Tibetan orthography

The Tibetan orthography consists of numerous rules about the combination of Tibetan characters within a syllable. It is applicable to the Tibetan script itself as well as to any transliteration .

The consonant scheme

The Tibetan alphabet consists of 30 consonants, which can be arranged as follows (reading them line by line in their alphabetical order):

The Tibetan scheme of consonants
	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4
line 1	K ཀ	KH ཁ	G ག	NG ང
line 2	C ཅ	CH ཆ	J ཇ	NY ཉ
Line 4	T ཏ	TH ཐ	D ད	N ན
Line 5	P པ	PH ཕ	B བ	M མ
Line 6	TS ཙ	TSH ཚ	DS ཛ	W ཝ
The columns are only valid up to this point
Line 7a	ZH ཞ	Z ཟ	' འ
Line 7b	Y ཡ	R ར	L ལ
Line 8	SH ཤ	S ས	H ཧ	A ཨ

Regarding the missing line 3, see the section Foreign words below .

The syllable

The unit of Tibetan orthography is the syllable, which in scripture is closed without exception by a syllable terminator (tsheg). This is a point at the level of the head line, which can also take the form of a small full triangle (with the point downwards) or a T ( ་ ). In the transliteration, the tsheg can be recognized as a hyphen, space or the end of a word. Within the syllable (i.e. between two tsheg characters or from the beginning of the text to the first such) is the written representation of the syllable consisting of the consonantic initial, the vowel (including the inherent a, which is not written in the Tibetan script) and the optional consonantic final.

The initial sound

Numerous orthographically permitted graphemes (total characters) can be formed from the 30 consonants in the initial subscription (underwriting), superscription (overwriting) and prescription (writing ahead) . Any of the 5 vowels can follow this. To make things easier, the respective basic letter (to which a sub-, super- or prescript is added) is shown as a capital letter below.

The subscription

The letters y, r or l can be written under some basic letters of the syllable, where y and r change their shape. (l retains its shape, but is reduced in size.)

The 7 graphemes with subscribed y (called ya btags) are Ky, KHy, Gy, Py, PHy, By and My.
The 14 graphemes with subscribed r (called ra btags) are Kr, KHr, Gr, Tr, THr, Dr, Nr, Pr, PHr, Br, Mr (as part of the grapheme sMr), SHr, Sr and Hr.
The 6 graphemes with subscribed l (called la btags) are Kl, Gl, Bl, Zl, Rl and Sl.
The basic letters C, CH, J and NY as well as TS, TSH, DS and W never have a subscription.

The superscription

The letters R, L or S can be written over some basic letters of the syllable, some of which may also have certain subscripts. R changes its shape, L and S are only slightly reduced. These superscripts touch the header at the top, so the basic letters move lower.

The super-written r (called ra mgo) forms the graphemes rK, rG, rNG, rJ, rNY, rT, rD, rN, rB, rM, rTS and rDS. The basic letters K, G and M can also have a subscribed y. With rK, rG, rN and rM the vertical part of the superscript is continued in a corresponding line of the basic letter. In rNY the shape of the r is almost unchanged, everywhere else it resembles the Latin T.
The super-written l (called la mgo) forms the graphemes lK, lG, lNG, lC, lJ, lT, lD, lP, lB and lH. There can be no subscriptions.
The super-written s (called sa mgo) forms the graphemes sK, sG, sNG, sNY, sT, sD, sN, sP, sB, sM and sTS. The basic letters K, G, P, B and M can also have the subscripts y and r. SNr also occurs very rarely.
With the exception of lH, the basic letters that follow the W in the alphabet (namely the ZH, Z, ', Y, R, L, SH, S, H and the consonant A) do not have any superscripts.

The prescription

In certain cases, the letters g, d, b, m or 'can be placed in front of the basic letters of the syllable. These basic letters can also carry super and subscripts in various ways. The prescripts remain unchanged in shape and size. In the transliteration, the prescript is also placed in front on the left (e.g. gC). The following applies:

The prescript g can precede the following basic letters (none of which may have a super or a subscript): C, NY, T, D, N, TS, ZH, Z, Y, SH and S. Here g must precede the basic letter Y can be transliterated as "gy", because "gy" means the basic letter G with a subscribed y.
The prescript d can come before the following graphemes: K, G, P, B (all four can also have y or r as a subscript), NG, M and MY. A prescript d cannot precede a basic letter with a superscript.
The prescript b can precede the following graphemes: K (yrl), RK (y), SK (yr), G (yr), RG (y), SG (yr), rNG, sNG, C, rJ, rNY, sNY , T, rT, lT, sT, D, rD, sD, rN, sN, rTS, sTS, rDS, ZH, Z (l), RL, SH and S (l). The subscripts that may (but do not have to) appear in brackets. In "brl", R is the basic letter, because only b can appear as the prescript of a basic letter that simultaneously has a superscript and a subscript.
The prescript M can come before KH, G, NG, CH, J, NY, TH, D, N, TSH and DS. KH and G can also have the subscripts y or r.
The a chung (') as a prescript can appear in front of all the basic letters in columns 2 and 3 (where KH, G, PH and B can also have the subscripts y and r) and in front of THr and Dr.

