Wylie transliteration
Encyclopedia
The Wylie transliteration scheme is a method for transliterating
Tibetan script
using only the letters available on a typical English language
typewriter
. It bears the name of Turrell V. Wylie
, who described the scheme in an article, A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription, published in 1959. It has subsequently become a standard transliteration scheme in Tibetan studies, especially in the United States.
Any Tibetan language
romanization
scheme is faced with a dilemma: should it seek to accurately reproduce the sounds of spoken Tibetan, or the spelling of written Tibetan? These differ widely as Tibetan orthography
became fixed in the 11th century, while pronunciation continued to evolve
, similar to English
and French
. Previous transcription schemes sought to split the difference with the result that they achieved neither goal perfectly. Wylie transliteration was designed to precisely transcribe written Tibetan script, hence its acceptance in academic and historical studies. It is not intended to help in the correct pronouncing of a Tibetan word.
The Wylie scheme transliterates the Tibetan characters as follows:
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 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.
When a syllable has no explicit vowel marking, the letter a is used to represent the default vowel "a" (e.g. ཨ་ = a).
) is capitalised Bka' brgyud and not bKa' brgyud.
The Tibetan and Himalayan Library at the University of Virginia
developed a standard, Extended Wylie Tibetan System or EWTS, that addresses these lacks systematically. It uses capital letters and Latin punctuation to represent the missing characters. Several software systems, including TISE
, now use this standard to allow one to type unrestricted Tibetan script (including the full Unicode
Tibetan character set) on a Latin keyboard.
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
Tibetan script
Tibetan script
The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as the Dzongkha language, Denzongkha, Ladakhi language and sometimes the Balti language. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday...
using only the letters available on a typical English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
. It bears the name of Turrell V. Wylie
Turrell V. Wylie
Turrell Verl Wylie was for many years Professor of Tibetan at the University of Washington and the first chair of the Department of Asian Languages and Literature...
, who described the scheme in an article, A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription, published in 1959. It has subsequently become a standard transliteration scheme in Tibetan studies, especially in the United States.
Any Tibetan language
Tibetan language
The Tibetan languages are a cluster of mutually-unintelligible Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily by Tibetan peoples who live across a wide area of eastern Central Asia bordering the Indian subcontinent, including the Tibetan Plateau and the northern Indian subcontinent in Baltistan, Ladakh,...
romanization
Romanization
In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...
scheme is faced with a dilemma: should it seek to accurately reproduce the sounds of spoken Tibetan, or the spelling of written Tibetan? These differ widely as Tibetan orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
became fixed in the 11th century, while pronunciation continued to evolve
Language change
Language change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. The effect on language over time is known as diachronic change. Two linguistic disciplines in particular concern themselves with studying language change:...
, similar to English
English orthography
English orthography is the alphabetic spelling system used by the English language. English orthography, like other alphabetic orthographies, uses a set of habits to represent speech sounds in writing. In most other languages, these habits are regular enough so that they may be called rules...
and French
French orthography
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 CE and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite...
. Previous transcription schemes sought to split the difference with the result that they achieved neither goal perfectly. Wylie transliteration was designed to precisely transcribe written Tibetan script, hence its acceptance in academic and historical studies. It is not intended to help in the correct pronouncing of a Tibetan word.
Consonants
sectionThe Wylie scheme transliterates the Tibetan characters as follows:
| IPA | T | W | IPA | T | W | IPA | T | W | IPA | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ཀ | ka | [ká] | ཁ | kha | [kʰá] | ག | ga | [ɡà/kʰà] | ང | nga | [ŋà] |
| ཅ | ca | [tɕá] | ཆ | cha | [tɕʰá] | ཇ | ja | [dʑà/tɕʰà] | ཉ | nya | [ɲà] |
| ཏ | ta | [tá] | ཐ | tha | [tʰá] | ད | da | [dà/tʰà] | ན | na | [nà] |
| པ | pa | [pá] | ཕ | pha | [pʰá] | བ | ba | [bà/pʰà] | མ | ma | [mà] |
| ཙ | tsa | [tsá] | ཚ | tsha | [tsʰá] | ཛ | dza | [dzà/tsʰà] | ཝ | wa | [wà] |
| ཞ | zha | [ʑà/ɕà] | ཟ | za | [zà/sà] | འ | 'a | [ɦà/ʔà] | 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 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
Full stop
A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...
