Lhasa Tibetan

Lhasa Tibetan
བོད་སྐད་
Native to	Lhasa
Region	Tibet Autonomous Region,U-Tsang
Native speakers	(1.2 million cited 1990 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Tibeto-Kanauri(?) Bodish Tibetic Central Tibetan Lhasa Tibetan
Early forms	Old Tibetan Classical Tibetan
Writing system	Tibetan script Tibetan Braille
Official status
Official language in	China Tibet Autonomous Region
Regulated by	Committee for the Standardisation of the Tibetan Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1	bo
ISO 639-2	tib(B) bod(T)
ISO 639-3	bod
Glottolog	tibe1272
Linguasphere	70-AAA-ac

Lhasa Tibetan(Tibetan:ལྷ་སའི་སྐད་,Wylie:Lha-sa'i skad,THL:Lhaséké,ZYPY:Lasägä), orStandard Tibetan,is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people ofLhasa,the capital of theTibetan Autonomous Region.It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

In the traditional "three-branched" classification of theTibetic languages,the Lhasa dialect belongs to theCentral Tibetanbranch (the other two beingKhams TibetanandAmdo Tibetan).In terms ofmutual intelligibility,speakers of Khams Tibetan are able to communicate at a basic level with Lhasa Tibetan, while Amdo speakers cannot.Both Lhasa Tibetan and Khams Tibetan evolved to becometonaland do not preserve the word-initialconsonant clusters,which makes them very far fromClassical Tibetan,especially when compared to the moreconservativeAmdo Tibetan.

Registers

Like many languages, Lhasa Tibetan has a variety oflanguage registers:

• ཕལ་སྐད(Wylie:phal skad,literally "demoticlanguage "): the vernacular speech.
• ཞེ་ས(Wylie:zhe sa,"honorificsor deference, courtesy "): the formal spoken style, particularly prominent inLhasa.
• ཡིག་སྐད(Wylie:yig skad,literally "letters language" or "literary language"): the written literary style; may includeཆོས་སྐདchos skadbelow.
• ཆོས་སྐད(Wylie:chos skad,literally "doctrine language" or "religious language"): the literary style in which the scriptures and other classical works are written.

Grammar

Main article:Modern Lhasa Tibetan grammar

Syntax and word order

Tibetan is anergative language,with what can loosely be termedsubject–object–verb (SOV) word order.Grammatical constituentsbroadly havehead-finalword order:

• adjectives generally follow nouns in Tibetan, unless the two are linked by agenitiveparticle
• objects and adverbs precede the verb, as do adjectives incopular clauses
• a noun marked with the genitive case precedes the noun which it modifies
• demonstratives and numerals follow the noun they modify.

Nouns and pronouns

Tibetan nouns do not possessgrammatical gender,although this may be marked lexically, nor do they inflect fornumber.However, definite human nouns may take a plural markerཚོ<tsho>.

Tibetan has been described as having six cases:absolutive,agentive,genitive,ablative,associativeandoblique.These are generally marked by particles, which are attached to entire noun phrases, rather than individual nouns. These suffixes may vary in form based on the final sound of the root.

Personal pronouns are inflected fornumber,showing singular, dual and plural forms. They can have between one and threeregisters.

The Standard Tibetan language distinguishes three levels ofdemonstrative:proximalའདི<'di>"this", medialདེ<de>"that", and distalཕ་གི<pha-gi>"that over there (yonder)". These can also take case suffixes.

Verbs

Verbs in Tibetan always come at the end of theclause.Verbs do not show agreement inperson,numberorgenderin Tibetan. There is also novoicedistinction between active andpassive;Tibetan verbs are neutral with regard to voice.

Tibetan verbs can be divided into classes based onvolitionandvalency.The volition of the verb has a major effect on itsmorphologyandsyntax.Volitional verbs haveimperativeforms, whilst non-volitional verbs do not: compareལྟོས་ཤིག<ltos shig>"Look!" with the non-existent *མཐོང་ཤིག<mthong shig>"*See!". Additionally, only volitional verbs can take the egophoric copulaཡིན<yin>.

Verbs in Tibetan can be split into monovalent and divalent verbs; some may also act as both, such asཆག<chag>"break". This interacts with the volition of the verb to condition which nouns take theergative caseand which must take theabsolutive,remaining unmarked.Nonetheless, distinction intransitivityis orthogonal to volition; both the volitional and non-volitional classes contain transitive as well as intransitive verbs.

