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Tibetan

བོད་སྐད

Tibetan is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan, by about 1.2 million people.

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Tibetan · 28.4°N 90.2°E

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Tibetan script was created in the 7th century, traditionally credited to Thonmi Sambhota, on an Indic model. Its spelling keeps many letters long silent in speech — a fossil record of older pronunciation.

Lhasa Tibetan or Standard Tibetan is a standardized dialect of Tibetan spoken by the people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

In the traditional "three-branched" classification of the Tibetic languages, the Lhasa dialect belongs to the Central Tibetan branch (the other two being Khams Tibetan and Amdo Tibetan). In terms of mutual intelligibility, speakers of Khams Tibetan are able to communicate at a basic level with Lhasa Tibetan, while Amdo speakers cannot. Both Lhasa Tibetan and Khams Tibetan evolved to become tonal and do not preserve the word-initial consonant clusters, which makes them very far from Classical Tibetan, especially when compared to the more conservative Amdo Tibetan.

From Wikipedia · Lhasa Tibetan · CC BY-SA 4.0

Written down

འགྲོ་བ་མིའི་རིགས་རྒྱུད་ཡོངས་ལ་སྐྱེས་ཙམ་ཉིད་ནས་ཆེ་མཐོངས་དང༌། ཐོབ་ཐངགི་རང་དབང་འདྲ་མཉམ་དུ་ཡོད་ལ། ཁོང་ཚོར་རང་བྱུང་གི་བློ་རྩལ་དང་བསམ་ཚུལ་བཟང་པོ་འདོན་པའི་འོས་བབས་ཀྱང་ཡོད། དེ་བཞིན་ཕན་ཚུན་གཅིག་གིས་གཅིག་ལ་བུ་སྤུན་གྱི་འདུ་ཤེས་འཛིན་པའི་བྱ་སྤྱོད་ཀྱང་ལག་ལེན་བསྟར་དགོས་པ་ཡིན༎

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR in Unicode).

Words in Tibetan

MeaningWordRomanization
motherཨ་མa ma
fatherཔ་ཕpa pha
childཕྲུ་གུphru gu
manམིmi
womanསྐྱེས་དམནskyes dman
personམིmi
nameམིངming
friendགྲོགས་པོgrogs po
eyeམིགmig
earརྣrna
noseསྣsna
toothསོso
tongueལྕེlce
handལགlag
heartསྙིངsnying
headམགོmgo
bloodཁྲགkhrag
boneརུས་ཁོགrus khog
skinཔགས་པpags pa
kneeཔུས་མོpus mo
breastནུ་མnu ma
liverམཆིནmchin
waterཆུchu
fireམེme
sunཉི་མnyi ma
moonཟླ་བzla ba
starསྐར་མskar ma
skyགནམgnam
rainཆར་པ
snowགངསgangs

Most similar languages

Vocabulary

Grammar

Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.

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