Social:ʼPhags-pa script

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Short description: Mongolian writing system
ʼPhags-pa
Template:PhagspaTemplate:PhagspaTemplate:Phagspa
ḥPTemplate:Aynags-pa
Christian tombstone from Quanzhou dated 1314, with inscription in the ʼPhags-pa script Template:Phagspa (-ung shė yang shi mu taw) 'tomb memorial of Yang Wengshe'
Type
Languages
CreatorDrogön Chögyal Phagpa
Time period
1269 – c. 1660
Parent systems
Egyptian
Child systems
Zanabazar's square
Sister systems
Lepcha, Meitei, Khema, Marchen, Tamyig script
DirectionTop-to-bottom
ISO 15924Phag, 331
Unicode alias
Phags-pa
U+A840–U+A87F

Template:Brahmic

The Phagspa (/ˈpɑːɡzˌpɑː/ PAHGZ-PAH), Phags-pa|date=February 2025}} ʼPhags-pa or ḥPTemplate:Aynags-pa script[1] is an alphabet designed by the Tibetan monk and State Preceptor (later Imperial Preceptor) Drogön Chögyal Phagpa (1235–1280) for Kublai Khan (r. 1264–1294), the founder of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in China, as a unified script for the written languages within the Yuan. The actual use of this script was limited to about a hundred years during the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, and it fell out of use with the advent of the Ming dynasty.[2][3]

The script was used to write and transcribe varieties of Chinese, the Tibetic languages, Mongolian, the Uyghur language, Sanskrit, probably Persian,[4][5][6] and other neighboring languages during the Yuan era. For historical linguists, its use provides clues about changes in these languages.

Its descendant systems include Horizontal square script, used to write Tibetan and Sanskrit. During the Pax Mongolica the script even made numerous appearances in Western medieval art.[7]

Nomenclature

ʼPhags-pa script: Template:Phagspa mong xol ts.hi "Mongolian script";

Mongolian: дөрвөлжин үсэг dörvöljin üseg, ᠳᠥᠷᠪᠡᠯᠵᠢᠨ
ᠦᠰᠦᠭ
dörbelǰin üsüg "square script"; дөрвөлжин бичиг dörvöljin bichig, ᠳᠥᠷᠪᠡᠯᠵᠢᠨ
ᠪᠢᠴᠢᠭ
dörbelǰin bičig "square writing";

Tibetan: ཧོར་ཡིག་གསར་པ་, Wylie: hor yig gsar pa "new Mongolian script";

Yuan dynasty Chinese: 蒙古新字; pinyin: měnggǔ xīnzì "new Mongolian script"; 國字; guózì' "national script";

Modern Chinese: 八思巴文; pinyin: bāsībā wén "ʼPhags-pa script"; 帕克斯巴; pàkèsībā;

In English, it is also written as ḥPTemplate:Aynags-pa, Phaspa, Paspa, Baschpah, and Pa-sse-pa.[8]

History

During the Mongol Empire, the Mongol rulers wanted a universal script to write down the languages of the people they subjugated. The Uyghur-based Mongolian alphabet was not a perfect fit for the Middle Mongol language, and it would have been impractical to extend it to a language with a very different phonology like Chinese. Therefore, during the Yuan dynasty (c. 1269), Kublai Khan asked the Tibetan monk ʼPhags-pa to design a new alphabet for use by the whole empire. ʼPhags-pa extended his native Tibetan alphabet[5] to encompass Mongol and Chinese, evidently Central Plains Mandarin.[9] The resulting 38 letters have been known by several descriptive names, such as "square script", based on their shape, but today, are primarily known as the ʼPhags-pa alphabet. Descending from Tibetan script, it is part of the Brahmic family of scripts, which includes Devanagari and scripts used throughout Southeast Asia and Central Asia.[5] It is unique among Brahmic scripts in that it is written from top to bottom,[5] as how classical Chinese used to be written, and as the Mongolian alphabet or later Manchu alphabet is still written.

