Colloquial Amdo Tibetan (2005, Revised), Kuo-ming Sung & Lha Byams Rgyal 1 The Alphabet and the Sound System .L%?- $?=- .%- 1:A- %- <R:A- i3- $8$ ❖ 1.1 The Tibetan Alphabet 1.1.1 The Alphabet The invention of the Tibetan alphabet is often credited to Thon-mi Sambhota (,R/-3A-?3-SR-B,), a scholar and minister who served under the reign of King Srong bTsan sGam Po (YR%-24/-|3-0R,) in the eighth century. Modeled after Brahmi writing, the Tibetan alphabet consists of 30 letters and four vowel diacritics. The unit of writing is the syllable and not the word. In the traditional alphabet chart, letters are arranged, in principle, according to their place of articulation (in rows) and manner of articulation (in columns). In the last three rows, the rationale for the order becomes less apparent. For example, the letters 8 and 9, which behave just like the third-column letters in the previous five rows, are placed elsewhere. That said, the order of the alphabet is of vital importance because it is the way all Tibetan dictionaries are arranged. Inscription on Bronze, the Jokhang, Lhasa 1Colloquial Amdo Tibetan (2005, Revised), Kuo-ming Sung & Lha Byams Rgyal 2In the following chart, the standard Latin transcription (SLT), which is the spelling adopted by scholars to transcribe literary Tibetan, and the Amdo phonetic transcription are both given for each letter, with the SLT followed by the Amdo phonetic transcription in brackets. For example, the letter $ is transcribed as ga [ka]. For a description of the Amdo phonetic symbols adopted in this book, please see the explanations in section 1.2.1. Sounds represented by letters in combination with others are given in brackets marked with the circumflex: ^[ ]. These sounds will be discussed in Lesson 2. Column I Column II Column III Column IV ka [ka] ! kha [kha] # ga [ka] $ ^[ga] nga [nga] % ca [ca] & cha [cha] ( ja [ca] ) ^[ja] nya [nya] * ta [ta] + tha [tha] , da [ta] . ^[da] na [na] / pa [pa] 0 pha [pha] 1 ba [wa] 2 ^[ba] ma [ma] 3 tsa [tsa] 4 tsha [tsha] 5 dza [tsa] 6 ^[dza] wa [Rwa] 7 zha [sha] 8 ^[Za] za [sa] 9 ^[za] 'a [a] : ya [ya] ; ra [ra] < la [la] = ^[lha] sha [xa] > sa [sa] ? ha [ha] @ a [a] A Chart 1.1: The Tibetan Alphabet 1.1.2 Writing (Stroke Order) of the AlphabetColloquial Amdo Tibetan (2005, Revised), Kuo-ming Sung & Lha Byams Rgyal 3There are two things to note about the writing of Tibetan letters. First, the "base" line of the letters is on top. All letters are lined-up downwards from that base line. Second, all letters are not of the same "height". As shown in the diagram below, / and . are almost twice as "high" as 3 and %. / . 3 % Letters that resemble / and . in height are called long-legged letters. Besides / and ., there are also !, #, $, *, +, 8, >, and @, ten altogether. The rest of the letters of the alphabet have the same height as 3 and %. It is important to make this distinction in order to prevent writing . and % too similarly. In Lesson 2, the learner will encounter stack-up (i.e., superjoined or subjoined) letters, where two or three letters are written vertically, one on top of the other. The stack-up letters have roughly the same height as a single long-legged letter, as shown below: $ _ G +R 1 K 1A The following chart shows the standard calligraphic stroke order of the Tibetan alphabet, as taught in Amdo elementary schools. Note that this is the correct stroke order when one intends to produce calligraphic-quality handwriting. In casual handwriting, the rules loosen and the strokes are more fluid. ! Row & RowColloquial Amdo Tibetan (2005, Revised), Kuo-ming Sung & Lha Byams Rgyal 4 + Row 0 Row 4 Row 8 Row < Row @ Row vowel diacritics: 1.1.3 Different Writing StylesColloquial Amdo Tibetan (2005, Revised), Kuo-ming Sung & Lha Byams Rgyal 5The style of the alphabet we introduce here is called Wuchan (.2-&/). The style used in all printed material, Wuchan is also the style studied in elementary schools throughout the Amdo region. In the U-Tsang region, elementary school children learn a different style called Wumed (.2-3J.). Only in higher grades do they learn to read Wuchan, but at that time, they also learn to write in a cursive script called Chu (:H$). It is probably safe to say Wuchan is by far the most important and practical style to master in reading, if not also in writing. The photographs below are textbooks showing the different styles: Wuchan, taught in Amdo, and Wumed, taught in U-Tsang. Language, Book I, Qinghai Language, Book I, Lhasa When it comes to calligraphy as a traditional art, there are many more different styles and sub-styles. See the cultural notes in Lesson 5 for a brief introduction to Tibetan calligraphy and some examples. ❖ 1.2 Writing System vs. Sound System Any two sounds in a language that serve the purpose of contrasting with each other to make a meaningful distinction are called phonemes, such as the sounds /s/ and /z/ in a pair of words like seal and zeal. The two phonemes /s/ and /z/ are represented by the individual letters s and z inColloquial Amdo Tibetan (2005, Revised), Kuo-ming Sung & Lha Byams Rgyal 6this case, but phonemes are not always represented in such a straightforward fashion in a writing system. For instance, the phonemes /sh/, /ch/, /θ/, and /D/ are usually represented by a combination of letters, such as shirt, church, thin, and there. In some cases, different spellings can represent the exact same phoneme, such as the /f/ sound in photo, fun and effort; in others, the same letter can represent different sounds, usually depending on the immediate sound environment. For example, the letter t in nation, native and question is pronounced differently depending on the surrounding sound. Amdo Tibetan has its fair share of complexity in the connection between the writing system and the sound system. In this regard, Amdo Tibetan and English share a number of similarities: (1) the same sound can be represented by different letters, either an individual letter or a combination of letters, e.g., the /k/ sound in sic, sick, Christmas, and like. (2) a combination of letters can represent new sounds such as the sh in shoe and the ch in chin, or existing sounds such as the gh /f/ in laugh and the ch /k/ in mechanic. (3) the same letter can represent different