Tibetan phrasebook
Photo: User: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Tibetan (བོད་སྐད་ / ལྷ་སའི་སྐད་) is the main language of Tibet, and its accompanying regions and among overseas Tibetan communities around the world. Tibetan is spoken by several million people in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of the Chinese People’s Republic, the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan, as well as the neighboring countries Bhutan (around 4,000 speakers), India (over 124,000 speakers), and Nepal (around 60,000 speakers). Written Tibetan is used as the religious language in the countries where Tibetan Lamaistic Buddhism is practiced (e.g. in Mongolia and parts of China proper). Tibetan communities also exist in Taiwan, Norway, Switzerland and the United States of America. It is an official language in Tibet, as well as in the Tibetan autonomous prefectures of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan, and all road signs in this region are bilingual in Chinese and Tibetan.
This phrasebook is based on the Ü-Tsang dialect of Tibetan, which is the dialect spoken in Lhasa. As Tibetan dialects can have low mutual intelligibility, Tibetan-language broadcasting in China uses three separate standards for the Ü-Tsang, Amdo and Kham dialects respectively, and the dialect used in news broadcasts differs by region. We have separate phrasebooks for Amdo, Dzongkha and Ladakhi dialects.
Pronunciation guideThe Tibetan script is an Indic script related to those of many South and Southeast Asian languages.
Phrase listWhen referring to months, the Tibetans distinguish between their own calendar and the internationally used calendar.
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Tibetan phrasebook" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo: User: (WT-shared) Jpatokal at wts wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons