Tibetan

How to spell tibetan

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce tibetan

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tibetan mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Tibet, its people, its language, or its culture.
2. nounA person from Tibet, or the language spoken there.

Tibetan in a sentence

• adjective

  The museum opened a new exhibit of tibetan art and textiles.

• noun

  The guide was a tibetan who had grown up near the monastery.

• adjective

  She studied tibetan Buddhism for several years before moving abroad.

• noun

  The prayer flags were printed with verses written in tibetan.

Where does tibetan come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is built on the place name Tibet, the high plateau region of Central Asia, plus the English suffix -an, which marks something as belonging to or coming from a place, as in 'American' or 'European'. The name Tibet reached European languages through Arabic and Persian forms such as Tubbat, which travelling merchants and geographers used for the kingdom beyond the Himalayas. Those forms are generally thought to echo a Turkic or Mongolic name for the region, though the precise source is debated by scholars. English picked up Tibet from these continental spellings around the seventeenth century, and the adjective Tibetan followed naturally. The single t in the middle and the simple -an ending are the spots to watch, since writers sometimes want to double a consonant that is in fact single.

How the word is built

• Tibet (place name)
• -an (suffix meaning 'belonging to' or 'native of')