Tibetan script

The **Tibetan script** is a way of writing that is used for different Tibetic languages like Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Balti, Ladakhi, and Purgi. It's also been used for some languages not from Tibet but close to its culture, like Thakali, Sanskrit and Old Turkic. The printed form is called uchen script, and the cursive form used for everyday writing is called umê script. People use this writing system in the Himalayas and Tibet.

The script is closely connected to the Tibetan identity, which includes people from areas in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. The Tibetan script comes from the Gupta script.

## Alphabets

In Tibetan writing, the syllables go from left to right, and a mark called a tsek (་) separates syllables. Because many Tibetan words have only one syllable, this mark is almost like a space. They don't use spaces to separate words.

### Basic Alphabets

The Tibetan alphabet has thirty main letters, also called "radicals," for consonants. Like in other Indic scripts, each consonant letter has a built-in vowel, which is /a/. The letter ཨ is also the starting point for adding extra vowel marks.

Even though some Tibetan dialects have tones, the language didn't have tones when they made the script. There are no special symbols for tones. But because tones came from certain features in the language, you can usually tell the tone by looking at how Tibetan words were spelled in the past.
||style="background:beige;" colspan=2|Unaspirated _high_|style="background:#d6f5d6;" colspan=2|Aspirated _medium_|style="background:#ffcce6;" colspan=2|Voiced<br/ >_low_|style="background:#99bbff;" colspan=2|Nasal _low_|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|***Guttural***|||||||||
|***Palatal***|||||||||
|***Dental***|||||||||
|***Labial***|||||||||
|***Dental***|style="background:beige; font-size:24px;"||style="background:#d6f5d6; font-size:24px;"||style="background:#ffcce6; font-size:24px;" |||style="background:#EEEFE4; font-size:24px;"||
|***low***|||||||||
|***medium***|||||||||
|***high***|||||||||

### Extended alphabet

When the Tibetan alphabet is used to write languages like Balti, Chinese, and Sanskrit, they sometimes add or change letters from the regular Tibetan alphabet to show different sounds.
|Letter|Used in|Romanization & IPA|
| --- | --- | --- |
||Balti|qa  (/q/)|
||Balti|ɽa  (/ɽ/)|
||Balti|xa  (/χ/)|
||Balti|ɣa  (/ʁ/)|
||Chinese|fa  (/f/)|
||Chinese|va  (/v/)|
||Sanskrit|gha|
||Sanskrit|jha|
||Sanskrit|ṭa|
||Sanskrit|ṭha|
||Sanskrit|ḍa|
||Sanskrit|ḍha|
||Sanskrit|ṇa|
||Sanskrit|dha|
||Sanskrit|bha|
||Sanskrit|ṣa|
||Sanskrit|kṣa|

## Infobox (writing system)

- **name**: Tibetan
- **type**: Abugida
- **time**: –present
- **fam1**: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian
- **fam2**: Proto-Sinaitic
- **fam3**: Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician
- **fam4**: Aramaic alphabet, Aramaic
- **fam5**: Brahmi script, Brahmi
- **fam6**: Gupta script, Gupta
- **sisters**: Sharada script, Sharada, Siddham script, Siddham, Kalinga script, Kalinga, Bhaiksuki script, Bhaiksuki
- **children**: * Meitei script, Meitei
* Lepcha script, Lepcha
* Khema script, Khema
* Phagspa script, Phagspa
* Marchen script, Marchen
* Tamyig script, Tamyig
- **sample**: Unknown_Tibetan_Sanskrit_Text.jpg
- **caption**: A text in Tibetan script suspected to be in Sanskrit. From the personal artifact collection of Donald Weir.
- **imagesize**: 250px
- **unicode**: [https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0F00.pdf U+0F00–U+0FFF] [http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2022.pdf Final Accepted Script Proposal of the First Usable Edition (3.0)]
- **iso15924**: Tibt