General information on subscription

Subscription is the common name for subscription, superscription and prescription. The Wazur , which is usually described as a form of subscription to -w and thus subscription, is excluded here for practical reasons. The following general statements apply to subscription:

Basic rule: The basic letters W, 'and A cannot be extended by adcripts (also applies to Wazur).
Exclusion rule: The same letter cannot appear more than once in any consonant bundle (= basic letter plus a maximum of 3 adcripts) (also applies to Wazur).
Line rule: No adcript may appear in the same line of the alphabet scheme as the basic letter (where 7a and 7b count as one line). This applies strictly to the prescript and superscript. However, there is one exception to the subscription: Zl.
Column rule: Column 2 does not tolerate a superscript and apart from m and 'no prescript.

Uniqueness rule: there are no ambiguous syllables. If, according to what has been said so far, two readings are possible, depending on whether you consider the first consonant of a syllable with an inherent a as a basic letter or as a prescript, then it must count as the basic letter. The syllable d + g + s, for example, has to be transliterated dags (not dgas).

Panultima rule: It is not necessary to know all the occurring consonant bundles by heart in order to determine the basic letter in the transliteration. It is sufficient to know which letters can carry adcripts or a Wazur (namely all except those mentioned in the basic rule) and which as subscripts (y, r and l), as superscripts (r, l and s) and as prescripts (g, d, b, m and ') can occur. In the cases that are still undecided (e.g. br or rl), the penultimate consonant of the bundle is the basic letter. (With the exception of the rare Grw, this rule also applies to the Wazur.)

The vocals

The Tibetan vowels in their alphabetical order are a, i, u, e and o (ི ུ ེ ོ) . In contrast to the basic letter A, the vowel a following a consonant is called the inherent a and is not written. It is always considered to be present when there is no other at a point where a vowel must appear. The vowel sign for u is written below, those for i, e and o above the initial grapheme. In the transliteration the vowel simply follows the consonantic initial.

Tibetan does not know spoken diphthongs. But it is possible to form syllables with two consecutive vowels that are spoken separately. To do this, the letter 'is used as the carrier of the 2nd vocalization (for which only i, u or o is possible).

The final

A Tibetan syllable can end in any of the 5 vowels. But there are also 10 final consonants, namely g, ng, d, n, b, m, ', r, l and s. The following rules apply:

The final '(a chung) is a special case of the vowel final and can only occur after the inherent A (-a'). No syllable can only consist of a prescript and a basic letter (with an inherent a), but must then have a 'as the final word.
After the final g, ng, b and m there can also be a second final s. There is a ligature as an alternative notation for the final gs.

Foreign words

Some characters only appear in words of non-Tibetan origin (especially in Tibetan transliterations from Sanskrit ). For this purpose, letters are used that are mirrored around a vertical axis of symmetry. The mirroring of the letters of the 4th line results in the 3rd line (omitted in the table). They are differentiated in the transliteration by a point below. The letter sh can also be mirrored. It is transliterated with a sub-dotted s and mostly arranged alphabetically after the sh.
The vowel symbol for i can also be mirrored in the same way. This mirrored i can only be above R or L. The transliteration is also carried out using a point below. If the vowel signs for e and o are written twice on top of each other, they form the (false) diphthongs ai and au. A small empty circle above a letter can be read as [m] (after the vowel) and is also transliterated with a point below. (For the sake of simplicity, however, this character is often used instead of a real final -m in Tibetan words.)
In addition, additional subscripts can occur in foreign words, especially subscribed 'to denote a long vowel. The transliteration is then carried out with a horizontal line above the vowel (i.e. not with '). Often the subscribed h is also used to denote the aspiration (e.g. Gh).
In Tibetan transliterations from Sanskrit, its ligatures (consonant fusions) are reproduced by writing all the consonants contained within one another. In order to transliterate such transliterations from the Tibetan into the Latin script, additional notes are necessary.
If (e.g. European) proper names are transcribed into Tibetan, the normally not spoken final sounds can be given an additional vowel mark (e.g. the letter names Es and Jot as ese and jotho in one syllable each). The sound [f] can be reproduced as PH with a dot below it or a tick (as with TS). The form common today is H with subscribed PH (transliterated as F).