Editing Tibetan script (section)

==Description==

=== Basic alphabet ===
In the Tibetan script, the [[syllable]]s are written from left to right. Syllables are separated by a ''tsek'' (་); since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, this mark often functions almost as a space. Spaces are not used to divide words.<ref name="x832">{{cite book | last1=Chan | first1=A. | last2=Noble | first2=A. | title=Sounds in Translation: Intersections of Music, Technology and Society | publisher=ANU E Press | series=DOAB Directory of Open Access Books | year=2009 | isbn=978-1-921536-55-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r5JFo7oajsMC&pg=PA146 | access-date=2024-05-12 | page=146}}</ref>

The Tibetan alphabet has thirty letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants.<ref name="daniels">Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. ''The World's Writing Systems''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996,</ref> As in other [[Indic scripts]], each consonant letter assumes an [[inherent vowel]]; in the Tibetan script it is /a/. The letter {{bo-textonly|ཨ}} is also the base for dependent vowel marks.

Although some Tibetan dialects are [[Tone (linguistics)|tonal]], 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 from [[Segment (linguistics)|segmental]] features, they can usually be correctly predicted by the archaic spelling of Tibetan words.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:75%;"
|- align=center style="font-size:small;"
!
!style="background:beige;" colspan=2 | Unaspirated<br />''high''
!style="background:#d6f5d6;" colspan=2 | [[Aspirated consonant|Aspirated]]<br />''medium''
!style="background:#ffcce6;" colspan=2 | [[Voiced]]<br/ >''low''
!style="background:#99bbff;" colspan=2 | [[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]<br />''low''
|- align=center style="font-size:small;"
!
! Letter
! [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]
! Letter
! IPA
! Letter
! IPA
! Letter
! IPA
|- align=center
| '''''[[Guttural]]''''' ||style="background:beige; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཀ}} || {{IPA|/ka/}} ||style="background:#d6f5d6; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཁ}} || {{IPA|/kʰa/}} ||style="background:#ffcce6; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ག}}{{efn-lr|name=voiced|These voiced values are historical. They have been devoiced in modern Standard Tibetan.}} || {{IPA|/ɡa/}}  ||style="background:#99bbff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ང}} || {{IPA|/ŋa/}}
|- align=center
| '''''[[Palatal]]''''' ||style="background:beige; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཅ}} || {{IPA|/tʃa/}} ||style="background:#d6f5d6; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཆ}} || {{IPA|/tʃʰa/}} ||style="background:#ffcce6; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཇ}}{{efn-lr|name=voiced}} || {{IPA|/dʒa/}} ||style="background:#99bbff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཉ}} ||  {{IPA|/ɲa/}}
|- align=center
| '''''[[Dental consonant|Dental]]''''' ||style="background:beige; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཏ}} || {{IPA|/ta/}} ||style="background:#d6f5d6; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཐ}} || {{IPA|/tʰa/}} ||style="background:#ffcce6; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ད}}{{efn-lr|name=voiced}} || {{IPA|/da/}} ||style="background:#99bbff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ན}} || {{IPA|/na/}}
|- align="center"
|'''''[[Labial consonant|Labial]]'''''|| style="background:beige; font-size:24px;" | {{bo-textonly|པ}} || {{IPA|/pa/}}|| style="background:#d6f5d6; font-size:24px;" | {{bo-textonly|ཕ}} || {{IPA|/pʰa/}}|| style="background:#ffcce6; font-size:24px;" | {{bo-textonly|བ}}{{efn-lr|name=voiced}}|| {{IPA|/ba/}}|| style="background:#99bbff; font-size:24px;" | {{bo-textonly|མ}} || {{IPA|/ma/}}
|- align="center"
|'''''[[Dental consonant|Dental]]'''''
| style="background:beige; font-size:24px;" |{{bo-textonly|ཙ}}||{{IPA|/tsa/}}|| style="background:#d6f5d6; font-size:24px;" |{{bo-textonly|ཚ}}||{{IPA|/tsʰa/}}|| style="background:#ffcce6; font-size:24px;" |{{bo-textonly|ཛ}}{{efn-lr|name=voiced}} ||{{IPA|/dza/}}|| style="background:#EEEFE4; font-size:24px;" |{{bo-textonly|ཝ}}||{{IPA|/wa/}}
|- align=center
|style="background:#d9b3ff;" | '''''low''''' ||style="background:#d9b3ff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཞ}}{{efn-lr|name=voiced}} || {{IPA|/ʒa/}} ||style="background:#d9b3ff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཟ}}{{efn-lr|name=voiced}} || {{IPA|/za/}}  ||style="background:#d9b3ff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|འ}} || {{IPA|/ɦa/}}<ref>{{cite journal
 |last         = Hill
 |first        = Nathan W.
 |year         = 2005b
 |title        = Once more on the letter འ
 |journal      = Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
 |volume       = 28
 |issue        = 2
 |pages        = 111–141
 |doi = 10.32655/LTBA.28.2.04
 |url          = http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/5632/1/once_more_on_the_letter.pdf
 |access-date  = 2022-06-01
 |archive-date = 2022-06-16
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20220616054618/https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/5632/1/once_more_on_the_letter.pdf
 |url-status   = live
}}; {{cite journal
 |last         = Hill
 |first        = Nathan W.
 |year         = 2009
 |title        = Tibetan <ḥ-> as a plain initial and its place in Old Tibetan phonology
 |journal      = Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area
 |volume       = 32
 |issue        = 1
 |pages        = 115–140
 |doi = 10.32655/LTBA.32.1.03
 |url          = http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/7625/1/04-Hill-Dialect-reflexes-of-Tib-v.pdf
 |access-date  = 2022-06-01
 |archive-date = 2022-06-01
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20220601181159/https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/7625/1/04-Hill-Dialect-reflexes-of-Tib-v.pdf
 |url-status   = live
}}</ref> {{angle bracket|ʼa}} ||style="background:#d9b3ff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཡ}} ||  {{IPA|/ja/}}
|- align=center  
|style="background:#b3ffff;" | '''''medium''''' ||style="background:#b3ffff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ར}} || {{IPA|/ra/}} ||style="background:#b3ffff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ལ}} || {{IPA|/la/}} ||style="background:#b3ffff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཤ}} || {{IPA|/ʃa/}} ||style="background:#b3ffff; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ས}} || {{IPA|/sa/}}
|- align=center
|style="background:#ffffcc;" | '''''high''''' ||style="background:#ffffcc; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཧ}} || {{IPA|/ha/}} ||style="background:#ffffcc; font-size:24px;"| {{bo-textonly|ཨ}} || {{IPA|/a/}} {{angle bracket|ꞏa}}
|}
{{notelist-lr}}

