Wylie transliteration

method for transliterating Tibetan script

Wylie transliteration is a way to write Tibetan script using English letters found on a standard typewriter. Turrell V. Wylie, an American scholar, created this system, and he introduced it in a 1959 article in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. It has since become a widely used method in Tibetan studies, especially in the United States.[1][2]

Prof. Turrell Wylie in in 1979 at the University of Washington, Department of Asian Languages and Literature.

When creating a Romanization for the Tibetan language, there's a challenge: whether to accurately represent the sounds of spoken Tibetan or the spelling of written Tibetan. These can be quite different, similar to the difference between English and French orthography, which reflects the pronunciation from the Late Medieval period.[3][4]

Earlier transcription systems tried to compromise between these two goals, but they didn't do either perfectly. Wylie transliteration aims to precisely transcribe Tibetan script as it is written, making it widely accepted in academic and historical studies. It's important to note that Wylie is not meant to reflect the pronunciation of Tibetan words.[5]

Consonants

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The Wylie method transliterates the Tibetan characters as follows:[6]

T W IPA T W IPA T W IPA T W IPA
ka [ká] kha [↘︎kʰá] ga [ɡà/↗︎kʰà] nga [ŋà]
ca [tɕá] cha [↘︎tɕʰá] ja [dʑà/↗︎tɕʰà] nya [ɲà]
ta [tá] tha [↘︎tʰá] da [dà/↗︎tʰà] na [nà]
pa [pá] pha [↘︎pʰá] ba [bà/↗︎pʰà] ma [mà]
tsa [tsá] tsha [↘︎tsʰá] dza [dzà/↗︎tsʰà] wa [wà]
zha [ʑà/↗︎ɕà] za [zà/↗︎sà] 'a [ɦà/↗︎ʔà] ya [jà]
ra [rà] la [là] sha [↘︎ɕá] sa [↘︎sá]
ha [há] a [↘︎ʔá]

Vowels

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The four vowel marks in Wylie are transliterated as:

ཨི  i ཨུ  u ཨེ  e ཨོ  o

When a syllable doesn't have a written vowel, the letter 'a' is used to show the default vowel "a."

References

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  1. Wylie, Turrell (1959). "A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. Archived from the original on 2011-01-27. Retrieved 2023-12-28.
  2. Tharpa, Tenzin; Tsultrim, Sangye. Spoken Tibetan Basics: A Spoken Tibetan Language Primer. Tenzin Tharpa.
  3. Tharpa, Tenzin; Tsultrim, Sangye. Spoken Tibetan Basics: A Spoken Tibetan Language Primer. Tenzin Tharpa.
  4. Schaeffer, Kurtis; McGrath, William; Lang, Jue (2023-07-25). Histories of Tibet: Essays in Honor of Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-61429-808-3.
  5. Jacques, Guillaume (2012-01-01). "A new transcription system for Old and Classical Tibetan". Tibetan Transliteration. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
  6. Tharpa, Tenzin; Tsultrim, Sangye. Spoken Tibetan Basics: A Spoken Tibetan Language Primer. Tenzin Tharpa.