Tibetan pinyin

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The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Standard Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin or ZWPY (Chinese: 藏文拼音; pinyin: Zàngwén Pīnyīn), is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in China.[1] It is based on the pronunciation used by China National Radio's Tibetan Radio,[1] which is based on the Lhasa dialect. It has been used within China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin script since 1982.[2][3]

Tibetan pinyin is a phonetic transcription, and as such its spelling is tied to actual pronunciation (although tone is not marked).[4] Wylie on the other hand is a transliteration system, where mechanical conversion to and from Tibetan and Latin script is possible. Within academic circles, Wylie transliteration (with a v replacing the apostrophe) is more commonly used.

Overview

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Onsets overview

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Independent onsets in the initial syllable of a word are transcribed as follows:

ཀ་ ཁ་
ག་
ང་ ཅ་ ཇ་
ཆ་
ཉ་ ཏ་ ད་
ཐ་
ན་ པ་ ཕ་
བ་
མ་ ཙ་ ཛ་
ཚ་
ཝ་ ཞ་
ཤ་
ཟ་
ས་
ཡ་ ར་ ལ་ ཧ་ ཀྱ་ ཁྱ་
གྱ་
ཧྱ་ ཀྲ་ ཁྲ་
གྲ་
ཧྲ་ ལྷ་ རྷ་
g k ng j q ny d t n b p m z c w x s y r l h gy ky hy zh ch sh lh rh

For more general case, see #Onsets.

Vowels and final consonant

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The 17 vowels of the Lhasa dialect are represented in as follows:

IPA Tibetan
pinyin
IPA Tibetan
pinyin
i i ĩ in
e ê en
ɛ ai/ä ɛ̃ ain/än
a a ã an
u u ũ un
o ô õ on
ɔ o ɔ̃ ǒn
y ü ün
ø oi/ö ø̃ oin/ön

Ending a syllable, -r is usually not pronounced, but it lengthens the preceding vowel. In the same place, -n usually nasalises the preceding vowel. Consonants at the end of a syllable are transcribed as follows:

IPA Tibetan
pinyin
ʔ̞ b/•
ʔ g/—
r r
m m
ŋ ng

Single syllable orthography

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The tone of a syllable depends mostly on its initial consonant. In this table, each initial is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with the vowel a and a tone mark to present tone register (high/low).

Onsets

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Below is a comprehensive transcription table of onsets of an initial syllable of a word. If the syllable to transcribe is not the first syllable of a word, see #Onset variation.

