Alphabet Letters
Tibetan A Chung འ
Tibetan Letters
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Origin Devised in the seventh century CE, in the reign of Songtsen Gampo, on the model of an Indian Brahmi-derived script
A chung, the small a, is the twenty-third of the thirty consonants and the most purely orthographic letter in the alphabet. As an initial it is a weak consonant with barely any independent sound; its real work is done in three other positions. It is one of the five prefixes, one of the ten suffixes, and in the transcription of Sanskrit it is written beneath a letter to lengthen the vowel, which is how Tibetan writes the long vowels its own language does not have. Its name distinguishes it from a chen, the great a, the thirtieth letter and the one that carries independent vowels; the two are separate letters and are not interchangeable.
Facts
Origins
Origin PeriodDevised in the seventh century CE, in the reign of Songtsen Gampo, on the model of an Indian Brahmi-derived script 3Tradition: The Tibetan imperial period Place of OriginTibet, at the imperial court of Songtsen Gampo, modeled on an Indian Brahmi-derived script encountered through contact with India 3 Origin of the NameA compound of a plus chung, small, a genuine descriptive Tibetan phrase rather than a name that is merely its own sound, distinguishing it from a chen, the great a. 2 Sense of the NameA chung means the small a, distinguishing it from a chen, the great a, which is the thirtieth letter 2Tradition: Tibetan grammatical tradition Identity
Script TypeConsonant sign of an abugida; it carries the inherent vowel a unless a vowel sign is written above or below it 1Tradition: Brahmic writing PositionTwenty-third of the thirty consonants 2Tradition: The Tibetan alphabet How the Letter JoinsOne of the five prefixes and one of the ten suffixes; written subjoined to lengthen a vowel in Sanskrit transcription 2Tradition: Tibetan orthography Attributions
Associated SoundA weak consonant with little independent sound as an initial; its work is as prefix, suffix and vowel lengthener 2Tradition: Classical Tibetan and modern Lhasa pronunciation Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceA chung's real orthographic work is done in three positions rather than as an ordinary initial: it is one of the five prefixes, one of the ten suffixes, and in Sanskrit transcription it is written beneath a letter to lengthen the vowel, which is how Tibetan writes long vowels its own language does not have. 2 Learn More
A Chung: The Small A
A chung, the small a, is the twenty-third of the thirty consonants and the most purely orthographic letter in the alphabet. As an initial it is a weak consonant with barely any independent value; its real work is done in three other positions.
It is one of the five prefixes, standing silently in front of a root letter. It is one of the ten suffixes, closing a syllable, where in the modern language it is generally heard as a lengthening or a quality of the vowel rather than as a consonant. And in the transcription of Sanskrit it is written beneath a letter to mark a long vowel, which is how Tibetan writes a distinction its own language does not make.
It also has a role in the verb. A number of Tibetan verb forms are distinguished by a prefixed small a, so the letter carries grammatical information in a system where very little is marked by anything audible.
For a reader the practical point is that a small a in a syllable is almost never the root letter, and identifying it correctly is a precondition of reading the syllable at all, let alone finding the word in a dictionary.
In transliteration the small a is written with a preceding mark to keep it distinct from the great a. That is one of the places where a transliteration has to carry a distinction a phonetic rendering would simply lose, and it is a fair illustration of why scholarly writing on Tibetan uses one rather than the other.
Two Letters Named A, and Why They Are Not One
The Tibetan alphabet contains two letters whose names are both a, and confusing them makes a syllable unreadable.
A chung, the small a, is the twenty-third letter. A chen, the great a, is the thirtieth and last, and closes the recitation. They are separate characters with separate shapes and separate offices, and they are not variants of each other.
Their jobs barely overlap. A chen is the vowel carrier: where a Tibetan syllable begins with a vowel, a chen supplies the consonant shape that a vowel sign needs to attach to, and with no sign upon it the bare letter is read a. A chung is a weak consonant that works as a prefix, as a suffix, and as a mark of vowel length in Sanskrit transcription, and it is only rarely the root of a syllable at all.
The names encode the distinction and the transliteration preserves it, which is one of the arguments for using a transliteration rather than a phonetic rendering: a system that wrote both as a would destroy information that the script keeps.
The pair matters beyond the alphabet chart because dictionaries file by root letter. A syllable whose small a is a prefix is filed under the letter after it. A syllable whose great a is the root is filed at the end. Getting this wrong sends a reader to the wrong end of the book.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Related To
The small a and the great a are two distinct letters and are not interchangeable. A chung is a weak consonant that works chiefly as a prefix, a suffix and, in Sanskrit transcription, a vowel lengthener; a chen is the thirtieth letter and the carrier of an independent vowel.
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