Tibetan numerals

Tibetan numerals are the way numbers are written and counted in the Tibetan language. They are part of the Tibetan script. These numbers are similar to the ones we use every day, called the Hindu–Arabic numeral system.

These numbers are special because they were used as a base for the Mongolian numerals. This shows how ideas about counting can travel between different cultures. Learning about Tibetan numerals helps us see how people in different places think about and use numbers.

Cardinal numbers

Extended numbers

Tibetan numbers larger than 20 use special words to connect the first and second parts. Each set of ten has its own word: རྩ for 21-29, སོ for 31-39, ཞེ for 41-49, ང for 51-59, རེ for 61-69, དོན for 71-79, གྱ for 81-89, and གོ for 91-99. Sometimes, ཉེར is used instead of རྩ. These words help make numbers easier to say without using the full name of the second part (for example, སོ་གཉིས for 32 instead of སུམ་བཅུ་སོ་གཉིས). These words are not used for numbers that end in 0. To show a number ends in zero, you can add ཐམ་པ at the end (like བཞི་བཅུ་ཐམ་པ or བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ). For numbers with three or more digits, the words དང (when written) and ར (when spoken) are used to separate the parts (for example, ཉིས་བརྒྱ་དང་བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་གཉིས or ཉིས་བརྒྱ་ར་བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་གཉིས for 282). If the third digit is zero in a number with four or more digits, it is shown with the phrase བརྒྱ་མེད, meaning "without hundred" (like ཉིས་སྟོང་བརྒྱ་མེད་དང་ཉི་ཤུ་ཉེར་ལྔ).

Ordinals

The Tibetan language uses special words to show the order of things, like "first," "second," and "third." These words are called ordinals.

In Tibetan, the first five ordinal numbers are:

1. ལྔ (nga) – first
2. གཉིས་པ (nyi pa) – second
3. གསུམ་པ (sum pa) – third
4. བཞི་པ (shi pa) – fourth
5. ལྔ་སྐྱེད་པ (nga kye pa) – fifth

These special words help us talk about things in order, like saying "the first step" or "the second turn."

Fractions

Tibetan numerals have special symbols to show fractions. These symbols look like slashes between numbers. We do not know exactly what they mean or if people used them long ago.