Tibetan Transliteration Schemes

This site is dedicated to documenting all known schemes for transliterating literary or spoken Tibetan using non-Tibetan scripts. While the initial focus is on Roman-script based systems, we are looking to expand coverage to any transliteration system in any language used for representing Tibetan language. Please read the "Introduction" for a systematic introduction to issues regarding transliteration. Otherwise, each transliteration system is represented with a table for quick reference to the scheme, and a description which presents the history, significance, and particulars of the scheme. We have grouped schemes according to script utilized (Roman script, Chinese characters, etc.), and by whether they are orthographic transliteration schemes that render the native Tibetan spelling or phonetic transcription schemes that represent the native Tibetan pronunciation. The former allow for the reconstruction of the literary spelling of a term, while the latter allow for the reconstruction of the pronunciation of a term.