The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Standard Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin or ZWPY, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in China. It is based on the pronunciation used by China National Radio's Tibetan Radio, which is based on the Lhasa dialect. It has been used within China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin script since 1982. Tibetan pinyin is a phonetic transcription, and as such its spelling is tied to actual pronunciation (although tone is not marked). Wylie on the other hand is a transliteration system, where mechanical conversion to and from Tibetan and Latin script is possible. Within academic circles, Wylie transliteration (with a v replacing the apostrophe) is more commonly used.

Overview

Onsets overview

Independent onsets in the initial syllable of a word are transcribed as follows: For more general case, see.

Vowels and final consonant

The 17 vowels of the Lhasa dialect are represented in as follows: Ending a syllable, -r is usually not pronounced, but it lengthens the preceding vowel. In the same place, -n usually nasalises the preceding vowel. Consonants at the end of a syllable are transcribed as follows:

Single syllable orthography

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).

Onsets

Below is a comprehensive transcription table of onsets of an initial syllable of a word. If the syllable to transcribe is not the first syllable of a word, see.

Rimes

Below is a comprehensive transcription table of rimes of a final syllable of a word, with IPA transcription for the Lhasa dialect. If the syllable to transcribe is not the final syllable of a word, see Coda variation. Take "ཨ" to be the consonant (not "◌").

Intersyllable influence

Onset variation

Coda variation

Sometimes there is intersyllabic influence:

Encoding

The IETF language tag for Tibetan pinyin is bo-Latn-pinyin.

Examples

Citations

Sources