It did not receive wide acceptance and was not a popular script even among the elite Mongols themselves, although it was used as an official script of the Yuan dynasty until the early 1350s,[10] when the Red Turban Rebellion started. After this, it was mainly used as a phonetic gloss for Mongols learning Chinese characters. In the 20th century, it was also used as one of the scripts on Tibetan currency, as a script for Tibetan seal inscriptions from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century, and for inscriptions on the entrance doors of Tibetan monasteries.

Syllable formation

Although it is an alphabet, ʼPhags-pa is written like a syllabary or abugida, with letters forming a single syllable glued or 'ligated' together.[5]

An imperial edict in ʼPhags-pa
The ʼPhags-pa script, with consonants arranged according to Chinese phonology. At the far left are vowels and medial consonants.

Top: Approximate values in Middle Chinese. (Values in parentheses were not used for Chinese.)
Second: Standard letter forms.
Third: Seal script forms. (A few letters, marked by hyphens, are not distinct from the preceding letter.)

Bottom: The "Tibetan" forms. (Several letters have alternate forms, separated here by a • bullet.)
Example of the Chinese poem Hundred Family Surnames written in Phagspa script, from Shilin Guangji written by Chen Yuanjing in the Yuan dynasty

Unlike the ancestral Tibetan script, all ʼPhags-pa letters are written in temporal order (that is, /CV/ is written in the order C–V for all vowels) and in-line (that is, the vowels are not diacritics). However, vowel letters retain distinct initial forms, and short /a/ is not written except initially, making ʼPhags-pa transitional between an abugida, a syllabary, and a full alphabet. The letters of a ʼPhags-pa syllable are linked together so that they form syllabic blocks.[5]

Typographic forms

ʼPhags-pa was written in a variety of graphic forms. The standard form (top, at right) was blocky, but a "Tibetan" form (bottom) was even more so, consisting almost entirely of straight orthogonal lines and right angles. A "seal script" form (Chinese: 蒙古篆字; pinyin: měnggǔ zhuànzì; "Mongolian Seal Script"), used for imperial seals and the like, was more elaborate, with squared sinusoidal lines and spirals. This ʼPhags-pa script is different from the ʼPhags-pa script, or 八思巴字 in Chinese, that shares the same name but its earliest usage can be traced back to the late 16th century, the early reign of Wanli Emperor. According to Professor Junast 照那斯图 of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the later ʼPhags-pa script is actually a seal script of Tibetan.[11]

Korean records state that Hangul was based on an "Old Seal Script" (古篆字), which may be ʼPhags-pa and a reference to its Chinese name Chinese: 蒙古篆字; pinyin: měnggǔ zhuànzì (see origin of Hangul).[citation needed] However, it is the simpler standard form of ʼPhags-pa that is the closer graphic match to Hangul.

Letters

Basic letters

The following 41 are the basic ʼPhags-pa letters.

Letters 1-30 and 35-38 are base consonants. The order of Letters 1-30 is the same as the traditional order of the thirty basic letters of the Tibetan script, to which they correspond. Letters 35-38 represent sounds that do not occur in Tibetan, and are either derived from an existing Tibetan base consonant (e.g. Letters 2 and 35 are both derived from the simple Tibetan letter kha, but are graphically distinct from each other) or from a combination of an existing Tibetan base consonant and the semi-vowel (subjoined) wa (e.g. Letter 36 is derived from the complex Tibetan letter ཁྭ khwa).

As is the case with Tibetan, these letters have an inherent [a] vowel sound attached to them in non-final positions when no other vowel sign is present (e.g. the letter Template:Phagspa with no attached vowel represents the syllable ka, but with an appended vowel Template:Phagspa i represents the syllable Template:Phagspa ki).

Letters 31-34 and 39 are vowels. Letters 31-34 follow the traditional order of the corresponding Tibetan vowels. Letter 39 represents a vowel quality that does not occur in Tibetan, and may be derived from the Tibetan vowel sign ai.

