Tibetan
བོད་སྐད
Tibetan is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan, by about 1.2 million people.
See it on the globeOpen in the family tree
Did you know
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
| Meaning | Word | Romanization |
|---|---|---|
| mother | ཨ་མ | a ma |
| father | པ་ཕ | pa pha |
| child | ཕྲུ་གུ | phru gu |
| man | མི | mi |
| woman | སྐྱེས་དམན | skyes dman |
| person | མི | mi |
| name | མིང | ming |
| friend | གྲོགས་པོ | grogs po |
| eye | མིག | mig |
| ear | རྣ | rna |
| nose | སྣ | sna |
| tooth | སོ | so |
| tongue | ལྕེ | lce |
| hand | ལག | lag |
| heart | སྙིང | snying |
| head | མགོ | mgo |
| blood | ཁྲག | khrag |
| bone | རུས་ཁོག | rus khog |
| skin | པགས་པ | pags pa |
| knee | པུས་མོ | pus mo |
| breast | ནུ་མ | nu ma |
| liver | མཆིན | mchin |
| water | ཆུ | chu |
| fire | མེ | me |
| sun | ཉི་མ | nyi ma |
| moon | ཟླ་བ | zla ba |
| star | སྐར་མ | skar ma |
| sky | གནམ | gnam |
| rain | ཆར་པ | |
| snow | གངས | gangs |
Most similar languages
Vocabulary
- LowaSino-Tibetan59% alike
- KagateSino-Tibetan57% alike
- DzongkhaSino-Tibetan57% alike
- KyerungSino-Tibetan57% alike
- Spiti BhotiSino-Tibetan56% alike
- Purik-Sham-NubraSino-Tibetan55% alike
Grammar
- HrusoIsolates83% alike
- ChocangacakhaSino-Tibetan83% alike
- Central TuneboChibchan83% alike
- NdomKolopom82% alike
- Amdo TibetanSino-Tibetan81% alike
- Sumi NagaSino-Tibetan80% alike
Vocabulary compares 40 basic words (ASJP); grammar compares 195 features (Grambank). Similar is not always related.
Nearby languages
Elsewhere
Glottolog · tibe1272 · Wikipedia (English) · Ethnologue · bod