The People's Republic of China's Tibetan Pinyin (Chinese: 藏文拼音; pinyin: Zàngwén Pīnyīn; Tibetan: བོད་ཡིག་གི་སྒྲ་སྦྱོར་) is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in China. Tibetan Pinyin is based on the Lhasa dialect and reflects the pronunciation very accurately, except that it doesn't mark tones. It is used inside of China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin alphabet. Pinyin is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard Mandarin, where pin means spell(ing) and yin means sound(s)). This article describes the most common variant called Hanyu Pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; pinyin: HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n), also known as scheme... Om Mani Padme Hum, the primary mantra of Tibetan Buddhism written in the Tibetan script, on a rock outside the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. ... Look up Transcription in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Tibetan language is typically classified as member of the Tibeto-Burman which in turn is thought by some to be a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. ... Lhasa prefecture-level city in Tibet Autonomous Region Lhasa (Tibetan: ལྷ་ས་; Wylie: lha-sa; Simplified Chinese: 拉萨; Traditional Chinese: 拉薩; pinyin: Lāsà), sometimes spelled Llasa, is the traditional capital of Tibet and the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the Peoples Republic of China. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... Pronunciation refers to: the way a word or a language is usually spoken; the manner in which someone utters a word. ... The Wylie transliteration scheme is a method for transliterating the Tibetan script using the keys on a typical English language typewriter. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ...

Initials

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). A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ...

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... The Wylie transliteration scheme is a method for transliterating the Tibetan script using the keys on a typical English language typewriter. ...

Vowels and final consonants

The seventeen vowels of the Lhasa dialect are represented in Tibetan Pinyin as follows: Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

Syllable-final -r is usually not spoken, but lengthens the preceding vowel. Syllable-final -n of the written forms usually nasalises the preceding vowel. This is how syllable-final consonants are transcribed:

Examples

Shigatse (Tibetan: གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ་; Wylie transliteration: Gzhis-ka-rtse; Modified Wiley: gzhi-ka-rtsa; pinyin (Tibetan): Xigazê; Chinese: 日喀则; pinyin: Rìkāzé, Zhigatse [Zhi-ga-tse], and Xigatse) is the second largest city in Tibet with a population of 80,000. ... Shigatse (Tibetan: གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ་; Wylie transliteration: Gzhis-ka-rtse; Modified Wiley: gzhi-ka-rtse; pinyin (Tibetan): Xigazê; Chinese: 日喀则; pinyin: Rìkāzé, Zhigatse [Zhi-ga-tse], and Xigatse) is the second largest city in Tibet with a population of 80,000. ... Tashilhunpo Monastery The Thanka Wall overlooking the monastery Tashilhunpo Monastery, built in 1447, is a historic and culturally important monestary in Shigatse, Tibet. ... Drepung monastery Drepung Monastery is one of the great three Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet. ... The 13th Dalai Lama Thubten Gyatso (1876 – December 17, 1933), also spelled Thupten Gyatso, was the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet. ...

References

• Guójiā cèhuìjú dìmíng yánjiūsuǒ 国家测绘局地名研究所 (Institute for Place Names of the State Survey Bureau; ed.). Zhōngguó dìmínglù 中国地名录 / Gazetteer of China. (Beijing, Zhōngguó dìtú chūbǎnshè 中国地图出版社 1997); ISBN 7-5031-1718-4. Contains official spellings for place names.
• Zàngwén pīnyīn jiàocái - Lāsàyīn 藏文拼音教材•拉萨音 / bod yig gi sgra sbyor slob deb, lha sa'i skad (Course in the transcription of Tibetan, Lhasa dialect; Běijīng 北京, Mínzú chūbǎnshè 民族出版社 1983), ISBN 7-105-02577-8. A modified version of the official transcription, with tone letters.
• Wylie, Turrell: A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription In: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 1959, p. 261-267.
• David Germano, Nicolas Tournadre: THDL Simplified Phonetic Transcription of Standard Tibetan (Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library, December 12th, 2003).

See also

• Tibetan language
• Tibetan alphabet
• Wylie transliteration
• Tibetan transcription (THDL)
• Hanyu Pinyin