===Consonant clusters===
[[File:Tibetan syllable structure.svg|thumb|400px|Components of a Tibetan syllable]]

[[File:Tibetan map of the Kizil Caves (13th entury CE).jpg|thumb|Tibetan map of the [[Kizil 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 as [[subscript and superscript]] forming [[consonant cluster]]s.

To understand how this works, one can look at the radical {{bo-textonly|ཀ}} /ka/ and see what happens when it becomes {{bo-textonly|ཀྲ}} /kra/ or {{bo-textonly|རྐ}} /rka/ (pronounced /ka/). In both cases, the symbol for {{bo-textonly|ཀ}} /ka/ is used, but when the {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/ is in the middle of the consonant and vowel, it is added as a subscript.  On the other hand, when the {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/ comes before the consonant and vowel, it is added as a superscript.<ref name="daniels" /> {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants, thus {{bo-textonly|རྐ}} rka.  However, an exception to this is the cluster {{bo-textonly|རྙ}} /ɲa/.  Similarly, the consonants {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/, and {{bo-textonly|ཡ}} /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants, thus {{bo-textonly|ཀྲ}} /ʈ ~ ʈʂa/; {{bo-textonly|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 consonants {{bo-textonly|ག}} /kʰa/, {{bo-textonly|ད}} /tʰa/, {{bo-textonly|བ}} /pʰa/, {{bo-textonly|མ}} /ma/ and {{bo-textonly|འ}} /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 consonants {{bo-textonly|ག}} /kʰa/, {{bo-textonly|ན}} /na/, {{bo-textonly|བ}} /pʰa/, {{bo-textonly|ད}} /tʰa/, {{bo-textonly|མ}} /ma/, {{bo-textonly|འ}} /a/, {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/, {{bo-textonly|ང}} /ŋa/, {{bo-textonly|ས}} /sa/, and {{bo-textonly|ལ}} /la/. The third position, the post-postscript position is solely for the consonants {{bo-textonly|ད}} /tʰa/ and {{bo-textonly|ས}} /sa/.<ref name="daniels" />

