translated from the French by Peter Billam
The Letters,
Pronunciation,
Prefixes,
Suffixes,
Particles,
Articles,
Nouns,
Gender,
Diminutives,
Declination,
Adjectives,
Comparison,
Personal Pronouns,
Possessive,
Demonstrative,
Interrogative,
Relative,
Reciprocal,
Verbs,
See Also
1. The Tibetan alphabet consists of thirty simple characters :
| ཀ | ka, k | ཁ | kha, kh | ག | ga, g | ང | nga, ng | ཅ | ca, c |
| ཆ | cha, ch | ཇ | ja, j | ཉ | nya, ña, ny, ñ | ཏ | ta, t | ཐ | tha, th |
| ད | da, d | ན | na, n | པ | pa, p | ཕ | pha, ph | བ | ba, va, b, v |
| མ | ma, m | ཙ | tsa, ts | ཚ | tsha, tsh | ཛ | dza, dz | ཝ | wa, w |
| ཞ | zha, zh | ཟ | za, z | འ | 'a, | ཡ | ya, y | ར | ra, r |
| ལ | la, l | ཤ | sha, sh | ས | sa, s | ཧ | ha, h | ཨ | a |
2.
The vowels are a, e, i, o, u,
with no distinction between short and long, and retaining a medium sound.
The vowel a is inherent in every consonant,
and is only written when, because of a
prefix,
there might be confusion between two words. Thus in
མངའ mngah
"to have, to possess",
the final a is represented by འ
to show that མ is a prefix and must remain mute,
because མང
would be pronounced mang, which means "many, numerous".
The other vowels are written as signs placed above or below the consonants.
For example,
ཀེ ke,
ཀི ki,
ཀོ ko,
ཀུ ku (pronounced like oo),
and similarly for the other letters.
3.
Vowels at the beginning of a word are written as
འ a,
འེ e,
འི i,
འོ o,
འུ ou,
or by
ཨ a,
ཨེ e,
ཨི i,
ཨོ o,
ཨུ ou.
For example,
འོ་མ
'o ma "the milk" or
ཨ་རེ
a re "oh! yes, certainly".
At the end of a word with two consecutive vowels, we use
འེ e,
འི i,
འོ ou,
འུ u.
For example,
དྷེའུ rtéhou
"young horse, foal".
4. A dot placed after one or a group of letters, as in
ཁ་བ kha ba "snow"
serves to separate the syllables,
which changes both pronunciation and meaning :
omitting the dot from this example would give
ཁབ khab
"palace, residence of a prince".
The sign
།
serves to separate phrases, and corresponds to our comma or semicolon etc.
The double
༎
corresponds to our full-stop,
and in poetry serves to separate verses.
When used twice
༎ ༎
it marks the end of a chapter.
In dictionaries, the sign
།
indicates that the word it separates from its
particle can also be used independently.
The figures
༄༅། ། and
༄༅༎ ༎
are used at the beginning of a book,
and have no significance of their own.
5.
ཀ corresponds to k :
ཀ་བ
ka va "pillar, column" or
ཀུན koun "everything"
ཁ is the same aspirated :
ཁ་བོ
kha vo or hka vo "the mouth"
ག corresponds to the hard g :
གེལ་བ
gel ba "tree-branch" or
གུར gour "tent"
or
ལག་པ lag pa "the hand"
ཅ c corresponds to tch :
ཅི་ལྟར
ci ltar is pronounced tchi ltar "excuse me, sorry"
ཆ is the same aspirated :
ཆུ hchu or chu "water"
ཇ j corresponds to dj :
ཇོ་བོ
jo vo "the master"
ཉ is an ny sound, like
the Italian gn or the Spanish ñ :
ཉ nya "fish" or
ཉི nyi "sun, daytime"
ཏ corresponds to t :
ཏིབ་རིལ
tib ril "teapot"
ཐ is the same aspirated :
ཐག thag "rope, cord, string"
or
ཐིག་མ
thig ma "beginning, start".
It is usually transcribed as th,
but is not the English "th" sound, and is more like "ht".
Many words can can be written either with ཐ
or སྟ
where the ས indicates the aspiration,
meaning that the aspiration precedes the consonant.
This can be seen in
ལྷ་ས lha sa
which visitors to Tibet usually write as H'lassa.
Compare also the synonyms
སྟབཐ and
ཐབཐ , or
ཐེར and
སྟེར , or also
སླས and
ལྷས , or
སྦོ་བ and
འསོ་བ
ད corresponds to d :
དད་པ
dad pa "faith, belief", or
དི་རིང
di ring "today".
ད often sounds quite similar to
ཏ t
ན has the sound of n :
ན na "illness, disease", or
ནོར nor "wealth"
པcorresponds to p :
པར་མ
par ma "printed book"
ཕ is the same aspirated.
It is transcribed as ph but sounds more like hp.
It is not the f sound. :
པ་ཕ pa pha "father"
བ has the three sounds
b, p and v. For example,
བོད
"Tibet" can sound like bod or pod, and
བོད་པ
"a Tibetan" can sound like bod pa or pod pa.
After ང nga,
ར ra, or
ལ la, or
འ or some other vowel,
or when preceded by a ད prefix,
it is generaly pronounced as a v.
Eg: དབང
is pronounced dvang, or
རེ་བ
is pronounced re va "hope". In the word
དབུ dbu "head"
only the vowel u is pronounced.
When superscripted with
ར, ལ,
ས (see section 6),
བ is pronounced b,
with the superscript letters remaining silent.
མ has the sound of m :
མ ma "mother" ;
མི me "fire" ;
ལམ lam "road"
ཙ is pronounced ts :
ཙམ tsam - "how many ?"
ཚ is the same aspirated :
ཚེ t'se "time, life"
6.
7. The five letters ག , ད , བ , མ , འ are used as prefixes, when placed ahead of a word to change its meaning, or to form the present, past or future of verbs. For example :
8.
There are fourteen suffixes, ten simple characters :
ག g,
ང ng,
ད d,
ན n,
བ b,
མ m,
ཧ h,
ར r,
ལ l,
ས s,
and four compound characters :
གས gs,
ངས ngs,
བས bs,
མས ms.
9.
14.
15.
16.
20.
21.
29.
40.
51.
60.
61.
63.
64.
65.
66.
pjb.com.au/lang/bo
The Unicode specification U0F00.pdf
apt install tibetan-machine
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