Unlike Tibetan, in which vowels signs may not occur in isolation but must always be attached to a base consonant to form a valid syllable, in the ʼPhags-pa script initial vowels other than Template:Phagspa a may occur without a base consonant when they are not the first element in a diphthong (e.g. ue) or a digraph (e.g. eeu and eeo). Thus in Chinese ʼPhags-pa texts the syllables u , on wán and o é occur, and in Mongolian ʼPhags-pa texts the words ong qo chas "boats", u su nu (gen.) "water", e du -ee "now" and i hee -een "protection" occur. These are all examples of where 'o, 'u, 'e, 'i etc. would be expected if the Tibetan model had been followed exactly. An exception to this rule is the Mongolian word 'er di nis "jewels", where a single vowel sign is attached to a null base consonant. Note that the letter Template:Phagspa ee is never found in an initial position in any language written in the ʼPhags-pa script (for example, in Tao Zongyi's description of the Old Uighur script, he glosses all instances of Uighur Template:Rotate text e with the ʼPhags-pa letter Template:Phagspa ee, except for when it is found in the initial position, when he glosses it with the ʼPhags-pa letter Template:Phagspa e instead).

However, initial semi-vowels, diphthongs and digraphs must be attached to the null base consonant 'A (Letter 30). So in Chinese ʼPhags-pa texts the syllables 'wen yuán, 'ue wēi and 'eeu occur; and in Mongolian ʼPhags-pa texts the words 'eeu lu "not" and 'eeog bee.e "gave" occur. As there is no sign for the vowel a, which is implicit in an initial base consonant with no attached vowel sign, then words that start with an a vowel must also use the null base consonant letter Template:Phagspa 'a (e.g. Mongolian 'a mi than "living beings"). In Chinese, and rarely Mongolian, another null base consonant Template:Phagspa -a may be found before initial vowels (see "Letter 23" below).

