# Grammatical Notices of the Burmese Language

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GRAMMATICAL NOTICES
of the
BURMESE LANGUAGE:
BY A. JUDSON.
MAULMAIN:
american baptist mission press
1842.
It is committed to the press, as the most ready way of meeting frequent applications for the loan of the manuscript, and in the hope of stimulating some more industrious and ambitious person to furnish a work that shall deserve to be called a Grammar of the language; for the present slender compilation aspires to no higher title, than that of “Grammatical Notices.”
Maulmain, July, 1842. ​
GRAMMATICAL NOTICES, &c.
THE ALPHABET.
The Burmese alphabet consists of ten vowels, သ​ရ, and thirty two consonants, ဗျည်း.
Vowels.
အ a, အာ a, ဣ ee, ဤ ee, ဥ, oo, ဦ oo, ဧ aa, အဲ ai, , ဩ au, ဪ au.
Consonants.
| က ka, | ခ hka, | ဂ ga, | ဃ ga, | င nga; |
| စ tsa, | ဆ htsa, | ဇ dza, | ဈ dza, | ဉ, ည nya; |
| ဋ ta, | ဌ hta, | ဍ da, | ဎ da, | ဏ na; |
| တ ta, | ထ hta, | ဒ da, | ဓ da, | န na; |
| ပ pa, | ဖ hpa, | ဗ ba, | ဘ ba, | မ ma; |
| ယ ya, | ရ ra, | လ la, | ဝ wa, |
| သ tha, | ဟ ha, | ဠ la. |
According to this arrangement, the first twenty five consonants are distributed into five classes. ​The letters of the first or က class are gutturals, ကဏ္ဌ​ဇာ; those of the second or စ class are palatals, တာ​လု​ဇာ; those of the third or ဋ class are cerebrals, မုဒ္ဓ​ဇာ; those of the fourth or တ class are dentals, ဒန္တ​ဇာ; and those of the fifth or ပ class are labials, ဩ​ဌ​ဇာ.
The first letter of each class is a simple articuation, smooth and soft; the third is the same, rough and hard; the second is the aspirate of the first; the fourth, according to the Sungskrit system, whence the alphabet is derived, is the aspirate of the third, but according to the Burmese pronunciation, is the same; and the fifth is the corresponding nasal.
The pronunciation of the cerebrals and the dentals, though different in the Sungskrit, is the same in the Burmese.
Of the seven remaining consonants, five are liquids, viz. ယ, ရ, လ, ဝ, and ဠ; သ is properly a sibilant, but pronounced th, and ဟ is an aspirate.
The cerebrals and the letter ဠ are found only in words derived from the Sungskrit or Pali.
​The names and powers of the letters are as follows:—
Vowels.
| အ, | အ, | a short, as in America. |
| အာ, | အာ, | a long, as in father. |
| ဣ, | ဣ, | ee, as i in pin. |
| ဤ, | ဤ, | ee, as in feet. |
| ဥ, , | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | oo as in good, or u, as in full. |
| ဦ, | ဦ, | oo, as in food, or u, as in rule. |
| ဧ, | ဧ, | aa, as a in fate. |
| အဲ, | အဲ, | ai, as in hair. |
| ဩ, , | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | au, as o in on. |
| ဪ, | ဪ, | au, as in audience. |
Consonants.
| Name. | Power. |
| ကကြီး, great ka, | k, as in king. |
| ခခွေ, curved hka, | hk, k aspirated. |
| ဂငယ်, small ga, | g, as in good. |
| ဃကြီး, great ga, | the same. ​ |
| င, nga, | ng, as in rang. |
| စလုံး, round tsa, | ts. |
| ဆလိမ်, twisted htsa, | hts, ts aspirated. |
| ဇခွဲ, divided dza, | dz. |
| ဈ or စာမြင်းဆွဲ, bridle dza, | the same. |
| ဉ or ည, nya, | ny. |
| ဋသံလျင်းချိတ်, bier-hook ta, | t, as in time. |
| ဌဝမ်ပဲ, duck hta, | ht, t aspirated. |
| ဍရင်ကောက်, crooked breast da, | d, as in done. |
| ဎရေမှုပ်, water-dipper da, | the same. |
| ဏကြီး, great na, | n, as in not. |
| တဝပ်ပု, abdominous ta, | t, as in time. |
| ထဆင်ထူး, elephant-fetter hta, | ht, t aspirated. |
| ဒထွေး, little da, | d, as in done. |
| ဓအောက်ခြိုက်, bottom-indented da, (formerly written ,) | the same. |
| နငယ်, small na, | n, as in not. |
| ပစောက်, steep or deep pa, | p, as in part. |
| ဖဦးထုပ်, capped hpa, | hp, p aspirated. |
| ဗထက်ခြိုက်, top-indented ba, | b, as in book. |
| ဘကုန်း, hump-backed ba, | the same. |
| မ, ma, | m, as in make. ​ |
| ယပက်လက်, supine ya, | y, as in young. |
| ရကောက်, crooked ra, | r, as in run, or y, as above. |
| လ, la, | l, as in love. |
| ဝ, wa, | w, as in word. |
| သ, tha, | th, soft, as in thin, or th, hard, as in this. |
| ဟ, ha, | h, as in home. |
| ဠကြီး, great la, | l, as in love. |
The character ံ called နိဂ္ဂ​ဟိတ် or သေး​သေး​တင်, is reckoned among the consonants, by the Burmese. It is placed over the letter, with which it is combined, and has the power of a final မ, divested of its inherent heavy accent (see Accents;) thus သံ, than.
Compound Consonants.
Compound Consonants are formed by combining one or more of the letters ယ, ရ, ဝ, and ဟ under symbolic forms, with simple consonants, according to the following table:— ​
| Letter, | Symbol, | Name of Symbol, | Junction with မ, | Power. |
| ယ | ျ | ယပင် | မျ | mya. |
| ရ | ြ | ရရစ် | မြ | mra or mya. |
| ဝ | ွ | ဝဆွဲ | မွ | mwa. |
| ယ & ဝ | ျွ | ယပင်ဝဆွဲ | မျွ | mywa. |
| ရ & ဝ | ြွ | ရရစ်ဝဆွဲ | မြွ | mrwa or mywa. |
| ဟ | ှ | ဟထိုး | မှ | hma. |
| ယ & ဟ | ျှ | ဟထိုးယပင် | မျှ | hmya. |
| ရ & ဟ | ြှ | ဟထိုးရရစ် | မြှ | hmra or hyma. |
| ဝ & ဟ | ွှ | ဟထိုးဝဆွဲ | မွှ | hmwa. |
The letter ဟ, in the capacity of an aspirate, is combined with the nasals, and the letters လ and ဝ. When combined with ယ or ရ, the compound has the power of sh, as ရှန်, shan. သျှ has the same power, and sometimes လျှ also. ငြ is equivalent to ည, and ယျ to ယ.
Vowels combined with Consonants.
Vowels combined with consonants, simple or compound, are represented by symbols, according to the following table:— ​
| Vowel, | Symbol, | Name of Symbol, | Junction with က, | Power. |
| အ |
| အာ | ာ or ါ | ရေးချ | ကာ, ဂါ | ka, ga. |
| ဣ | ိ | လုံးကြီးတင် | ကိ | kee. |
| ဤ | ီ | လုံးကြီးတင်ဆံခပ် | ကီ | kee. |
| ဥ | ု | တချောင်းငင် | ကု | koo. |
| ဦ | ူ | နှစ်ချောင်းငင် | ကူ | koo. |
| ဧ | ေ | သဝေထိုး | ကေ | kaa. |
| အဲ | ဲ | နောက်ထိုးပစ်(နောက်ပစ်) | ကဲ | kai. |
| | ော | သဝေထိုးရေးချ | ကော | kau. |
| ဪ | ော် | သဝေထိုးရေးချရှေ့ထိုး | ကော် | kau. |
The vowel အ has no symbol, being understood after every consonant, that is not furnished with the symbol of another vowel, or made final in the syllable. See Final Consonants.
