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Classical Burmese placenames[edit]

Classical name (IAST) Burmese Modern appellations Sources Notes
Jayapura ဇေယျာပူရ Sagaing
Ratanapura ရတနာပူရ Mandalay, Ava
Vijayapura ဝိဇယပူရ Pinya
Amarapura အမရပူရ Amarapura
Arimaddanapura အရိမဒ္ဒနာပူရ Pagan
Duṭṭhavatī ဒုဋ္ဌဝတီ Hsipaw
Tampavatī တမ္ပဝတီ Pagan
Haṃsāvatī ဟံသာဝတီ Pago
Kambojaraṭṭha ကမ္ဗောဇရဋ္ဌ Nyaungshwe
Khemāraṭṭha ခေမာရဋ္ဌ Kengtung ခေမာရတ္ထတုန်ဝဘူရီ
Ketumadi ကေတုမဒီ Taungoo
Kandaravatī ကန္ဒရဝတီ Loikaw
Sīviraṭṭha သိဝိရဋ္ဌ Hsenwi
Kusimanagara ကုသိမနဂရ Pathein
Vesālī ဝေသာလီ Waithali
Haṅsāvatī ဟင်္သာဝတီ Laihka ဟံသာဝတီ, Maingshu
Jambularaṭṭha Manglön
Lokavatī လောကဝတီ Maukme Maingkaing?
Udiri Pale? Mogaung
Laṅkāvatī? Mongkung
Gandhālaraṭṭha ဂန္ဓာလရဋ္ဌ Momeik
Saturambha Mongnai စတုရမ္ဘ (သို့) နန္ဒပွား
Dhaññavatī ဓညဝတီ Mongpawn
Rajjavadi? Mongpawn
Pappaṭasāra Tawnpeng ပပဌစာရ
စန္နဝတီ? Maingpan
နန္ဒာဝတီ? Maingnaung
သမ္ဘူလရဋ္ Mainglun

See also[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Phawlone.

References[edit]


History[edit]

The Burmese language is generally divided into three stages:

  1. Old Burmese dates from the 11th to the 16th century (Pagan and Ava dynasties)
  2. Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century (Toungoo to early Konbaung dynasties);
  3. Modern Burmese from the mid-18th century to the present.

Ongoing developments in the Burmese script followed that of the spoken language.

Prehistory[edit]

The ancestors of the Burmans (Bamar), modern Burmese speakers, migrated southward from the Tibetan plateau to southwestern China (present-day Sichuan and Yunnan) between the 2nd to 9th centuries.[1] Between the 7th and 9th centuries, they settled in the Irrawaddy River valley, an area already settled by Tibeto-Burman speaking Pyu who had migrated to the region approximately 500 years earlier.[1]

The Burmans who had come down with the early 9th century Nanzhao raids of the Pyu states remained in Upper Burma. (Trickles of Burman migrations may have begun as early as the 7th century.[2]) Like that of the Pyu, the original home of Burmans prior to Yunnan is believed to be present-day Qinghai and Gansu provinces.[3][4] After the Nanzhao attacks had greatly weakened the Pyu city-states, large numbers of Burman warriors and their families entered the Pyu realm in the 830s and 840s and settled at the confluence of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers, perhaps to help Nanzhao pacify the surrounding countryside.[5] Over the next two hundred years, the small principality gradually grew to include its immediate surrounding areas— to about 200 miles (320 km) north to south and 80 miles (130 km) from east to west by Anawrahta's accession in 1044. Historically verifiable Burmese history begins with Anawrahta's accession.[6]

Old Burmese[edit]

Main article: Old Burmese

Old Burmese is the oldest attested stage of the Burmese language. Through contact with the Pyu and Mon peoples, Burmese speakers developed a writing system derived from the Brahmi script, which is the ancestral script of all the major Southeast Asian languages. The oldest extant inscription in Burmese is the Myazedi inscription, dated to 1113.

