Tibetan language/Wylie

Consonants

The Wylie scheme transliterates the Tibetan characters as follows:

ཀ ka [ká]	ཁ kha [kʰá]	ག ga [ɡà/kʰːà]	ང nga [ŋà]
ཅ ca [tɕá]	ཆ cha [tɕʰá]	ཇ ja [dʑà/tɕʰːà]	ཉ nya [ɲà]
ཏ ta [tá]	ཐ tha [tʰá]	ད da [dà/tʰːà]	ན na [nà]
པ pa [pá]	ཕ pha [pʰá]	བ ba [bà/pʰːà]	མ ma [mà]
ཙ tsa [tsá]	ཚ tsha [tsʰá]	ཛ dza [dzà/tsʰːà]	ཝ wa [wà]
ཞ zha [ʑà/ɕːà]	ཟ za [zà/sːà]	འ 'a [ɦà/ʔːà]	ཡ ya [jà]
ར ra [rà]	ལ la [là]	ཤ sha [ɕá]	ས sa [sá]
ཧ ha [há]	ཨ a [ʔá]

The final letter of the alphabet, the null consonant ཨ, is not transliterated - its presence is unambiguously indicated by a vowel-initial syllable.

In Tibetan script, consonant clusters within a syllable may be represented either through the use of prefixed or suffixed letters, or by letters superfixed or subfixed to the root letter (forming a "stack"). The Wylie system does not normally distinguish these as in practice no ambiguity is possible under the rules of Tibetan spelling. The exception is the sequence gy-, which may be written either with a prefix g or a subfix y. In the Wylie system these are distinguished by inserting a period, . between a prefix g and initial y. E.g. གྱང "wall" is gyang, while གཡང་ "chasm" is g.yang.

Vowels

The four vowel marks (here applied to the silent letter ཨ ) are transliterated:

ཨི i

ཨུ u

ཨེ e

ཨོ o

When a syllable has no explicit vowel marking, the letter a is inserted to represent the inherent vowel "a" (e.g. ཨ་ = a).

Wylie extensions

• THDL Extended Wylie Transliteration Scheme (A project of the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library to adapt and expand the Wylie system for computer use.)

Readings

• Wylie_transliteration

Activities

• Write 500 words on the origin, benefits and challenges of Wylie