What is Wylie?

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Consonants

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The Wylie scheme transliterates the Tibetan characters as follows:

ཀ ka [ká] ཁ kha [kʰá] ག ga [ɡà/kʰːà] ང nga [ŋà]
ཅ ca [tɕá] ཆ cha [tɕʰá] ཇ ja [dʑà/tɕʰːà] ཉ nya [ɲà]
ཏ ta [tá] ཐ tha [tʰá] ད da [dà/tʰːà] ན na [nà]
པ pa [pá] ཕ pha [pʰá] བ ba [bà/pʰːà] མ ma [mà]
ཙ tsa [tsá] ཚ tsha [tsʰá] ཛ dza [dzà/tsʰːà] ཝ wa [wà]
ཞ zha [ʑà/ɕːà] ཟ za [zà/sːà] འ 'a [ɦà/ʔːà] 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 , is not transliterated - its presence is unambiguously indicated by a vowel-initial syllable.

In Tibetan script, consonant clusters within a syllable may be represented either 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.

Vowels

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The four vowel marks (here applied to the silent letter ) are transliterated:

ཨི i ཨུ u ཨེ e ཨོ o

When a syllable has no explicit vowel marking, the letter a is inserted to represent the inherent vowel "a" (e.g. ཨ་ = a).

Wylie extensions

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Readings

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Activities

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  • Write 500 words on the origin, benefits and challenges of Wylie