Old Burmese is defined by the following orthographic and phonetic features:

  • Four medials (y, r, l, w)
  • Four nasal finals (ng, ny, n, m)
  • Four consonantal finals (k, c, t, p)
  • The coalescing of preaspiration (h)

Early contact with the Mon (who spoke an Austronesian language), who had settled present-day Lower Burma by that time, has influenced both Burmese vocabulary and phonology.[1] Mon influence is found in the Burmese tonal system, which has adopted voice phonation or register as an additional tonal feature, aside from simple pitch (as noted in the 'creaky tone'), since this feature is atypical of Tibeto-Burman languages.[1]

Middle Burmese[edit]

Main article: Middle Burmese

Middle Burmese was the intermediate stage of the Burmese language, defined from the 16th to the 18th century (Toungoo to early Konbaung dynasties). Middle Burmese is defined by the following orthographic and phonetic features:

  • Three medials: merger of l
  • ry > r (1300s-1500s)

Modern Burmese[edit]

Modern Burmese began in the mid-18th century (beginnings of the Konbaung dynasty and is the form of Burmese used today.

Modern Burmese is defined by the following phonetic features:

  • great consonantal shift:
    • s > th
    • c > dz > z
    • c > ts > s
    • ch > tsh > sh
    • hr > sh
    • hy > sh
    • r > y (mid-1700s)
    • ky > ky (early 1800s)

(such as the merging of the [-l-] and [-ɹ-] medials) rather than transformations in Burmese grammatical structure and phonology, which has not changed much from Old Burmese to modern Burmese.[7] For example, during the Pagan era, the medial [-l-] (္လ) was transcribed in writing, which has been replaced by medials [-j-] (ျ) and [-ɹ-] (ြ) in modern Burmese (e.g. "school" in old Burmese က္လောင် ([klɔŋ] → ကျောင်း ([tɕáʊɴ] in modern Burmese).[8]


Likewise written Burmese has preserved all nasalized finals ([-n, -m, -ŋ]), which have merged to [-ɴ] in spoken Burmese. (The exception is [-ɲ], which, in spoken Burmese, can be one of many open vowels ([i, e, ɛ]). Likewise, other consonantal finals ([-s, -p, -t, -k]) have been reduced to [-ʔ]. Similar mergers are seen in other Sino-Tibetan languages like Shanghainese, and to a lesser extent, Cantonese.)

Modern Burmese is defined by the following orthographic changes:

  • tone marking standardization:
  • removal of the ို-ဝ်/ဝ် final (after 1878)
  • standardization of ည်/ဉ် designation (1970 by MLC)
  • ဖ/ဘ/ဗ (1970 by MLC)
  • ယ် (1970 by MLC)

Ongoing phonological changes: ွန်/ွတ် --> င် / စ် ဆ -- စ

CLEANUP[edit]

Open Syllable Rhymes
Old Burmese 1800s British Modern
ိ/ီ (i. / i) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ိယ် (iy) ေ (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ယ်/ာယ် (y / ay) ယ်/ဲ (y / ) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ု/ူ (u. / u) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ိုဝ် (uiw) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') ို (ui) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ော (au) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
/ာ (a) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ုယ် (uy) ေွ (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ွယ်/ွာယ် (wy / way) ွယ်/ွဲ (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')
ွ/ွာ (w / wa) [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (') [] Error: {{Lang}}: no text (help) (')


Final 1200s 1500s 1800s 1900s 2000s
k -က် -က်
(-ak [eʔ])
ွက်
(-wak [weʔ])
‌ောက်
(-auk [auʔ])
ိုက်
(-uik [aiʔ])
c -စ် (-ac [iʔ])
t -တ်‌ (-at [aʔ])
ွတ် (-wat [waʔ]/[uʔ])
ုတ် (-ut [ouʔ])
ိတ်‌ (-it [eiʔ])
p -ပ် (-p [aʔ] or [ɛʔ])
ွပ်‌ (-wap [waʔ] or [uɴ])
ုပ် (-up [ouʔ])
ိပ်‌ (-ip [eiʔ])
ng -င်
ွင်
‌ောင်
ိုင်
ny -ည် -ည် -ဉ်
n -န်
ွန်‌
ုန်
ိန်
m -မ်‌ / ံ
ွမ်‌
ုမ် ုမ် ုံ
ိမ်