The second symbol of the vowel အာ is used, whenever the use of the first would convert the consonant into another letter,—also with ခ and င.
The symbols of the vowels ဣ and ဥ, when united and combined with a consonant, have the power of o, as in note; thus ကို, ko. If they close a syllable, ဝ် may optionally follow, without ​occasioning any change in the pronunciation, thus ကို and ကိုဝ် are equivalent.
The symbol of any vowel may be combined with အ, in which case the compound has the power of the vowel which the symbol represents; thus အိ is equivalent to ဣ, အု to ဥ, &c.
Final Consonants.
When a consonant ends a syllable or is final, it is distinguished by the mark ် over it, thus က်, or by another consonant subjoined, thus က္ခ.
It sometimes happens, however, that two consonants, one placed under the other, are both initials, and therefore come not under the preceding remark, but are to be regarded as a mere abbreviation; thus သ္မား is equivalent to သ​မား.
A double ဉ is written ည, the same as one form of the single. ဋ, with ဌ subjoined is commonly written ဌ. A double သ is written ဿ.
Final consonants generally assume a new and peculiar power, and also modify the preceding vowel. These permutations are exhibited in the following table:— ​
| အ | ဣ | ဥ | ဧ | | အို |
| အက် et. | အိက် īk. | အုက် ōk. | ဧက် eet. | အောက် ouk. | အိုက် aik. |
| အင် en. | အိင် īng. | အုင် ōng. | | အောင် oung. | အိုင် aing. |
| အစ် eet. | အိစ် īk. | အုစ် ōk. | ဧစ် eet. | အောစ် oot. | |
| အည် een, ee. | အိည် īng. | အုည် ōng. | ဧည် een, ee. | အောည် oon. | |
| အတ် at. | အိတ် īk. | အုတ် ōk. | ဧတ် eet. | အောတ် oot. | အိုတ် aik. |
| အန် an. | အိန် īng. | အုန် ōng. | ဧန် een. | အောန် oon. | အိုန် aing. |
| အပ် at. | အိပ် īk. | အုပ် ōk. | ဧပ် eet. | အောပ် oot. | အိုပ် aik. |
| အမ် an. | အိမ် īng. | အုမ် ōng. | ဧမ် een. | အောမ် oon. | အိုမ် aing. |
| အယ် ai. | | | | | အိုယ် o. |
| | | | ဧရ် ee. | | အိုရ် o. |
| အလ် an. | အိလ် īng. | အုလ် ōng. | ဧလ် een. | အောလ် oon. | အိုလ် o. |
| အသ် at. | အိသ် īk. | အုသ် ōk. | ဧသ် eet. | အောသ် ouk. | |
| အံ an. | အိံ īng. | အုံ ōng. | | | |
1. Cerebrals, when final, are the same as dentals.
2. The 3d letter of each class is the same as the 1st.
3. The 2d and 4th letters of each class never occur as finals, except in some words derived from the Pali, when they are mute, as မိုဃ်း, from မေ​ဃ, the sky, pronounced as မိုး.
4. ဠ် is the same as လ်.
5. ဝ် and ဟ် are mute.
6. အာ before a final, gives the syllable the same power as အ; thus အာရ် is pronounced an.
The final syllables, as exhibited above, are combined with any consonant simple or compound, as ကက် ket, ကျင် kyen, &c. without any change in their pronunciation, except in two cases, viz. ဝ before ဠ်, တ်, ပ်, or သ်, is commonly pronounced wōt, not wāt, and before ဏ်, န်, မ်, လ်, or ံ, wōn or woon, not wan; and consonants compounded with ဝ, as ကွ, စွ, &c. before ဠ်, တ်, ပ် or သ်, are commonly pronounced kooat, tsooat, &c. and before ဏ်, န်, မ်, လ်, or ံ, kooan, tsooan, &c.
​The sound of a final consonant is frequently lost or absorbed, in the initial consonant of the following syllable or word, as အက္ခရာ ekara, not etkara; and sometimes modified thereby, as သင်​ဘော thembau, not thenbau. But these permutations, being dictates of nature, will be naturally acquired without rule.
Accents.
The light accent ့, called အံ​မြစ် or အောက်​မြစ်, is placed under the letter, thus ကန့်. It is used with the vowels ဧ, အဲ, , and အို and the nasal consonants.
The heavy accent း, called ဝိ​သဇ္ဇနိ​နှစ်​လုံး (vulgarly ဝတ်​စ​နှစ်​လုံး) or ရှေ့​ပေါက်, is placed after the letter, thus ကန်း. It is used with the vowels အာ, ဤ, ဦ, ဧ and အို, and the nasal consonants. This accent is considered as inherent in the vowel အဲ (unless superseded by the light accent,) and the final consonant မ်, when combined with the vowel အ. In these cases, therefore, it is frequently omitted, as superfluous.
Abbreviations.
| မှ် for | မည် | for | ကြောင့် |
| လှ် | လည် | ၎င် or | လည်းကောင်း |
| သှ် | သည် | ၆ or | သော |
| ၏ | ဧည့် | ° (over a letter) | က် |
| ၌ | နှိုက် | ကျွန်ုပ် for | ကျွန်န်ုပ် |
| ၍ | ရွေ့ | လုင် | လုလင် |
| | ကောင်း | | သွေသောက် |
ယ is sometimes represented by its symbol, after က်, as ယောက်ျား for ယောက်​ယား, လက်ျာ for လက်​ယာ.
င် is frequently removed from its natural situation in the line, and placed over the following letter, as သင်္ဘော for သင်​ဘော.
Numerical Figures.
| ၁, | ၂, | ၃, | ၄, | ၅, | ၆, | ၇, | ၈, | ၉, | ၁၀. |
| 1, | 2, | 3, | 4, | 5, | 6, | 7, | 8, | 9, | 10. |
Punctuation.
The mark ။ is used to separate sentences, and sometimes, the clauses of a sentence.
The double mark ။ ။ is used to divide paragraphs.
PARTS OF SPEECH.
In the Burmese language, there are five parts of speech, viz. Nouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, and Interjections.
NOUNS.
Nouns are of three kinds, common, which are names of whole species; proper, which are names of individuals, as distinguished from others of the same species; and personal, commonly called personal nouns, which are names of individuals, relatively considered, as speaking, spoken to, and spoken of.
Under common nouns, are included two kinds of derivatives, the simple and the compound. Simple derivatives are mostly formed from verbal roots, by affixing အ, as အ​လင်း, light, from လင်း, to be light; but in composition, the အ is commonly dropped, as ည​စာ, for ည​အ​စာ, supper, or evening food. The same is true of all nouns, whose initial is a syllabic အ; and sometimes even when a syllable or word is affixed, as ခက်​မ for အ​ခက်​မ, a large branch. Compound derivatives will be considered under the head of Verbal Nouns.
Number.
A common noun, in its simple state, divested of all definitive adjuncts, is often a noun of multitude, as လူ​သေ​တတ်​သည်, man is mortal; but the plural of all nouns is regularly formed by affixing ကို့, pronounced ဒို့, to the singular, as လူ, man, လူ​ကို့, men. များ, many, is sometimes used instead of ကို့.
Gender.
Gender is distinguished, sometimes by a different word, as ယောက်ျား, a man, မိမ္မ, a woman; sometimes by the feminine affix မ or က​တော်, as ရ​ဟန်း, a priest, (of Boodh,) ရ​ဟန်း​မ, a priestess, မင်း, a governor, မင်း​က​တော်, a governess; and sometimes by affixing ထီး, or ဖ, or ဖို, for the masculine, and မ for the feminine, as ခွေး​ထီး, a dog, ခွေး​မ, a bitch, ကြက်​ဖ, a cock, ကြက်​မ, a hen, ငန်း​ဖို, a gander, ငန်း​မ, a goose.
