The Tibetan alphabet was created in the mid-7th century, by Thonmi Sambhota, a Tibetan official, with the assistance of some Indian Buddhist monks. The letters, which are a form of the Sanskrit characters of that period, rammar, follow the same arrangement as their Sanskritic prototype. The printed form of the script used in religious texts is called u-chan or u-chen while the hand-written cursive form is called u-mey.

The 30 consonants, which are deemed to possess an inherent sound a, are the following:

1. ka, k’a, ga, nga (n¯a),
2. ha (ca), ha (cha), ja, nya (ña),
3. ta, t’a, da, na,
4. pa, p’a, ba, ma,
5. tsa, ts’a, dza,
6. wa, z’a (ža), Ia (za),
7. ‘ha ('a), ya, ra, Ia,
8. s’a, Ia (sa),
9. ha, a.

In addition to the simple consonants above there are 90 conjunct consonants which represent clusters of consonants (e.g. "swa", "ska", "sga", "sna", "spa", etc.). Each of these combinations is represented by its own unique glyph in the alphabet. The large number of conjunct consonants is what makes the Tibetan alphabet more difficult to learn than many other alphabets. As with simple consonants, if no vowel mark is added the conjuct consonant is assumed to be followed by a short 'a'.

Consonantal letter variations include:

• The "Sanskrit cerebrals" are represented by the letters, ta La, do, na, s’a, turned the other way.
• Va, when combined as second consonant with k-, p-, m-, is written under the first letter.
• Ra, when combined as second letter with k-, t-, p-, is written under the first, and when combined with another consonant as first letter over the second.

Syllables are separated by a dot, and toness are unmarked in writing.

See also:

• Tibetan language
• Languages of China