Writing system[edit]

Main article: Burmese alphabet
Sampling of various Burmese script styles

Burmese is written using the Burmese alphabet, which consists of 33 letters, and is written from left to right, with spaces separating each clause or phrase to enhance readability.[9][10] Characterized by its circular letters and diacritics, the Burmese script is an abugida, with every letter possessing an inherent vowel အ (a. [a̰] or [ə]).[10] As with other Brahmi scripts, Burmese consonants are arranged into six consonant groups called ဝဂ် (wag), based on articulation. Tone markings, vowel modifications and medial consonants are written as diacritics, which are placed to the left, right, top, and bottom of letters.[7][10]

Written Burmese dates to the early Pagan period (9th to 10th centuries). The script was developed from either the Mon script in 1058[11] or the Pyu script in the 10th century.[12] (Both Mon and Pyu scripts are derivatives of the Brāhmī script.) The script has remained largely unchanged from its initial development, aside from the rounding of originally square characters.[13] The cursive, circular format that characterises the Burmese script today took hold in the 17th century when popular writing led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known as parabaik (ပုရပိုက်).[14][13]


Much of the orthography in written Burmese today can be traced back to Middle Burmese. Standardized tone marking was not achieved until the 18th century. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because ambiguities arose over spelling sounds that had been merged.[7] During colonial rule under the British, Burmese spelling was standardized through dictionaries and spellers. The latest spelling authority, named the Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan (မြန်မာစာလုံးပေါင်းသတ်ပုံကျမ်း), was compiled in 1978 at the request of the Burmese government.[7]

Grammar[edit]

The basic word order of the Burmese language is subject-object-verb. Pronouns in Burmese vary according to the gender and status of the audience. Burmese is monosyllabic (i.e., every word is a root to which a particle but not another word may be prefixed).[15] Sentence structure determines syntactical relations and verbs are not conjugated. Instead they have particles suffixed to them. For example, the verb "to eat," စား (ca: [sà]) is itself unchanged when modified.

Adjectives[edit]

Burmese does not have adjectives per se. Rather, it has verbs that carry the meaning "to be X", where X is an English adjective. These verbs can modify a noun by means of the grammatical particle တဲ့ (tai. [dɛ̰]) in colloquial Burmese (literary form: သော sau: [θɔ́]), which is suffixed as follows:

Colloquial: ချောတဲ့လူ hkyau: tai. lu [tɕʰɔ́ dɛ̰ lù]
Formal: ချောသောလူ hkyau: so: lu
Gloss: "beautiful" + adjective particle + "person"

Adjectives may also form a compound with the noun (e.g. လူချော lu hkyau: [lù tɕʰɔ́] "person" + "be beautiful").

Comparatives are usually ordered: X + ထက်ပို (htak pui [tʰeʔ pò]) + adjective, where X is the object being compared to. Superlatives are indicated with the prefix အ (a. [ʔə]) + adjective + ဆုံး (hcum: [zóʊɴ]).

Numerals follow the nouns they modify. Moreover, numerals follow several pronunciation rules that involve tone changes (low tone → creaky tone) and voicing shifts depending on the pronunciation of surrounding words. A more thorough explanation is found on Burmese numerals.

Verbs[edit]

The roots of Burmese verbs are almost always suffixed with at least one particle which conveys such information as tense, intention, politeness, mood, etc. Many of these particles also have formal/literary and colloquial equivalents. In fact, the only time in which no particle is attached to a verb is in imperative commands. However, Burmese verbs are not conjugated in the same way as most European languages; the root of the Burmese verb always remains unchanged and does not have to agree with the subject in person, number or gender.