IPA Wylie transliteration Tibetan pinyin THL
p, sp, dp, lp b p
rb, sb, sbr b b
mpà lb, ’b b b
pʰá ph, ’ph p p
pʰà b p b
bh bh bh
rm, sm, dm, smr m m
m, mr m m
w[note 1], db, b w w
t, rt, lt, st, tw, gt, bt, brt, blt, bst, bld d t
rd, sd, gd, bd, brd, bsd d d
ntá lth d
ntà zl, bzl, ld, md, ’d d d
tʰá th, mth, ’th t t
tʰà d, dw t d
rn, sn, gn, brn, bsn, mn n n
n n n
kl, gl, bl, rl, sl, brl, bsl l l
l, lw l l
l̥á lh lh lh
tsá ts, rts, sts, rtsw, stsw, gts, bts, brts, bsts z ts
tsà rdz, gdz, brdz z dz
ntsà mdz, ’dz z dz
tsʰá tsh, tshw, mtsh, ’tsh c ts
tsʰà dz c dz
s, sr, sw, gs, bs, bsr s s
z, zw, gz, bz s z
ʈʂá kr, rkr, lkr, skr, tr, pr, lpr, spr, dkr, dpr, bkr, bskr, bsr zh tr
ʈʂà rgr, lgr, sgr, dgr, dbr, bsgr, rbr, lbr, sbr zh dr
ɳʈʂà mgr, ’gr, ’dr, ’br zh dr
ʈʂʰá khr, thr, phr, mkhr, ’khr, ’phr ch tr
ʈʂʰà gr, dr, br, grw ch dr
ʂá hr sh hr
r, rw r r
r̥á rh rh
ky, rky, lky, sky, dky, bky, brky, bsky gy ky
rgy, lgy, sgy, dgy, bgy, brgy, bsgy gy gy
ɲcà mgy, ’gy gy gy
cʰá khy, mkhy, ’khy ky khy
cʰà gy ky gy
çá hy hy hy
tɕá c, cw, gc, bc, lc, py, lpy, spy, dpy j ch
tɕà rby, lby, sby, rj, gj, brj j j
ɲtɕà lj, mj, ’j, ’by j j
tɕʰá ch, mch, ’ch, phy, ’phy q ch
tɕʰà j, by q j
ɕá sh, shw, gsh, bsh x sh
ɕà zh, zhw, gzh, bzh x zh
ɲá rny, sny, gny, brny, bsny, mny, nyw, rmy, smy ny ny
ɲà ny, my ny ny
g.y y y
y, dby y y
k, rk, lk, sk, kw, dk, bk, brk, bsk g k
rg, lg, sg, dg, bg, brg, bsg g g
ŋkà lg, mg, ’g g g
kʰá kh, khw, mkh, ’kh k kh
kʰà g, gw k g
ŋá rng, lng, sng, dng, brng, bsng, mng ng ng
ŋà ng ng ng
ʔá —, db
ʔ̞à
h, hw h h

Rimes

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Below is a comprehensive transcription table of rimes of a final syllable of a word, with IPA transcription for the Lhasa dialect.[5] If the syllable to transcribe is not the final syllable of a word, see Coda variation.

Take "ཨ" to be the consonant (not "◌").

Tibetan ཨ། ཨའུ། ཨར། ཨལ།
ཨའི།
ཨད།
ཨས།
ཨག།
ཨགས།
ཨབ།
ཨབས།
ཨང༌།
ཨངས།
ཨམ།
ཨམས།
ཨན།
Wylie a a'u ar al a'i ad as ag ags ab abs ang angs am ams an
Pinyin a au ar ai/ä ag ab ang am ain/än
IPA [a] [au̯] [aː] [ɛː] [ɛ] [ʌʡ] ~ [ɤʡ] [ʌʡ̆] ~ [ɤʡ̆] [aŋ] [am] [ɛ̃ː]
Tibetan ཨི། ཨིའུ།
ཨེའུ།
ཨིར། ཨིལ།
ཨའི།
ཨིད།
ཨིས།
ཨིག།
ཨིགས།
ཨིབ།
ཨིབས།
ཨིང༌།
ཨིངས།
ཨིམ།
ཨིམས།
ཨིན།
Wylie i i'u ir il a'i id is ig igs ib ibs ing ings im ims in
Pinyin i iu ir i ig ib ing im in
IPA [i] [iu̯] [iː] [iː] [i] [iʡ] [iʡ̆] [ɪŋ] [ɪm] [ĩː]
Tibetan ཨུ། ཨུར། ཨུལ།
ཨུའི།
ཨུད།
ཨུས།
ཨུག།
ཨུགས།
ཨུབ།
ཨུབས།
ཨུང༌།
ཨུངས།
ཨུམ།
ཨུམས།
ཨུན།
Wylie u ur ul u'i ud us ug ugs ub ubs ung ungs um ums un
Pinyin u ur ü ug ub ung um ün
IPA [u] [uː] [yː] [y] [uʡ] [uʡ̆] [ʊŋ] [ʊm] [ỹː]
Tibetan ཨེ། ཨེར། ཨེལ།
ཨེའི།
ཨེད།
ཨེས།
ཨེག།
ཨེགས།
ཨེབ།
ཨེབས།
ཨེང༌།
ཨེངས།
ཨེམ།
ཨེམས།
ཨེན།
Wylie e er el e'i ed es eg egs eb ebs eng engs em ems en
Pinyin ê êr ê êg êb êng êm ên
IPA [e] [eː] [eː] [e] [ɛ̈ʡ] [ɛ̈ʡ̆] [ɛŋ] [ɛm] [ẽː]
Tibetan ཨོ། ཨོའུ། ཨོར། ཨོལ།
ཨོའི།
ཨོད།
ཨོས།
ཨོག།
ཨོགས།
ཨོབ།
ཨོབས།
ཨོང༌།
ཨོངས།
ཨོམ།
ཨོམས།
ཨོན།
Wylie o o'u or ol o'i od os og ogs ob obs ong ongs om oms on
Pinyin ô ou ôr oi/ö ôg ôb ông ôm oin/ön
IPA [o] [ou̯] [oː] [øː] [ø] [ɔʡ] [ɔʡ̆] [ɔŋ] [ɔm] [ø̃ː]

