1. How to pronounce
Tibetan

2. The Tibetan syllable
A Tibetan syllable can be made of several
characters :
A radical, a prefix, a superscript, a subscript,
and one or two suffixes.

3. The superscripts
Only three letters can be in superscript:
ར /r/, ལ /l/ and ས /s/. They are not pronounced,
but they change a few things:
•3rd column becomes fully voiced and loses its
aspiration. རྒ (rga) is not /kʰa/ but /ga/.
•4th column gets a high tone: ལྔ lnga → lngā
•One exception: ལྷ is pronounced /lhā/

4. The subscript ཡ (ya)
ཀྱ kyā ཁྱ khyā གྱ gya and ཧྱ hya are pronounced
/kyā/, /kʰyā/, /kʰya/ and /hyā/
པྱ pyā ཕྱ phyā བྱ bya མྱ mya are pronounced:
/tɕā/, /tɕʰā/, /tɕʰa/ and /ɲa/ (just like ཅ, ཆ, ཇ
and ཉ)

5. The subscript ར (ra)
It makes the consonants retroflex
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_consonant)
ཀྲ krā ཏྲ trā པྲ prā are pronounced: /ʈā/
ཁྲ khrā ཐྲ thrā ཕྲ phrā
/ʈʰā/
གྲ gra དྲ dra བྲ bra
/ʈa/
ཧྲ hra becomes /ʂā/ (it’s a rare sound in Tibetan)
ཤྲ shra མྲ mra and སྲ sra do not change

6. The subscript ལ (la)
ཀླ klā གླ glā བླ blā རླ rlā and སླ slā are always
pronounced /lā/
ཟླ zla is pronounced /ta/

7. The subscript ཝ (wa)
It is written ྭ (for instance ཀྭ) and it is not
pronounced at all!
It used to have a pronunciation, but it has been
lost.

8. The prefixes
The same effects than the superscripts, they are
not pronounced, but they change a few things:
•3rd column becomes fully voiced and loses its
aspiration.
•4th column gets a high tone
But if the radical is ཡ ya, it gets a high tone.
གཡ /ya/ → /yā/

9. The prefixes
When ད is the prefixe and བ the radical, དབ is
pronounced /wā/. With the other vowels, the
/w/ disappears: དབུ /ū/
In case of a subscript ར ra or ཡ ya:
དབྲ is pronounced /rā/
དབྱ is pronounced /yā/
It is the same with all the vowels.

10. The suffixes
change the
vowel
do not
change the
vowel
are
pronounced
ན (ལ)
གངབམར
are not
pronounced
ད ས (ལ)
འ

11. The suffixes
With the letters changing the vowel:
•/a/ becomes /ä/ (French ‘è’, German ‘ä’)
•/o/ becomes /ö/ (French ‘eu’, German ‘ö’)
•/u/ becomes /ü/ (French ‘u’, German ‘ü’)
When the letter ལ (la) is a suffixe, it can be
pronounced or not, but more important: it
makes the vowel longer: /ä:/, /ö:/, /ü:/, /i:/ and
/e:/

12. The suffixes
The second suffixe ད and ས do not change
anything.
(actually they change something but it is way
too hard for the moment, and not relevant for
the comprehension)

13. Exemple
Remember the second slide of this presentation?
The word was:
(brgyad) which means ‘eight’ and is
pronounced /gyä/

14. How to find the radical of a syllabe
• If there is a vowel or a superscript/subscript, it
indicates the radical.
• If the vowel is /a/ without superscript/subscript,
then:
1. 2-characters syllable: the radical is the first one
2. 3-characters syllable:
• If the suffixe is not ས: the radical is the second one
• If the suffixe is ས: most of the time, the radical is the
first character. Ambiguities does exist but are rare, and
context helps a lot to clear that kind of problem.
3. 4-characters syllable: by the rules, it is the second
one

15. How to read a word
Here are the last rules:
•The tone is relevant in the first syllable of the
word. There is no tone in the others.
•Same goes with the aspiration: there may be an
aspiration only in the first syllable. There is no
aspiration elsewhere.
•When the radical བ (ba) is inside or at the last
syllabe of a word, it is pronounced /wa/:
ཟླ་བ་ /tawa/: the moon

16. How to read a word
Sometime, the prefixe of the second syllable is
pronounced.
In that case, མ and འ are the most often
pronounced with /m/, /n/ or /ng/
Otherwise, བ creates a /p/ sound and ག creates
either /k/ or /p/ sounds.
But there is no rules, so I will write about it in
mems or in multimedia levels ;)

17. How to read a word
• Syllables and words are separated by a tshā,
an intersyllabic point. You can see it at the end
here :
• There is no space in Tibetan, even between
words, so if you forget the tshā, the sentence
is unreadable… ;-)
• Thus only your knowledge of vocabulary and
grammar will help you to cut a sentence into
words.

18. I tried to make this slideshow as simple and short as
possible, but if it is not understandable, just tell me
and I will change it. You can also come back later
when you will be used to Tibetan, and it will be
much easier for you.
Also, if you look on the Internet, you might find
some different pronunciations for the words but it
simply might be a different dialect. The one here is
the Standard Tibetan, the dialect from Lhasa.
Good luck!