Theaspectof the verb affects which verbal suffixes and which final auxiliary copulae are attached. Morphologically, verbs in the unaccomplished aspect are marked by the suffixགི<gi>or its other forms, identical to thegenitive casefor nouns, whereas accomplished aspect verbs do not use this suffix. Each can be broken down into two subcategories: under the unaccomplished aspect,futureandprogressive/general; under the accomplished aspect,perfectandaorist or simple perfective.

Evidentialityis a well-known feature of Tibetan verb morphology, gaining much scholarly attention,and contributing substantially to the understanding of evidentiality across languages.The evidentials in Standard Tibetan interact with aspect in a system marked by final copulae, with the following resultant modalities being a feature of Standard Tibetan, as classified byNicolas Tournadre:

• Assertive
• Allocentric intentional egophoric
• Allocentric intentional egophoric/Imminent danger
• Experiential egophoric
• Habitual/Generic assertive
• Inferential
• Intentional egophoric
• Intentional/Habitual egophoric
• Receptive egophoric
• Testimonial

Numerals

Main article:Tibetan numerals

Stonen tablets with prayers in Tibetan at a Temple inMcLeod Ganj

Pechas,scriptures ofTibetan Buddhism,at a library inDharamsala,India

Unlike many other languages ofEast Asiasuch asBurmese,Chinese,Japanese,KoreanandVietnamese,there are no numeral auxiliaries ormeasure wordsused in counting in Tibetan. However, words expressive of a collective or integral are often used after the tens, sometimes after a smaller number.

In scientific and astrological works, the numerals, as in VedicSanskrit,are expressed by symbolical words.

The written numerals are a variant of theHindu–Arabic numeral system,forming a base-10 positional counting systemthat is attested early on in Classical Tibetan texts.

Tibetan Numerals	༠	༡	༢	༣	༤	༥	༦	༧	༨	༩
Devanagari numerals	०	१	२	३	४	५	६	७	८	९
Bengali numerals	০	১	২	৩	৪	৫	৬	৭	৮	৯
Arabic numerals	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9

Tibetan makes use of a special connector particle for the units above each multiple of ten. Between 100 and 199, the connectiveདངdang,literally "and", is used after the hundred portion.Aboveས་ཡsayamillion, the numbers are treated as nouns and thus have their multiples following the word.

The numbers 1, 2, 3 and 10 change spelling when combined with other numerals, reflecting a change in pronunciation in combination.

Written Tibetan	Wylie transliteration	Arabic numerals		Written Tibetan	Wylie transliteration	Arabic numerals		Written Tibetan	Wylie transliteration	Arabic numerals
གཅིག	gcig	1		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག	nyi shu tsa gcig	21		བཞི་བརྒྱ	bzhi bgya	400
གཉིས	gnyis	2		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཉིས	nyi shu rtsa gynis	22		ལྔ་བརྒྱ	lnga bgya	500
གསུམ	gsum	3		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གསུམ	nyi shu rtsa gsum	23		དྲུག་བརྒྱ	drug bgya	600
བཞི	bzhi	4		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་བཞི	nyi shu rtsa bzhi	24		བདུན་བརྒྱ	bdun bgya	700
ལྔ	lnga	5		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་ལྔ	nyi shu rtsa lnga	25		བརྒྱད་བརྒྱ	brgyad bgya	800
དྲུག	drug	6		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་དྲུག	nyi shu rtsa drug	26		དགུ་བརྒྱ	dgu bgya	900
བདུན	bdun	7		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་བདུན	nyi shu rtsa bdun	27		ཆིག་སྟོང	chig stong	1000
བརྒྱད	brgyad	8		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་བརྒྱད	nyi shu rtsa brgyad	28		ཁྲི	khri	(a unit of) 10,000
དགུ	dgu	9		ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་དགུ	nyi shu rtsa dgu	29
བཅུ	bcu	10		སུམ་ཅུ	sum cu	30		སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་གཅིག	sum cu so gcig	31
བཅུ་གཅིག	bcu gcig	11		བཞི་བཅུ	bzhi bcu	40		བཞི་བཅུ་ཞེ་གཅིག	bzhi bcu zhe gcig	41
བཅུ་གཉིས	bcu gnyis	12		ལྔ་བཅུ	lnga bcu	50		ལྔ་བཅུ་ང་གཅིག	lnga bcu nga gcig	51
བཅུ་གསུམ	bcu gsum	13		དྲུག་ཅུ	drug cu	60		དྲུག་ཅུ་རེ་གཅིག	drug cu re gcig	61
བཅུ་བཞི	bcu bzhi	14		བདུན་ཅུ	bdun cu	70		བདུན་ཅུ་དོན་གཅིག	bdun cu don gcig	71
བཅོ་ལྔ	bco lnga	15		བརྒྱད་ཅུ	brgyad cu	80		བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་གཅིག	brgyad cu gya gcig	81
བཅུ་དྲུག	bcu drug	16		དགུ་བཅུ	dgu bcu	90		དགུ་བཅུ་གོ་གཅིག	dgu bcu go gcig	91
བཅུ་བདུན	bcu bdun	17		བརྒྱ	bgya	100		བརྒྱ་དང་གཅིག	bgya dang gcig	101
བཅོ་བརྒྱད	bco brgyad	18		བརྒྱ་དང་ལྔ་བཅུ	bgya dang lnga bcu	150
བཅུ་དགུ	bcu dgu	19		ཉིས་བརྒྱ	nyis bgya	200
ཉི་ཤུ	nyi shu	20		སུམ་བརྒྱ	sum bgya	300
								འབུམ	'bum	(a unit of) 100,000
								ས་ཡ	sa ya	(a unit of) 1,000,000 (1 Million)
								བྱེ་བ	bye ba	(a unit of) 10,000,000
								དུང་ཕྱུར	dung phyur	(a unit of) 100,000,000
								ཐེར་འབུམ	ther 'bum	(a unit of) 1,000,000,000 (1 Billion)

