WylieWord/Aro phonetics scheme.txt

; Aro Gar phonetic rules for WylieWord.

; These rules attempt to capture the phonetic transcription scheme
; used by Ngak'chang Rinpoche.  The results have not, however, yet
; been reviewed by Rinpoche, and probably differ from his intention
; in some ways.

; File format: there are two sections, for rules and exceptions.
;
; There is one rule per line.  Typically a rule has two parts,
; separated by a space.  The first part is a sequence of letters
; that, if it appears in a Wylie transliteration, is to be replaced
; by the second part in the phonetic transcription.  The second
; part can be missing, in which case the first part is simply 
; deleted from transcriptions when found.  
;
; A semicolon precedes a comment.  Blank lines are OK.
;
; The rules are applied in the order they appear in this file.
; Each rule is applied as many times as possible, but we never
; go back to a previous rule.  (This simple rewrite-rule grammar is
; not sufficient to implement all phonetic schemes, at least not
; compactly.  For example, it would be difficult to capture the
; effects of preinitial consonants on tone (as in the scheme used
; in Joe Wilson's book, for instance).)  Also note that not even the
; whole of the present scheme is implemented using these rules.  In
; particular, the deletion of prefix and superscript consonants, 
; and of wa-zur, are done in program code, not using the rules here.

; Miscellaneous prefix transformations
g.      ; delete this (representing g prefix, used before root y only)
dby y   ; must come before db->w, for dbyang
dbr r   ; must come before db->w, for dbral
db w    ; must come before by->j

; c and ch are both transcribed ch.  To get this we need a kludge
; (involving x), because the rule c -> ch would apply recursively.
ch c
c x
x ch

; Bad behavior from Y
py ch
phy ch
by j
my ny

; Retroflexes
kr tr
khr thr
gr dr
pr tr
phr thr
br dr

; Other bad behavior from R
mr m
sr s

; Uniquely random case
zl d

; Vowel transformations
;
; Note: this must be done before suffix-stripping.
; Before actually doing the transformations, we "hide" the n in ng, so that ng doesn't
;   induce umlaut.  This is gross; if we had a real grammar engine it wouldn't
;   be necessary.
ng x
; Transformations of e: short before g, m, n; long otherwise
eg <20>g
em <20>m
en <20>n
e <20>
; Umlaut of a, o, u followed by d, n, l, s
ad <20>d
an <20>n
al <20>l
as <20>
od <20>d
on <20>n
ol <20>l
os <20>
ud <20>d
un <20>n
ul <20>l
us <20>
; restore ng
x ng

<?Exceptions?>

; There is one exception per line.  Each exception consists of
; the transliteration (which may be several syllables separated
; by spaces), followed by a space, a colon, a space, and the
; pronunciation (which may also contain spaces).  A semicolon 
; precedes a comment.  Blank lines are OK.

rdo rje > dorj<72>
mkha' 'gro > khandro
sku mnye > kumny<6E>
sprul sku > tulku
mtsho rgyal > tsogy<67>l
rta mgrin> tamdrin
dga' ldan > ganden
dge 'dun  > gend<6E>n
a mdo > amdo
srid pa > sipa
pad ma > p<>ma