshmi (2011).A Grammar of Meithei. De Gruyter. p. 355.ISBN9783110801118.Archived from the original on 2023-04-13. Retrieved2023-03-19.Meithei Mayek is part of the Tibetan group of scripts, which originated from the Gupta Brahmi script
^abcdZeisler, Bettina (2006). "Why Ladakhi must not be written – Being part of the Great Tradition Another kind of global thinking". In Anju Saxena; Lars Borin (eds.).Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia. p. 178.
^Phuntsok, Thubten.བོད་ཀྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་སྤྱི་དོན་པདྨ་ར་གཱའི་ལྡེ་མིག "A General History of Tibet".
Asher, R. E. ed.The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Tarrytown, NY: Pergamon Press, 1994. 10 vol.
Beyer, Stephan V. (1993).The Classical Tibetan Language. Reprinted by Delhi: Sri Satguru.
Chamberlain, Bradford Lynn. 2008. Script Selection for Tibetan-related Languages in Multiscriptal Environments.International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:117–132.
Csoma de Kőrös, Alexander. (1983).A Grammar of the Tibetan Language. Reprinted by Delhi: Sri Satguru.
Csoma de Kőrös, Alexander (1980–1982).Sanskrit-Tibetan-English Vocabulary. 2 vols. Reprinted by Delhi: Sri Satguru.
Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright.The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Das, Sarat Chandra: "The Sacred and Ornamental Characters of Tibet".Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 57 (1888), pp. 41–48 and 9 plates.
Das, Sarat Chandra. (1996).An Introduction to the Grammar of the Tibetan Language. Reprinted by Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
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