Case.
The relations of nouns, expressed, in most languages, by prepositions or inflections, are here expressed by particles affixed to the noun, without any inflection of the noun itself, except in some of the personal nouns. The affixes of case are as follows:—
Nominative.
သည်, denoting the agent or subject. :
| ကား, သည်ကား, မူကား, sometimes မူ, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | ditto; as to, concerning, in regard to; sometimes adversative. |
The nominative affixes are omitted in participial clauses, as ဆ​ရာ​ပြော​သော​စ​ကား, what the teacher said, and frequently in colloquial discourse.
Objective.
ကို, denoting the object, on which an action terminates; sometimes, the object to which a thing is given, or for which, or on account of which a thing is done; sometimes, the object to which motion is directed.
သို့, towards, unto; according to; at.
The objective affixes are sometimes understood, as ရေ​ပေး​ပါ, give water, for ရေ​ကို​ပေး​ပါ.
Possessive.
၏, of, denoting possession; very frequently understood.
Dative.
အား, to; sometimes objective.
ငှါ, for, in order to; chiefly used with verbal nouns, and verbs used substantively.
Causative.
ကြောင့်, because of, on account of; sometimes instrumentive.
မို့, ditto, but seldom used in writing.
Instrumentive.
ဖြင့်, by, by means of.
Connective.
နှင့်, with, together with; sometimes instrumentive, by means of; sometimes causative, on account of.
Locative.
တွင်, in, at, among; sometimes possessive.
နှိုက်, or ၌, ditto.
မှာ, ditto.; in presence of; as to, concerning, in regard of.
Ablative.
က, from; out of; sometimes nominative; sometimes locative;
မှ, from; out of; besides; sometimes locative.
Comparative.
ကဲ့သို့, as, like as.
သဖွယ်, ditto.
လို, ditto.
လိုလို, a little like.
Certain verbal affixes, as တုံ, လေ, ပေ, ပါ, and ပေါ့, when affixed to nouns, are merely expletive.
The vocative is expressed by the noun, in a simple state, divested of all affixes. Sometimes in grave discourse, it is indicated by အို prefixed, as အို​ဆ​ရာ, O teacher.
Some relations of nouns are expressed by means of secondary nouns, which take some of the preceding affixes, and are connected with the principal nouns by ၏, the sign of the possessive, expressed or understood, as in the following examples:—
အပေါ် an upper part; အိမ်​၏​အ​ပေါ်​မှာ or အိမ်​ပေါ်​မှာ, above, over, or upon the house.
​အထက်, ditto. အိမ်​ထက်​မှာ, ditto.
အောက်, an under part; အိမ်​အောက်​မှာ, under the house.
ရှေ့, a forepart; အိမ်​ရှေ့​မှာ, before the house.
နောက်, a hind part; အိမ်​နောက်​မှာ, behind the house.
အပ, an outside; အိမ်​ပ​မှာ, without the house.
အပြင်, ditto; အိမ်​ပြင်​မှာ, ditto.
အထဲ, an inside; အိမ်​ထဲ​မှာ, within the house.
အတွင်း, ditto; အိမ်​တွင်း​မှာ, ditto.
အနား, aside; အိမ်​နား​မှာ, by the house.
အနီး, a near part, nearness; အိမ်​နီး​မှာ, near the house.
အထံ, presence; မင်း​ထံ​မှာ, in presence of the governor.
ဆီ, ditto; မင်း​ဆီ​မှာ, ditto.
အညာ, an upper part; မြစ်​ညာ​သို့, up the river.
အကျေ, a lower part; မြစ်​ကျေ​သို့, down the river.
The following secondary nouns are commonly used without an affix; and in some instances, are connected with the principal nouns, by နှင့် instead of ၏.
​အဖို့, a part, portion; အိမ်​ဖို့ or, ဘို့, for the house.
အထက်ဆုံး, summit, extremity; အ​သက်​ထက်​ဆုံး, through or to the end of life.
ပတ်လည်, a circuit; အိမ်​ပတ်​လည်, round the house.
ဝန်ကျင်း, ditto; အိမ်​ဝတ်​ကျင်း, ditto.
ထက်ဝန်းကျင်, ditto; အိမ်​ထက်​ဝန်း​ကျင်, ditto.
ပတ်လုံး, a whole circuit; ကာ​လ​ပတ်​လုံး, during or throughout the time.
အညီ, evenness, accordance; အ​လို​နှင့်​အ​ညီ or အ​လို​၏​အ​ညီ according to (his) will.
အတိုင်း, measurement; အ​လို​နှင့်​အ​တိုင်း or အ​လို​၏​အ​တိုင်း, ditto.
အလျောက် an agreeing with; အ​လို​နှင့်​အ​လျောက် or အ​လို​၏​အ​လျောက်, ditto.
အမျှ, as much as; ဆ​ရာ​နှင့်​အ​မျှ​တတ်​သည်, to know as much as the teacher.
အတူ, a being with; ဆ​ရာ​နှင့်​အ​တူ, with the teacher.
အကွ, ditto; ဆ​ရာ​နှင့်​အ​ကွ, ditto.
N. B. In some instances, the numeral တ is optionally substituted for the formative အ, as ဆ​ရာ​နှင့်​တ​မျှ, ဆ​ရာ​နှင့်​တ​ကွ.
​Some relations of nouns are expressed by means of verbs also, as from တိုင်​သည်, to arrive at, reach, may be formed—
အိမ်တိုင်အောင်, (with a continuative affix,) unto or as far as the house.
ကာလတိုင်အောင်, until the time.
ပြည်တိုင်တိုင်, (the root doubled,) through the country.
ကာလတိုင်တိုင်, during the time;—in which cases, တိုင် or သို့ is understood after the noun and sometimes expressed.
Personal Nouns.
ငါ, I, masculine or feminine, is used by a person in speaking to himself of himself, and in addressing inferiors.
ကွှန်နုပ်, ကွှန်ုပ်, or ကျုပ်, I, mas. or fem. is used in addressing equals, and in addressing inferiors politely.
ကျန်တော်, a servant, ကျွန်​တော်​မ, ကျွန်​မ, or ကျ​မ, a female servant, တ​ပည့်​တော်, a disciple, and တ​ပည့်​တော်​မ, a female disciple, are used as first personals in addressing superiors.
အကျွန်, I, fem. is of similar import with ကျွန်​မ, but not in common use.
​N. B. The plural affix တို့ is sometimes used for the plural of the first personal.
တိုယ်တော်, thou, mas. or fem. is used to a superior; မင်း, you, mas. to an equal or an inferior; မောင်​မန်း, you, mas. to an inferior; မင်း​မာ, you; mas. to an inferior, expressive of disapprobation, ည​ည်း or ညဲ, you, fem. to an equal or an interior; and နင်, you, mas. or fem. to children or persons very inferior.
သင်, thou, or you, mas. or fem. is used chiefly in writing, and is irrespective of the relative rank of the parties. ချင်း, you, mas. or fem. is used in judicial language.
ကွယ်, you, mas. or fem. familiar, and ဟယ်, you, mas. or fem. disrespectful, are used vocatively only. ကွယ်, makes က​ရို့, and ဟယ်, ဟရို့, in the plural.
သူ, a person, mas. or fem. supplies the place of the third personals, he and she.
သင်း, that (person or thing,) mas. fem. or neut. may also be regarded as a third personal.
ကိုယ် & ကိုယ်တိုင်, one’s self, i. e. myself, yourself, or himself, mas. or fem. are of either person, as the connection requires.
မိမိ, one’s self, mas. or fem. is confined to the second and third persons.
inflection of personal nouns.
