Wiktionary:About Tibetan

This page will explain some specific policies when working with the Tibetan language. Many of these policies can probably be applied to other similar languages (such as Dzongkha).

Script considerations
All Tibetan entries should be written in Tibetan script.

Following common practice with Tibetan dictionaries, entries should not end in tsheg or shad, for example,  instead of སྐད་ or སྐད།.

Wylie transliteration (faithful to the script) is added automatically with part-of-speech headword templates.

Etymology
The relevant proto-languages for Tibetan are for  and  for.

Most entries are those of transparent compounds, using.

Some etymologies are available through STEDT, which can be added as a link in the etymology section, or as a reference.

Relevant cognates can be added using, with the exception of Chinese cognates, where a combination of with  is preferred.

Tibetan Pinyin
An extended form of is used to transcribe the Lhasa dialect.

To mark tone (which would normally be derived from the orthographic consonant), the letters -f, -h, -v, and -w are used to denote the tones, , , and. (The absence of a tone mark means a neutral tone.)

To mark length, vowels are doubled. To mark "iotated" vowels, the digraphs ae, oe, ue instead of ä, ö, ü; the vowels ie and uo are added for /ɪː/ and /ʊː/. The "neutral" vowel /ə/ is marked with the diagraph ac, and a long form with acc. The vowel letters o and e replace ô and ê respectively, with no distinction between /o/ and /ɔ/ being observed.

Verbs
Verbs should be listed under their root forms. The forms ending in པ is the nominal form, and in general should have a soft redirect to the main entry using, with as the head. There will be cases where the nominal form is used as a canonical noun, thus being its own lemma and should have its own entry.

A conjugation template exists:, where the three forms are in the order "present|future|past|imperative". Variant forms should be included under the tags "past2=|fut2=|imp2=" etc.

Non-lemma forms should use in the definition.

Adjectives
Adjectives should be listed with their nominal suffix where required, whether that is པ, པོ, མ, མོ or something else, with as the head.

Root forms are used in comparative constructions, and can also be the target for etymology sections. The template can be used to produce a soft redirect.

Honorifics
Honorific and respectful forms, whether they are noun or verb, should use.

Plain forms with separate honorific and respectful forms should also use.

The template has to be modified at the template level, rather than at the entry level.

At the entry level, in front of each definition, should be used with "honorific" or "respectful", as appropriate.

Alternative Forms
These should use for each of the alternatives.

The lemma should refer to all its alternatives listed using in a subsection entitled "Alternative forms", as per WT:FORMS.