Sound correspondences between Tibetic languages

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Tibetic languages have high levels of dialectal variation; speakers of Lhasa Tibetan and Khams Tibetan cannot typically interpret speakers of Amdo Tibetan varieties. [1] Descending from Old Tibetan, there are 50 recognized Tibetic languages, which branch into more than 200 dialects, which can be grouped into eight dialect continua. This article discusses sound correspondences between Old Tibetan and four modern Tibetic languages.

Contents

Phonological history of Tibetic languages

Tibetic languages belong to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. [2] All Tibetic languages descend from Old Tibetan, much like how all Romance languages descend from Classical Latin. [3]

Old Tibetan, like Proto-Tibeto-Burman and Proto-Sino-Tibetan, did not contain tone and used agglutinative morphology primarily consisting of single consonant affixes. [4] [5] Several Tibetic languages, such as Lhasa Tibetan and Khams Tibetan, joined the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area. [6] In these languages, the affixes underwent complete loss or fossilization.

Onsets

This table shows onset sound correspondences between different Tibetic languages. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] These rules are near-universally applicable, but differ in a few contexts; see Additional sound correspondences for more information.

Tibetan ScriptWylie TransliterationOld TibetanLhasa TibetanKhams TibetanSettled Amdo TibetanNomadic Amdo Tibetan
པpppHp1p
སྤspspppʰ
དཔdpdphʷ
ལྤlplpp
རྦrbrbpLpʰ3hb
སྦsbsbp3b
སྦྲsbrsbrʈ͡ʂ3ʈ͡ʂ
ལྦlblbb3b
འབ'bᵐbᵐb
ཕphpʰpʰHpʰ2pʰ
འཕ'phᵐpʰᵐpʰ
བbbpʰLpʰw
རྨrmrmmHm1hm
དམdmdm
སྨsmsmmmʰ
སྨྲsmrsmr
མmmmLm4m
མྲmrmr
ཝwwwLw4ʀʷ
དབdbdbʔ1, w3ʀ
ཏtttHt1t
ལྟltlt
རྟrtrtht
སྟststttʰ
ཏྭtwtʷtʷ
གཏgtgththt
བཏbtbtvt
བརྟbrtbrtvht
བལྟbltblt
བསྟbstbstvtʰ
བལྡbldbldd3hdvd
ལཐlthltʰd2htʰ
སྡsdsdtLt3d
ཟླzlzll3
ལྡldldd3
མདmdmdhd
རྡrdrdt3
གདgdgd
བདbdbdhdvd
བསྡbsdbsd
བརྡbrdbrd
བཟླbzlbzll3vsl
འད'dⁿdd3ⁿd
ཐthtʰtʰHtʰ2tʰ
མཐmthmtʰd2htʰ
འཐ'thⁿtʰⁿtʰ
དddtʰLtʰ3t
དྭdwdʷ
རྣrnrnnHn1hr
གནgngn
བརྣbrnbrnhrvr
སྣsnsnnnʰ
བསྣbsnbsnhvnʰ
མནmnmnhnhn
ནnnnLn4n
ཀླklkllHl1l
གླglgl
བླblbl
རླrlrl
སླslslllʰ
བརླbrlbrlhlvl
བསླbslbslhlʰ
ལlllLl3l
ལྭlwlʷ
ལྷlhl̥ɬHɬ~l1lʰ
ཙtst͡st͡sHt͡s1t͡s
རྩrtsrt͡sht͡s
རྩྭrtswrt͡sʷ
སྩྭstswst͡sʷ
གཙgtsgt͡s
བཙbtsbt͡s
བརྩbrtsbrt͡s
སྩstsst͡st͡st͡sʰ
བསྩbstsbst͡sht͡sht͡sʰ
རྫrdzrd͡zt͡sLt͡s3hd͡z
གཛgdzgd͡z
བརྫbrdzbrd͡z
མཛmdzmd͡zd͡z3hd͡z
འཛ'dzⁿd͡zⁿd͡z
ཚtsht͡sʰt͡sʰHt͡sʰ2t͡sʰ
ཚྭtshwt͡sʰʷ
མཚmtshmt͡sʰht͡sʰ
འཚ'tshⁿt͡sʰⁿt͡sʰ
ཛdzd͡zt͡sʰLt͡sʰ3t͡s
སsssHs1sʰ
སྭswsʷ
སྲsrsrsʐ
གསgsgshsʰ
བསbsbs
བསྲbsrbsrhsʐvsʐ
ཟzzsLs3s
ཟྭzwzʷ
གཟgzgzhs
བཟbzbzhsvs
ཀྲkrkrʈ͡ʂHʈ͡ʂ1ʈ͡ʂ
ཏྲtrtr
པྲprpr
རྐྲrkrrkrhʈ͡ʂ
ལྐྲlkrlkr
དཀྲdkrdkr
ལྤྲlprlpr
དཔྲdprdpr
སྐྲskrskrʈ͡ʂʈ͡ʂʰ
སྤྲsprspr
བཀྲbkrbkrhʈ͡ʂvʈ͡ʂ
བསྐྲbskrbskrhʈ͡ʂvʈ͡ʂʰ
བསྲbsrbsrs1hsʐvsʐ
ལྒྲlgrlgrʈ͡ʂLɖ͡ʐ3hʈ͡ʂ
མགྲmgrmgr
རྒྲrgrrgrʈ͡ʂ3
དགྲdgrdgr
དབྲdbrdbr
རྦྲrbrrbr
ལྦྲlbrlbrɖ͡ʐ3
སྒྲsgrsgrʈ͡ʂ3ʈ͡ʂʈ͡ʂʰ
སྦྲsbrsbr
བསྒྲbsgrbsgrhʈ͡ʂvʈ͡ʂ
འགྲ'grᵑgrɖ͡ʐ3ⁿʈ͡ʂ
འདྲ'drⁿdr
འབྲ'brᵐbr
