The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin or ZWPY (Chinese:, Zàngwén Pīnyīn, "Tibetan Spelling"), is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language for personal names and place names in China. It is based on pronunciation of China National Radio's Tibetan Radio pronunciation, which is the Lhasa dialect of Standard Tibetan and reflects the pronunciation except that it does not mark tone. It has been used within China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin script since 1982. Tibetan pinyin is a phonetic transcription, as such its spelling is tied to actual pronunciation. Wylie on the other hand is a transliteration system, where mechanical conversion to and from Tibetan and Latin script is possible. Within academic circles, Wylie transliteration (with a v replacing the apostrophe) is more commonly used. Overview Onsets overview Independent onsets in the initial syllable of a word are transcribed as follows: For more general case, see #Onsets. Vowels and final consonant The 17 vowels of the Lhasa dialect are represented in as follows: Ending a syllable, -r is usually not pronounced, but it lengthens the preceding vowel. In the same place, -n usually nasalises the preceding vowel. Consonants at the end of a syllable are transcribed as follows: Single syllable orthography The tone of a syllable depends mostly on its initial consonant. In this table, each initial is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) with the vowel a and a tone mark to present tone register (high/low). Onsets Below is a comprehensive transcription table of onsets of an initial syllable of a word. If the syllable to transcribe is not the first syllable of a word, see #Onset variation. Rimes Below is a comprehensive transcription table of rimes of a final syllable of a word, with IPA transcription for the Lhasa dialect. If the syllable to transcribe is not the final syllable of a word, see Coda variation. Take "ཨ" to be the consonant (not "◌"). Intersyllable influence Onset variation Bare low aspirated variation k*, q*, t*, p*, x*, s*, ky*, ch* become g*, j*, d*, b*, ?*, ?*, gy*, zh* respectively pa* (་བ) and po* (་བོ) become wa and wo respectively Coda variation Sometimes there is intersyllabic influence: Encoding The IETF language tag for Tibetan pinyin is . Examples See also Hanyu pinyin Standard Tibetan THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription Tibetan script Wylie transliteration Notes References