The most commonly used verb particles and their usage are shown below with an example verb root စား (ca: [sá] "to eat"). Alone, the statement စား is imperative.

The suffix တယ် tai [dɛ̀] (literary form: သည် sany [ðì]) can be viewed as a particle marking the present tense and/or a factual statement:

စားတယ် (ca: tai [sá dɛ̀]) - "I eat"

The suffix ခဲ့ (hkai. [ɡɛ̰]) denotes that the action took place in the past. However, this particle is not always necessary to indicate the past tense such that it can convey the same information without it. But to emphasize that the action happened before another event that is also currently being discussed, the particle becomes imperative. Note that the suffix တယ် (tai [dɛ̀]) in this case denotes a factual statement rather than the present tense:

စားခဲ့တယ် (ca: hkai. tai [sá ɡɛ̰ dɛ̀]) - I ate

The particle နေ (ne [nè]) is used to denote an action in progression. It is equivalent to the English '-ing'"

စားနေတယ် (ca: ne tai [sá nè dɛ̀]) - I am eating

This particle ပြီ (pri [bjì]), which is used when an action that had been expected to be performed by the subject is now finally being performed, has no equivalent in English. So in the above example, if someone had been expecting you to eat and you have finally started eating, the particle ပြီ is used as follows:

(စ)စားပြီ ((ca.) ca: pri [(sə) sá bjì]) - I am (now) eating

The particle မယ် mai [mɛ̀] (literary form: မည် many [mjì]) is used to indicate the future tense or an action which is yet to be performed:

စားမယ် (ca: mai [sá mɛ̀]) - I will eat

The particle တော့ (tau. [dɔ̰]) is used when the action is about to be performed immediately when used in conjunction with မယ်. Therefore it could be termed as the "immediate future tense particle".

စားတော့မယ် (ca: tau. mai [sá dɔ̰ mɛ̀]) - I will eat (straight-away)

When တော့ is used alone, however, it is imperative:

စားတော့ (ca: tau. [sá dɔ̰]) - Eat (now)

Verbs are negated by the particle မ (ma. [mə]), which is prefixed to the verb.[16] Generally speaking, other particles are suffixed to that verb, along with မ.

The verb suffix particle နဲ့ nai. [nɛ̰] (literary form: နှင့် hnang. [n̥ɪ̰ɴ]) indicates a command:

မစားနဲ့ (ma.ca: nai. [məsá nɛ̰] Don't eat

The verb suffix particle ဘူး (bhu: [bú]) indicates a statement:

မစားဘူး (ma.ca: bhu: [məsá bú]) - [I] don't eat

Nouns[edit]

Nouns in Burmese are pluralized by suffixing the particle တွေ (twe [dè] or [tè] if the word ends in a glottal stop) in colloquial Burmese or များ (mya: [mjà]) in formal Burmese. The particle တို့ (tou. [to̰]), which indicates a group of persons or things, is also suffixed to the modified noun. An example is below:

  • မြစ် (mrac [mjɪʔ]) - river
  • မြစ်တွေ (mrac twe [mjɪʔ tè]) - rivers (colloquial)
  • မြစ်များ (mrac mya: [mjɪʔ mjá]) - rivers (formal)
  • မြစ်တို့ (mrac tou: [mjɪʔ to̰]) - rivers

Plural suffixes are not used when the noun is quantified with a number.

"five children"
ကလေး ၅ ယောက်
hka.le: nga: yauk
/kʰəlé ŋá jaʊʔ/
child five classifier

Although Burmese does not have grammatical gender (e.g. masculine or feminine nouns), a distinction is made between the sexes, especially in animals and plants, by means of suffix particles. Nouns are masculinized with the following particles: ထီး (hti: [tʰí]), ဖ (hpa [pʰa̰]), or ဖို (hpui [pʰò]), depending on the noun, and feminized with the particle မ (ma. [ma̰]). Examples of usage are below:

Numerical classifiers[edit]