ཁྲkhrkʰrʈ͡ʂʰHʈ͡ʂʰ2ʈ͡ʂʰ
ཐྲthrtʰr
ཕྲphrpʰr
མཁྲmkhrmkʰrhʈ͡ʂʰ
འཁྲ'khrᵑkʰrⁿʈ͡ʂʰ
འཕྲ'phrᵐpʰr
གྲgrgrʈ͡ʂʰLʈ͡ʂʰ3ʈ͡ʂ
དྲdrdr
གྲྭgrwgrʷ
བྲbrbr
ཧྲhrhrʂHʂ1sʐ
རrrɹLɹ3ʐ
རྭrwrʷ
རཧrhrhɹHh1h
ཀྱkykʲcHt͡ɕ1t͡ɕ
རྐྱrkyrkʲht͡ɕ
ལྐྱlkylkʲ
དཀྱdkydkʲ
སྐྱskyskʲt͡ɕt͡ɕʰ
བཀྱbkybkʲht͡ɕvt͡ɕ
བརྐྱbrkybrkʲ
བསྐྱbskybskʲht͡ɕʰ
རྒྱrgyrgʲcLt͡ɕ3g
སྒྱsgysgʲ
ལྒྱlgylgʲd͡ʑ3
དགྱdgydgʲt͡ɕ3ht͡ɕʰ
མགྱmgymgʲd͡ʑ3
བགྱbgybgʲht͡ɕʰvt͡ɕʰ
བརྒྱbrgybrgʲ
བསྒྱbsgybsgʲ
འགྱ'gyᵑgʲᶮt͡ɕʰ
ཁྱkhykʰʲcʰHt͡ɕʰ2t͡ɕʰ
མཁྱmkhymkʰʲht͡ɕʰ
འཁྱ'khyᵑkʰʲᶮt͡ɕʰ
གྱgygʲcʰLt͡ɕ3t͡ɕʰ
ཧྱhyhʲçHh1h
ཅct͡ʃt͡ɕHt͡ɕ1t͡ɕ
ཅྭcwt͡ʃʷ
གཅgcgt͡ʃht͡ɕ
ལྕlclt͡ʃ
བཅbcbt͡ʃht͡ɕvt͡ɕ
པྱpypʲɕ
ལྤྱlpylpʲhɕ
དཔྱdpydpʲ
སྤྱspyspʲɕɕʰ
རྦྱrbyrbʲt͡ɕLt͡ɕ3hɕ
ལྦྱlbylbʲd͡ʑ3
སྦྱsbysbʲt͡ɕ3ɕɕʰ
རྗrjrd͡ʒhd͡ʑ
གཇgjgd͡ʒ
ལྗljld͡ʒd͡ʑ3
མཇmjmd͡ʒ
བརྗbrjbrd͡ʒt͡ɕ3hd͡ʑvhd͡ʑ
འཇ'jⁿd͡ʒd͡ʑ3ⁿd͡ʑ
འབྱ'byᵐbʲⁿɕ
ཆcht͡ʃʰt͡ɕʰHt͡ɕʰ2t͡ɕʰ
མཆmchmt͡ʃʰht͡ɕʰ
འཆ'chⁿt͡ʃʰⁿt͡ɕʰ
ཕྱphypʰʲɕ
འཕྱ'phyᵐpʰʲᶮɕʰ
ཇjd͡ʒt͡ɕʰLt͡ɕʰ3t͡ɕ
བྱbybʲɕ
ཤshʃɕHɕ1x
ཤྭshwʃʷxʷ
གཤgshgʃhx
བཤbshbʃhxvx
ཞzhʒɕLɕ3ɕ
ཞྭzhwʒʷ
གཞgzhgʒhʑ
བཞbzhbʒhʑvʑ
རྙrnyrɲɲHɲ1hɲ
སྙsnysɲɲɲʰ
སྨྱsmysmʲ
གཉgnygɲhɲ
མཉmnymɲ
རྨྱrmyrmʲ
བརྙbrnybrɲhɲvhɲ
བསྙbsnybsɲvhɲʰ
ཉྭnywɲʷɲ4ɲ
ཉnyɲɲL
མྱmymʲm4
གཡg.ygʲjHj1c
ཡyjjLj4j
དབྱdbydbʲʔ1, w3
ཀkkkHk1k
ཀྭkwkʷ
རྐrkrkhk
ལྐlklk
དཀdkdk
བཀbkbkkʷ
སྐskskkkʰ
བརྐbrkbrkhkvhk
བསྐbskbskhkhkʰ
རྒrgrgkLk3hg
དགdgdg
ལྒlglgg3
མགmgmg
སྒsgsgk3g
བགbgbghgvg
བསྒbsgbsg
བརྒbrgbrghgvhg
འག'gᵑgg3ᵑg
ཁkhkʰkʰHkʰ2kʰ
ཁྭkhwkʰʷ
མཁmkhmkʰhkʰ
འཁ'khᵑkʰᵑkʰ
གggkʰLkʰ3k
གྭgwgʷ
རྔrngrŋŋHŋ1hŋ
ལྔlnglŋ
དངdngdŋ
མངmngmŋ
སྔsngsŋŋŋʰ
བརྔbrngbrŋhŋvhŋ
བསྔbsngbsŋhŋhŋʰ
ངngŋŋLŋ4ŋ
ཨNo consonantal onset∅ʔHʔ1∅
འ'ɣʔ̞Lʔ4h
ཧhhhHh1
ཧྭhwhʷ

