What is Wylie?
Consonants
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 ཨ, 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
The four vowel marks (here applied to the silent letter ཨ ) 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
- THDL Extended Wylie Transliteration Scheme (A project of the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library to adapt and expand the Wylie system for computer use.)
Readings
Activities
- Write 500 words on the origin, benefits and challenges of Wylie