The personal nouns, ငါ, သင်, & သူ, in the singular number, not preceded or followed by any adjective or participial adjunct, become င, သင့်, & သု, before the oblique, unaspirated affixes (except သို့,) viz. ကို, အား, ကြောင့်, တွင်, & ၏ understood; but when used nominatively, or followed by သို့, or by ၏ expressed, or by an aspirated affix, ဖြင့်, နှင့်, ၌, မှာ, or မှ, they retain their proper form. Other personal nouns, ending in a nasal, are similarly inflected.
ADJECTIVES.
Adjectives are of three kinds, pronominal, verbal, and numeral.
Adjectives of either kind are prefixed to their nouns, by means of the connective သည် or သော, if singular, and the same, or ကုန်​သည် or ကုန်​သော, if plural, or directly affixed. But to this general rule; there are several exceptions, particularly in the pronominals.
An adjective and noun, united in either way, form a compound word, which admits the plural affix, and the affixes of case, the same as a simple noun.
pronominal adjectives.
The following pronominals are prefixed to their nouns, in some cases, with, and in some, without a connective,—ရော, နင့်, or နံ့ being occasionally substituted for သော, before words of time:—
ဤ, this, as ဤ​လူ, this man; ဤ​သည်​နေ့, this day.
သည်, this.
ထို that, as ထို​လူ, that person; ထို​သော​အ​ခါ, or ထို​ရော​အ​ခါ, that time.
ယင်း, that,—infrequent.
အနည် that,—infrequent.
ဟို, & ဟုပ်, that,—colloquial.
အဘယ်, or ဘယ်, what?—occasionally contracted to အ, before သူ, as အ​သူ, for အ​ဘယ်​သူ, who? and to ဘ, before ဟာ, as ဘ​ဟာ, what thing? In negative sentences, it combines with the negative particle မ, to signify none, as ဘယ်​သူ​မ​ရှိ, there is no one.
အတိ, what?—infrequent.
အကြင်, whatever.
မည်, what? whatever. N. B. မည်​သည်, ditto, is directly prefixed or affixed.
ဤမည်, such, indefinite.
​The following pronominals are prefixed to their nouns, with the usual connectives:—
သို့, such.
ဤသို့, သည်သို့ such, of this sort.
ထိုသို့, ယင်းသို့, such, of that sort.
အဘယ်သို့, (by contraction အသို့,) ဘယ်​သို့, မည်​သို့, of what sort?
အကြင်သို့, of whatever sort.
ကဲ့သို့, and its compounds, such as.
The following, viz. အ​ချို့, and တ​ချို့, some, အ​ချား, တ​ချား, and တ​ပါး, other, ခပ်​သိမ်း and အ​လုံး​စုံ, all, are joined to their nouns, according to the general rule, except that when prefixed, the connective is, in some instances, omitted. ခပ်​သိမ်း​စုံ, all, is prefixed with a connective.
တထူး, other, တ​ကာ, and အား​လုံး, all, and အ​လုံး, all, the whole, are uniformly affixed.
အလုံး, when affixed to a noun, or a numeral, auxiliary, frequently drops the အ, or changes it to စ, as အိမ်​လုံး, or အိမ်​စ​လုံး, the whole house, အိမ်​သုံး​ခု​လုံး, or အိမ်​သုံး​ခု​စ​လုံး, all the three houses. When affixed to a singular noun, the compound occasionally takes the numeral တ, one, before it, ​without a change of meaning, as တ​အိမ်​လုံး, or တ​အိမ်​စ​လုံး, the whole house, သင်္ဘော​တ​စင်း​လုံး the whole ship.
ဘယ်နှစ်, how many? is directly prefixed to numeral auxiliaries, or words denoting a part or quantity of a thing, as သ​ရက်​သီး​ဘယ်​နှစ်​လုံး, how many mangoes? သ​ရက်​သီး​ဘယ်​နှစ်​တင်း, how many baskets of mangoes?
So much, how much? &c. are expressed, by combining pronominals with such nouns as အ​မျှ, အ​လောက်, &c. denoting quantity, as ဤ​မျှ, so much, ဘယ်​လောက်, ဘယ်​မျှ​လောက်, how much?
Some pronominals are doubled to form a kind of plural, as ထို​ထို​ဥစ္စာ, those goods.
Pronominals are frequently used substantively, and in that character, admit the noun affixes.
verbal adjectives.
Verbal adjectives are made, by joining verbal roots to nouns, according to the general rule, as မြတ်​သော​လူ, or လူ​မြတ်, an excellent man; but as the verbal root, when prefixed, is susceptible of the accidents of verbs, it is more correct to regard that construction as participial. See under Participial Affixes.
Verbal adjectives are also formed from verbal ​roots, by prefixing အ, as အ​သစ်, new, and by reduplicating the root, as ကောင်း​ကောင်း, good. Such adjectives are commonly affixed to their nouns; but အ​များ, from များ, to be many, follows the general rule, as အ​များ​သော​ဆ​ရာ, or ဆ​ရာ​အ​များ, many teachers.
The imperfect degree of comparison is sometimes made, by shortening and reduplicating the verbal root, as ချို့​ချို့ sweetish, from ချို, to be sweet, ခ​ခ, bitterish, from ခါး, to be bitter; sometimes, by affixing ခပ် to the root reduplicated, as ခပ်​ဆိုး​ဆိုး, rather bad; and sometimes, by shortening the root, and affixing reduplicated chiming increments, as ချို့​တို့​တို့ sweetish, ငန့်​တန့်​တန့်, saltish.
The comparative degree is made, by means of the secondary noun အ​ထက်, or အောက်, and a verb, as အိမ်​ထက်​ကြီး​သည်, to be greater than the house, or by a circumlocution of verbs, as သာ​၍​ကြီး​သည်, to exceed in greatness, or be greater.
The superlative degree is made, by prefixing အ, and affixing ဆုံး to the verbal root, as အ​မြတ်​ဆုံး, most excellent; and is joined to nouns, according to the general rule, as အ​မြတ်​ဆုံး​သော​လူ, or လူ​အ​မြတ်​ဆုံး, the most excellent man.
numeral adjectives.
Numerals are generally combined with a word, descriptive of some quality in the noun to which they belong, and in that state, are joined to nouns, according to the general rule.
If the numeral is less than ten, the auxiliary word is affixed to it (the formative အ, whenever it occurs, being dropped,) as ခွက်​နှစ်​လုံး, or နှစ်​လုံး​သော​ခွက်, two cups, from ခွက်, a cup, နှစ်, two, and အလုံး, round; if it is a capital number, as ten, twenty, thirty, &c. two hundred, three hundred, &c. the auxiliary is prefixed to it, as ခွက်​အ​လုံး​နှစ်​ဆယ်, or အ​လုံး​နှစ်​ဆယ်​သော​ခွက်, twenty cups; and if it is a numeral, intervening between the capitals, the auxiliary is both prefixed and affixed, as ခွက်​အ​လုံး​နှစ်​ဆယ်​နှစ်​လုံး, or အ​လုံး​နှစ်​ဆယ်​နှစ်​လုံး​သော​ခွက်, twenty two cups. But in any case in which the auxiliary is prefixed, it may be omitted, as ဆ​ရာ​အ​ပါး​နှစ်​ဆယ်, or အ​ပါး​နှစ်​ဆယ်​သော​ဆရာ, twenty teachers, may be written ဆ​ရာ​နှစ်​ဆယ်, or နှစ်​ဆယ်​သော​ဆ​ရာ, and ဆ​ရာ​အ​ပါး​နှစ်​ဆယ်​နှစ်​ပါး, or အ​ပါး​နှစ်​ဆယ်​နှစ်​ပါး​သော​ဆ​ရာ, twenty two teachers, may be written ဆ​ရာ​နှစ်​ဆယ်​နှစ်​ပါး, or နှစ်​ဆယ်​နှစ်​ပါး​သော​ဆ​ရာ.
