Talk:Tibetan script

question on tibetan script

isn't there the lower case letters as well. the printing tibetan script is called uchen, i forgot what the cursive or normal handwriting script is called.

here's a picture of a handwritten script: [1]

(u know its pretty hard to write uchen, its very boxy and sharp, used for printing and larger banners, but the other script is used for writing letters and notes).

i haven't been able to find a font for it.

Wow, I've never seen Tibetan in hand-writing. Thanks for the picture. And to answer your question: No, there are no lower case letters in Tibetan. As far as I know, Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Armenian are the only alphabets with upper and lower case distinction. Oh and... please sign your comments. — N-true 01:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The handwritten form of Tibetan script is called Ume (pronounced oo-mey). It has various levels of shorthand, which will greatly vary the length and appearance of the script according to the level in which it is condensed. 21:17, 4 November 2006 (GMT)

There are many different kinds of block, cursive & semi-cursive Tibetan scripts. The classification of Tibetan scripts into only Ucen (dbu-can) "headed" & Ume (dbu-med) "headless" is way too simplistic. There are more refined classifications of the various types of Tibetan script.

Chris Fynn 20:06, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

---

In the first row of the consonants, the Romanization n¯a is supposed to be n with a macron, but I can't find such a Unicode. If you can find it, please replace it. --Menchi 08:50 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)

After only 15 month, it's fixed. It is U+0304 (̄). It's a combining macron and you write it after the "n" and hopefully it gets rendered O.K. Works for me (W2K, Mozilla 1.7). See also Combining Diacritial Marks. -- Pjacobi 19:26, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Instead of using a combination of two graphs, it would be better to use the single Unicode letter for n+tilde: U+00F1.Jakob37 08:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Despite the claims of the article, it doesn't appear to be using the Wylie system. I am editing the article to bring it into conformity with the system it says it's using. --Marnen Laibow-Koser (talk) 20:05, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

An dbu-med font has been created by Xenotype for the Macintosh -- too bad their keyboard entry software is so awkward. Jakob37 13:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

One of the main features of Wylie's romanization system is that it uses no diacritics. So, if the romanization is in this article is following the Wylie system, there should be no need for characters like ā (a macron) - which is btw Unicode character U+0101 / ā. 202.89.26.71 (talk) 14:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Displaying Tibetan Script

Does any body know if Tibetian script can be writen vertical and still mean the same as writen from left to right? -CVest

It took me a long time to figure out how to display Tibetan script on Wiki pages in my browser. The info page linked from the Indic script warning tag does not talk about Tibetan. After downloading several fonts, I found the best one to be one mentioned in the external links at the bottom of the article. It is open type and has a GNU license, from The Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library. Works for several systems, but I'm not sure about Mac.

Could we replace with Indic Script warning tag with something that would help users know what they need to read the script in this article, and others on Wiki with Tibetan script? Or, maybe add Tibetan to the Wikipedia:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts page? --Dorje Shedrubn 22:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Works fine for Mac. Trondtr 21:17, 24 June 2006 (UTC).

