ʼPhags-pa script
| ʼPhags-pa ꡏꡡꡃꡣꡡꡙꡐꡜꡞ ḥPʻags-pa | |
|---|---|
Christian tombstone from Quanzhou dated 1314, with inscription in the ʼPhags-pa script ꞏung shė yang shi mu taw 'tomb memorial of Yang Wengshe' | |
| Script type | |
| Creator | Drogön Chögyal Phagpa |
Period | 1269 – c. 1660 |
| Direction | Vertical left-to-right |
| Languages | |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | Zanabazar's square |
Sister systems | Lepcha, Meitei, Khema, Marchen, Tamyig script |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Phag (331), Phags-pa |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Phags-pa |
| U+A840–U+A87F | |
| Transliteration of Chinese |
|---|
| Mandarin |
| Wu |
| Yue |
| Min |
| Gan |
| Hakka |
| Xiang |
| Polylectal |
| See also |
| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| The Brahmi script and its descendants |
The Phagspa (/ˈpɑːɡzˌpɑː/ PAHGZ-PAH), ʼPhags-pa or ḥPʻags-pa script is an alphabet designed by the Tibetan monk and State Preceptor (later Imperial Preceptor) Drogön Chögyal Phagpa (1235–1280) for Kublai Khan (r. 1264–1294), the founder of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in China, as a unified script for the written languages within the Yuan. The actual use of this script was limited to about a hundred years during the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, and it fell out of use with the advent of the Ming dynasty.
The script was used to write and transcribe varieties of Chinese, the Tibetic languages, Mongolian, the Uyghur language, Sanskrit, probably Persian, and other neighboring languages during the Yuan era. For historical linguists, its use provides clues about changes in these languages.
Its descendant systems include Horizontal square script, used to write Tibetan and Sanskrit. During the Pax Mongolica the script even made numerous appearances in Western medieval art.