No. ʼPhags-pa
letter
Tibetan derivation Mongolian examples Chinese examples
1 Template:Letter Used only for words of foreign origin, such as kal bu dun (gen. pl.) from Sanskrit kalpa "aeon" [cf. Mongolian ᠭᠠᠯᠠᠪ galab], with the single exception of the common Mongolian word ye kee "large, great" [cf. Mongolian ᠶᠡᠬᠡ yeke] kiw qiú, kue kuí
2 Template:Letter kheen "who" [cf. Mongolian ᠬᠡᠨ ken] khang kāng, kheeu
3 Template:Letter bi chig "written document, book" [cf. Mongolian ᠪᠢᠴᠢᠭ bičig] ging jīng, gu
4 Template:Letter deng ri "heaven" [cf. Mongolian ᠲᠡᠩᠷᠢ tengri] ngiw niú, ngem yán, ding dīng
5 Template:Letter cay chái, ci chí
6 Template:Letter cha q-an "white" [cf. Mongolian ᠴᠠᠭᠠᠨ čaɣan] chang chāng, cheeu chǔ
7 Template:Letter jil "year" [cf. Mongolian ᠵᠢᠯ ǰil] jim zhēn
8 Template:Letter nyiw niǔ
9 Template:Letter Mostly used in words of foreign origin, such as 'er ti nis (also 'er di nis) "jewels" [cf. Mongolian ᠡᠷᠳᠡᠨᠢᠰ erdenis] and ta layi "sea, ocean" [cf. Mongolian ᠳᠠᠯᠠᠢ dalai] ten tián, tung tóng
10 Template:Letter thu thum "each, all" [cf. Mongolian ᠲᠤᠲᠤᠮ tutum] thang tāng, thung tōng
11 Template:Letter u ri da nu (gen.) "former, previous" [cf. Mongolian ᠤᠷᠢᠳᠠ urida] dung dōng, du
12 Template:Letter ma nu "our" [cf. Mongolian ᠮᠠᠨᠤ manu] nee niè, nung nóng, gon guǎn
13 Template:Letter Only used in words of foreign origin, such as pur xan "Buddha" [cf. Mongolian ᠪᠤᠷᠬᠠᠨ burqan] pang páng, pay bái
14 Template:Letter phon pān, phu
15 Template:Letter ba sa "then, still, also" [cf. Mongolian ᠪᠠᠰᠠ basa] ban bān, been biān
16 Template:Letter 'a mi than "living beings" [cf. Mongolian ᠠᠮᠢᠲᠠᠨ amitan] min mǐn, mew miáo, gim jīn
17 Template:Letter tsaw cáo, tsin qín
18 Template:Letter Only used in words of foreign origin, such as sha tshin "religion" tshay cài, tshiw qiū
19 Template:Letter dzam zǎn, dzew jiāo
20 Template:Letter Only used in words of foreign origin, such as wa chi ra ba ni "Vajrapāṇi" wan wàn, wu , xiw hóu, gaw gāo
21 Template:Letter zheeu , zhew ráo
22 Template:Letter Only found in the single word za ra "month" [cf. Mongolian ᠰᠠᠷᠠ sara] zin chén, zeeu , zi
23 Template:Letter This letter is found rarely initially, e.g. -ir gee nee (dat./loc.) "people" [cf. Mongolian ᠢᠷᠭᠡᠨ irgen], but frequently medially between vowels where it serves to separate a syllable that starts with a vowel from a preceding syllable that ends in a vowel, e.g. er khee -ud "Christians" and q-an "emperor, khan" [cf. Mongolian ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨᠨ qaɣan] (where q-an is a contraction for the hypothetical qa -an) -an ān, -ing yīng, -eeu
24 Template:Letter na yan "eighty" [cf. Mongolian ᠨᠠᠶᠠᠨ nayan] yi , yang yáng, day dài, hyay xiè
25 Template:Letter chee rig "army" [cf. Mongolian ᠴᠡᠷᠢᠭ čerig]
26 Template:Letter al ba "tax, tribute" [cf. Mongolian ᠠᠯᠪᠠ alba] leeu , lim lín
27 Template:Letter shi nee "new" [cf. Mongolian ᠱᠢᠨᠡ šine] shi shí, shwang shuāng
28 Template:Letter hee chus "end, goal" [cf. Mongolian ᠡᠴᠦᠰ ečüs] su , syang xiàng
29 Template:Letter Initially in words that now have null initials, such as har ban "ten" [cf. Mongolian ᠠᠷᠪᠠᠨ arban], and medially only in the single word -i hee -een (or -i h-een) "protector, guardian" hwa huā, sh.hi shǐ, l.hing lěng, j.hang zhuāng
30 Template:Letter 'eeu lu "not" [cf. Mongolian ᠦᠯᠦ ülü] 'wang wáng, 'eeu
31 Template:Letter -i hee -een (or -i h-een) "protection" li , n.hing néng, heei
32 Template:Letter u su nu (gen.) "water" [cf. Mongolian ᠤᠰᠤᠨ usun] u , mue méi
33 Template:Letter e du -ee "now" [cf. Mongolian ᠡᠳᠦᠭᠡ edüge] ze xiè, jem zhān, gue guó
34 Template:Letter ong qo chas "boats" [cf. Mongolian ᠣᠩᠭᠣᠴᠠᠰ ongɣočas] no , mon 滿 mǎn
35 Template:Letter qa muq "all" [cf. Mongolian ᠬᠠᠮᠤᠭ qamuɣ]
36 Template:Letter ཁྭ Only used in words of foreign origin, such as pur xan "Buddha" [cf. Mongolian ᠪᠤᠷᠬᠠᠨ burqan] xu , xong huáng
37 Template:Letter ཧྭ fang fāng, fi fèi
38 Template:Letter
39 Template:Letter el deeb "various" [cf. Mongolian ᠡᠯᠳᠡᠪ eldeb] (Poppe reads this word as eel deeb, as the only example of an initial Template:Phagspa ee) chee chē, seeu , geeing jīng
40 Template:Letter xway huái, jwaw zhuō, gwang guǎng
41 Template:Letter hya xià, gya jiā, dzyang jiǎng

Additional letters

No. ʼPhags-pa
letter
Tibetan derivation Sanskrit or Tibetan Examples
42 Template:Letter sha tt-a pa ... i ta (Sanskrit ṣaṭ pāramitā) [Ill.3 Line 6]
43 Template:Letter pra tish tthi te (Sanskrit pratiṣṭhite) [Ill.3 Line 8] (TTHA plus unreversed I)

dhish tthi te (Sanskrit dhiṣṭhite) [Tathāgatahṛdaya-dhāraṇī Line 16] (TTHA plus reversed I) nish tthe (Sanskrit niṣṭhe) [Tathāgatahṛdaya-dhāraṇī Line 10] (TTHA plus reversed E)

