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The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as Dzongkha, the Sikkimese language, Ladakhi, and sometimes Balti. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script (; "with a head") while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday writing is called umê script (; "headless"). The alphabet is very closely linked to a broad ethnic Tibetan identity, spanning across areas in China, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan.〔Chamberlain 2008〕 The Tibetan alphabet is ancestral to the Limbu alphabet, the Lepcha alphabet,〔Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright. ''The World’s Writing Systems''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.〕 and the multilingual 'Phags-pa script.〔 The Tibetan alphabet is romanized in a variety of ways.〔See for instance () ()〕 This article employs the Wylie transliteration system. ==History== The creation of the Tibetan alphabet is attributed to Thonmi Sambhota of the mid-7th century. Tradition holds that Thonmi Sambhota, a minister of Songtsen Gampo (569-649), was sent to India to study the art of writing, and upon his return introduced the alphabet. The form of the letters is based on an Indic alphabet of that period.〔Which specific Indic script inspired the Tibetan alphabet remains controversial. Recent study suggests Tibetan script was based on an adaption from Khotan of the Indian Brahmi and Gupta scripts taught to Thonmi Sambhota in Kashmir (Berzin, Alexander. ''A Survey of Tibetan History - Reading Notes Taken by Alexander Berzin from Tsepon, W. D. Shakabpa, Tibet: A Political History. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1967: http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/e-books/unpublished_manuscripts/survey_tibetan_history/chapter_1.html).〕 Three orthographic standardizations were developed. The most important, an official orthography aimed to facilitate the translation of Buddhist scriptures, emerged during the early 9th century. Standard orthography has not altered since then, while the spoken language has changed by, for example, losing complex consonant clusters. As a result, in all modern Tibetan dialects, in particular in the Standard Tibetan of Lhasa, there is a great divergence between current spelling (which still reflects the 9th-century spoken Tibetan) and current pronunciation. This divergence is the basis of an argument in favour of spelling reform, to write Tibetan ''as it is pronounced'', for example, writing ''Kagyu'' instead of ''Bka'-rgyud''. In contrast, the pronunciation of the Balti, Ladakhi and Burig languages adheres more closely to the archaic spelling. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tibetan alphabet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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