Version 1.3, 7 January 2022
Version history:
1.0, 5 March 2019
1.1, 18 April 2019
1.2, 11 June 2019
- 1.3, 7 January 2022
Tibetan Scripts
In Brill publications, Tibetan-script text occurs sporadically. Broadly speaking, there are two Tibetan script styles, ⟨dbu-can⟩ /uchen/ and ⟨dbu-med⟩ /umê/. (Angle brackets in this description enclose the written form, forward slashes a modern phonemic representation. Tibetan spelling has essentially not been altered since the 9th century, but pronunciation has changed considerably since then.) Dbu-can is ‘headed’, i.e., it has distinct horizontal lines at the top of most characters, whereas dbu-med is ‘headless’. Brill publications currently have only dbu-can text.
The Tibetan scripts illustrated
Fonts
Tibetan fonts, even Unicode-encoded Tibetan fonts, are not completely equivalent to each other. The Tibetan script exhibits quite a number of so-called ‘conjuncts’ and/or ‘stacks’: it is essentially a syllabic script (an Abugida), derived from the Indian Brahmi script, so a base character roughly represents a CV syllable, with possibly consonants preceding it and following it, as well as vowel and other signs. These additional signs are combined to form a cluster, both in horizontal and in vertical directions. Different fonts have different sets of precomposed clusters, and some fonts allow for dynamic cluster formation as well. The Tibetan script has been used for other languages than Tibetan, notably Sanskrit, and each language needs a different set of conjuncts.
Currently, Brill provides typesetting instructions for the BabelStone Tibetan font. This font is a further development of – and improvement on – the well-known Jomolhari font. Other fonts, such as Tibetan Machine Unicode, have been used in the past and may still be useful sometimes, depending on the language and/or the conjuncts required.
Dbu-can: BabelStone Tibetan font sizes:
All-Tibetan body text: BabelStone Tibetan 14.2 pt, leading 1½ grid lines
All-Tibetan block quotations only: BabelStone Tibetan 12 pt, leading 1½ grid lines
Inline Tibetan: Brill 11 pt: ~ BabelStone Tibetan 9½ pt
Inline Tibetan: Brill 10 pt: ~ BabelStone Tibetan 9½ pt
Brill 9 pt (footnotes, indices): ~ BabelStone Tibetan 8½ pt
These font sizes have been checked with Andrew West, the maker of the BabelStone Tibetan font: they are all appropriate for setting Tibetan text in scholarly publications.
Important for typesetters:
Because of the height of Tibetan stacks, typesetters must take care that descenders of one line do not clash with above-marks of the line below. If necessary, the leading of single lines causing clashes should be increased in order to avoid these in the typeset text.
Windows and macOS
Not all fonts work on all modern computing platforms. The available documentation suggests that BabelStone Tibetan does.