Main article: Burmese numerical classifiers

Like its neighboring languages such as Thai, Burmese uses numerical classifiers (also called measure words) when nouns are counted or quantified.[17] This approximately equates to English expressions such as "two slices of bread" or "a cup of coffee." The standard word order of quantified words is:

noun + number + MEASURE WORD[17]
"5 children"
ကလေး ၅ ယောက်
[kʰəlé] [ŋà] [jaʊʔ]
'children' '5' MEASURE WORD

The word order is flipped for round numbers (numbers that end in zero), with the only exception to this rule being the number 10, which follows the standard word order:[17][18]

noun + MEASURE WORD + number
"20 children"
ကလေး အယောက် ၂၀
[kʰəlé] [əjaʊʔ] [ŋà]
'children' MEASURE WORD '20'

Measurements (e.g., time, distance, and length) such as "hour," (နာရီ) "day," (ရက်) or "month," (လ) do not require classifiers, but are still subject to the round number rule.[19]

Below are some of the most commonly used classifiers in Burmese.

Burmese MLC IPA Usage Remarks
ယောက် yauk [jaʊʔ] for people Used in informal context
ဦး u: [ʔú] for people Used in formal context and also used for monks and nuns
ပါး pa: [bá] for people Used exclusively for monks and nuns of the Buddhist order
ကောင် kaung [kàʊɴ] for animals
ခု hku. [kʰṵ] general classifier Used with almost all nouns except for animate objects
လုံး lum: [lóʊɴ] for round objects
ပြား pra: [pjá] for flat objects
စု cu. [sṵ] for groups Can be [zṵ].

Particles[edit]

The Burmese language makes prominent usage of particles (called ပစ္စည်း in Burmese), which are untranslatable words that are suffixed or prefixed to words to indicate level of respect, grammatical tense, or mood. According to the Myanmar–English Dictionary (1993), there are 449 particles in the Burmese language. For example, စမ်း ([sáɴ]) is a grammatical particle used to indicate the imperative mood. While လုပ်ပါ ("work" + particle indicating politeness) does not indicate the imperative, လုပ်စမ်းပါ ("work" + particle indicating imperative mood + particle indicating politeness) does. Particles may be combined in some cases, especially those modifying verbs.

Some particles modify the word's part of speech. Among the most prominent of these is the particle အ ([ə]), which is prefixed to verbs and adjectives to form nouns or adverbs. For instance, the word ဝင် means "to enter," but combined with အ, it means "entrance" (အဝင်). Also, in colloquial Burmese, there is a tendency to omit the second အ in words that follow the pattern အ + noun/adverb + အ + noun/adverb, like အဆောက်အအုံ, which is pronounced [əsʰaʊʔ ú] and formally pronounced [əsʰaʊʔ əòʊɴ].

Pronouns[edit]

Subject pronouns begin sentences, though the subject is generally omitted in the imperative forms and in conversation. Grammatically speaking, subject marker particles (က ([ɡa̰] in colloquial, သည် [θì] in formal) must be attached to the subject pronoun[20], although they are also generally omitted in conversation. Object pronouns must have an object marker particle (ကို [ɡò] in colloquial, အား [á] in formal) attached immediately after the pronoun. Proper nouns are often substituted for pronouns. One's status in relation to the audience determines the pronouns used, with certain pronouns used for different audiences.

Polite pronouns are used to address elders, teachers and strangers, through the use of feudal-era third person pronouns in lieu of first and second person pronouns. In such situations, one refers to oneself in third person: ကျွန်တော် (kya. nau [tɕənɔ̀]) for males, and ကျွန်မ (kya. ma. [tɕəma̰]) for females, both meaning "your servant") and refer to the addressee as မင်း (min [mɪ́ɴ]; "your highness"), ခင်ဗျား (khang bya: [kʰəmjá]; "master lord")[21] or ရှင် (hrang [ʃɪ̀ɴ]; "ruler/master").[22] So ingrained are these terms in the daily polite speech that people use them as the first and second person pronouns without giving a second thought to the root meaning of these pronouns.

