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Tibetan Script & Wylie Compiler
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Live Wylie ↔ Uchen Compiler · Studio 05
Why Is “spyan ras gzigs” Pronounced “Chenrezig”? — Live Wylie & Tibetan Stack Decoder
7th-century Tibetan spelling froze Old Tibetan consonant clusters in crystal-clear 2D stacks—while spoken Tibetan evolved like English “knight” or French “beaucoup.” Paste any Extended Wylie or Tibetan Uchen phrase below to decompose every syllable’s 6 Sumcupa letter slots, tone contour, and liturgical sound rules in real time.
1. Prefix (Silent) g d b m ’2. Superscript (Silent) r l s3. Root Letter (Core!) མིང་གཞི། 4. Subscript (Shifts Sound) -y -r -l -w5. Vowel Mark i u e o6. Suffix (Shifts Vowel) -d -n -s -g…
Live Bidirectional Compiler · Sumcupa 6-Slot Stack Engine
Type or paste any Extended Wylie spelling (e.g. bka’ ’gyur, dbang, zla ba) or Tibetan Uchen script (e.g. ལམ་རིམ།):
⧉ Share Link
Try classic sound-shifts:
bka' 'gyur · Kangyur (liaison!)'jam dpal dbyangs · Mañjughoṣa (db- drop!)dbang bskur · Empowerment (db → w)zla ba · Moon / Month (zl → d)byams pa · Maitreya (by → j)tshe dpag med · Amitāyusrgyud sde bzhi · Four Tantra Classessku 'bum · Kumbum (liaison!)ལམ་རིམ། · Lamrim (Uchen input)
Wylie: bka' 'gyur → Liturgical Reading:
“Kan-gyur”
· Tone: H·L
བཀའ་འགྱུར།
Parsed 2 syllables via classical Sumcupa prefix/root/subscript sandhi rules.
Syllable 01 · High Tone
བཀའ
Prefix b- (བ)Root k (ཀ)Suffix -' (འ)
Silent prefix/superscript preserves etymology without adding a separate consonant sound. Final a-chung (-’) marks an open pure vowel so the preceding prefix is never misread as a suffix. Compound liaison: following prefix '- surfaces as nasal “-n” on this open vowel (e.g. bka’ ’gyur → “Kan-gyur”).
Syllable 02 · Low Tone
འགྱུར
Prefix '- (འ)Root g (ག)Sub -y- (ྱ)Vowel -u- (ུ)Suffix -r (ར)
Velar + subjoined -y- produces palatalized “gy-” with silent modifier.
Six Annotated Orthographic Specimens
Step-by-Step Reference Specimens Across Deities, Titles & Schools
སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས། · Chen-re-zigབཀའ་བརྒྱུད། · Ka-gyüརྡོ་རྗེ་ཕུར་པ། · Dor-je Phur-baདགེ་ལུགས། · Ge-lugབསྔོ་བ། · Ngo-waསྒྲུབ་ཐབས། · Drub-thab
Wylie: spyan ras gzigs → Spoken: Chen-re-zig
སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས།
Avalokiteśvara — “He Who Gazes Continuously with Compassionate Eyes”
Super s- (ས)Root p (པ)Sub -y- (ྱ)Suffix -n (ན)
Subjoined -y- palatalizes labials (py → ch)! Silent head-letter s- raises tone, while final -n fronts vowel a → e: spyan = “chen”.
Root r (ར)Suffix -s (ས)
Final -s dropped its consonant sound after the 9th century, leaving a crisp fronted vowel a → e (“re”).
Prefix g- (ག)Root z (ཟ)Vowel -i- (ི)Suffix -gs (གས)
Prefix g- and post-suffix -s are both silent in speech, leaving root z + vowel i + unreleased final -g (“zig”).
Wylie: bka’ brgyud → Spoken: Ka-gyü
བཀའ་བརྒྱུད།
Kagyu Lineage — “Unbroken Whispered Oral Transmission of the Buddha’s Word”
Prefix b- (བ)Root k (ཀ)Suffix -’ (འ)
Silent prefix b- keeps root k unaspirated high-tone (“ka”, never aspirated “kha”); final a-chung (འ) holds an open vowel.
