When I was learning how to read Tibetan, I discovered the horrid reading rules, and I really wished someone had compiled a list of rules/guidelines for reading Tibetan. So that’s exactly what I’m gonna do (just in case anyone ever decides to learn Tibetan)
Let’s start of with the basics - Here’s the full alphabet (with each letter’s respective tones)
(Note: The accented á/à denotes a high/low tone respectively)
Tibetan is an abugida, so you put vowels on top or underneath your consonants to form different sounds.
(Note: if you have no vowel around the consonant, you assume the “a” sound by default - that’s why ཀ་ is simply just “ka”)
Also, you may have noticed the little dot next to the consonant. The dot signifies the end of a syllable. In Tibetan, words aren’t separated by spaces; only syllables are separated by this little dot.
Moving on, we can also add consonants to the end of the syllable. The tricky part about this is that some consonants are silent, and some aren’t. The chart below explains this pretty well. [credits to Zefortiche]
Before you get overwhelmed, what this chart means is that based on the suffix you add, it may change your base vowel, and it may also be silent.
The only suffixes you really have to worry about are ད (d), ས (s) and ན (n).
ཀན་ - You would expect this to be “kan” but a -> ä, so this is pronounced “kän”
ཀུན་ - Expected: “kun” but u -> ü, so this is pronounced “kün”
ཀོན་ - Expected: “kon” but o -> ö, so this is pronounced “kön”
The suffixes ད and ས follow the same vowel changes, except they are silent consonants.
The consonant ལ (la) can be pronounced or not (doesn’t really matter), and it partakes in the same vowel changes as ད and ས while also lengthening the vowel.
Summary of root vowel changes:
If you have ད, ས, ན, or ལ as suffixes,
the root vowel “a” changes to “ä”
the root vowel “u” changes to “ü”
the root vowel “o” changes to “ö”
the vowel is lengthened if ལ is the suffix
Prefixes are NEVER pronounced, but they do alter the root letter:
1) If you have a root letter in the third column of the alphabet chart, it becomes fully voiced and loses its aspiration (khà -> gà)
2) If your root letter is from the fourth column of the alphabet chart, it gets a high tone. (mà -> má)
There’s only one special case: If you have the combination དབ་ (d + ba), using the rules you learned previously, you would expect this word to be pronounced “ba”. But, the d and b cancel out, creating the following sounds:
དབ་ is pronounced “wa” (another special case)
[དབྲ་ (dbrà) , དབླ་ (dblà) and དབྱ་ (dbyà) are pronounced “rá”, “lá” and “yá”] The above combinations involve subscripts, which are described below.
ས་, ལ་, and ར་ are the only 3 letters that can be superscripts. They are NEVER pronounced, but they affect the root letter in the same way as the prefixes. Just to be complete:
1) If you have a root letter in the third column of the alphabet chart, it becomes fully voiced and loses its aspiration (khà -> ga)
2) If your root letter is from the fourth column of the alphabet chart, it gets a high tone. (mà -> má)
Note: The 3rd and 4th column letters addressed in the prefix and subscript rules only refer to the following letters: ག ཇ ད བ ཛ and ང ཉ ན མ, not the other letters in those columns.
ཀྱ་ ཁྱ་ གྱ་ ཧྱ་ are pronounced exactly as they are written: kyá, khyá, gyà and hyá, respectively.
However, the following letters change in pronunciation:
པྱ་ - Expected: pyá, Actual: ཅ་ (cá)
ཕྱ་ - Expected: phyá, Actual: ཆ་ (chá)
བྱ་ - Expected: byà, Actual: ཇ་ (jà)
མྱ་ - Expected: myà, Actual: ཉ་ (nyà)
Note: “c” is pronounced as an unaspirated č, so “cá” sounds like an unaspirated “čá”.
There’s no real logical basis behind these sound changes, so unfortunately, you’ll just have to memorize these special cases.
For those who are more linguistically-inclined, the ར subscript makes the consonants retroflex.
ཀྲ་ (krá) ཏྲ་ (trá) པྲ་ (prá) are all pronounced ཏ (tá)
ཁྲ་ (khrá) ཐྲ་ (thrá) ཕྲ་ (phrá) are all pronounced ཐ (thá)
གྲ་ (grà) དྲ་ (drà) བྲ་ (brà) are all pronounced ད (dà)
ཤྲ་(shra) སྲ་ (sra) མྲ་ (mra) are pronounced like their original root consonants (shá, sá, mà)
Only a few letters can have the subscript ལ.
ཀླ་ གླ་ བླ་ རླ་ སླ་ are all pronounced “lá”
The one exception: ཟླ་ (zlà) is pronounced “tà”
2) མར་པ་ང་རང་ཡིན་ཕྱག་འཚོལ་ཅིག་གསུངས་
3) ཡང་ན་ལྟོ་གོས་སྟེར་ཆོས་གཞན་ནས་ཚོལ་
1) má cé dè wà (Note: བ on its own (no vowels) is ALWAYS pronounced wa unless it’s in the first syllable of a word)
2) màr pá ngà ràng yìn chág ‘tshö(l) cíg súng
3) yàng nà tó gö tér cö shän nä tshö(l)
(At this point in the game, the tones/stresses aren’t too important, so don’t worry about them)
That’s it for now! Let me know if you have any questions (or if I made any mistakes ahaha)