Ordinal numbers are formed by adding a suffix to the cardinal number,པ(-pa), with the exception of the ordinal number "first", which has its own lexeme,དང་པོ(dang po).

Writing system

Main articles:Tibetan scriptandTibetan braille

Tibetan is written with anIndic script,with a historically conservative orthography that reflectsOld Tibetanphonology and helps unify the Tibetan-language area. It is also helpful in reconstructingProto Sino-TibetanandOld Chinese.

Wylie transliterationis the most common system ofromanizationused by Western scholars in rendering written Tibetan using theLatin Alpha bet(such as employed on much of this page), while linguists tend to use other special transliteration systems of their own. As for transcriptions meant to approximate the pronunciation,Tibetan pinyinis the official romanization system employed by the government of thePeople's Republic of China,while English language materials use the THL transcriptionsystem. Certain names may also retain irregular transcriptions, such asChomolungmaforMount Everest.

Tibetan orthographic syllable structure is (C₁C₂)C₃(C₄)V(C₅C₆)Not all combinations are licit.

position	C1	C2	C3	C4	V	C5	C6
name	Prefix	Superfix	Root	Subjoined	Vowel	Suffix	Suffix 2
licit letters	ག ད བ མ འ	ར ལ ས	any consonant	ཡ ར ཝ ལ	any vowel	ག མ ང ད ལ ས ན བ ར འ	ས

Phonology

The following summarizes the sound system of the dialect of Tibetan spoken inLhasa,the most influential variety of the spoken language.

The structure of a Lhasa Tibetansyllableis relatively simple;noconsonant clusteris allowedand codas are only allowed with a single consonant.Vowels can be either short or long, andlong vowelsmay further benasalized.Vowel harmonyis observed in two syllable words as well as verbs with afiniteending.

Also,tonesarecontrastivein this language, where at least two tonemes are distinguished.Although the four tone analysis is favored by linguists in China,DeLancey(2003) suggests that the falling tone and the final[k]or[ʔ]are incontrastive distribution,describing Lhasa Tibetan syllables as either high or low.

Consonants

Consonantphonemesof Standard Tibetan

	Bilabial		Alveolar		Retroflex	(Alveolo-) Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ɲ		ŋ
Stop	pʰ	p	tʰ	t	ʈʰ~ʈʂʰ ʈ~ʈʂ	cʰ	c	kʰ	k	ʔ
Affricate			tsʰ	ts		tɕʰ	tɕ
Fricative			s		ʂ	ɕ				h
Approximant	w		ɹ̥	ɹ		j
Lateral			l̥	l