====Head letters====
The head ({{bo-textonly|མགོ}} in Tibetan, Wylie: ''mgo'') letter, or superscript, position above a radical is reserved for the consonants {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/, {{bo-textonly|ལ}} /la/, and {{bo-textonly|ས}} /sa/.

*When {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/, {{bo-textonly|ལ}} /la/, and {{bo-textonly|ས}} /sa/ are in superscript position with {{bo-textonly|ཀ}} /ka/, {{bo-textonly|ཅ}} /t͡ʃa/, {{bo-textonly|ཏ}} /ta/, {{bo-textonly|པ}} /pa/ and {{bo-textonly|ཙ}} /t͡sa/, there are no changes to their sounds in Lhasa Tibetan, for example:
**{{bo-textonly|རྐ}} /ka/, {{bo-textonly|རྟ}} /ta/, {{bo-textonly|རྤ}} /pa/, {{bo-textonly|རྩ}} /t͡sa/
**{{bo-textonly|ལྐ}} /ka/, {{bo-textonly|ལྕ}} /t͡ʃa/, {{bo-textonly|ལྟ}} /ta/, {{bo-textonly|ལྤ}} /pa/, 
**{{bo-textonly|སྐ}} /ka/, {{bo-textonly|སྟ}} /ta/, {{bo-textonly|སྤ}} /pa/, {{bo-textonly|སྩ}} /t͡sa/
*When {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/, {{bo-textonly|ལ}} /la/, and {{bo-textonly|ས}} /sa/ are in superscript position with {{bo-textonly|ག}} /kʰa/, {{bo-textonly|ཇ}} /t͡ʃʰa/, {{bo-textonly|ད}} /tʰa/, {{bo-textonly|བ}} /pʰa/ and {{bo-textonly|ཛ}} /t͡sʰa/, they lose their aspiration and become voiced in Lhasa Tibetan, for example:
**{{bo-textonly|རྒ}} /ga/, {{bo-textonly|རྗ}} /d͡ʒa/, {{bo-textonly|རྡ}} /da/, {{bo-textonly|རྦ}} /ba/, {{bo-textonly|རྫ}} /dza/
**{{bo-textonly|ལྒ}} /ga/, {{bo-textonly|ལྗ}} /d͡ʒa/, {{bo-textonly|ལྡ}} /da/, {{bo-textonly|ལྦ}} /ba/, 
**{{bo-textonly|སྒ}} /ga/, {{bo-textonly|སྡ}} /da/, {{bo-textonly|སྦ}} /ba/
*When {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/, {{bo-textonly|ལ}} /la/, and {{bo-textonly|ས}} /sa/ are in superscript position with the nasal consonants {{bo-textonly|ང}} /ŋa/, {{bo-textonly|ཉ}} /ɲya/, {{bo-textonly|ན}} /na/ and {{bo-textonly|མ}} /ma/, they receive a high tone in Lhasa Tibetan, for example:
**{{bo-textonly|རྔ}} /ŋa/, {{bo-textonly|རྙ}} /ɲa/, {{bo-textonly|རྣ}} /na/, {{bo-textonly|རྨ}} /ma/
**{{bo-textonly|ལྔ}} /ŋa/
**{{bo-textonly|སྔ}} /ŋa/, {{bo-textonly|སྙ}} /ɲa/, {{bo-textonly|སྣ}} /na/, {{bo-textonly|སྨ}} /ma/
*When {{bo-textonly|ལ}} /la/ is in superscript position with {{bo-textonly|ཧ}} /ha/, it becomes a [[Lateral consonant#Approximants|voiceless alveolar lateral approximant]] in Lhasa Tibetan:
**{{bo-textonly|ལྷ}} /l̥a/,