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 base letter ཨ) are transliterated:| ཨི i | ཨུ u | ཨེ e | ཨོ o |
When a syllable has no explicit vowel marking, the letter a is used to represent the default vowel "a" (e.g. ཨ་ = a).
Capitalization
Many previous systems of Tibetan transliteration included internal capitalisation schemes—essentially, capitalising the root letter rather than the first letter of a word, when the first letter is a prefix consonant. Tibetan dictionaries are organized by root letter, and prefixes are often silent, so knowing the root letter gives a better idea of pronunciation. However, these schemes were often applied inconsistently, and usually only when the word would normally be capitalised according to the norms of Latin text (i.e. at the beginning of a sentence). On the grounds that internal capitalisation was overly cumbersome, of limited usefulness in determining pronunciation and probably superfluous to a reader able to use a Tibetan dictionary, Wylie specified that if a word was to be capitalised, the first letter should be capital, in conformity with Western capitalisation practices. Thus a particular Tibetan Buddhist sect (KagyuKagyu
The Kagyu, Kagyupa, or Kagyud school, also known as the "Oral Lineage" or Whispered Transmission school, is today regarded as one of six main schools of Himalayan or Tibetan Buddhism, the other five being the Nyingma, Sakya, Jonang, Bon and Gelug...
) is capitalised Bka' brgyud and not bKa' brgyud.
Extensions
Wylie's original scheme is not capable of transliterating all Tibetan-script texts. In particular, it has no correspondences for most Tibetan punctuation symbols, and lacks the ability to represent non-Tibetan words written in Tibetan script (Sanskrit and phonetic Chinese are the most common cases). Accordingly, various scholars have adopted ad hoc and incomplete conventions as needed.The Tibetan and Himalayan Library at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
developed a standard, Extended Wylie Tibetan System or EWTS, that addresses these lacks systematically. It uses capital letters and Latin punctuation to represent the missing characters. Several software systems, including TISE
Tise
Tise is a Tibetan input method utility for Windows XP and Windows Vista created by Gregory Mokhin. The name of the program refers to the native name of Mount Kailash in Tibet....
, now use this standard to allow one to type unrestricted Tibetan script (including the full Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
Tibetan character set) on a Latin keyboard.
See also
- Tibetan pinyinTibetan PinyinThe SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin, is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in the People's Republic of China for personal name and place names. It is based on the Lhasa dialect of Standard Tibetan and reflects the pronunciation very...
- THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription
- TiseTiseTise is a Tibetan input method utility for Windows XP and Windows Vista created by Gregory Mokhin. The name of the program refers to the native name of Mount Kailash in Tibet....
- extended Wylie input method for Tibetan script - Tibetan scriptTibetan scriptThe Tibetan alphabet is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as the Dzongkha language, Denzongkha, Ladakhi language and sometimes the Balti language. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday...
- Standard TibetanStandard TibetanStandard Tibetan is the most widely used spoken form of the Tibetan languages. It is based on the speech of Lhasa, an Ü-Tsang dialect belonging to the Central Tibetan languages. For this reason, Standard Tibetan is often called Central Tibetan...
- Uchen scriptUchen scriptUjain is the upright, block style of the Tibetan alphabet. The name means "with a head," and is the style of the script used for printing and for formal manuscripts.It is used to write both the Tibetan language and Dzongkha, the official language of Bhutan....
External links
(Some of the following links require installation of Tibetan fonts to display properly)- Wylie, Turrell (1959). A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, p. 261-267
- The Wylie Translation Table, at Nitartha International
- Staatsbibliothek Berlin – A standard system of Tibetan transcription
- THDL Extended Wylie Transliteration Scheme (A project of the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library to adapt and expand the Wylie system for computer use.)
- Tibetan transliteration: convert between Wylie and Unicode
- Online Transliterator (converts Wylie or ACIP transliteration or UNICODE to graphics, other transliteration or UNICODE)
- Test Tibetan display (enter wylie)
- Utility for converting Extended Wylie plain text to Unicode Tibetan