When speaking to a person of the same status or of younger age, ငါ (nga [ŋà]; "I/me") and နင် (nang [nɪ̀ɴ]; "you") may be used, although most speakers choose to use third person pronouns.[23] For example, an older person may use ဒေါ်လေး (dau le: [dɔ̀ lé]; "aunt") or ဦးလေး (u: lei: [ʔú lé]; "uncle") to refer to himself, while a younger person may use either သား (sa: [θá]; son) or သမီး (sa.mi: [θəmí]; daughter).

The basic pronouns are:

Person Singular Plural*
Informal Formal Informal Formal
First person ငါ
nga
([ŋà]) 		ကျွန်တော်‡
kywan to
([tɕənɔ̀])

ကျွန်မ†
kywan ma.
([tɕəma̰]) 		ငါဒို့
nga tui.
([ŋà do̰]) 		ကျွန်တော်တို့‡
kywan to tui.
([tɕənɔ̀ do̰])

ကျွန်မတို့†
kywan ma. tui.
([tɕəma̰ do̰])
Second person နင်
nang
([nɪ̀ɴ])

မင်း
mang:
([mɪ́ɴ]) 		ခင်ဗျား‡
khang bya:
([kʰəmjá])

ရှင်†
hrang
([ʃɪ̀ɴ]) 		နင်ဒို့
nang tui.
([nɪ̀ɴ do̰]) 		ခင်ဗျားတို့‡
khang bya: tui.
([kʰəmjá])

ရှင်တို့†
hrang tui.
([ʃɪ̀ɴ])
Third person သူ
su
([θù]) 		(အ)သင်
(a.) sang
([(ə)θìɴ]) 		သူဒို့
su tui.
([θù do̰]) 		သင်တို့
sang tui.
([θìɴ])
* The basic particle to indicate plurality is တို့ (tui.), colloquial ဒို့ (dui.).[16]
‡ Used by males.
† Used by females.

Other pronouns are reserved for speaking with Buddhist monks. When speaking to a monk, pronouns like ဘုန်းဘုန်း bhun: bhun: (from ဘုန်းကြီး phun: kri:, "monk"), ဆရာတော် (chara dau [sʰəjàdɔ̀]; "royal teacher"), and အရှင်ဘုရား (a.hrang bhu.ra:; [ʔəʃɪ̀ɴ pʰəjá]; "your lordship") are used depending on their status (ဝါ); when referring to oneself, terms like တပည့်တော် (ta. pany. tau ; "royal disciple") or ဒကာ (da. ka [dəɡà], "donor") are used. When speaking to a monk, the following pronouns are used:

Person Singular
Informal Formal
First person တပည့်တော်†
ta.pany. do 		ဒကာ†
da. ka
[dəɡà]
Second person ဘုန်းဘုန်း
bhun: bhun:
([pʰóʊɴ pʰóʊɴ])

(ဦး)ပဉ္စင်း
(u:) pasang:
([(ú) bəzín]) 		အရှင်ဘုရား
a.hrang bhu.ra:
([ʔəʃɪ̀ɴ pʰəjá])

ဆရာတော်‡
chara dau
([sʰəjàdɔ̀])
† The particle ma. (မ) is suffixed for females.
‡ Typically reserved for the chief monk of a monastery.

In colloquial Burmese, possessive pronouns are contracted when the root pronoun itself is low toned.[20] This does not occur in literary Burmese, which uses ၏ ([ḭ]) as postpositional marker for possessive case instead of ရဲ့ ([jɛ̰]). Examples include the following:

  • ငါ ([ŋà] "I") + ရဲ့ (postpositional marker for possessive case) = ငါ့ ([ŋa̰] "my")
  • နင် ([nɪ̀ɴ] "you") + ရဲ့ (postpositional marker for possessive case) = နင့် ([nɪ̰ɴ] "your")
  • သူ ([θù] "he, she") + ရဲ့ (postpositional marker for possessive case) = သူ့ ([θṵ] "his, her")

The contraction also occurs in some low toned nouns, making them possessive nouns (e.g. အမေ့ or မြန်မာ့, "mother's" and "Burma's" respectively).

