Umê script

Umê scripts དབུ་མེད་
Script type	Abugida (Informal cursive forms of the Tibetan script)
Created	c. 620
Period	c. 620–present
Languages	Tibetan Dzongkha (limited)
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Brahmi Northern Brahmi Gupta Tibetan Umê scripts
Child systems	Lepcha Khema Phagspa Marchen Tamyig
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Tibt (330), ​Tibetan
Unicode
Unicode alias	Tibetan
Unicode range	U+0F00–U+0FFF

Tibetan consonants in Ume script; note those with vertical tsheg marks

Umê (Tibetan: དབུ་མེད་, Wylie: dbu-med, IPA: [ume]; variant spellings include umé, u-me) is a family of stylistic variants of the Tibetan alphabet used for both calligraphy and shorthand. The name umê means "headless" and refers to its distinctive feature: the absence of the horizontal guide line ('head') across the top of the letters. Between syllables, the tsheg mark (་) often appears as a vertical stroke, rather than the shorter 'dot'-like mark in some other scripts.

Kyuyig (Tibetan: འཁྱུག་ཡིག།་, Wylie: kyug-yig) or Gyu-yig (Tibetan: རྒྱུག་ཡིག།, Wylie: gyug-yig), is the most common form of Umê that people in the Tibetan region use as an informal shorthand for notes and personal correspondence. It is extremely cursive, with free-flowing, distorted glyph forms. It remains unstandardised and is difficult to decipher because of its divergent shapes.

The other main style of the Tibetan script is the upright block form, uchen (དབུ་ཅན་ dbu-can; IPA: [utɕɛ̃]). The name of the block form, uchen means "with a head", corresponding to the presence of the horizontal guide line. This script is the standard formal variant of the script, used for official and religious purposes.