1. In the low tone, the unaspirated/p,t,ts,ʈ~ʈʂ,tɕ,c,k/are voiced[b,d,dz,ɖ~ɖʐ,dʑ,ɟ,ɡ],whereas the aspirated stops and affricates/pʰ,tʰ,tsʰ,ʈʰ~ʈʂʰ,tɕ,cʰ,kʰ/lose some of their aspiration. Thus, in this context, the main distinction between/p,t,ts,ʈ~ʈʂ,tɕ,c,k/and/pʰ,tʰ,tsʰ,ʈʰ~ʈʂʰ,tɕʰ,cʰ,kʰ/is voicing. The dialect of the upper social strata in Lhasa does not use voiced stops and affricates in the low tone.
2. Analveolar trill([r]) is in complementary distribution of thealveolar approximant[ɹ];therefore, both are treated as one phoneme.
3. The consonants/m/,/ŋ/,/p/,/r/,/l/,and/k/may appear in syllable-final positions. The Classical Tibetan final/n/is still present, but its modern pronunciation is normally realized as a nasalisation of the preceding vowel, rather than as a discrete consonant (see above). However,/k/is not pronounced in the final position of a word except in very formal speech. Also, syllable-final/r/and/l/are often not clearly pronounced but realized as a lengthening of the preceding vowel. The phonemicglottal stop/ʔ/appears only at the end of words in the place of/s/,/t/,or/k/,which were pronounced in Classical Tibetan but have since been elided. For instance, the word forTibetitself wasBodin Classical Tibetan but is now pronounced[pʰø̀ʔ]in the Lhasa dialect.

Vowels

The vowels of Lhasa Tibetan have been characterized and described in several different ways, and it continues to be a topic of ongoing research.

Tournadre and Sangda Dorje describe eight vowels in the standard language:

Vowelphonemesof Standard Tibetan

	Front	Central	Back
Close	iy		u
Close-mid	eø		o
Open-mid	ɛ
Open		a

Three additional vowels are sometimes described as significantly distinct:[ʌ]or[ə],which is normally an allophone of/a/;[ɔ],which is normally an allophone of/o/;and[ɛ̈](an unrounded, centralised, mid front vowel), which is normally an allophone of/e/.These sounds normally occur in closed syllables; because Tibetan does not allowgeminated consonants,there are cases in which one syllable ends with the same sound as the one following it. The result is that the first is pronounced as an open syllable but retains the vowel typical of a closed syllable. For instance,ཞབསzhabs(foot) is pronounced[ɕʌp]andཔདpad(borrowing from Sanskritpadma,lotus) is pronounced[pɛʔ],but the compound word,ཞབས་པདzhabs pad(lotus-foot, government minister) is pronounced[ɕʌpɛʔ].This process can result inminimal pairsinvolving sounds that are otherwise allophones.

Sources vary on whether the[ɛ̈]phone (resulting from/e/in a closed syllable) and the[ɛ]phone (resulting from/a/through thei-mutation) are distinct or basically identical.

Phonemic vowel length exists in Lhasa Tibetan but in a restricted set of circumstances. Assimilation of Classical Tibetan's suffixes, normally 'i(འི་), at the end of a word produces a long vowel in Lhasa Tibetan; the feature is sometimes omitted in phonetic transcriptions. In normal spoken pronunciation, a lengthening of the vowel is also frequently substituted for the sounds[r]and[l]when they occur at the end of a syllable.

The vowels/i/,/y/,/e/,/ø/,and/ɛ/each have nasalized forms:/ĩ/,/ỹ/,/ẽ/,/ø̃/,and/ɛ̃/,respectively.These historically result from/in/,/un/,/en/,/on/,/an/,and are reflected in the written language. The vowel quality of/un/,/on/and/an/has shifted, since historical/n/,along with all other coronal final consonants, caused a form ofumlautin the Ü/Dbus branch ofCentral Tibetan.In some unusual cases, the vowels/a/,/u/,and/o/may also be nasalised.

Tones

The Lhasa dialect is usually described as having two tones: high and low. However, in monosyllabic words, each tone can occur with two distinct contours. The high tone can be pronounced with either a flat or a falling contour, and the low tone can be pronounced with either a flat or rising-falling contour, the latter being a tone that rises to a medium level before falling again. It is normally safe to distinguish only between the two tones because there are very fewminimal pairsthat differ only because of contour. The difference occurs only in certain words ending in the sounds [m] or [ŋ]; for instance, the wordkham(Tibetan:ཁམ་,"piece" ) is pronounced[kʰám]with a high flat tone, whereas the wordKhams(Tibetan:ཁམས་,"theKhamregion ") is pronounced[kʰâm]with a high falling tone.