Prefix b- (བ)Super r- (ར)Root g (ག)Sub -y- (ྱ)Vowel -u- (ུ)Suffix -d (ད)
Six written letters produce one clean syllable! Prefix b- & superscript r- are silent; root g + -y- stays “gy”; final -d fronts u → ü (“gyü”).
Wylie: rdo rje phur pa → Spoken: Dor-je Phur-ba
རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕུར་པ།
Vajrakīlaya — “Adamantine Ritual Stake / Dagger”
Super r- (ར)Root d (ད)Vowel -o- (ོ)
Superscript r- on rdo is silent at the start, yet resurfaces across the compound boundary onto the end of “do” + “rje” → “Dor-je”!
Super r- (ར)Root j (ཇ)Vowel -e- (ེ)
Superscript r- prevents devoicing of root j, yielding smooth unaspirated “je” (“lord / noble”).
phur pa
→ “phur-ba”
Listen
Root ph (ཕ) + p (པ)Vowel -u- (ུ)Suffix -r (ར)
Aspirated ph + vowel u + trilled suffix -r = “phur”; nominal particle pa softens intervocalically to “ba”.
Wylie: dge lugs → Spoken: Ge-lug
དགེ་ལུགས།
Gelug Tradition — “System / Way of Virtue”
Prefix d- (ད)Root g (ག)Vowel -e- (ེ)
Prefix d- is completely silent (distinguishing dge “virtue” from sge or bge in writing) while stabilizing low unaspirated “ge”.
Root l (ལ)Vowel -u- (ུ)Suffix -gs (གས)
Post-suffix -s is silent, leaving l + u + soft final -g (“lug”, meaning tradition or system).
Wylie: bsngo ba → Spoken: Ngo-wa
བསྔོ་བ།
Dedication of Merit (Pariṇāmanā) — Sharing Goodness with All Beings
Prefix b- (བ)Super s- (ས)Root ng (ང)Vowel -o- (ོ)
Both past-tense/future prefix b- and superscript s- are silent, raising nasal root ng- to high-tone “ngo”!
Root b (བ)
As a noun-forming particle after a vowel, ba always glides softly into “wa”!
Wylie: sgrub thabs → Spoken: Drub-thab
སྒྲུབ་ཐབས།
Sādhana — “Means of Accomplishment” (Liturgical Meditation Manual)
Super s- (ས)Root g (ག)Sub -r- (ྲ)Vowel -u- (ུ)Suffix -b (བ)
Subjoined -r- (ra-tags) turns velar stops k/kh/g into retroflex tr/thr/dr! Thus s + g + r + u + b = “drub”!
Root th (ཐ)Suffix -bs (བས)
Aspirated th + a + unreleased labial stop -b (post-suffix -s silent) = “thab” (“skillful method / upāya”).
Three Scripts You See in Monasteries
Uchen Woodblock vs. Ume Cursive vs. Ornamental Lantsa
dbu can
ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ།
Uchen (“Headed” Woodblock Script)
Razor-sharp horizontal top baseline (“head” bar) from which crisp vertical strokes hang—modeled by Thönmi Sambhoṭa in the 7th century after North Indian Gupta/Siddham scripts.
Where seen: Derge Parkhang Kangyur/Tengyur woodblocks, temple inscriptions, prayer wheels, and all digital Unicode Tibetan text.
dbu med / dpe tshugs / ’khyug yig
༄༅། །བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས།
Ume / Petsug & Khyug (“Headless” Manuscript Scripts)
Omits the horizontal top bar so bamboo-pen strokes flow rapidly across handmade daphne-bark paper (tsashog) without lifting the nib.
Where seen: Hand-copied terma manuscripts, monastic correspondence, lineage diplomas, and personal retreat notes.
lan tsha
ॐ मणिपद्मे हूं · ཨོཾ
Lantsa / Rañjanā (Ornamental Temple Sanskrit Script)
Lush, interlocking 11th-century Newar ornamental Sanskrit calligraphy painted in raised gold on temple lintels, pecha title pages, and Kālacakra Tenfold-Powerful (Namchu Wangden) monograms.
Where seen: Monastery ceiling beams, Kangyur gold-on-indigo cover titles, stupa bases, and mandala seals.