ལྷ་སའི་སྐད་ནང་གི་ཀྲུང་གོའི་ཡི་གེའི་ཀློག་སྟངས།
Modern Tibetan Sino-reading
Sino-Tibetan > Tibetic > Standard Tibetan
Sino-Tibetan reading of Chinese characters as used in modern Standard (Lhasa) Tibetan, primarily through sound-loans from Modern Standard Mandarin for proper nouns, place names, and political terminology (e.g. 中国 ཀྲུང་གོ་ krung-go, 北京 པེ་ཅིང་ pe-cing, 上海 ཧྲང་ཧའེ་ hrang-ha'e). Unlike Sino-Japanese or Sino-Korean, modern Tibetan has no fully systematized, character-by-character Sino-xenic stratum: loans are lexicalized phonetic approximations of specific Mandarin words, not productive single-character readings. Coverage is therefore deliberately sparse — only characters attested in widely-used Mandarin-origin loans in Tibetan publications and signage are filled in.
Where it is spoken
Han character readings in Modern Tibetan Sino-reading
| Character | Meaning | Reading | Form | IPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 山 | mountain | ཧྲན་hran | /ʂɛ̃˥˥/ | |
| 海 | sea | ཧའེ་ha'e | /haː˥˥/ | |
| 人 | person | རེན་ren | /rẽ̀˩˧/ | |
| 上 | up | ཧྲང་hrang | /ʂaŋ˥˧/ | |
| 中 | middle | ཀྲུང་krung | /ʈʂuŋ˥˥/ | |
| 西 | west | ཤི་shi | /ɕí˥˥/ | |
| 北 | north | པེ་pe | /pé˥˧/ |
Sources
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