THDL transcription
The THDL transcription (full name in English : THDL Simplified Phonetic Transcription of Standard Tibetan ) is a transcription system for the Tibetan language or script . It was developed by David Germano and Nicolas Tournadre for the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library (THDL) and is a simplified form of transcription that Nicolas Tournadre uses in the English edition of his textbook on the Tibetan language.
Principles
The THDL transcription is neither a transliteration according to the Tibetan script nor a transcription according to the pronunciation, but a mixed form. Therefore, from the transcription, one cannot infer the spelling or the pronunciation.
Transcription of the Tibetan alphabet
The following tables compare the Tibetan alphabet with the Wylie transliteration , the THDL transcription and the UN- recognized official transcription of the People's Republic of China .
Consonants
The differences compared to the Wylie transliteration are shown here in bold. The purpose of the discrepancies is to avoid completely incorrect pronunciation by English-speaking readers.
Tibetan | ཀ་ | ཁ་ | ག | ང | ཅ | ཆ | ཇ | ཉ | ཏ | ཐ | ད | ན | པ | ཕ | བ | མ | ཙ | ཚ | ཛ | ཝ | ཞ | ཟ | འ | ཡ | ར | ལ | ཤ | ས | ཧ | ཨ |
Wylie | k | kh | G | ng | c | ch | j | ny | t | th | d | n | p | ph | b | m | ts | tsh | dz | w | zh | z | ' | y | r | l | sh | s | H | a |
THDL | q | x | G | ng | ch | ch | j | ny | t | t | d | n | p | p | b | m | ts | ts | dz | w | zh | z | - | y | r | l | sh | s | H | - |
officially | G | k | g / k | ng | j | q | j / q | ny | d | t | d / t | n | b | p | b / p | m | z | c | z / c | w | x | s | - | y | r | l | x | s | H | - |
Vowels
Tibetan | ཨ | ཨི | ཨུ་ | ཨེ | ཨོ |
Wylie | a | i | u | e | O |
THDL | a | i | u | e | O |
officially | a | i | u | ê | O |
Approaching the pronunciation
Consonants
Letters that are not spoken (silent letters) are usually left out in the THDL transcription.
Although the letters ར and ལ are not normally spoken, just lengthen the preceding vowel , they are transcribed as r and l . The remaining consonant syllable endings are transcribed as -k , -ng , -n , -p and -m .
The consonant sequences པྱ and ཕྱ are given as ch- , བྱ as j- and བྱ as ny- .
The consonant sequences ཀྲ, པྲ, ཏྲ, ཁྲ, ཕྲ and ཐྲ are all transcribed as tr- , གྲ, བྲ and དྲ as dr- .
The consonant sequence ཟླ is given as d- , ལྷ as lh- , དབ as w- , དབྱ as y- and དབྲ as r- .
For the transcription of འ , certain consonant sequences and letters, which are mainly used in loan words from Sanskrit ( ལོག་ ཡིག ), there are further rules or exceptions, whereby the pronunciation usually serves as a guideline.
Vowels
The umlaut of ཨ, ཨུ, and ཨོ in front of the consonants ད, ན, ལ and ས is represented with e , ü or ö . At the end of the word, the vowel e (both ཨེ and umlaut- ཨ ) is written with an acute accent (é) to avoid a completely wrong pronunciation by English-speaking readers.
Other special features
Words are always written together.
The syllables བ, བོ, བའི and བར are transcribed at the end of the word as -wa , -wo , -wé or -war .
Web links
- David Germano, Nicolas Tournadre: THDL Simplified Phonetic Transcription of Standard Tibetan ( Memento from October 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- The THL Tibetan Dictionaries
Individual evidence
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↑ Nicolas Tournadre Sangda Dorje: Manuel de tibétain standard: Langue et civilization . L'Asiathèque, 2003, ISBN 2-911053-67-2 ;
Nicolas Tournadre: Manual of Standard Tibetan . Snow Lion Publications, 2003, ISBN 1-55939-189-8 . - ↑ a b c d e Depending on the real pronunciation.