Rimes

This table shows rime sound correspondences between different Tibetic languages. [6] [8] [9] [11] [12] These rules are near-universally applicable for the final syllables of words, but may differ in other contexts; see Sound correspondences between Tibetic languages#Irregular sound correspondences for more information.

The exact pronunciation of the tones in Lhasa Tibetan depends on the initial-derived tone and the exact rime. [13] In Khams Tibetan, 1 denotes /˥/, 2 denotes /˦/, 3 denotes /˨/, and 4 denotes /˩/.

Tibetan ScriptWylie TransliterationOld TibetanLhasa TibetanKhams TibetanAmdo Tibetan
ཨaaaˑ˥ (H)

a˩˨ (L)

a
ཨའུa'uaɣuau̯˥ (H)

au̯˩˨ (L)

ɑau̯
ཨརararaː˥ (H)

aː˩˨ (L)

aɹaː
ཨལalalɛː˥ (H)

ɛː˩˨ (L)

ɛ
ཨའིa'iaɣiai̯˥ (H)

ai̯˩˨ (L)

ɛˑai̯
ཨདadatɛˑ˥˨ (H)

ɛˑ˩˨ (L)

ɛʔɛ
ཨསasasɛ˥˨ (H)

ɛ˩˧˨ (L)

ɛ
ཨགagakʌˑʡ˥˨ (H)

ʌˑʡ˩˨ (L)

aʔ
ཨགསagsaksʌʡ˥˨ (H)

ʌʡ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨབabapʌˑʡ̆˥˨ (H)

ʌˑʡ̆˩˨ (L)

ap
ཨབསabsapsʌʡ̆˥˨ (H)

ʌʡ̆˩˧˨ (L)

ཨངangaŋaŋ˥ (H)

aŋ˩˨ (L)

aŋ
ཨངསangsaŋsaŋ˥˨ (H)

aŋ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨམamamam˥ (H)

am˩˨ (L)

am
ཨམསamsamsam˥˨ (H)

am˩˧˨ (L)

ཨནananɛ̃ː˥ (H)

ɛ̃ː˩˨ (L)

an
ཨིiiiˑ˥ (H)

i˩˨ (L)

iə
ཨིའིi'iiɣiN/Aiˑiː
ཨིདiditiˑ˥˨ (H)

iˑ˩˨ (L)

ɨʔiʔ
ཨིསisisi˥˨ (H)

i˩˧˨ (L)

is
ཨིའུi'uiɣuiu̯˥ (H)

iu̯˩˨ (L)

N/A
ཨིའུe'ueɣu
ཨིརiririːm˥ (H)

iːm˩˨ (L)

iɹiː
ཨིལililiil
ཨིགigikiˑʡ˥˨ (H)

iˑʡ˩˨ (L)

ɨʔiʔ
ཨིགསigsiksiʡ˥˨ (H)

iʡ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨིབibipiˑʡ̆˥˨ (H)

iˑʡ̆˩˨ (L)

ip
ཨིབསibsipsiʡ̆˥˨ (H)

iʡ̆˩˧˨ (L)

ཨིངingiŋɪŋ˥ (H)

ɪŋ˩˨ (L)

iŋ
ཨིངསingsiŋsɪŋ˥˨ (H)

ɪŋ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨིམimimɪm˥ (H)

ɪm˩˨ (L)

im
ཨིམསimsimsɪm˥˨ (H)

ɪm˩˧˨ (L)

ཨིནininĩː˥ (H)

ĩː˩˨ (L)

in
ཨུuuuˑ˥ (H)

u˩˨ (L)

uə
ཨུརururuː˥ (H)

uː˩˨ (L)

uɹuː
ཨུལululyː˥ (H)

yː˩˨ (L)

uə
ཨུའིu'iuɣiyː˥ (H)

yː˩˨ (L)

ui̯
ཨུདudutyˑ˥˨ (H)

yˑ˩˨ (L)

ʉʔuʔ
ཨུསususy˥˨ (H)

y˩˧˨ (L)

ཨུགugukuˑʡ˥˨ (H)

uˑʡ˩˨ (L)

ཨུགསugsuksuʡ˥˨ (H)

uʡ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨུབubupuˑʡ̆˥˨ (H)

uˑʡ̆˩˨ (L)

up
ཨུབསubsupsuʡ̆˥˨ (H)

uʡ̆˩˧˨ (L)

