བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས། (Hello)
(Tashi Delek literal translation sounds like this ( BKR'SHIS'LEGS'')
Hello everyone, today I thought maybe it would good to talk a little bit about the Tibetan alphabet. I'm not sure how many of you are interested in this language, but I tell you, it is beautiful and fun to learn. I have a few places where you could practice Tibetan however; the drawback of it is....in those chat rooms, you can't type in the actual language. Well, I will begin with the letters first then talk about the spelling rules.
ཀ་ཁ་ག་ང་ ka' kha' ga' nga'
ཅ་ཆ་ཇ་ཉ་ ch' chha' ja' nya'
ཏ་ཐ་ད་ན་ ta' tha' da' na'
པ་ཕ་བ་མ་ pa' pha' ba' ma'
ཙ་ཚ་ཛ་ཝ་ tsa' tsha' dza' wa'
ཞ་ཟ་འ་ཡ་ zha' za' a' ya'
ར་ལ་ཤ་ས་ ra 'la' sha' sa'
ཧ་ཨ་ ha' a'
So here you have the 30 consonants. The dots pretty much keep the letters seperated. And if you haven't notced, all of the letters in the second row are aspirated ''breathy''
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There are four vowels in Tibetan, I will write them below:
ཨི་་ཨུ་་ཨེ་་ཨོ ''i'' as in ''me'' / ''u'' as in ''ooh''/ ''e'' as in ''eh''/ ''o'' as in ''oh''
I'm sorry about the size. I tried making the font bigger, but I had trouble trying to do that. Anyway, I couldn't type the vowels here by themselves so I had to use the letter 'a'' which is silent to write the sounds. Anyway, I will be making a video about these letters so if you can't see them clearly, you will in the video. So these are the 4 vowels in Tibetan. Just for your information, each of the vowels has its own name. I will write them for you.
གི་གུ ------ GI-GU
ཞབས་ཀྱུ་---- SHAB-KYU Note* ''ཞ'' Although this letter is ''zh'' as in ''j'' it has a low sound ''sha''
འགྲེང་བུ----- DRENG-BU
ན་རོ་------- NA-RO
One unique characteristic of Tibetan is the change of pronunciation in the letter. As you can see above, the name ''DRENG-BU'' doesn't match up with the actual letters. Don't worry about it. Later on you will see why they are spelled that way.
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Now I would like to talk about Subscripts and Superscripts. Subscripts are letters that are usually written below letters. There are 4 subscripts. I will list them here:
ཡ་ / ཡ་བཏགས་ ( YA-TA)
ར་ /ར་བཏགས་ (RA-TA)
ལ་ /ལ་བཏགས་ ( LA-TA)
ཝ་ / ཝ་ཟུར་ (WA-ZUR)
These are the 4 subscripts and I've written the names in parenthesis. I will give you some examples of how letters would look when they are connects with these scripts.When the letter '(ཡ)' is connected to a letter, it would look something like this:་ཀྱ་ཁྱ་གྱ་པྱ་ཕྱ་བྱ་མྱ་ Just to let you know, there are only 7 letters that could be connected with this 'YA-TA'' The letters I've written above are the only letters that are written with ''YA-TA'' One weird thing I should tell you though, is this ''YA-TA'' changes the pronunciation of པ་ཕ་བ་མ་ completely. Instead of being '' pya-phya-bya-mya'' They are pronounced like this: CHA/ CHHA/JA/ NYA/. I thought that was weird when I first started learning, but hey, it's a foreign language right
When a Tibetan or anyone who knows Tibetan asks you to spell out these letters that are connected with this ''YA-TA'' this is how you would do that: KA YA-TA (KYA), KHA YA-TA (KHYA), GA YA-TA (GYA), PA YA-TA (CHA), PHA YA-TA (CHHA), BA YA-TA (JA), MA YA-TA (NYA). So here you have it.
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Now lets move on to the next Subscript (ར) This letter is subscribed to 14 letters. I will show you what it looks like when it's combined. Here are the 14 letters that are combined with this letter:
ཀྲ་ཁྲ་གྲ་
ཏྲ་ཐྲ་དྲ་ནྲ་
པྲ་ཕྲ་བྲ་མྲ་
ཤྲ་སྲ་ཧྲ་
Note* This Subscript changes the pronunciation to 10 of these letters out of 14. And when you pronounce the letter, the R is a bit subtle. I will show you the spellings here:
ཀྲ KA RA-TA (TRA)
ཁྲ KHA RA-TA (THRA)
གྲ GA RA-TA (DRA)
ཏྲ NA RA-TA (NA)
མྲ MA RA-TA (MA)
ཤྲ SHA RA-TA( SHA)
སྲ SA RA-TA(SA)
ཧྲ HA RA-TA (HRA)
ཀྲ་ཁྲ་གྲ་ཏྲ་ཐྲ་དྲ་ནྲ་པྲ་ཕྲ་བྲ་མྲ་ཤྲ་སྲ་ཧྲ་ TRA, THRA, DRA, TRA, THRA, DRA, NA, TRA, THRA, DRA, MA, SHA, SA, HRA.These are the 14 letters ''RA-TA'' is connected with.You can also see that 9 of these letters sound alike when connected with RA-TA. The only one that sounds different is HA RA-TA HRA. Now as far as the ones that don't change, they keep their same sound although connected with RA-TA. These 4 letters are: ནྲ་མྲ་ཤྲ་སྲ་ NA , MA, SHA, SA. As you can see, there isn't a change in pronunciation.
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Now this next one is pretty easy- (ལ). This letter can be subscribed to 6 letters. The good thing about this letter is, it doesn't really change the pronunciation of the letter. There's only one that changes ''་ཟླ'' ZA LA-TA (DA). Everything else would just sound like ''LA'' with no change. Here I will list them for you:
ཀླ་གླ་བླ་ཟླ་རླ་སླ་
So just remember that only one will change and that's ZA LA-TA (DA)
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Now this next one (ཝ) WA-ZUR is connected to 16 letters. It doesn't change the pronunciation at all. Example: ་ཀྭ་ཁྭ ka WA-ZUR (KA), KHA WA-ZUR (KHA). Another thing you will rarely see WA-ZUR used, so it's nothing to worry about. So that's it for the Subscripts.
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There are 3 superscripts in Tibetan. ར་ལ་ས (RA-GO/LA-GO/SA-GO) ( ར་མགོ་ ལ་མགོ་ ས་མགོ་)
These Superscripts don't change the pronunciation of any letters accept one་ལྷ (LHA)
This is how these Superscripts would look connected with other letters:
རྐ་རྣ་རྨ་ RA-GO KA (KA)
ལྐ་ལྐྷ་ལྒ LA-GO KA (KA)
སྐ་སྐྷ་སྒ་ SA-GO KA (KA)
No pronunciation change at all
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Well, guys it seems that I have to go now. I wanted to also talk about the prefixes and Suffixes , but I don't have time right now so I will wait until next time. Hopefully, there's someone here who can tell me how to make the font size larger because it is very difficult to see the letters I've written. I will make a video about this as well sometime this week. Next time I will talk about the prefixes and suffixes. Take care now.
ག་ལེར་བཞུགས། (Good bye) For a Person leaving- Ka lee shuu Literal (G'LER'BZHUGS')
ག་ལེར་ཕེབས། (Good bye) For a person staying- ka lee pay Literal (G'LER'PHEBS)
ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཆེ། (Thank You) Tu jay chay Literal ( Thugs' rje'che')