Fruits

1. ཀུ་ཤུ།

   Ku shu

   Apple

   Usage

   The word for "apple." Dialectally the same word also means a mobile phone, especially a smartphone, from the genericised Apple trademark, so say it where the fruit is obviously the subject

2. ངང་ལག

   Ngang lag

   Banana

   Usage

   The word for "banana." The synonym ke ra (also ke la) is an Indic borrowing; Dzongkha and Sikkimese share the same form. It ends in a bare ga, so no shad is written

3. ཚ་ལུ་མ།

   Tsa lu ma

   Orange

   Usage

   The word for "orange, tangerine." It is analysed as tsalu (red) plus the noun suffix ma. Related entries are tsaluma kyurmo, bitter orange, and gyanak tsaluma, mandarin

4. རྒུན་འབྲུམ།

   Gün drum

   Grape

   Usage

   This is the grape, gün drum; gün chang is grape WINE, a different word. Bare gün also means grape in Khams and Western Tibetan, but gün drum is the form used across Ü-Tsang, Khams and Amdo

5. འབྲི་ཏ་ས་འཛིན།

   Dri ta sa dzin

   Strawberry

   Usage

   The word for strawberry; a different form, tsa drumbu, also exists. The spelling is not settled, so point at the fruit or a photo if the word does not land

6. ཆུ་ཀུབ།

   Chu kub

   Watermelon

   Usage

   The word for watermelon, romanised chu kub. Beware the near-neighbours ha mi kub, cantaloupe, and kub ngar, melon

7. ཐང་འབྲས།

   Thang dre

   Pineapple

   Usage

   The word for "pineapple." Nothing of the kind grows on the plateau, so what reaches the market is trucked up from the lowlands

8. བེ་ཏ།

   Be ta

   Coconut

   Usage

   The word for the coconut palm. Tibetans have long called it beta and old texts write beta, but in India today, and among Tibetans settled there, it is called kokonatri or kokonareya. In the exile communities the English-derived name travels better

9. ལིམ་བུ།

   Lim bu

   Lime / Lemon

   Usage

   The word for "lemon," a transcription of the English. Tibetan does not separate lime from lemon

10. ཤིང་ཏོག་ཨམ།

    Shing tog am

    Mango

    Usage

    The word for "mango," built from shingtog (fruit) plus am. Its synonym amra, from Sanskrit āmra, has "persimmon" as its first sense, so this is the safer form when you mean only the mango

11. དུ་རི་ཡན།

    Du ri yan

    Durian

    Usage

    This fruit has no Tibetan name of its own. What is written here is only the English "durian" transcribed into Tibetan letters — it is not a Tibetan word. It is not sold on the plateau, so in Southeast Asia point at the fruit or a photo instead

12. མང་གོ་སི་ཊིན།

    Mang go si tin

    Mangosteen

    Usage

    This fruit has no Tibetan name of its own. This is only the English "mangosteen" transcribed into Tibetan letters, not a Tibetan word

13. སེ་ཡབ།

    Se yab

    Papaya

14. འབྲུག་ཚགས།

    Druk tsag

    Lychee

    Usage

    The word for "lychee." Druk is "dragon," pairing it with the longan, druk mig, "dragon eye," after Chinese longyan

15. རམ་བུ་ཊན།

    Ram bu tan

    Rambutan

    Usage

    This fruit has no Tibetan name of its own. This is only the English "rambutan" transcribed into Tibetan letters, not a Tibetan word

16. ཌི་རག་གོན་ཕུ་རུ་ཊི།

    Di rag gon phu ru ti

    Dragon fruit

    Usage

    This fruit has no Tibetan name of its own. This is only the English "dragon fruit" transcribed into Tibetan letters, not a Tibetan word

17. འབྲུག་མིག

    Druk mig

    Longan

    Usage

    The word for the longan. Druk (dragon) plus mig (eye) calques Chinese longyan directly. It ends in a bare ga, so no shad is written

18. པ་ར་མི་ཏ།

    Pa ra mi ta

    Jackfruit

    Usage

    The word for the jackfruit. The name is of Indic stock, cognate with the names used across South and Southeast Asia

19. ཊ་མ་རིན་ཌ།

    Ta ma rin da

    Tamarind

    Usage

    This fruit has no Tibetan name of its own. This is only the English "tamarind" transcribed into Tibetan letters, not a Tibetan word

20. གུ་ཝ་བ།

    Gu wa ba

    Guava

    Usage

    This fruit has no Tibetan name of its own. This is only the English "guava" transcribed into Tibetan letters, not a Tibetan word

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