​The following is a list of the most common numeral auxiliaries, arranged alphabetically, with the classes of things to which they are applied:—
| Numeral Auxiliaries. | Classes of Things. |
| အကောင်, a brute animal. | Brute animals, as မျောက်​တ​ကောင်, one monkey. |
| အကြောင်း, a line. | Things extended in a line, as ခ​ရီး​နှစ်​ကြောင်း, two roads. |
| အကွင်း, a circle or ring. | Rings, nooses, and such like, as လက်​စွပ်​သံး​ကွင်း, three rings. |
| အခု, an individual thing. | Things which admit no other word more descriptive, as ခ​တင်​လေး​ခု, four bedsteads, ကု​လား​ထိုင်​ငါး​ခု, five chairs. Frequently used also instead of a more appropriate numeral auxiliary. |
| အချပ်, what is flat. | Things flat and thin, as ဖျာ​ချောက်​ချပ်, six mats. |
| အချောင်း, a bar or long piece. | Things long and straight, or nearly so, as အပ်​ခု​နှစ်​ချောင်း, seven needles. ​ |
| အခွန်း, voice. | Words, speech, as စ​ကား​ရှစ်​ခွန်း, eight words. |
| အစင်း, an extended line. | Things long and straight, or nearly so, as လှံ​ကိုး​စင်း, nine spears, သင်္ဘော​ဆယ်​စင်း, ten ships. |
| အစီး, what is ridden upon. | Beasts of burden, vehicles of conveyance, as မြင်း​တစီး, one horse; လှည်း​နှစ်​စီး, two carts. |
| အစောင်, (uncertain.) | Writings, as စာ​သုံး​စောင်, three books or writings. |
| အဆူ, (uncertain.) | Deities, as ဘု​ရား​လေး​ဆူ, four gods; also, pagodas, and some other articles. |
| အဆောင်, a building. | Buildings, as အိမ်​ငါး​ဆောင်, five houses. |
| အတန်, intervening space. | Whatever occurs, at intervals of time or place, as အ​ကျိုး​ချောက်​တန်, six rewards. |
| အထည်, a piece of cloth. | Wearing apparel, as အင်္ကျီ​ခု​နှစ်​ထည်, seven coats. ​ |
| အပင်, a tree or plant. | Trees, plants, as သ​ရက်​ပင်​ရှစ်​ပင်, eight mangoe trees; also, thread, hair, &c. |
| အပါး, (uncertain.) | Deities, ecclesiastics, persons in power, any respectable characters, things immaterial, as ဆ​ရာ​ကိုး​ပါး, nine teachers, သီ​လ​ဆယ်​ပါး; ten duties. |
| အပျား, what is flat. | Things which are flat, as ပျည်​တ​ပျား, one board. |
| အဖက်, one of a pair. | Things which are naturally joined in pairs, as လက်​နှစ်​ဖက်, two hands. |
| အလက်, an arm or hand. | Weapons, tools, whatever is used by the hand, as သေ​နတ်​သုံး​လက်, three guns. |
| အလုံး, what is round. | Things round or cubical, or approaching those forms, as အိုး​လေး​လုံး, four pots, သစ်​တာ​ငါး​လုံး, five boxes. ​ |
| အသွယ်, what is slender. | Things small in bulk, compared to the length, as မြစ်​ချောက်​သွယ်, six rivers. |
| ဦး, a head, | Rational beings, as ကုန်​သည်​ခု​နှစ်​ဦး, seven merchants. |
| ယောက်, (uncertain.) | Rational beings,—generally mankind or superior beings, as လူ​ရှစ်​ယော​က်, eight men. |
Sometimes the noun itself becomes the numeral auxiliary, or is substituted for a descriptive word, as ရွာ​ကိုး​ရွာ, nine villages, မင်း​ဆယ်​မင်း, ten governors.
Words denoting some part or quantity of a thing are combined with numerals, in the same manner as words descriptive of a quality, there being no other difference in the cases, excepting that in the latter, the number of individual things merely is expressed; in the former, the number of the parts or quantities of the thing, as ရေ​နှစ်​ခွက်, or နှစ်​ခွက်​သော​ရေ, two cups of water; စက္ကူ​အ​ထုပ်​နှစ်​ဆယ်, or အ​ထုပ်​နှစ်​ဆယ်​သော​စက္ကူ, twenty bundles of paper; နှစ်​ရက်, two ​days, (ကာ​လ, time being understood) literally, two days of time.
The numeral တ, one, combined with a numeral auxiliary reduplicated, as တ​ခု​ခု, တ​ယောက်​ယောက်, denotes some one, (out of several;) when combined with a numeral auxiliary, and the combination reduplicated, as တ​ခု​တ​ခု, တ​ယောက်​တ​ယောက်, it denotes one after another, (whether every one or several;) when combined with a numeral auxiliary, and followed by the same numeral, combined with လေ, as တ​ခု​တ​လေ, တ​ယောက်​တ​လေ, (sometimes reversed,) it denotes a few, now and then one, here and there one; when combined with a numeral auxiliary, and preceded by the same numeral, combined with စုံ, as တ​စုံ​တ​ခု, တ​စုံ​တ​ခု​ယောက်, it denotes some one, indefinite. Such combinations may be regarded as pronominal adjectives. They are joined to their nouns, according to the general rule.
Ordinal numerals are of Pali origin, and are prefixed to their nouns, as ဒု​တိ​ယ​ခဏ်း, the second section. Ordinals are also made by affixing မြောက်, to raise, to cardinal numerals, modified ​as above, as နှစ်​ယောက်​မြောက်​သော​သား, the second son; နှစ်​ရက်​မြောက်​သော​နေ့, the second day.
miscellaneous adjectives.
There are a few adjectives, which, on account of some peculiarity, cannot be placed in either of the foregoing classes. Some of them are prefixed to their nouns, as မ​ဟာ, great, အာ​ကာ, extraordinary; some are either prefixed or affixed, as အ​နန္တ, infinite, သာ​မ​ည, ordinary; and some are affixed, as တိုင်း, every; က​လေး, small; တော် (honorific;) မ, principal, chief among many; အ​တိ, pure, clear, free from mixture; ချင်း, single, one only, as တ​နေ့​ချင်း​တွင်, in a single day; တည်း, only, no more, used with numerals, as တ​ခု​တည်း, one only.
nouns used adjectively.
Nouns used adjectively may be distributed into three classes, viz:—
1. Names of races of men, of countries, towns, &c. when used to qualify a following noun, as အင်္ဂလိတ်, an Englishman, အင်္ဂလိတ်​လူ, ditto, ​အင်္ဂလိတ်​ပြည်, England, the country of the English; မြမ္မာ, a Burmese, မြမ္မာ​စ​ကား, the Burmese language; ရန်​ကုန်, Rangoon, the town of Rangoon, ရန်​ကုန်​မြို့ ditto, ရန်​ကုန်​သား, or ရန်​ကုန်​မြို့​သား, a son or native of Rangoon.
2. Common nouns used to qualify a following noun, as ရွှေ, gold, ရွှေ​ဖ​လား, a golden cup; မြောက် the north, မြောက်​လမ်, the northern path; အ​ညာ the upper part, (of a country,) အ​ညာ​သား, an up-country person.
3. Names of trees, plants, and their parts, which are only used in combination with a following noun; thus from သံ​လွင်, the olive, are formed သံ​လွင်​ပင်, an olive tree, သံ​လွင်​ပွင့် an olive blossom, သံ​လွင်​သီး, an olive (the fruit), သံ​လွင်​ရွက်, an olive leaf.
VERBS.
Verbs are of two kinds, transitive, which express actions that pass from the agent to the object, as ရိုက်​သည်, to strike, ချစ်​သည်, to love; and intransitive, which express being, or some state of being, or an action which is confined to the agent, ​as ဖြစ်​သည်, to be, နေ​သည်, to remain, ကောင်း​သည် to be good, ပျက်​သည်, to be ruined, or in a state of ruin.
