Tibetan

Q: What type of writing system is Tibetan?

Tibetan is an Abugida used in the South Asian region. It reads Left-to-right and contains 207 characters in Unicode.

Q: How many languages use the Tibetan script?

3 languages use the Tibetan script according to Unicode CLDR data. These languages are spoken by approximately 1.4M people combined.

Q: What direction does Tibetan read?

Tibetan is written Left-to-right, meaning text flows from left to right.

བོད་ཡིག

Tibt Left-to-right Living Abugida South Asian

Sample Text

བོད་སྐད།

Sample Characters

ༀ ༁ ༂ ༃ ༄ ༅ ༆ ༇ ༈ ༉ ༊ ་ ༌ ། ༎ ༏ ༐ ༑ ༒ ༓ ༔ ༕ ༖ ༗ ༘ ༙ ༚ ༛ ༜ ༝ ༞ ༟ ༠ ༡ ༢ ༣ ༤ ༥ ༦ ༧ ༨ ༩ ༪ ༫ ༬ ༭ ༮ ༯

First 48 characters from Tibetan (U+0F00–U+0FDA)

About Tibetan

The Tibetan script was created in the 7th century CE under Emperor Songtsen Gampo to write the Tibetan language and translate Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit. It is an abugida descended from the Indian Brahmi script through the Gupta script.

Tibetan script is written left-to-right and is notable for its complex stacking system, in which consonant clusters are written vertically as stacked letters. The script is used for Tibetan, Dzongkha (the national language of Bhutan), Ladakhi, and several other Himalayan languages.

Data sourced from the ISO 15924 registry, Unicode CLDR, and the Unicode Character Database.

Script Family & Lineage

Ancestor Chain

Brahmi › Tibetan

Descended Scripts

Phags-pa Marchen Soyombo

Languages Using Tibetan 3

Dzongkha རྫོང་ཁ Tibetan བོད་སྐད་ tsj

Frequently Asked Questions

What type of writing system is Tibetan?

Tibetan is an Abugida. Abugidas (alphasyllabaries) use consonant characters with an inherent vowel modified by diacritics.

What direction does Tibetan read?

Tibetan is written Left-to-right, the same direction as most European scripts.

How many languages use the Tibetan script?

3 languages use Tibetan according to Unicode CLDR data. Together these languages are spoken by approximately 1.4M people worldwide.

When was the Tibetan script created?

The Tibetan script originated around 620 CE.

Does Tibetan have uppercase and lowercase letters?

Tibetan does not have separate uppercase and lowercase forms. Each consonant carries an inherent vowel sound that is modified by diacritical marks.

Compare Tibetan With Another Script

Direction, characters, languages — side by side.

Key Facts

ISO Code: Tibt
ISO Number: 330
Script Type: Abugida
Direction: Left-to-right
Status: Living
Region: South Asian
Characters: 207
Introduced: 620 CE
Languages: 3
Total Speakers: ~1.4M

Unicode Ranges

Tibetan

U+0F00–U+0FDA

Script Properties

Has Case: No
Cursive: No
Vowels: inherent

Official Use In

CN IN NP BT