On the Cyrillicization of Tibetan
Wylie's little brother
Ever since the introduction of the Wylie transliteration system for Tibetan in 1959, now the dominant romanization alongside THL and Tibetan pinyin, no single unified system has existed to render Tibetan text using the Cyrillic alphabet. However, I believe that the newly-created Zeldovich system can relieve this issue and provide significant opportunities for growth in the fields of Tibetology and Buddhist studies for those whose primary mode of written communication is in Cyrillic.
METHODOLOGY
The underlying intention behind the creation of the Zeldovich system was to mirror Wylie as closely as possible, while making small stylistic changes and improvements. It, like Wylie, seeks to transcribe Tibetan as written, not pronounced, in contrast with THL and Tibetan Pinyin. Although there are several sounds in Tibetan that are not found in the standard Cyrillic alphabet used in Russia, I made use of letters found in an assortment of non-Slavic languages which use the script as Ҵ and Ҷ. I also decided to make use of non-Slavic letters to differentiate between unaspirated consonants (which largely overlap with existing Slavic ones) and aspirated consonants, as opposed to Wylie’s inclusion of an additional letter to mark aspiration, in order to cut down on total text.
TABLE OF CYRILLICIZATION
Vowels with a y- sound before them are rendered as their Cyrillic equivalents, i.e. ю, ё.
EXAMPLE TEXT
TIBETAN*: འགྲོ་ བ་ མིའི་ རིགས་ རྒྱུད་ ཡོངས་ ལ་ སྐྱེས་ ཙམ་ ཉིད་ ནས་ ཆེ་ མཐོངས་ དང༌། ཐོབ་ ཐངགི་ རང་ དབང་ འདྲ་ མཉམ་ དུ་ ཡོད་ ལ། ཁོང་ ཚོར་ རང་ བྱུང་ གི་ བློ་ རྩལ་ དང་ བསམ་ ཚུལ་ བཟང་ པོ་ འདོན་ པའི་ འོས་ བབས་ ཀྱང་ ཡོད། དེ་ བཞིན་ ཕན་ ཚུན་ གཅིག་ གིས་ གཅིག་ ལ་ བུ་ སྤུན་ གྱི་ འདུ་ ཤེས་ འཛིན་ པའི་ བྱ་ སྤྱོད་ ཀྱང་ ལག་ ལེན་ བསྟར་ དགོས་ པ་ ཡིན༎
WYLIE: ‘gro ba mi’i rigs rgyud yongs la skyes tsam nyid nas che mthongs dang. thob thangagi rang dbang ‘dra mnyam du yod la. khong tshor rang byung gi blo rtsal dang bsam tshul bzang po ‘don pa’i ‘os babs kyang yod. de bzhin phan tshun gcig gis gcig la bu spun gyi ‘du shes ‘dzin pa’i bya spyod kyang lag len bstar dgos pa yin.
ZELDOVICH: ьгро ба миьи ригс ргюд ёӊгс ла скйес цам нйид нас че мҭонгс данг. ҭоб ҭаԩаги ранг дбанг ьдра мням ду ёд ла. қоӊ ҵор раӊ бюӊ ги бло рцал данг бсам ҵул бзанг по ьдон паьи ьос бабс кяӊ ёд. де бжин де бжин ԥан ҵун гчиг гис гчиг ла бу спун гйи ьду шес ьѕин паьи спёд кянг лаг лен бстар дгос па йин.
ENGLISH: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
*Tibetan text typically omits spaces, here I chose to add them to demonstrate the transliteration more efficiently
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