Many transitive verbs are formed from intransitive ones, by aspirating the initial letter. If the initial is the first letter of either of the five classes of consonants, it is changed for its corresponding aspirate, the second letter of the class, as ကျ​သည်, to fall, ချ​သည်, to throw down, or cause to fall; ပျက်​သည်, to be ruined, ဖျက်​သည်, to ruin; if the initial is a nasal, or an unclassed letter, it is combined with the letter ဟ, as ညွတ်​သည်, to be bent down, ညွှတ်​သည်, to bend down; လွတ်​သည်, to be free, လွှတ်​သည်, to make free.
accidents of verbs.
The accidents of verbs, expressed in most languages, by inflections, or auxiliary verbs, are here expressed by particles affixed to the verb, without any inflection of the verb itself. The verbal affixes are as follows:—
Assertive Affixes.
သည်, simply assertive, as သွား​သည်, he goes; in certain combinations, written သော.
​၏, same as သည်.
ဘူး, simply assertive, in negative sentences, as မ​သွား​ဘူး, he goes not,—chiefly colloquial.
ဆဲ, present, but scarcely used except substantively, as သွား​ဆဲ​ဖြစ်​သည်, he is going, (see Verbs used substantively,) or in a participial clause, according to the note below, as ယ​ခု​ဖြစ်​ဆဲ​သော​အ​မှု, the business that now is, or the present business. In the substantive construction, it may be combined with a preceding future affix, as သွား​လု​ဆဲ, or reduplicated, as သွား​မည်​ဆဲ​ဆဲ​တွင်, when he was just about going.
ပြီ, past, as သွား​ပြီ, he went, or has gone; sometimes future.
အံ့, future, as သွား​အံ့, he will go; sometimes equivalent to the continuative affix လျှင်, which see.
မည်, future.
လတံ့, or လတ္တန့်, future.
N. B. The assertive affixes of tense, ဆဲ, ပြီ, အံ့, မည်, and လတံ့, occasionally lose their assertive power, and become auxiliary to a continuative, participial, or simply assertive affix, in which case ပြီ becomes ပြီး.
Continuative Affixes.
လျက်, denoting the continuance of an action, or state of being, during another, as သွား​လျက်​စား​သည်, he eats as he goes; sometimes equivalent to လျှင်.
လျက်နှင့် denoting the continuance of an action, or state of being, during another, but somewhat inconsistent with it, as သွား​လျက်​နှင့်​စား​သည်, though going, he eats.
လျှင်, denoting 1st, the completion of an action, or state of being, prior to another, as သွား​လျှင်​သေ​သည်, having gone, he died; 2ndly, supposition or conditionality, as သွား​လျှင်​သေ​မည်, if he go, he will die.
သော်, same as လျှင်.
မူ, မူ​ကား, ရ​ကား, တ​မူ​ကား, and တ​ပြီး​ကား, in some combinations, equivalent to လျှင်.
မှ, denoting the completion of an action, prior to another.
ကတည်းက, from the first of; as သွား​က​တည်း​က, from the first of his going.
သော်လည်း, though, notwithstanding, as သွား​သော်​လည်း​မ​သေ, though he go, he will not die.
| မချည်း, ကတည်း, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | ditto,—colloquial. |
| ကစား, or လင့်ကစား, လှည့်ကာ, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | ditto,—infrequent. |
Interrogative Affixes,
(connected with the verbal root, by an assertive affix, သည် being commonly abbreviated to သ).
| လော—formal, လား,—famiIiar, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | as သွား​သည်​လော, does he go? |
| နည်း,—formal, | နည်း,—formal, | နည်း,—formal, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | used in connection with an interrogative pronominal, as ဘယ်​ကို​သွား​သ​နည်း, whither does he go? |
| လည်း, လဲ, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | —familiar, | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | used in connection with an interrogative pronominal, as ဘယ်​ကို​သွား​သ​နည်း, whither does he go? |
| used in connection with an interrogative pronominal, as ဘယ်​ကို​သွား​သ​နည်း, whither does he go? |||
စင့်, or စံ့, affixed to the root, without an ​intervening assertive affix, as သွားစင့်, does he go?—rather infrequent.
Imperative Affixes.
ကြ​ကုင်​အံ့, ditto, preceded by the first personal, as ငါ​တို့​သည်​သွား​ကြ​ကုန်​အံ့, let us go, or we will go.
လော့, imperative proper, as သွား​လော့, go.
လည့်, ditto,—infrequent.
နှင့်, prohibitory, မ being prefixed to the verb, as မ​သွား​နှင့်, go not.
The simple root also is imperative, as well as when combined with certain of the euphonic, or qualifying affixes, as ပါ, တော့, ပေ, လေ, ချေ, ခဲ့, ဘိ, လိုက်, စေ, ရော့, ဦး, ရစ်, စမ်, &c. Some of these affixes are also variously combined with one another, and with the imperative affixes, to convey the ideas of intreaty, authority, &c.
Precative Affixes.
စေသတည်း, ditto, authoritatively, as ဖြစ်​စေ​သ​တည်း, be it so.
Participial Affixes.
Auxiliary Affixes of Tense.
သေး, denoting present continuance, as သွား​သေး​သည်, he is still going; မ​သွား​သေး, he is still not gone, or he is not yet gone; sometimes denoting beside, more than, in addition, as င​စ​ကား​သာ​မ​ဟုက်။​စာ​ရှိ​သေး​သည်, there is not only my word, but there is scripture also.
ခဲ့, just past, as သွား​ခဲ့​သည်, he has just gone; frequently written ကဲ့; very frequently euphonic.
ဘူး, past indefinite, as သွား​ဘူး​သည်, he went. In negative sentences, prefixed by စ, it becomes ဖူး, ​and signifies (not) ever, as မ​သွား​စ​ဖူး, he never went. စ​သီး and စ​တောင်း are of similar import, but infrequent.
နှင့်, prior-past, or prior-future, according to the connection, as သွား​နှင့်​ပြီ, he had gone, သွား​နှင့်​မည်, he will go, before (another goes.)
လင့်, ditto,—infrequent.
ခင်, ditto,—rather infrequent.
လု, near future, about to, on the point of, retaining its meaning, whatever affixes of tense are superadded, as သွား​လု​သည်, သွား​လု​ပြီ, or သွား​လု​မည်, he is about to go, or is near going; sometimes used substantively, though not an assertive affix, as သွား​လု​နီး​ပြီ, ditto.
Affixes of Number.
| ကြ, ကုန်, ကြကုန်, | $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ | denoting the plural, as သွား​ကြ​သည်, they go;—frequently omitted, and the idea of plurality left to be conveyed by the noun affix of number, or gathered from the connection. |
Qualifying Affixes, (arranged alphabetically).
ဦး, (pron. အုံး,) more or again, commonly used ​with an assertive future affix, as သောက်​ဦး​မည်, he will drink more or again; in prohibitive sentences, (not) yet, as မ​သောက်​နှင့်​ဦး, do not drink yet.
ကုန်, entirely, wholly, (from ကုန်, to come to an end,) as သေ​ကုန်​ပြီ they are all dead.
ကောင်း, with the verb repeated, probably, as သေ​ကောင်း​သေ​မည်, he will probably die.
ခင်, see မှီ.
ချင်, optative, to wish, desire, as ပြု​ချင်​သည်, to wish to do; also, to have a tendency to, as ဖျား​ချင်​သည်, to be disposed to fever.
ချင်း, with မ prefixed to the root and to itself, and a continuative affix or clause, commonly တိုင်​အောင်, expressed or understood, until, as မ​သွား​မ​ချင်း​တိုင်​အောင်​လုပ်​လျက်​နေ​သည်, he continued working, until he went.