In polysyllabic words, tone is not important except in the first syllable. This means that from the point of view of phonologicaltypology,Tibetan could more accurately be described as apitch-accent languagethan a truetone language,in the latter of which all syllables in a word can carry their own tone.

Verbal system

The Lhasa Tibetan verbal system distinguishes four tenses and three evidential moods.

	Future	Present	Past	Perfect
Personal	V་གི་ཡིན་ V-gi-yin	V་གི་ཡོད་ V-gi-yod	V་པ་ཡིན / V་བྱུང་ V-pa-yin/byung	V་ཡོད་ V-yod
Factual	V་གི་རེད་ V-gi-red	V་གི་ཡོད་པ་རེད་ V-gi-yod-pa-red	V་པ་རེད་ V-pa-red	V་ཡོད་པ་རེད་ V-yod-pa-red
Testimonial	-------	V་གི་འདུག་ V-gi-'dug	V་སོང་ V-song	V་བཞག་ V-bzhag

The threemoodsmay all occur with all three grammatical persons, though early descriptions associated the personal modal category with European first-person agreement.

Scholarship

In the 18th and 19th centuries several Western linguists arrived in Tibet:

• TheCapuchin friarswho settled inLhasafor a quarter of century from 1719:
  • Francesco della Penna,well known from his accurate description of Tibet,
  • Cassian diMaceratasent home materials which were used by the Augustine friar Aug. Antonio Georgi of Rimini (1711–1797) in hisAlphabetum Tibetanum(Rome, 1762, 4t0), a ponderous and confused compilation, which may be still referred to, but with great caution.
• The HungarianSándor Kőrösi Csoma(1784–1842), who published the first Tibetan–European language dictionary (Classical Tibetan and English in this case) and grammar,Essay Towards a Dictionary, Tibetan and English.
• Heinrich August Jäschkeof theMoravian missionwhich was established inLadakhin 1857,Tibetan GrammarandA Tibetan–English Dictionary.
• At St Petersburg,Isaac Jacob Schmidtpublished hisGrammatik der tibetischen Sprachein 1839 and hisTibetisch-deutsches Wörterbuchin 1841. His access to Mongolian sources had enabled him to enrich the results of his labours with a certain amount of information unknown to his predecessors. HisTibetische Studien(1851–1868) is a valuable collection of documents and observations.
• In France, P. E. Foucaux published in 1847 a translation from theRgya tcher rol-pa,the Tibetan version of theLalita Vistara,and in 1858 aGrammaire thibétaine.
• Ant. Schiefner of St Petersburg in 1849 his series of translations and researches.
• Theos Casimir Bernard,a PhD scholar of religion from Columbia University, explorer and practitioner of Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism, published, after his 1936/37 trip to India and Tibet,A Simplified Grammar of the Literary Tibetan Language,1946.See the 'Books' section.

Indianindologistand linguistRahul Sankrityayanwrote a Tibetan grammar inHindi.Some of his other works on Tibetan were:

1. Tibbati Bal-Siksha, 1933
2. Pathavali (Vols. 1, 2, 3), 1933
3. Tibbati Vyakaran, 1933
4. Tibbat May Budh Dharm, 1948

• Japanese linguistKitamura Hajimepublished a grammar and dictionary of Lhasa Tibetan

Contemporary usage

In much of Tibet,primary educationis conducted either primarily or entirely in the Tibetan language, and bilingual education is rarely introduced before students reachmiddle school.However, Chinese is the language of instruction of most Tibetansecondary schools.In April 2020, classroom instruction was switched from Tibetan to Mandarin Chinese inNgaba,Sichuan.Students who continue on totertiary educationhave the option of studyinghumanisticdisciplines in Tibetan at a number of minority colleges in China.This contrasts with Tibetan schools inDharamsala,India, where the Ministry of Human Resource Development curriculum requires academic subjects to be taught in English from middle school.Literacy and enrollment rates continue to be the main concern of theChinese government.Much of the adult population in Tibet remains illiterate, and despitecompulsory educationpolicies, many parents in rural areas are unable to send their children to school.