Family terms[edit]

Main article: Burmese kinship

The most obvious difference between Upper Burmese and Lower Burmese is that Upper Burmese speech still differentiates maternal and paternal sides of a family:

Term Upper Burmese Lower Burmese Myeik dialect
  • Paternal aunt (older)
  • Paternal aunt (younger)
  • Maternal aunt (older)
  • Maternal aunt (younger)
  • Paternal uncle (older)
  • Paternal uncle (younger)
  • Maternal uncle (older)
  • Maternal uncle (younger)

1 The youngest (paternal or maternal) aunt may be called ထွေးလေး [dwé lé], and the youngest paternal uncle ဘထွေး [ba̰ dwé].

In a testament to the power of media, the Yangon-based speech is gaining currency even in Upper Burma. Upper Burmese-specific usage, while historically and technically accurate, is increasingly viewed as countrified speech, or at best regional speech. In fact, some usages are already considered strictly regional Upper Burmese speech, and are likely dying out. For example:

Term Upper Burmese Standard Burmese
  • Elder brother (to a male)
  • Elder brother (to a female)
  • Younger brother (to a male)
  • Younger brother (to a female)
  • Elder sister (to a male)
  • Elder sister (to a female)
  • Younger sister (to a male)
  • Younger sister (to a female)

In general, the male-centric names of old Burmese for familial terms have been replaced in standard Burmese with formerly female-centric terms, which are now used by both sexes. One holdover is the use of ညီ (younger brother to a male) and မောင် (younger brother to a female). Terms like နောင် (elder brother to a male) and နှမ (younger sister to a male) now are used in standard Burmese only as part of compound words like ညီနောင် (brothers) or မောင်နှမ (brother and sister).

Reduplication[edit]

Reduplication is prevalent in Burmese and is used to intensify or weaken adjectives' meanings. For example, ချော ([tɕʰɔ́] "beautiful") is reduplicated, the intensity of the adjective's meaning increases. Many Burmese words, especially adjectives with two syllables, such as လှပ ([l̥a̰pa̰] "beautiful"), when reduplicated (လှပ → လှလှပပ [l̥a̰l̥a̰ pa̰pa̰]) become adverbs. This is also true of some Burmese verbs and nouns (e.g. ခဏ "a moment" → ခဏခဏ "frequently"), which become adverbs when reduplicated.

Some nouns are also reduplicated to indicate plurality. For instance, ပြည် ([pjì] "country"), but when reduplicated to အပြည်ပြည် ([əpjì pjì] "country"), means "many countries," as in အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ ([əpjì pjì sʰàɪɴ jà] "international"). Another example is အမျိုး, which means "a kind," but the reduplicated form အမျိုးမျိုး means "multiple kinds."

A few measure words can also be reduplicated to indicate "one or the other":

  • ယောက် (measure word for people) → တစ်ယောက်ယောက် (someone)
  • ခု (measure word for things) → တစ်ခုခု (something)

Romanization and transcription[edit]

Main article: Romanization of Burmese

There is no official romanization system for Burmese. There have been attempts to make one, but none have been successful. Replicating Burmese sounds in the Latin script is complicated. There is a Pāli-based transcription system in existence, MLC Transcription System, which was devised by the Myanmar Language Commission (MLC). However, it only transcribes sounds in formal Burmese and is based on the orthography rather than the phonology.

Several colloquial transcription systems have been proposed, but none is overwhelmingly preferred over others.

Transcription of Burmese is not standardized, as seen in the varying English transcriptions of Burmese names. For instance, a Burmese personal name like ဝင်း ([wɪ́ɴ]) may be variously romanized as Win, Winn, Wyn, or Wynn, while ခိုင် ([kʰàɪɴ]) may be romanized as Khaing, Khine, or Khain.