စေ, causal, (from စေ, to send, order,) as ပြု​စေ​သည်, he makes [him] do, ဖြစ်​စေ, let it be; when affixed to intransitive verbs, equivalent to the aspirated initial, as လွတ်​စေ​သည်, equivalent to လွှတ်​သည်, to make free, from လွတ်​သည်, to ​be free. When used as an imperative or precative, the shade of meaning is frequently determined by an intervening euphonic affix, as ဖြစ်​ပါ​စေ, may it be, ပြေး​ပါ​လေ​စေ, let it run. Combined with အံ့, it makes စိမ့်.
စွ, slightly intensive or emphatic,—commonly connected with the verb, by a euphonic affix, and sometimes superseding the assertive affix, as ကြီး​လေ​စွ, it is great indeed.
စွာ, intensive,—mostly used before the participial affix သော, as မြတ်​စွာ​စော​သူ, a very excellent person.
ဆန်း, with the verb repeated, merely, nothing more, as ကြီး​ဆန်း​ကြီး​သည်, to be large merely.
ဆိတ်, to be at leisure, as နေ​ဆိတ်​သည်, to be at leisure to stay.
တုံ, sometimes euphonic, but when repeated after a following verb, partaking of the nature of a continuative, and denoting alternation; as မြုပ်​တုံ​ပေါ်​တုံ​ရှိ​သည်, to be sinking and appearing by turns.
တော့, denoting a slight necessity.
တည့်, suddenly, prematurely, inconsiderately.
​နှိုင်, sometimes in conversation နိုင်, potential, to be able, (from နိုင်, to prevail, overcome,) as သွား​နှိုင်​သည်, to be able to go.
ပြန်, again, (from ပြန်, to return,) as ပြု​ပြန်​သည်, to do again.
ဘဲ, with မ prefixed to the root, and a continuative affix, expressed or understood, without, as မ​စား​ဘဲ​သွား​သည်, he went, without eating.
မိ, implying carelessness or fault, as ပြော​မိ​ပြီ, he has said it (and therefore committed himself;) sometimes euphonic.
မှီ, with မ prefixed to the root, and a continuative affix, expressed or understood, before, as မ​သွား​မှီ​စား​သည်, he ate, before going; combined with တိုင်​အောင်, until, as မ​သွား​မှီ​တိုင်​အောင်, until he went;—sometimes taking a noun affix, as မ​သွား​မှီ​၌, before going.
ရ, must, as သွား​ရ​မည်, he must go; frequently euphonic.
ရက်, to be capable, (in regard to feeling,) as သတ်​ရက်​သည်, to be unfeeling enough to kill; မ​ကွာ​ရက်, he cannot bear to part.
​ရစ်, remaining behind, as ပြု​ရစ်​သည် to do (it), remaining behind, နေ​ရစ်​သည်, to stay behind.
ရော့, denoting disapprobation or regret; sometimes euphonic, particularly when used imperatively.
ရှာ, denoting affection or sympathy in the speaker, as သွား​ရှာ​သည်, he goes, alas!
လွန်း, denoting excess (from လွန် to exceed), as ကောင်း​လွန်း​သည်, to be too good.
လှ, very, as ကြီး​လှ​သည်, to be very great.
လှာ, denoting coming to pass, as ကောင်း​လှာ​သည် to become good.
To these may be added a number of verbs, which are occasionally used to qualify a principal verb, as:—
အပ်, to be right, proper, as သွား​အပ်​သည် it is right to go; sometimes passive, in translations from the Pali, particularly when used, as an adversative to တတ်; frequently euphonic.
အား, to be at leisure, as သွား​အား​သည်, to be at leisure to go.
ကောင်း, to be good, as သွား​ကောင်း​သည်, it is good to go.
​ခဲ, to be hard, difficult, as ရ​ခဲ​သည်, it is difficult to obtain.
စမ်, to try, make trial, as ပြု​စမ်​သည်, to do by way of trial; sometimes but little more than euphonic.
တတ်, to know how, be skilled in, as ပြု​တတ်​သည်, to know how to do; sometimes denoting the way, custom, usual course, as လူ​သေ​တတ်​သဉ်, man is mortal.
တန်, to be suitable, as ပြု​တန်​သည်, it is suitable to be done.
ထိုက်, to be worthy, deserving of, as သေ​ထိုက်​သည်, to deserve to die.
နေ, to remain, continue, as ပြု​နေ​သည်, to continue doing.
ပျင်း, to be reluctant, averse to, as မြင်​ပျင်း​သည်, to hate to see.
ဖြစ်, to be practicable, as မ​သွား​ဖြစ်, it is not practicable to go.
ဖွယ်, to be meet, suitable, fit for, as အံ့​ဖွယ်​သော​အ​မှု a wonderful affair.
ရာ, similar to အပ်; frequently euphonic.
လောက်, to be enough, as စား​လောက်​အောင်​ရှိ​သဉ်, there is enough to eat.
​လို, to desire, as ပြု​လို​သည်, equivalent to ပြု​ချင်​သည်.
လွယ်, to be easy, as ပြု​လွယ်​သည်, it is easy to do.
ဝံ့, to dare, as ပြု​ဝံ့​သည်, to dare to do.
သင့်, to be suitable, proper, becoming, as ပြော​သင့်​သည်, it is suitable to say.
သာ, to be easy, pleasant, as ပြော​သာ​သည်, it is pleasant to say.
Euphonic Affixes. (arranged alphabetically).
ချေ, when combined with အံ့, ချိမ့်; when repeated after a following verb, similar to တုံ, which see under Qualifying Affixes.
ငြား or ညား, mostly used before the continuative affix သော်​လည်း, and the assertive future affix အံ့, when used for လျှင်.
စ, in certain combinations, noticed in their places.
ထ, mostly used before the participial affixes, when several successive participial clauses precede a noun, in commendatory discourse.
ပါ, conciliatory—polite—respectful.
ပေ, when combined with အံ့, ပိမ့်.
​ဘိ, mostly used before the assertive affix သည်, abbreviated to သ, in connection with the noun affix as ကဲ့​သို့, as သွား​ဘိ​သ​ကဲ့​သို့, like as he went; also, before the closing affix ချင်း, in which case, it is rather intensive, as များ​ဘိ​ချင်း, there are very many.
လပ်, mostly used before the continuative affix သော်.
လေ, when combined with အံ့, လိမ့်, which combination is mostly used before the future affix မည်; when repeated after a following verb, it denotes correspondence or reciprocity, as လိုက်​လေ​ပြေး​လေ, as (one) pursues, (the other) runs.
လိုက်, mostly used with transitive verbs.
Closing Affixes.
ဟု, that, noting indication, viz., namely (from ဟူ, to say, declare, mean,)—used at the close of a sentence, which is the subject of a subsequent assertion, as သိ​သည်​ဟု​ပြော​သည်, he says that he knows,—also, after a word which is explanatory of a subsequent word, as မင်း​ရှင်​စော​ဟု​ဘွဲ့​ကို​ပေး​သည်, he gave (him) the title of Menshenzau;—sometimes it takes a ​verbal affix, but ought then to be written ဟူ, and parsed as a verb.
တည်း, used at the close of a simple sentence, equivalent to the substantive verb ရှိသည်, to be, the nominative being generally made by ကား, as အ​မည်​ကား​မောင်​လောက်​တည်း, his name is Moung Louk,—sometimes taking ပေ, or ပေလျှင် immediately before it;—also, at the close of a parenthetic sentence, or a distinct paragraph, closing in သည်, (commonly abbreviated to သ,) as သွားသတည်း, he went,—sometimes taking လျှင်, or က, or လျှင်​က immediately before it.
တတ်, ditto, at the close of a parenthesis or paragraph.
တကား, emphatic, or indicative of some emotion, as ငသား​က​လေး​သေ​ပြီ​တ​ကား, my little son is dead, alas! မ​သွား​ပါ​တ​ကား, he goes not indeed.
ရကား, sometimes equivalent to တကား.
