Prefixes, superscripts, and subscripts — how Tibetan letters stack and change pronunciation
Complex Syllable Drill
Practice reading syllables with prefixes, superscripts, and subscripts
5 prefix letters that appear before the root consonant. Prefixes are silent but may change the tone of the root.
chik
one
dün
seven
tho
high
dro
to go
ge
virtue
ka
word, command
kha
sky, space
chi
to die
tong
to send
pön
chief, leader
3 letters (ར ལ ས) that appear above the root consonant. They change the pronunciation of the root.
ར (r): རྐ རྒ རྔ རྗ རྙ རྟ རྡ རྣ རྦ རྨ རྩ རྫ
ལ (l): ལྐ ལྒ ལྔ ལྕ ལྗ ལྟ ལྡ ལྤ ལྦ ལྷ
ས (s): སྐ སྒ སྔ སྙ སྟ སྡ སྣ སྤ སྦ སྨ སྩ
kang
leg, foot
gya
China; vast
ta
horse
do
stone
lha
god, deity
den
possess, endowed
ke
language, voice
go
door
tön
show, teach
chen
eye (hon.)
4 letters (ཡ ར ལ ཝ) that appear below the root consonant. They modify the pronunciation significantly.
ཡ (y)
Palatalizes: k→ky, kh→khy, g→gy, p→ch, ph→chh, b→j, m→ny
ཀྱ ཁྱ གྱ པྱ ཕྱ བྱ མྱ
ར (r)
Retroflexes or creates 'tr'-like sounds: k→tr, kh→thr, g→dr, p→tr, ph→thr, b→dr
ཀྲ ཁྲ གྲ པྲ ཕྲ བྲ མྲ སྲ ཧྲ
ལ (l)
Creates 'l' cluster: k→l (high tone), g→l (low tone), b→l, z→d, r→l, s→l
ཀླ གླ བླ ཟླ རླ སླ
ཝ (w)
Adds lip rounding. Generally does NOT change pronunciation in modern Lhasa Tibetan.
ཀྭ ཁྭ གྭ ཉྭ དྭ ཙྭ ཚྭ ཞྭ ཟྭ རྭ ལྭ ཤྭ སྭ ཧྭ
khi
dog
ja
bird
chi
outside
tru
boat
thri
throne; ten thousand
tro
dance
si
demon
lama
lama, teacher
dawa
moon, month
ra
fence, enclosure
If a syllable has a superscript, the root is the letter BELOW the superscript
རྟ → root is ཏ (ta)
If a syllable has a subscript, the root is the letter ABOVE the subscript
གྲ → root is ག (ga)
Prefixes are always one of: ག ད བ མ འ
བཀའ → prefix བ, root ཀ
In a 2-letter syllable without stacking, if the first letter can be a prefix AND the second is a valid root, the first is a prefix
དགེ → prefix ད, root ག