Tibetan has been added to the Wikipedia:Enabling complex text support for Indic scripts page. However no info for Mac. Chris Fynn 19:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me why the Tibetan script that appears in the article is not properly stacked (as one would expect by using a Tibetan-aware font such as Tibet Machine Uni ---- as opposed to a Tibetan-unaware font such as Arial Unicode MS), also in other articles which contain Tibetan script. Is there some way one can control this when editing text for a Wikipedia contribution? The Wiki-edit was not recognizing the OpenType info pertaining to Tibetan stacking. What to do?? p.s. My Tibetan stacks up just fine when I use it in MS Word. Jakob37 13:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Jakob, that sounds like a uniscribe problem associated with whatever browser you're using. I suggest you consult this webpage http://www.thdl.org/xml/showEssay.php?xml=/tools/fonts/unisupport.xml&l=d1e325 It usually requires you to copy the USP10.DLL file to the folder containing the browser.72.94.184.4 03:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I did what it says to do on the URL you supply, but all it did was turn Firefox's Tibetan script into illegible vertical black and white stripes.....Jakob37 13:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't know. Have you tried IE? Also, are you sure that the font showing up is really Tibetan Machine Uni, as opposed to Arial Unicode MS? On IE that is controlled manually using "Tools:Internet Options:Font:Language Script:Tibetan." I think the default is set for Arial Unicode. 24.0.32.122 03:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes! I got it to work in the IE environment when I followed your instructions. --- Now I guess I have to pester Mozilla about how to do it in Firefox... .....Jakob37 14:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I was having the same problem on XP using MS Internet Explorer. On this system I have installed the Jomolhari font in addition to Arial Unicode MS, and the system has usp10.dll in multiple locations. All I was geting was boxes on the Wiki pages. All other Indic and Asian languages work fine. The only language that had a problem is Tibetan. I work regularly with Indic scipts and am puzzled by how hard it has been to get Tibetan to work. On double checking the "Tools:Internet Options:Font:Language Script:Tibetan." I found that somehow after installation of the 3rd party font the font mapping for Tibetan had been defaulted to no value. Fixing that solved it. A better step-by-step guide is really needed I think. Buddhipriya 00:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem in Safari

I'm having trouble with Tibetan. The actual characters are rendered just fine, but all the diacritic marks are shifted, so that rather than being on top of the characters, they're beside them. Is there a quick way to fix this, or what's going on? Thanks for any help. -- Hidoshi 02:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

At least IE has an option to specify fonts specifically for Tibetan. In FireFox you need to specify a Tibetan font as the font for "Other Languages" - which is OK so long you need to use only one "Other Language" Chris Fynn (talk) 15:12, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Firefox (Windows)

There seems to be something on this page (maybe an included template?) which causes most (but not all) Tibetan characters to render as boxes in Firefox on Windows - though I have no problem viewing other pages containing Tibetan script with this browser and have proper fonts, Uniscribe, etc. installed.

No problems with IE. Chris Fynn 19:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Your system must lack a font containing Tibetan codes. Jakob37 08:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Not that. If you name a Unicode Tibetan font as the default in Firefox under Tools, Options, Content, Fonts & Colors, Advanced, Fonts for, Other Languages it works. Chris Fynn (talk) 15:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't on Mac. I did as you described and entered "Tibetan Machine Uni" as font for "other languages", and it still shows question marks where there should be tibetan characters. Doesn't work with Jomolhari, either. -- megA (talk) 19:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

requests for Tibetan script to be added to articles

Is there a place we may ask for Tibetan script to be added to particular articles? Chris 08:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

similar to the template for {{Burmese}} Chris 22:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I have now created one at {{Tibetan}} Chris 02:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I've added a name in Tibetan script to the article Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal (ཞབས་དྲུང་ངག་དབང་རྣམ་རྒྱལ།). —Preceding unsigned comment added by CFynn (talk • contribs) 15:40, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Tibetan Scouting

Can someone render "Be Prepared", the Scout Motto, into Tibetan script? Thanks! Chris 03:34, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Something like: གྲ་སྒྲིག་གྱིས་ Jakob37 08:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

OpenOffice and Tibetan

I find that OpenOffice's Writer, despite other admirable qualities vis à vis Microsoft Word, doesn't handle Tibetan script quite right. I complained to some sort of forum for OpenOffice, but the responses were few and they didn't seem to really know what they were talking about. Anybody have ideas about how to solve the problem? (which is that stacks don't quite stack right)Jakob37 09:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

OOorg should work fine for Tibetan on Windows XP providing you have an up to date Uniscribe [usp10.dll] installed in Windows\System32\ (or in C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.3\program\]. Not necessary on Vista. The usp10.dll that ships with all versions of XP does not work for Tibetan.

MS Office (Microsoft Word) has its own *local* version of usp10.dll that does have support for Tibetan script. If you have MS Office then copy the usp10.dll from your MS Office installation to C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.3\program\ folder. Otherwise you can get a copy of an up-to-date usp10.dll with Microsoft's free WordViewer program.