====Sub-joined letters====
The subscript position under a radical can only be occupied by the consonants {{bo-textonly|ཡ}} /ja/, {{bo-textonly|ར}} /ra/, {{bo-textonly|ལ}} /la/, and {{bo-textonly|ཝ}} /wa/.  In this position they are described as {{bo-textonly|བཏགས}} (Wylie: ''btags'', IPA: /taʔ/), in Tibetan meaning "hung on/affixed/appended", for example {{bo-textonly|བ་ཡ་བཏགས་བྱ}} (IPA: /pʰa.ja.taʔ.t͡ʃʰa/), except for {{bo-textonly|ཝ}}, which is simply read as it usually is and has no effect on the pronunciation of the consonant to which it is subjoined, for example {{bo-textonly|ཀ་ཝ་ཟུར་ཀྭ}} (IPA: /ka.wa.suː.ka/).

===Vowel marks===

The [[vowel]]s used in the alphabet are {{bo-textonly|ཨ}} /a/, {{bo-textonly|ཨི}} /i/, {{bo-textonly|ཨུ}} /u/, {{bo-textonly|ཨེ}} /e/, and {{bo-textonly|ཨོ}} /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant, the other vowels are indicated by marks; thus  {{bo-textonly|ཀ}} /ka/, {{bo-textonly|ཀི}} /ki/, {{bo-textonly|ཀུ}} /ku/, {{bo-textonly|ཀེ}} /ke/, {{bo-textonly|ཀོ}} /ko/.  The vowels {{bo-textonly|ཨི}} /i/, {{bo-textonly|ཨེ}} /e/, and {{bo-textonly|ཨོ}} /o/ are placed above consonants as diacritics, while the vowel {{bo-textonly|ཨུ}} /u/ is placed underneath consonants.<ref name="daniels" /> [[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 in [[loanword]]s, especially transcribed from the [[Sanskrit]].

{| class="wikitable"
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Vowel mark
!IPA
!Vowel mark
!IPA
!Vowel mark
!IPA
!Vowel mark
!IPA
|- style="text-align:center;"
|{{bo-textonly|ི}} || {{IPA|/i/}} || {{bo-textonly|ུ}} || {{IPA|/u/}} || {{bo-textonly|ེ}} || {{IPA|/e/}} || {{bo-textonly|ོ}} || {{IPA|/o/}}
|}

===Numerical digits===
{{main|Tibetan numerals}}

{| class="wikitable"
|- style="text-align:center;"
! Tibetan numerals
| {{bo-textonly|༠}} || {{bo-textonly|༡}} || {{bo-textonly|༢}} || {{bo-textonly|༣}} || {{bo-textonly|༤}} || {{bo-textonly|༥}} || {{bo-textonly|༦}} || {{bo-textonly|༧}} || {{bo-textonly|༨}} || {{bo-textonly|༩}}
|- style="text-align:center;"
![[Devanagari numerals]]
| ० || १ || २ || ३ || ४ || ५ || ६ || ७ || ८ || ९
|- style="text-align:center;"
![[Arabic numerals]]
| 0 || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9
|- style="text-align:center;"
! Tibetan fractions
| {{bo-textonly|༳}} ||{{bo-textonly|༪}} ||{{bo-textonly|༫}} || {{bo-textonly|༬}} || {{bo-textonly|༭}} || {{bo-textonly|༮}} || {{bo-textonly|༯}} || {{bo-textonly|༰}} || {{bo-textonly|༱}} || {{bo-textonly|༲}}
|- style="text-align:center;"
! Arabic fractions
| -0.5 || 0.5 || 1.5 || 2.5 || 3.5 || 4.5 || 5.5 || 6.5 || 7.5 || 8.5
|}

