tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18790794.post-21239612049009626102008-03-29T22:38:00.001-07:002008-03-29T22:50:32.261-07:00With Tibetan letters, the vowels are marked with a sign above or below the root letter. To take the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">མ</span> MA letter, if you add a line above, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">མེ,</span> it becomes ME (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">fire</span>). If you add this sign above, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">མི</span>, it becomes MI (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">human</span>, or a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">negation particle</span>).  If you have this, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">མོ</span>, it is MO (d<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">ivination system</span>). Finally, with this sign, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">མུ</span> , you have MU (<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">border</span>.) <br /><div><br /></div><div>Note that the same system is true for all other letters, examples: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ལོ། </span> LO (age),  <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">ནི།</span> NI (as for), and so on. The signs above or below turns the default vowel, A-based, into a specific vowel. So if you learn these additional four vowels, you know all the five Tibetan vowels.</div><div><br /></div><div>See if you recognize the various vowels in the Tibetan text below:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"> །བླ་མ་དེས།དི་ལྟར་བརྗོད་དེ།</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 24px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">ཀྱོད་ཀྱིས་བྱངཆུབ་ཏོ་སྨོན་ལམ་བྲབ་བས།</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 24px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">བདག་ལས་བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་ཚུལ་ཁྲིནམས་ཀྱི་བསླབ་པ་འཛིན་པར་འདོད་དམ་ཞེས་པ་ཡང་གསུམ་མོ།</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Kent Sandvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16346226940219880822noreply@blogger.com