The SASM/GNC/SRC romanization of Standard Tibetan, commonly known as Tibetan pinyin or ZWPY (Chinese: 藏文拼音; pinyin: Zàngwén Pīnyīn), is the official transcription system for the Tibetan language in China.[1] It is based on the pronunciation used by China National Radio's Tibetan Radio,[1] which is based on the Lhasa dialect. It has been used within China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin script since 1982.[2][3]
Tibetan pinyin is a phonetic transcription, and as such its spelling is tied to actual pronunciation (although tone is not marked).[4] Wylie on the other hand is a transliteration system, where mechanical conversion to and from Tibetan and Latin script is possible. Within academic circles, Wylie transliteration (with a v replacing the apostrophe) is more commonly used.
Tibetan names have been romanized according to the official scheme, the so-called Tibetan pinyin. The romanization is based on actual pronunciation and is not always predictable if only written form is known.