In February 2008,Norman Baker,a UK MP, released a statement to markInternational Mother Language Dayclaiming, "The Chinese government are following a deliberate policy of extinguishing all that is Tibetan, including their own language in their own country" and he asserted a right for Tibetans to express themselves "in their mother tongue".However,TibetologistElliot Sperling has noted that "within certain limits thePRCdoes make efforts to accommodate Tibetan cultural expression "and" the cultural activity taking place all over the Tibetan plateau cannot be ignored. "

Some scholars also question such claims because most Tibetans continue to reside in rural areas where Chinese is rarely spoken, as opposed to Lhasa and other Tibetan cities where Chinese can often be heard. In theTexas Journal of International Law,Barry Sautmanstated that "none of the many recent studies of endangered languages deems Tibetan to be imperiled, and language maintenance among Tibetans contrasts with language loss even in the remote areas of Western states renowned for liberal policies... claims that primary schools in Tibet teach Mandarin are in error. Tibetan was the main language of instruction in 98% ofTAR primary schoolsin 1996; today, Mandarin is introduced in early grades only in urban schools.... Because less than four out of ten TAR Tibetans reach secondary school, primary school matters most for their cultural formation. "

Machine translation software and applications

An incomplete list of machine translation software or applications that can translate Tibetan language from/to a variety of other languages.

• Tàng dịch thông – Zangyitong, a mobile app for translating between Tibetan and Chinese.
• Thanh hải di đà phiên dịch– A Beta-version WeChat Mini Program that translate between Tibetan language to/from Chinese. (invitation from WeChat users only)
• Đằng Tấn dân hán phiên dịch– A WeChat Mini Program that translate between Tibetan language to/from Chinese.
• THL Tibetan to English Translation Tool – A webpage that annotates Tibetan text various English meanings and translations, with 10+ dictionaries integrated.A downloadable version is also available.
• Trung Quốc xã khoa viện tàng hán ( khẩu ngữ ) phiên dịch bằng máy– A demonstrative website (slow in response) translating Tibetan to Chinese, developed by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It works well on Tibetan text from official Chinese News websites.
• Panlex– A multilingual translation website with a few Tibetan words.
• Microsoft Translator– Has an option to Translate Tibetan.
• Google Translate– Whose support for Tibetan is supported.

Example Text

From Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rightsin Tibetan, written in theTibetan script:

འགྲོ་

'gro

བ་

ba

མིའི་

mi'i

རིགས་

rigs

རྒྱུད་

rgyud

ཡོངས་

yongs

ལ་

la

སྐྱེས་

skyes

ཙམ་

tsam

ཉིད་

nyid

ནས་

nas

ཆེ་

che

མཐོངས་

mthongs

དང༌།

dang

ཐོབ་

thob

ཐངགི་

thangagi

རང་

rang

དབང་

dbang

འདྲ་

'dra

མཉམ་

mnyam

དུ་

du

ཡོད་

yod

ལ།

la

ཁོང་

khong

ཚོར་

tshor

རང་

rang

བྱུང་

byung

གི་

gi

བློ་

blo

རྩལ་

rtsal

དང་

dang

བསམ་

bsam

ཚུལ་

tshul

བཟང་

bzang

པོ་

po

འདོན་

'don

པའི་

pa'i

འོས་

'os

བབས་

babs

ཀྱང་

kyang

ཡོད།

yod

དེ་

de

བཞིན་

bzhin

ཕན་

phan

ཚུན་

tshun

གཅིག་

gcig

གིས་

gis

གཅིག་

gcig

ལ་

la

བུ་

bu

སྤུན་

spun

གྱི་

gyi

འདུ་

'du

ཤེས་

shes

འཛིན་

'dzin

པའི་

pa'i

བྱ་

bya

སྤྱོད་

spyod

ཀྱང་

kyang

ལག་

lag

ལེན་

len

བསྟར་

bstar

དགོས་

dgos

པ་

pa

ཡིན༎

yin

འགྲོ་ བ་ མིའི་ རིགས་ རྒྱུད་ ཡོངས་ ལ་ སྐྱེས་ ཙམ་ ཉིད་ ནས་ ཆེ་ མཐོངས་ དང༌། ཐོབ་ ཐངགི་ རང་ དབང་ འདྲ་ མཉམ་ དུ་ ཡོད་ ལ། ཁོང་ ཚོར་ རང་ བྱུང་ གི་ བློ་ རྩལ་ དང་ བསམ་ ཚུལ་ བཟང་ པོ་ འདོན་ པའི་ འོས་ བབས་ ཀྱང་ ཡོད། དེ་ བཞིན་ ཕན་ ཚུན་ གཅིག་ གིས་ གཅིག་ ལ་ བུ་ སྤུན་ གྱི་ འདུ་ ཤེས་ འཛིན་ པའི་ བྱ་ སྤྱོད་ ཀྱང་ ལག་ ལེན་ བསྟར་ དགོས་ པ་ ཡིན༎