ཨུངunguŋʊŋ˥ (H)

ʊŋ˩˨ (L)

uŋ
ཨུངསungsuŋsʊŋ˥˨ (H)

ʊŋ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨུམumumʊm˥ (H)

ʊm˩˨ (L)

um
ཨུམསumsumsʊm˥˨ (H)

ʊm˩˧˨ (L)

ཨུནununỹː˥ (H)

ỹː˩˨ (L)

un
ཨེeeeˑ˥ (H)

e˩˨ (L)

e
ཨེདedeteˑ˥˨ (H)

eˑ˩˨ (L)

eʔ
ཨེསesese˥˨ (H)

e˩˧˨ (L)

ཨེརerereː˥ (H)

eː˩˨ (L)

eɹeː
ཨེལeleleel
ཨེའིe'ieɣieː˥ (H)

eː˩˨ (L)

eˑei̯
ཨེགe.g.ekɛ̈ˑʡ˥˨ (H)

ɛ̈ˑʡ˩˨ (L)

eʔ
ཨེགསegseksɛ̈ʡ˥˨ (H)

ɛ̈ʡ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨེབebepɛ̈ˑʡ̆˥˨ (H)

ɛ̈ˑʡ̆˩˨ (L)

ep
ཨེབསebsepsɛ̈ʡ̆˥˨ (H)

ɛ̈ʡ̆˩˧˨ (L)

ཨེངengeŋɛŋ˥ (H)

ɛŋ˩˨ (L)

eŋ
ཨེངསengseŋsɛŋ˥˨ (H)

ɛŋ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨེམememɛm˥ (H)

ɛm˩˨ (L)

em
ཨེམསemsemsɛm˥˨ (H)

ɛm˩˧˨ (L)

ཨེནenenẽː˥ (H)

ẽː˩˨ (L)

en
ཨོoooˑ˥ (H)

o˩˨ (L)

o
ཨོའུo'uoɣuou̯˥ (H)

ou̯˩˨ (L)

N/Aoʔ
ཨོརororoː˥ (H)

oː˩˨ (L)

oɹoː
ཨོལololøː˥ (H)

øː˩˨ (L)

øol
ཨོའིo'ioɣiøː˥ (H)

øː˩˨ (L)

oi̯
ཨོདodotøˑ˥˨ (H)

øˑ˩˨ (L)

ʊʔoʔ
ཨོསososø˥˨ (H)

ø˩˧˨ (L)

ཨོགogokɔˑʡ˥˨ (H)

ɔˑʡ˩˨ (L)

ཨོགསogsoksɔʡ˥˨ (H)

ɔʡ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨོབobopɔˑʡ̆˥˨ (H)

ɔˑʡ̆˩˨ (L)

op
ཨོབསobsopsɔʡ̆˥˨ (H)

ɔʡ̆˩˧˨ (L)

ཨོངongoŋɔŋ˥ (H)

ɔŋ˩˨ (L)

oŋ
ཨོངསongsoŋsɔŋ˥˨ (H)

ɔŋ˩˧˨ (L)

ཨོམomomɔm˥ (H)

ɔm˩˨ (L)

om
ཨོམསomsomsɔm˥˨ (H)

ɔm˩˧˨ (L)

ཨོནononø̃ː˥ (H)

ø̃ː˩˨ (L)

on

Additional sound correspondences

Lhasa Tibetan

In multisyllabic words, the first syllable's tone transforms into /˥/ if the onset gives it a high tone (H) and transforms into /˩/ if the onset gives it a low tone (L). [14]

The tone of the consecutive syllables change according to the following table: [15]

Original Tone of Non-Initial SyllableNew Tone of Non-Initial Syllable Derived from Tone Sandhi
/˥˦//˥/ (if the first syllable is H)

/˩˦/ (if the first syllable is L)

/˥/
/˩˨/
/˩˧/
/˥˨//˥˨/
/˩˧˨/

Several words and syllabic affixes in Lhasa Tibetan do not follow the regular rules for deriving tone and instead receive their tone from the noun or verb they modify. These words and affixes include མ ⟨ma⟩ (negation word), ཨ ⟨a⟩ (second person imperative marker), ཏུ ⟨tu⟩ (first person plural imperative marker), ལ ⟨la⟩ (dative and locative suffix), and ཝ ⟨wa⟩ (agenitive suffix).

