cholok

Cholok - phonetic transcription for Tibetan. ཆོས་ཀློག་ - cʰö.loḳʰ - means recite, read scriptures, prayers, read aloud. Cholok is not a linguistic program. Cholok models pronunciation according to ancient grammars, not modern, and not pronunciation from the point of view of modern linguistics. Cholok is for beginners to learn Tibetan, who are not sure of the correctness of pronunciation according ancient rules. Of course, the Latin sounds can not correctly portray the sound of the Tibetan language, so that Cholok still remains only a rough approximation.

The basic principle - a script should be intuitive. Transcriptions, transliterations are always evil, but if they still need to be studied, then this is overkill (Cf. Wylie and other horror). Why horror? One example - ལྷ་ས་ - city Lhasa (in Wylie transliteration) should be pronounced like Hlasa ($ cholok: ལྷ་ས་ - hḷa.sa), at least according to the rules of Thonmi Sambhota and later traditional grammars.

So, a low tone is indicated by a dot below. Retroflexes - a dot above. NB: unvoiced sounds are indicated by unvoiced latin consonants, but voiced - by voiced.

The Cholok script is written following the lectures of Geshe M. Roach and the book "Modern Tibetan Language", Vol I. by Thonden Lobsang.

The Cholok script will change as comments and suggestions are received.

some examples from the test suite:

look more in test/test.js

• རྐ་རྕ་ ṛa-katak-ka.ṛa-catak-ca
• རྒ་སྡ་ ṛa-gatak-ga.sa-datak-da
• ལྐ་སྐ་ ḷa-katak-ka.sa-katak-ka
• སྣོ་ sa-natak-na-naro-no
• ཀྲ་ཁྲ་གྲ་ ka-ṛatak-ṫa.kʰa-ṛatak-ṫa.ḳʰa-ṛatak-ṫa
• ཏྲ་ཐྲ་དྲ་ ta-ṛatak-ṫa.tʰa-ṛatak-ṫa.ṭʰa-ṛatak-ṫa
• གླུ་ ḳʰa-ḷatak-la-ŝapkyu-lu
• རོབ་ ṛa-naro-ṛo-p̣ʰa-ṛop̣ʰ
• རེར་ ṛa-ḋeŋ̣bu-ṛe-ṛa-ṛeṛ
• གད་ ḳʰa-ṭʰa-ḳʰë
• རྗེས་འཇུག་ ṛa-jatak-ja-ḋeŋ̣bu-je-sa-je.ạo-nja-ŝapkyu-nju-ḳʰa-njuḳʰ
• གསུངས་ ḳʰao-sa-ŝapkyu-su-ŋ̣a-sa-suŋ̣
• སྔོན་འཇུག་ sa-ŋatak-ŋa-naro-ŋo-ṇa-ŋöṇ.ạo-nja-ŝapkyu-nju-ḳʰa-njuḳʰ
• གཏོང་ ḳʰao-ta-naro-to-ŋ̣a-toŋ̣
• གཅོད་ ḳʰao-ca-naro-co-ṭʰa-cö
• འཇལ་ ạo-nja-ḷa-njëḷ
• འགའ་ ạo-nga-ạ-nga
• མཛོ་ ṃao-ndza-naro-ndzo
• ཆོས་མཇལ་ cʰa-naro-cʰo-sa-cʰö.ṃao-nja-ḷa-njëḷ
• དབང་ ṭʰao-wa-ŋ̣a-waŋ̣
• འགྱུར་ ạo-nga-yatak-ngya-ŝapkyu-ngyu-ṛa-ngyuṛ

cholok scheme:

sym	trl	sym	trl	sym	trl	sym	trl
ཀ	ka	ཁ	kʰa	ག	ḳʰa	ང	ŋa
ཅ	ca	ཆ	cʰa	ཇ	c̣ʰa	ཉ	ña
ཏ	ta	ཐ	tʰa	ད	ṭʰa	ན	na
པ	pa	ཕ	pʰa	བ	p̣ʰa	མ	ma
ཙ	ça	ཚ	çʰa	ཛ	ç̣ʰa	ཝ	wa
ཞ	ṣ̂a	ཟ	ṣa	འ	a	ཡ	ya
ར	ra	ལ	la	ཤ	ŝa	ས	sa
ཧ	ha	ཨ	a

command line interface for cholok

cholok-cli is a separate utility that is convenient to install globally

$ sudo npm -g install cholok-cli

$ cholok -c ཆོས་ཀློག་
=> cʰa-naro-cʰo-sa-cʰö.ka-ḷatak-la-naro-lo-ḳʰa-loḳʰ
$ cholok ཆོས་ཀློག་
=> cʰö.loḳʰ
 
$ cholok
Options:
  -c, --cumulative  Cumulative output

$ git clone https://github.com/mbykov/cholok
$ cd cholok
$ npm install
$ npm start འཇུག་
$ npm start འཇུག་ true (cumulative)
$ npm test

API

import cholok from 'cholok'
let result = cholok(str, cumulative)
console.log(result)

where cumulative should be true or false

Ex:

let str = འཇུག་
cholok(str, true)
=> ạo-nja-ŝapkyu-nju-ḳʰa-njuḳʰ
cholok(str)
=> njuḳʰ

License

GNU GPL