'gro ba mi'i rigs rgyud yongs la skyes tsam nyid nas che mthongs dang thob thangagi rang dbang 'dra mnyam du yod la khong tshor rang byung gi blo rtsal dang bsam tshul bzang po 'don pa'i 'os babs kyang yod de bzhin phan tshun gcig gis gcig la bu spun gyi 'du shes 'dzin pa'i bya spyod kyang lag len bstar dgos pa yin

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

See also

• Central Tibetan
• Amdo Tibetan
• Khams Tibetan
• Languages of Bhutan

Further reading

• Bernard, Theos C. (1946).A Simplified Grammar of the Literary Tibetan Language.Santa Barbara, CA: Tibetan Text Society.
• Chang, Kun; Chang, Betty Shefts (1968). "Vowel harmony in spoken Lhasa Tibetan".Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (BIHP).40:53–124.
• Das, Sarat Chandra(1902).Tibetan–English Dictionary (with Sanskrit Synonyms).Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depot.ISBN978-81-86142-82-0.
  • Das, Sarat Chandra (2004).Tibetan-English dictionary.Delhi:Motilal Banarsidass.ISBN81-208-1713-3.
• DeLancey, Scott (2003). "Lhasa Tibetan".The Sino-Tibetan Languages.London: Routledge. pp. 270–288.
• Denwood, Philip (1999).Tibetan.London Oriental and African Language Library. Vol. 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.doi:10.1075/loall.3.ISBN978-90-272-3803-0.ISSN1382-3485.
• Francis, Norbert (March 2018)."Review of 'Becoming Bilingual in School and Home in Tibetan Areas of China: Stories of Struggle'".China Review International.25(1): 48–53.doi:10.1353/cri.2018.0012.lingbuzz/005092.
• Hahn, Michael (July 2008). "Foundational Questions of Tibetan Morphology".The Tibet Journal.33(2): 3–19.
• Hodge, Stephen (2003).An Introduction to Classical Tibetan.Orchid Press.ISBN974-524-039-7.
• Jäschke, Heinrich August(2004) [1865, Kye-Lang, Brit. Lahoul, H. A. Jäschke].A short practical grammar of the Tibetan language, with special reference to the spoken dialects.London: Hardinge Simpole.ISBN1-84382-077-3."... contains a facsimile of the original publication in manuscript, the first printed version of 1883, and the later Addenda published with the Third Edition." —P. [4] of cover.
• Jäschke, Heinrich August (1866).Romanized Tibetan and English dictionary.Kye-Lang.Retrieved2011-06-30.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Jäschke, Heinrich August (1881).A Tibetan–English dictionary, with special reference to the prevailing dialects: To which is added an English-Tibetan vocabulary.London: Unger Brothers (T. Grimm).
• Jäschke, Heinrich August (1883). Heinrich Wenzel (ed.).Tibetan grammar.Trübner's collection of simplified grammars. Vol. 7 (2nd ed.). London: Trübner & co.
• Kopp, Teresa Kunkel (1998).Verbalizers in Lhasa Tibetan(PhD thesis). Arlington: University of Texas.
• Lim, Keh Sheng (2018).Tonal and Intonational Phonology of Lhasa Tibetan(Ph.D. thesis). University of Ottawa.
• Naga, Sangye Tandar (2010). Vitali, Roberto (ed.). "Some Reflections on the Mysterious Nature of Tibetan Language".The Tibet Journal.34–35 (3-2: The Earth Ox Papers): 561–566.JSTOR43302083.
• Sandberg, Graham (1894).Hand-book of colloquial Tibetan: A practical guide to the language of Central Tibet.Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.
• Tournadre, Nicolas;Dorje, Sangda (2003).Manual of Standard Tibetan.New York:Snow Lion Publications.ISBN1-55939-189-8.
• Waddell, Lawrence Austine;de Lacouperie, Albert Terrien(1911)."Tibet § Language".InChisholm, Hugh(ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 919–921.

External links

• Translations of Tibetan texts, Tibetan language courses & publications by Erick Tsiknopoulos and the Trikāya Translation Committee.