The Reversed Letters
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The six reversed letters are sometimes referred to as the Sanskrit letters, since their original purpose was for use in the translation of texts from Sanskrit. In modern Tibetan these letters have taken on a new role and therefore it's important for the student to recognize them.
| Examples of Reversed Letters Usage in Modern Tibetan | ||
| Tibetan | English | Comments |
| ཁ་ཎ་ཌ་ | Canada | If this word were spelled with non-reversed letters, its literal meaning could be "mouth-sick-now". By using reversed letters the meaning becomes obvious and the pronunciation is about the same as in English. |
| མོ་ཊ་í | Car | This word is pronounced roughly the same as the English word "motor". There are other words in Tibetan with the same meaning, e.g. "num-kor-kar": སྣུམ་འཁོར་ཀཱར་ |