44 Template:Letter dann dde (Sanskrit daṇḍaya) [Tathāgatahṛdaya-dhāraṇī Line 14]

'-a kad ddha ya (Sanskrit ākaḍḍhaya) [Ill.4 Line 7] (DDA plus reversed HA)

45 Template:Letter sb-a ra nna (Sanskrit spharaṇa) [Ill.3 Line 3]

ush nni ... (Sanskrit uṣṇīṣa) [Ill.3 Line 6] (NNA plus reversed I) kshu nnu (Sanskrit kṣuṇu) [Tathāgatahṛdaya-dhāraṇī Line 2] (NNA plus reversed U)

ha ra nne (Sanskrit haraṇe) [Ill.4 Line 5] (NNA plus reversed E) pu nn.ya (Sanskrit puṇya) [Tathāgatahṛdaya-dhāraṇī Line 13] (NNA plus reversed subjoined Y)

46 Template:Letter bh-ru^ (Sanskrit bhrūṁ) [Ill.3 Line 2]

mu dre (Sanskrit mudre) [Ill.3 Line 9] ba dzra (Sanskrit vajra) [Ill.3 Line 9]

bkra shis (Tibetan bkra-shis "prosperity, good fortune") [Ill.5]

47 Template:Letter sangs rgyas (Tibetan sangs-rgyas "Buddha") [Ill.6]
48 Template:Letter o^ bh-ru^ bh-ru^ (Sanskrit oṁ bhrūṁ bhrūṁ) [Ill.3 Line 2]

sa^ ha ... (Sanskrit saṁhatana) [Ill.3 Line 9]

Menggu Ziyun

Following are the initials of the ʼPhags-pa script as presented in Menggu Ziyun. They are ordered according to the Chinese philological tradition of the 36 initials.

36 initials in 蒙古字韵 Menggu Ziyun
No. Name Phonetic
value
ʼPhags-pa
letter
ʼPhags-pa
Initial
Notes
1 jiàn *[k] Template:Phagspa g-
2 *[] Template:Phagspa kh-
3 qún *[ɡ] Template:Phagspa k-
4 *[ŋ] Template:Phagspa ng-
5 duān *[t] Template:Phagspa d-
6 tòu *[] Template:Phagspa th-
7 dìng *[d] Template:Phagspa t-
8 *[n] Template:Phagspa n-
9 zhī *[ʈ] Template:Phagspa j-
10 chè *[ʈʰ] Template:Phagspa ch-
11 chéng *[ɖ] Template:Phagspa c-
12 niáng *[ɳ] Template:Phagspa ny-
13 bāng *[p] Template:Phagspa b-
14 pāng *[] Template:Phagspa ph-
15 bìng *[b] Template:Phagspa p-
16 míng *[m] Template:Phagspa m-
17 fēi *[] Template:Phagspa f- Normal form of the letter fa
18 *[p̪ʰ] Template:Phagspa f¹- Variant form of the letter fa
19 fèng *[] Template:Phagspa f- Normal form of the letter fa
20 wēi *[ɱ] Template:Phagspa w- Represents [v]
21 jīng *[ts] Template:Phagspa dz-
22 qīng *[tsʰ] Template:Phagspa tsh-
23 cóng *[dz] Template:Phagspa ts-
24 xīn *[s] Template:Phagspa s-
25 xié *[z] Template:Phagspa z-
26 zhào *[] Template:Phagspa j-
27 穿 chuān *[tɕʰ] Template:Phagspa ch-
28 chuáng *[] Template:Phagspa c-
29 shěn *[ɕ] Template:Phagspa sh¹- Variant form of the letter sha
30 chán *[ʑ] Template:Phagspa sh- Normal form of the letter sha
31 xiǎo *[x] Template:Phagspa h- Normal form of the letter ha
32 xiá *[ɣ] Template:Phagspa x-
Template:Phagspa h¹- Variant form of the letter ha
33 yǐng *[ʔ] Template:Phagspa ʼ- glottal stop
Template:Phagspa y- Normal form of the letter ya
34 *[j] Template:Phagspa - null initial
Template:Phagspa y¹- Variant form of the letter ya
35 lái *[l] Template:Phagspa l-
36 *[ɲ] Template:Phagspa zh-

