Tibetan/Keyboard

On this page, I document the steps I took to develop a Tibetan transcription keyboard. There git repository for this project. More information about the Tibetan language, translations and texts and the tools I have developed in the class can be found on the LING073 Tibetan Language page.

Transcription Characters

Over the course of this project, I learned about the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is a system of phonetic characters based on the Latin alphabet. I laid out some of these symbols on the keyboard so that users can type in Tibetan text based on how it sounds. The file for this transcription keyboard is in the Github repository I created for this project. I found the data for this keyboard on the Tibetan language Wikipedia page.

Consonants

			Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal			Template:IPA	Template:IPA		Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Plosive		Template:Small	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA ~ Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
		Template:Small	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA ~ Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Affricate		Template:Small		Template:IPA		Template:IPA
		Template:Small		Template:IPA		Template:IPA
Fricative				Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA		Template:IPA
Approximant	Template:Small	Template:Small		Template:IPA		Template:IPA	Template:IPA
	Template:Small	Template:Small		Template:IPA
		Template:Small		Template:IPA

The unaspirated stops Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA typically become voiced in the low tone and are pronounced Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA, respectively. The sounds are regarded as allophones. Similarly, the aspirated stops Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA are typically lightly aspirated in the low tone. The dialect of the upper social strata in Lhasa does not use voiced stops in the low tone.

1. The alveolar trill (Template:IPA) is in complementary distribution of the alveolar approximant Template:IPA; therefore, both are treated as one phoneme.
2. The voiceless alveolar lateral approximant Template:IPA resembles the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative Template:IPA found in languages such as Welsh and Zulu and is sometimes transcribed Template:Angle bracket.
3. The consonants Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, and Template:IPA may appear in syllable-final positions. The Classical Tibetan final Template:IPA is still present, but its modern pronunciation is normally realized as a nasalisation of the preceding vowel, rather than as a discrete consonant (see above). However, Template:IPA is not pronounced in the final position of a word except in very formal speech. Also, syllable-final Template:IPA and Template:IPA are often not clearly pronounced but realized as a lengthening of the preceding vowel. The phonemic glottal stop Template:IPA appears only at the end of words in the place of Template:IPA, Template:IPA, or Template:IPA, which were pronounced in Classical Tibetan but have since been elided. For instance, the word for Tibet itself was Bod in Classical Tibetan but is now pronounced Template:IPA in the Lhasa dialect.