Colloquial Lhasa Tibetan (but not formal readings) omit ཝ ⟨wa⟩ when it appears as the final syllable in a word. The vowel in the previous syllable lengthens if it existed as /a/, /o/, or /e/ in Old Tibetan; it forms a diphthong pronounced as [o] followed by the vowel if it existed as /i/ or /u/ in Old Tibetan.

Noninitial syllables always deaspirate any written aspirated consonants. If a syllable with an open coda in Old Tibetan (no written final consonant) is followed by a syllable with a prefixed or superjoined letter, then the prefixed or superjoined letter becomes the final consonant of the previous syllable.

If a word contains [i], [u], or [y] along with what would result in [a], [e], or [o], then [a] becomes [ə], [e] becomes [e̝], and [o] becomes [o̝].

Khams Tibetan

Bisyllabic words with a first syllable possessing tones 1 or 2 tend to retain the first syllable's tone in the second syllable, although some speakers pronounce both syllables according to the standard rules in certain words. [10] Trisyllabic words have a falling contour in the final syllable. Quadrisyllabic words are pronounced like two consecutive bisyllabic words.

Amdo Tibetan

If a syllable with an open coda in Old Tibetan (no written final consonant) is followed by a syllable with a prefixed or superjoined letter, then the prefixed or superjoined letter becomes the final consonant of the previous syllable. [7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  2. ↑ "Sino-Tibetan | Ethnologue Free". Ethnologue (Free All). Retrieved 2025-10-27.
  3. ↑ "Romance languages | Definition, Origin, Characteristics, Classification, Map, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 2025-08-29. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
  4. ↑ Bialek, Joanna (2020). "Old Tibetan verb morphology and semantics: An attempt at a reconstruction". Himalayan Linguistics. 19 (1). doi:10.5070/H919145017.
  5. ↑ "Tibeto-Burman languages - Prefixes, Grammar, Morphology | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2025-10-27.
  6. 1 2 3 "The Tibetan and Himalayan Library". www.thlib.org. Archived from the original on 2017-04-23. Retrieved 2025-10-24.
  7. 1 2 Sung, Kuo-ming; Rgyal, Lha Byams (2005). Colloquial Amdo Tibetan. Lawrence University.
  8. 1 2 "Amdo Tibetan language". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2025-11-07.
  9. 1 2 Siegel, Wolfram. "Khams-Tibetisch" (PDF).
  10. 1 2 Robert F. Olson (2004-09-06). "Central Khams Tibetan - A Phonemic Survey" (PDF). Retrieved 2026-01-01.
  11. ↑ Zhang, Yubin (September 17, 2024). "Central Tibetan (Lhasa)" (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 54 (2): 788–810. doi:10.1017/S0025100324000033 – via Cambridge Core.
  12. ↑ Rgyal, Lha-Byams; Sung, Kuo-ming (2005). Colloquial Amdo Tibetan : A Complete Course for Adult English Speakers. National Press for Tibetan Studies.
  13. ↑ Hu, Fang; Xiong, Ziyu (May 10–14, 2010). "Lhasa Tones" (PDF). Speech Prosody: 1–4 – via ISCA Archive.
  14. ↑ Kuo-ming Sung; Lha Byams Rgyal (2010-10-27). "Colloquial Lhasa Tibetan (Draft)" (PDF). pp. 59–77. Retrieved 2026-01-01.
  15. ↑ San Duanmu (1992). "An Autosegmental Analysis of Tone in Four Tibetan Languages" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 15 (1). Retrieved 2026-01-01.
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