Then in OOorg Writer go to: "Tools" > "Options" > "Language Settings" > "Languages"

and check the box "Enabled for Complex Scripts (CTL)"

and, in the same dialog box, under "Default Language for Documents", "CTL" choose "Dzongkha" - ("Tibetan" is not yet an option).

Then go to "Tools" > "Options" > "OpenOffice.org Writer" > "Basic Fonts (CTL)" and put the Name of an OpenType Tibetan font (e.g. "Jomolhari" or "Tibetan Machine Uni") in all the boxes. [Both these fonts are freely available on the web.]

Chris Fynn (talk) 14:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Experiment

I have replaced the first occurrence of the "jomolhari" font with "Tibetan Machine Uni" (i.e. the word "dbu-can") and also the first occurrence of the "jomolhari" font under the rock-photo. This is to see if other users --- especially under Firefox --- will or will not see more normal Tibetan when using the more widely available Tibetan Machine Uni font. Curiously, I find that after installing the Jomolhari font, it stacks properly in the second occurrence at the top (i.e. the word "dbu-med")but in the second occurrence under the rock-photo it still does not stack properly, at least under Firefox. Feedback appreciated!Jakob37 00:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

It's very small, especially under the rock-photo. But it works perfectly well for me (WinXP, Firefox). — N-true 01:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Also works fine for me in both browsers. When specifying font name 'jomolhari' should probably be 'Jomolhari'. Also regarding text in caption under rock picture the subjoined letter "MA" in the "Padme" of "Om Mani Padme Hum " should get shifted slightly to the left when using the Jomolhari font - this is intentional in the design of that font. - Chris Fynn (talk) 14:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Neither Jomolhari nor Tibetan Machine Uni seem to work with Firefox on Mac. (Tried both in Preferences>Content>Fonts>Advanced>Other languages) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MegA (talk • contribs) 19:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Pictures of the Script?

Can someone add an image of the alphabet and its sounds for those of us whose browsers go berserk when confronted with non-standard fonts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.227.245.186 (talk) 20:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

the gigu "verso" and special symbols

Would it be possible for anyone to add discussion of the gigu "verso" and the special religious symbols in Unicode to this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.63.29 (talk) 04:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Why font tags??? There has to be a better way.

I see several people have complained, but there seems to be an "I'm alright Jack" attitude prevailing here. If I remove the font tags I can see the Tibetan script fine. Firefox correctly chooses Arial Unicode MS to display it. Of course I don't get the proper glyph-shaping behaviour, but I doubt another font would do that for me either (WinXP).

My point is why break this article for a commonly installed font and require people to download a specific font? This is not making this information easily available.

OTOH if you are going to do this kind of thing, please do it through a script template and CSS rather than forcing one choice on everybody.

☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 17:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, maybe I spoke too soon. Firefox seems to have come to terms with the page now. CSS is still a better way to go though. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 17:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction

Hi... There seems to be a contradiction, and i'm not sure which is right. Tibetan script mentions that the "Om mani padme hum" is written with "ན" (and it seems that's what's depicted in the photograph), but the Image:Om-mani-padme-hum-mantra.svg (and what it was based on, Image:Mani_mantra.jpg) as well as the Om mani padme hum page use "ཎ", which looks to be a mirror image. The unicode references are U+0F4E for the "left-directional" one and U+0F53 for the "right-pointing" one. Does anyone know which is correct? --Storkk (talk) 11:12, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

This may hinge on whether the syllable in question is correctly "ni" (U+0F53-based?) or "ṇi" (U+0F4E-based)... anyone? --Storkk (talk) 11:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

List Tibetan-script Unicode fonts/keyboard layouts on major platforms?

In the interest of encouraging readers to try out the script after reading about it, it might be useful to include in the article the names of fonts and keyboard layouts that render Unicode Tibetan-script correctly on the Windows, MacOS X, and Linux platforms. This would be a good source:

https://collab.itc.virginia.edu/access/wiki/site/26a34146-33a6-48ce-001e-f16ce7908a6a/tibetan%20fonts.html

If I get any feedback here then I'd be willing to draft a short section.

Ste3ve H (talk) 08:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)