Computer input[edit]

The Burmese script can be entered from the standard QWERTY keyboard. The most popular Burmese font, Zawgyi, is not Unicode-compliant, though a number of Unicode-compliant fonts are available. Microsoft Windows 8 supports Burmese Unicode and supplies a font, Myanmar Text, that is Unicode-compliant.[24]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d Hopple 2004, p. 160.
  2. ^ Htin Aung 1967, p. 32.
  3. ^ Moore 2007, p. 236.
  4. ^ Hall 1960, p. 11.
  5. ^ Lieberman 2003, p. 90. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLieberman2003 (help)
  6. ^ Harvey 1925, p. 24-25. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHarvey1925 (help)
  7. ^ a b c d Herbert & Milner 1989.
  8. ^ Khin Min 1987.
  9. ^ San San Hnin Tun 2012.
  10. ^ a b c UC 2012, p. 369.
  11. ^ Harvey 1925, p. 307. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFHarvey1925 (help)
  12. ^ Aung-Thwin 2005, p. 167–178, 197–200.
  13. ^ a b UC 2012, p. 368.
  14. ^ Lieberman 2003, p. 136. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLieberman2003 (help)
  15. ^ Taw Sein Ko 1924, p. viii. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFTaw_Sein_Ko1924 (help)
  16. ^ a b Campbell 1998, p. 101.
  17. ^ a b c Wheatley 2013.
  18. ^ Okell 2009, p. 33, 38, 66, 165.
  19. ^ Okell 2009, p. 164.
  20. ^ a b Campbell 1998, p. 100.
  21. ^ From Burmese သခင်ဘုရား, lit. "lord master"
  22. ^ Bradley 1993, p. 157–160.
  23. ^ Bradley 1993.
  24. ^ "Myanmar Text - Version 1.00". Microsoft Typography. Microsoft. 2013. Retrieved 19 October 2013.

References[edit]

  • Htin Aung, Maung (1967). A History of Burma. New York and London: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hall, D.G.E. (1960). Burma (3rd ed.). Hutchinson University Library. ISBN 978-1-4067-3503-1.
  • Harvey, G. E. (1925). History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
  • Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7.
  • Moore, Elizabeth H. (2007). Early Landscapes of Myanmar. Bangkok: River Books. ISBN 978-974-9863-31-2.

Further reading[edit]

  • Becker, Alton L. (1984). "Biography of a sentence: A Burmese proverb". In E. M. Bruner (ed.) (ed.). Text, play, and story: The construction and reconstruction of self and society. Washington, D.C.: American Ethnological Society. pp. 135–55. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  • Bernot, Denise (1980). Le prédicat en birman parlé (in French). Paris: SELAF. ISBN 2-85297-072-4.
  • Cornyn, William Stewart (1944). Outline of Burmese grammar. Baltimore: Linguistic Society of America.
  • Cornyn, William Stewart (1968). Beginning Burmese. New Haven: Yale University Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Green, Antony D. (2005). "Word, foot, and syllable structure in Burmese". In J. Watkins (ed.) (ed.). Studies in Burmese linguistics. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 1–25. ISBN 0-85883-559-2. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  • Okell, John (1969). A reference grammar of colloquial Burmese. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-7007-1136-8.
  • Roop, D. Haigh (1972). An introduction to the Burmese writing system. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01528-3.
  • Taw Sein Ko (1924). Elementary handbook of the Burmese language. Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press.
  • Watkins, Justin W. (2001). "Illustrations of the IPA: Burmese". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 31 (2): 291–95. doi:10.1017/S0025100301002122.
  • Patricia M Herbert, Anthony Milner, ed. (1989). South East Asia Languages and Literatures: Languages and Literatures: A Select Guide. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1267-0.

External links[edit]

Burmese edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For a list of words relating to Hintha/Sandbox, see the Hintha/Sandbox category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Burmese_phrasebook.
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