Transliteration: ba
I. <consonant letter> The fifteenth of the གསལ་བྱེད་སུམ་ཅུ་ thirty consonants of the Tibetan language. 1) The enunciation of the consonant is defined as having: སྐྱེ་གནས་ place of production = the lips; བྱེད་པ་ producer = the lips; ནང་གི་རྩོལ་བ་ inner effort = joining the two lips; and ཕྱིའི་རྩོལ་བ་ outer effort = unaspirated and sounded. 2) When used as a མིང་གཞི་ name-base, the consonant is defined as a མོ་ཡིག་ "female letter" q.v. 3) When used as a སྔོན་འཇུག་ prefix, the consonant is defined as a ཕོ་ཡིག་ "male letter" q.v. 4) When used as a རྗེས་འཇུག་ suffix, the consonant is defined as a ཕོ་ཡིག་ "male letter" q.v.II. <ཚིག་ཕྲད་ phrase connector> One of several accessories that provide the བདག་པོའི་སྒྲ་ "term of the owner". This and བོ་ provide the gender inclusive form (མ་ནིང་ which can mean either neuter or inclusive of both male and female); པ་ and པོ་ provide the male form; and མ་ and མོ་ provide the female form. It is placed at the end of a word to indicate the gender inclusive form of the word e.g., རྒྱ་གར་ is India, རྒྱ་གར་བ་ is an Indian person and both male and female are included by it.
III. <ཚིག་གྲོགས་ phrase assistive> The same group of accessories that are used to make the term of the owner are also used in a way that looks just like the term of the owner but is slightly different and has a different grammatical definition. In this use, they are added after a grammatical name, just the same as when they function as a term of the owner. However, instead of showing the term of the owner, they create any of several parts of speech—nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs—from a མིང་ grammatical name. The newly-produced terms are not terms of the owner because terms of the owner only apply to persons. In this case, the newly-produced terms look like terms of the owner but are distinguished from them because they do not refer to a person. When used in this way, these phrase assistives make a more concrete "word" out of the primitive meaning associated with the grammatical name to which they have been attached. It is used following words with འ་ར་ལ་ or ང་ endings.
IV. <noun> "Cow". The name used for a female of the oxen species of animal such as the domestic animal "cow". When the word is used alone it refers to the female animal, the bull being called གླང་.
V. Used as an indicator of sequence number, like the English system of A, B, C, for marking volumes of books etcetera in which case it is the "15th".