Intersyllable influence

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Onset variation

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Bare low aspirated variation
  • k*, q*, t*, p*, x*, s*, ky*, ch* become g*, j*, d*, b*, ?*, ?*, gy*, zh* respectively
  • pa* (་བ) and po* (་བོ) become wa and wo respectively

Coda variation

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Sometimes there is intersyllabic influence:

Tibetan script Tibetan pinyin Wylie (EWTS) Lhasa IPA Explanation
མ་ཕམ་གཡུ་མཚོ། Mapam Yumco ma-pham g.yu-mtsho [mapʰam jumtsʰo] forward shift of prefix མ
ཁྲ་འབྲུག་དགོན་པ། Changzhug Gönba khra-’brug dgon-pa [ʈ͡ʂʰaŋʈ͡ʂ˭uk k˭ø̃p˭a] shift of the prefix འ (ཨ་ཆུང a chung),
creating a final nasal consonant

Encoding

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The IETF language tag for Tibetan pinyin is bo-Latn-pinyin.[6]

Examples

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Tibetan Script Wylie Tibetan pinyin THL other transcriptions
གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ Gzhis-ka-rtse Xigazê Zhikatse Shigatse, Shikatse
བཀྲ་ཤིས་ལྷུན་པོ་ Bkra-shis-lhun-po Zhaxilhünbo Trashilhünpo Tashilhunpo, Tashilhümpo, etc.
འབྲས་སྤུང་ ’Bras-spung Zhaibung Dräpung Drebung
ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ Chos-kyi Rgyal-mtshan Qoigyi Gyaicain Chökyi Gyältshän Choekyi Gyaltsen
ཐུབ་བསྟན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ Thub-bstan Rgya-mtsho Tubdain Gyaco Thuptän Gyatsho Thubten Gyatso, Thubtan Gyatso, Thupten Gyatso

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ as in Namjagbarwa

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b Shǎoshù mínzúyǔ dìmíng Hànyǔ pīnyīn zìmǔ yīnyì zhuǎnxiěfǎ, "少数民族语地名汉语拼音字母音译转写法...(三)藏语...说明:(1)藏语地名的音译转写,以中央人民广播电台藏语广播的语音为依靠。"
  2. ^ Romanization of Tibetan Geographical NamesUNGEGN
  3. ^ "一种基于拼音的藏文智能输入法". Google Patents. 2014-04-10. Retrieved 2024-05-13.
  4. ^ "Geographical names of Tibet AR (China)". Institute of the Estonian Language. 2018-06-03. Retrieved 7 July 2020. Tibetan names have been romanized according to the official scheme, the so-called Tibetan pinyin. The romanization is based on actual pronunciation and is not always predictable if only written form is known.
  5. ^ Brush, Beaumont. "The Status of Coronal in the Historical Development of Lhasa Tibetan Rhymes" (PDF). SIL. Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  6. ^ "Language subtag registry". IANA. Retrieved 15 April 2021.

Sources

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