Tibetan numerals

Tibetan numerals is the numeral system of the Tibetan script and a variety of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. It is used in the Tibetan language^[1][2] and has a base-10 counting system.^[3] The Mongolian numerals were also developed from the Tibetan numerals.^[4][5]

Cardinal numbers

Arabic numeral	Tibetan numeral	Tibetan word	Romanisation
0	༠	ཀླད་ཀོར་	laykor
1	༡	གཅིག་	chig [t͡ɕi˥˩]
2	༢	གཉིས་	nyi [ȵiː˥˥]
3	༣	གསུམ་	sum [sum˥˥]
4	༤	བཞི་	shi [ɕi˩˧]
5	༥	ལྔ་	nga [ŋa˥˥]
6	༦	དྲུག་	trug [ʈ͡ʂʰu˩˧˨]
7	༧	བདུན་	dün [tỹ˩˧]
8	༨	བརྒྱད་	gyay [cɛː˩˧˨]
9	༩	དགུ་	gu [ku˩˧]

Extended numbers

Arabic numeral	Tibetan numeral	Tibetan word	Romanisation
10	༡༠	བཅུ་	chu
11	༡༡	བཅུ་གཅིག་	chu ji
12	༡༢	བཅུ་གཉིས་	chu nyi
13	༡༣	བཅུ་གསུམ་	chuk sum
14	༡༤	བཅུ་བཞི་	chu shi
15	༡༥	བཅུ་ལྔ་	chü nga
16	༡༦	བཅུ་དྲུག་	chu druk
17	༡༧	བཅུ་བདུན་	chup dün
18	༡༨	བཅུ་པརྒྱད	chup gyay
19	༡༩	བཅུ་དགུ་	chu gu
20	༢༠	ཉི་ཤུ་	nyi shu
30	༣༠	སུམ་ཅུ	sum ju
40	༤༠	བཞི་བཅུ	ship ju
50	༥༠	ལྔ་བཅུ	ngap ju
60	༦༠	དྲུག་ཅུ	trug chu
70	༧༠	བདུན་ཅུ	dün ju
80	༨༠	བརྒྱད་ཅུ	gyay ju
90	༩༠	དགུ་བཅུ	gup ju
100	༡༠༠	བརྒྱ་	gya
1,000	༡༠༠༠	སྟོང་	tong
10,000	༡༠༠༠༠	ཁྲི་	thri
1,000,000	༡༠༠༠༠༠༠	ས་ཡ་	sa ya
10,000,000	༡༠༠༠༠༠༠༠	བྱེ་བ་	che wa
100,000,000	༡༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠	དུང་ཕྱུར་	dung chur
1,000,000,000	༡༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠	ཐེར་འབུམ་	ther pum
10,000,000,000	༡༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠	ཐེར་འབུམ་ཆེན་པོ་	ther pum chen po
100,000,000,000	༡༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠	ཁྲག་ཁྲིག་	thrag trig
1,000,000,000,000	༡༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠༠	ཁྲག་ཁྲིག་ཆེན་པོ་	thrag trig chen po

Ordinals

Arabic numeral	Tibetan numeral	Tibetan ordinal word	Romanisation
1	༡	དང་པོ་	dang po [tʰaŋ˩˧.ko˥˥]
2	༢	གཉིས་པ་	nyi pa
3	༣	གསུམ་པ་	sum pa
4	༤	བཞི་པ་	shi pa
5	༥	ལྔ་པ་	nga pa
6	༦	དྲུག་པ་	trug pa
7	༧	བདུན་པ་	dün pa
8	༨	བརྒྱད་པ་	gyay pa
9	༩	དགུ་པ་	gu pa
10	༡༠	བཅུ་པ་	chu pa

Fractions

7½-skar postage stamp, the evidence for the ༱ symbol being used for 7.5.^[6]

Several slashed forms of Tibetan numerals are included in Unicode to represent fractions. However, their exact meaning and authenticity are unclear.^[6]

Tibetan fractions	༳	༪	༫	༬	༭	༮	༯	༰	༱	༲
Values	-0.5	0.5	1.5	2.5	3.5	4.5	5.5	6.5	7.5	8.5

See also

• Tibetan script

References

1. "Tibetan (བོད་སྐད)". Omniglot. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
2. "Numbers in Tibetan". Omniglot. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
3. Tournadre, Nicolas; Dorje, Sangda (2003). Manual of Standard Tibetan: Language and civilization. Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1559391898. OCLC 53477676.
4. Chrisomalis, Stephen (2010). Numerical Notation: A Comparative History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521878180.
5. "The Unicode® Standard Version 10.0 – Core Specification: South and Central Asia-II" (PDF). Unicode.org. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
6. "Numbers that Don't Add up – Tibetan Half Digits". BabelStone. Retrieved 4 December 2022.

External links

• Mazaudon & Lacito, 2002, "Les principes de construction du nombre dans les langues tibeto-birmanes", in François, ed. La Pluralité