Shilin Guangji

The Shilin Guangji used Phagspa to annotate Chinese text, serving as a precursor to modern pinyin. The following are the Phagspa transcriptions of a section of the Hundred Family Surnames in the Shilin Guangji. For example, the name Jin (), meaning gold, is written as Template:Phagspa gim.[12]

Hundred Family Surnames
百家姓蒙古文
Bǎi Jiā Xìng Měng Gǔ Wén
Template:Phagspa Template:Phagspa Template:Phagspa Template:Phagspa Template:Phagspa Template:Phagspa
Bay Gya Sing Mung Gu Wun
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
ʼPhags-pa Spelling Template:Phagspa cew Template:Phagspa dzen Template:Phagspa sun Template:Phagspa li Template:Phagspa jiw Template:Phagspa u Template:Phagspa cing Template:Phagspa 'wang Template:Phagspa fung Template:Phagspa cin
Chinese Character zhào qián sūn zhōu zhèng wáng féng chén

Unicode

ʼPhags-pa script was added to the Unicode Standard in July 2006 with the release of version 5.0.

The Unicode block for ʼPhags-pa is U+A840–U+A877: Template:Unicode chart Phags-pa

U+A856 Template:Phagspa PHAGS-PA LETTER SMALL A is transliterated using U+A78F LATIN LETTER SINOLOGICAL DOT from the Latin Extended-D Unicode block.[13]

See also

References

  1. Nicholas Poppe (1974). Grammar of Written Mongolian (3rd ed.). p. 6. 
  2. Mote, Frederick W. (1999). Imperial China, 900-1800. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 484. ISBN 978-0-674-01212-7. 
  3. Lal, Dinesh (2008). Indo-Tibet-China conflict. Delhi: Kalpaz Publications. pp. 43. ISBN 9788178357140. https://books.google.com/books?id=kFGhwZxeG5kC. 
  4. "CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS viii. Persian Lang. – Encyclopaedia Iranica". http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chinese-iranian-viii. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 "BabelStone : ʼPhags-pa Script : Description". http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Phags-pa/Description.html. 
  6. "BabelStone : Phags-pa Script : Overview". http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Phags-pa/Overview.html. 
  7. Mack, Rosamond E. (2002). Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600. University of California Press. pp. 61. ISBN 978-0-520-22131-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=09sA4SNG2dYC&pg=PA61. 
  8. Wylie, Alexander (1 January 1871). "On an Ancient Buddhist Inscription at Keu-yung kwan, in North China". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 5 (1): 25. 
  9. Coblin, W. South (2002). "Reflections on the Study of Post-Medieval Chinese Historical Phonology". in 何大安. 第三屆國際漢學會議論文集: 語言組. 南北是非 : 漢語方言的差異與變化. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica. pp. 23–50. ISBN 978-957-671-936-3. http://www.ling.sinica.edu.tw/files/publication/o0004_02_5568.pdf. Retrieved 21 October 2011.  p. 31.
  10. Kim, Sangkeun (2006): Strange names of God. The missionary translation of the divine name and the Chinese responses to Matteo Ricci’s Shangti in Late Ming China, 1583–1644. By Sangkeun Kim (Studies in Biblical Literature, 70.) New York: Peter Lang, 2004. ISBN 0-8204-7130-5; p.139
  11. Junast 照那斯图 (April 2003). "一种从八思巴字脱胎而来的文字 (in Chinese)". Minority Languages of China 民族语文 2002 (3): 56–58. 
  12. Chen Yuanjing. Shilin Guangji. Yuan dynasty, Mongol Empire. 
  13. West, Andrew (2009-04-04). "L2/09-031R: Proposal to encode a Middle Dot letter for Phags-pa transliteration". https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2009/09031r-n3567r.pdf. 

Further reading

Template:Yuan dynasty topics