The Brahmi-Derived Writing Scripts: Tibetan and How to Read It

The Tibetan script. Credits: Wan Ariff

In a previous post about Devanagari, we have looked at a brief history of Brahmi-derived scripts and the two characteristics that define a writing script’s relation to the ancestral Brahmi writing script. As a recap, the two major design features that define a Brahmi-derived script are: (1) independent or initial vowel signs and (2) diacritic vowel indication in postconsonantal position. This is realised as the system of aksara and matra in Devanagari & Brahmi. In this post, we will be looking at a different Brahmi-derived writing script, the Tibetan writing script.

Thonmi Sambhota. Credits: WikiCommons.

The Tibetan writing system dates back to the 7th century of the Common Era as a syllabic script. It’s origin is not well attested, but it is widely assumed to be patterned on the Gupta script which is an offshoot of Brahmi and flourished with the great Gupta Empire until the 6th century of the Common Era. Another theory to the creation of the writing script is that it was invented by a minister called Thonmi Sambhota around the mid 7th century who had travelled to India and invented the script based off the Nagari script, a script that would eventually develop into the Devanagari writing script.

The Structure of the Tibetan Script

Yi ge. Credits: Wan Ariff

The Tibetan writing script is written from left to right. The basic functional unit of the script is the Yi ge, which is the equivalence of an aksara in Brahmi. Yi ge are basic consonant signs that each contain an inherent vowel a and there are 30 Yi ge in the Tibetan writing script. Diacritic markers are added to a Yi ge to change the value of the inherent vowel from an a to a different vowel. There are 4 main vowel diacritic markers and these are for I, u, e, and o. For example, the symbol for the voiceless velar consonant ‘k’ is pronounced as ‘ka’ when used independently. However, if we include the superscript for -I, the symbol is read as ‘ki’.

Vowels in Tibetan. Credits: Wan Ariff

Unlike other Brahmi derived syllabic script, the Tibetan writing script only has one independent vowel symbol which is for ‘a’. Hence, if one wishes to write a word that starts with a vowel other than ‘a’, one has to use the independent vowel symbol for ‘a’ and use it with another of the other vowel diacritic. For example, this is the symbol of what 'o' would look like.

The paucity of vowel letters makes for difficult reading as vowel signs take on multiple values. To exemplify this difficulty, Modern Tibetan has 12 distinct vowels and 2 tones in the language, but the Tibetan writing script only has five vowel signs that are distinguished while tones are not marked at all.

Vowel length. Credits: Wan Ariff

To compensate for the vowel deficiencies in the writing script, several innovations are introduced. The Yi ge for ‘h’ called the achung can be used as a diacritic marker to create a long vowel. For example, to make 'phaa', I can simply add the achung as a subscript.

Consonant Cluster. Credits: Wan Ariff

The Yi ge for ‘j’ can also combine as a diacritic to 7 other Yi ge to form conjunct consonant signs like ‘kya’ and ‘pya’. The Yi ge for ‘l’ can combine with 6 other Yi ge to form conjunct consonant signs like ‘’bla’ and ‘zla’. Like other Brahmi-derived scripts, the graphic syllable is a two-dimensional form to be interpreted as a whole instead of a linear string of consonants and vowels. 

In the Tibetan script, the internal structure of the ligature may no longer correspond to the phonetic interpretation. This is primarily due to the language behind the writing script changing without the writing script being reformed accordingly. A similar phenomenon can be found in French where written words often take on the form of how it was once pronounced before the language behind the script changes and in some English words such as knight where the ‘k’ used to be pronounced in Old English. Thus, in the Tibetan writing script, the prescript for ‘b’ and the postscript for ‘d’ are common vestigial remnants and are not pronounced when read.

Tsheg. Credits: Wan Ariff

A diacritic marker called tsheg, written as a superscript dot on the right shoulder of a Yi ge indicates the syllable closure. For example, ‘sa’ and ‘da’, combined with a tsheg on the ‘da’ symbol will form ‘sad’ which means ‘to awaken’ in Modern Tibetan. Two consecutive Yi ge without a tsheg to separate the symbols are to be interpreted as a consonant cluster. However, it is also possible to simply separate the two Yi ge in isolation to achieve the same result. This structural possibility would imply that technically, the Tibetan writing script can be structured more linearly compared to other Brahmi-derived scripts but as we can see from an analysis of the writing script, the functional unit of the writing script is still the graphic syllable.

Other non-phonetic markers. Credits: Wan Ariff

The Tibetan script also has a unique array of symbols and markers to represent extra phonetic elements. You may find the yig mgo that marks the beginning of a text, the sbrul shad that separates topic from sub-topics, the tshig-grub that marks the end of a section, the don-tshan that marks the end of a topic, the gter-tsheg that is used like a comma, and the gug rtags gyon & gyas that is used like a brackets. Furthermore, the Tibetan script also has a set of numeral symbols of their own that are different from the arabic numerals.

Basic Yi ge. Credit: Florian Columns