===Punctuation marks===

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+
|-
! Symbol/<br />Graphemes !! Name !! Function
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༄༅། །}} || {{bo-textonly|ཡིག་མགོ}}<br />''[[yig mgo]]'' ||  marks beginning of a text, before a headline, front page of a [[pecha]]
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༃}} || {{bo-textonly|གཏེར་ཡིག་མགོ}}<br />''[[yig mgo|gter yig mgo]]'' ||  used in place of the ''[[yig mgo]]'' in [[Terma (religion)|terma]] texts
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༁}} || {{bo-textonly|ཡིག་མགོ་ཨ་ཕྱེད}}<br />''[[yig mgo|yig mgo a phyed]]'' ||  used in place of the ''[[yig mgo]]'' in [[Terma (religion)|terma]] texts
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༆}} || {{bo-textonly|དཔེ་རྙིང་ཡིག་མགོ}}<br />''[[yig mgo|dpe rnying yig mgo]]'' ||  a variant of the ''[[yig mgo]]'' found in very old Tibetan texts
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༉}} || {{bo-textonly|བསྐུར་ཡིག་མགོ}}<br />''[[yig mgo|bskur yig mgo]]'' || list enumerator ([[Dzongka]])
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|་}} || {{bo-textonly|ཚེག}}<br />''tseg'' || [[syllable]] [[delimiter]], also used as a spacer to [[Typographic alignment#Justified|justify]] text in [[pecha]]s
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|།}} || {{bo-textonly|ཤད}}<br />''[[Danda|shad]]'' || [[full stop]], [[comma]], or [[semicolon]] (marks end of a sentence or clause, and originates from the [[danda]] of Indic scripts)
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|། །}} || {{bo-textonly|ཉིས་ཤད}}<br />''nyis [[Danda|shad]]'' || marks end of a paragraph or topic (cp. [[pilcrow]])
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༎ །།}} || {{bo-textonly|བཞི་ཤད}}<br />''bzhi [[Danda|shad]]'' || marks end of a chapter or entire section
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|། །།}} || {{bo-textonly|གསུམ་ཤད}}<br />''gsum [[Danda|shad]]'' || same as ''bzhi [[Danda|shad]]'', but used when the preceding character is ཀ or ག
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༑}} || {{bo-textonly|རིན་ཆེན་སྤུངས་ཤད}}<br />''rin chen spungs [[Danda|shad]]'' || replaces ''[[Danda|shad]]'' after single, [[Widows and orphans|orphaned]] syllables, indicating to the reader that the preceding syllable continues from text on the previous line
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༏}} || {{bo-textonly|ཚེག་ཤད}}<br />''tsheg [[Danda|shad]]'' || variant of ''rin chen spungs [[Danda|shad]]''
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༐}} || {{bo-textonly|ཉིསཚེག་ཤད}}<br />''nyis tsheg [[Danda|shad]]'' || variant of ''rin chen spungs [[Danda|shad]]''
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༈}} || {{bo-textonly|སྦྲུལ་ཤད}}<br />''sbrul [[Danda|shad]]'' || marks the start of a new text, often in a collection of texts, separates chapters, and surrounds inserted text
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༔}} || {{bo-textonly|གཏེར་ཤད}}<br />''[[Terma (religion)|gter]] [[Danda|shad]]'' || replaces ''[[Danda|shad]]'' and variants thereof in [[Terma (religion)|terma]] texts
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༒}} || {{bo-textonly|རྒྱ་གྲམ་ཤད}}<br />''rgya gram [[Danda|shad]]'' || sometimes used in place of the ''[[yig mgo]]'' in [[Terma (religion)|terma]] texts
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༸}} || {{bo-textonly|ཆེ་མགོ}}<br />''che mgo'' || literally, "big head"—used preceding a reference to the [[Dalai Lama]] or the name of another important [[lama]] or [[tulku]] that demands great respect
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༴}} || {{bo-textonly|བསྡུས་རྟགས}}<br />''bsdus rtags'' || repetition
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༓}} || {{bo-textonly|འཛུད་རྟགས་མེ་ལོང་ཅན}}<br />'''dzud rtags me long can'' || [[Caret (proofreading)|caret]] (indicates text insertion)
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༼}} || {{bo-textonly|ཨང་ཁང་གཡོན་འཁོར}}<br />''ang khang g.yon 'khor'' || left roof bracket
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༽}} || {{bo-textonly|ཨང་ཁང་གཡས་འཁོར}}<br />''ang khang g.yas 'khor'' || right roof bracket
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༺}} || {{bo-textonly|གུག་རྟགས་གཡོན}}<br />''gug rtags g.yon''|| left bracket
|- style="text-align:center;"
| {{bo-textonly|༻}} || {{bo-textonly|གུག་རྟགས་གཡས}}<br />''gug rtags g.yas'' || right bracket
|}