1.3 The Vowels དབྱངས་བཞི།

Writing Vowels

The Tibetan writing system has four vowels and one semivowel.

Vowel Mark Sound (Approx.) Example
  ི /i/ ཀི་ = ki
ུ /u/ ཀུ་ = ku
  ེ /e/ ཀེ་ = ke
  ོ /o/ ཀོ་ = ko
ཨ་ (semivowel) /a/ or /ə/ (default sound) ཀ་ = ka

Vowels with ཨ།

The names, the sound, and the placement of the four vowels when conjoined with the consonant letter ཨ།.

Practice their pronunciation with the audio provided.

Consonant Vowel Mark Name Placement Final Sound
ཨ་   ི GiGu གི་གུ above ཨི་
ཨ་ ུ ZhabKyu ཞབས་ཀྱུ། below ཨུ་
ཨ་   ེ DrengBu འགྲེང་བུ། above ཨེ་
ཨ་   ོ NaRO ན་རོ། above ཨོ་

Vowels with the Consonants

The sound of the vowels when four conjoined with the consonants.

Single-Letter Words with Vowels

Use the audio file to practice pronouncing the single-letter words with vowels.

Number Tibetan Grammatical Category English
1. མི། Noun person/people
2. རི། Noun mountain
3. ཤི། Verb to die
4. ངུ་། Verb to cry
5. ཆུ། Noun water
6. ཕུ། Verb blow (e.g., puff of air)
7. ཤུ། Verb whistle
8. མེ། Noun fire
9. ངོ་། Noun face
10. ཞོ། Noun yogurt
11. རོ། Noun corpse
12. ཤོ། Noun dice
13. སོ། Noun tooth

Challenge Yourself

Activity 1: Drag the Words

Activity 2: Choose the Words

Activity 3: Speaking

If you get an error message when you press the Record button, it may be that your browser does not support this recording device.

Please try again in a browser like Chrome.

Number Tibetan English
1. མི། person/people
2. རི། mountain
3. ཤི། to die
4. ངུ་། to cry
5. ཆུ། water
6. ཕུ། blow (e.g., puff of air)
7. ཤུ། whistle
8. མེ། fire
9. ངོ་། face
10. ཞོ། yogurt
11. རོ། corpse
12. ཤོ། dice
13. སོ། tooth

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Basic Tibetan Copyright © 2026 by Jampa Khedup and Sonam Tsering is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book