ချင်း, ditto, commonly expressive of regret, as ဖြစ်​ရ​လေ​ချင်း, it is so, alas.
စွ, see under Qualifying Affixes.
တောင်း, intensive,—commonly connected with ​the verb by another affix, as ကြီး​ပေ​တောင်း, it is great indeed!
တမုံ့ or တမူ, expletive, after an assertive affix, as သွား​သည်​တ​မုံ့, (obsolete.)
The following are colloquial only:—
နော်, soliciting acquiescence, as သွား​တော့​မည်​နော်, I will go, shall I? သွား​တော့​နော်, go, will you?
လေ, or လား​လေ, slightly emphatic or persistive, used after the assertive affixes, as ရှိ​သည်​လား​လေ, it is certainly, or I assure you.
ပ, or ပေါ့, familiar,—after the assertive affixes.
တော, or တော​လေ, ditto, sometimes superseding the assertive affix.
တည့်, (pron. ဒဲ့) denoting that the words to which it is affixed, are the words of the speaker, as ငါမယုံဘူးတည့်။ ဘဲ့နှယ်ဆိုဦးမည်လဲ, I don’t believe, I say; what will (you) say next, or repeated from the mouth of another person, as ရှိသည်တည့်, it is, he says.
negation.
The negative is made by prefixing မ to the verb, which, beside its negative power, has the ​privilege of occasionally dispensing with the assertive affixes, or of conveying an assertive power to the root, or to the qualifying and euphonic affixes, the affixes of number, and the auxiliary affixes of tense, all of which, in affirmative sentences, require an assertive affix, thus သွား​သည်, he goes, မ​သွား or မ​သွား​ဘူး, he goes not, သွား​သေး​သည်, he is still going, သွား​သေး, he is not yet gone, သွား​နှိုင်​သည်, he can go, မ​သွား​နှိုင်, he cannot go.
In colloquial discourse, a strong negative is sometimes made by affixing ရိုး​လား to the root, or မို့​တုံး, a contraction of မ​ဟုတ်​တုံး, to an assertive affix, as သွား​ရိုး​လား, or သွား​သည်​မို့​တုံး, he goes not.
verbs used substantively.
Verbs terminating in the assertive affix သည်, (occasionally changed to သ, သော or သော့,) are frequently used substantively, and in that character, admit the noun affixes. Verbs terminating in an assertive affix of tense, are capable of being used in the same manner, but the termination သည် or သော is, in some cases, superadded to qualify them for the substantive construction.
Examples.
သွား​သည်​မှန်​သည် or သွား​သည်​ကား​မှန်​သည်, it is right or true that he goes.
သွား​သည်​နောက်​မှ (နောက် being a verb,) or သွား​သည်​နောက်, after he goes.
သွား​သည်​ကို​သိ​သည်, he knows that he goes.
သွား​သည်​တိုင်​အောင်, (ကို or သို့ understood,) until he goes.
သွား​သည်​၏​အ​တိုင်း or သွား​သည်​အ​တိုင်း, according as he goes. N. B. When verbs are constructed with a following noun, the possessive affix ၏ is commonly omitted, as သွား​သည်​အ​ရပ်, the place of going, or the place where he goes, သွား​သည်​အ​ခါ, the time of going, or when he goes; သွား​သည်​အ​စည်, while he goes; သွား​သည်​အ​ကြောင်း, the reason of going; သွား​သည်​နည်း​တူ, in the same manner as he goes; သွား​သော​အား​ဖြင့်, by means of going, &c.
သွား​အံ့​သော့​ငှါ, (with the assertive future affix,) in order to go.
သွား​အံ့​သော့​ကြောင့်, because he goes.
သွား​သည်​မို့, ditto,—colloquial.
သွားသဖြင့်, by means of going, when he goes.
​သွားသည်နှင့်, with going, when he goes.
သွားသည်နှင့်အညီ, in accordance with the going.
သွားသည်တွင်, ၌, or မှာ, in going, while he goes.
သွားသည်က, or မှ, from going.
သွားသကဲ့သို့, like as he goes.
သွားသောသဖွယ်, ditto.
သွားသည်လို, ditto.
သွားသည်လိုလို, a little like, &c.
verbal nouns.
When a verb used substantively, and connected, by the affix ၏, with a following noun, whose initial is a syllabic အ, drops both the noun affix, and the verbal, and takes the noun into union with itself, by rejecting or modifying the initial letter, the abbreviated compound becomes a verbal noun of the same import as the original clause, thus သွား​သည်​၏​အ​ခါ becomes သွား​ခါ, the time of going; နေ​သည်​၏​အ​စည်, while remaining; ပြော​သည်​၏​အ​စ, ပြော​စ, the beginning of speaking.
Several classes of verbal nouns, on account of their frequent occurrence, deserve particular mention.
​1. The verbal in ခြင်း, from အခြင်း, an act, deed, denotes action or being, in the abstract, as သွား​ခြင်း, going, ကောင်း​ခြင်း, being good.
2. The verbal in ရာ, from အရာ, a thing, subject, matter, denotes the object of an action, or the place, where a thing is, or is done, as နှစ်​သက်​ရာ, an object of love; နေ​ရာ, a remaining place; စွန့်​ပြစ်​ရာ, a place of throwing away.
3. The verbal in ရာ, from အလျာ or အလျှာ, what is for, commonly written စရာ, the verbal in ဖို့ or ဘို့, from အဖို့, a portion, and the verbal in ရန် (from ရန်​သည်, to appropriate,) denote what is for some purpose, as စား​စ​ရာ, what is for eating, or to be eaten; ကြည့်​ဘို့, what is to be looked at; ပြု​ရန်, what is to be done.
4. The verbal in ဖွယ် or ဘွယ်, sometimes စချင်​ဘွယ်, from အဖွယ်, what is suitable, denotes what is fit for, adapted to, or worthy of some use or purpose, as စား​ဘွယ်, what is good to eat, an eatable; အံ့​ဘွယ်, what is wonderful; ချစ်​စချင်​ဘွယ်, what is lovely. But this verbal seems frequently to partake of the nature of an adjective.
N. B. The terminations ခမန်း or ဂမန်း, according to one acceptation, လိ, ခလိ and လိ​လိ ​are of similar import with the termination ဖွယ်, but used in a bad sense only. Several of these are sometimes combined, as ရွံ​စ​လိ, (စ euphonic,) ရွံ​စ​ဖွယ်​လိ, ရွံ​ဖွယ်​လိ​ခ​မန်း, what is disgusting.
The terminations ခ​မန်း, according to another acceptation, ဘိ​နန်း or ဘ​နန်း, and မ​တတ် form verbals denoting nearness of accomplishment, occasionally taking လု before them, as လောင်​ခ​မန်း or လောင်​လု​ခ​မန်း, what is near burning; မြုပ်​လု​မ​တတ်, what is near sinking; ကုန်​မ​တတ်, nearly the whole.
The termination နိုး, နိုး​နိုး, or စ​နိုး, followed by a verb expressive of opinion, denotes what is likely to take place, sometimes admitting an affix of tense between itself and the root, as သ​င်္ဘော​ရောက်​နိုး​နိုး​ထင်​သည်, or ရောက်​မည်​နိုး​နိုးထင်​သည်, he thinks that the ship will probably arrive.
5. There are several other verbals, formed from nouns, which being obsolete, or never occurring in their full form, or in any other connection, cannot be so satisfactorily analyzed, as most of the preceding; thus the verbal in တုန်း, perhaps from အ​တုန်း, time being, denotes the ​time of action or being, as သွား​တုန်း​တွင် or သွား​တုန်း​ခါ, equivalent to သွား​စည်​တွင်, or သွား​စည်​အ​ခါ, the time of going, while going.
The verbal in ရုံ, perhaps from အ​ရုံ, just so much and no more, confines the action or being to what is expressed by the root, as ပြော​ရုံ​ပြု​သည်, or ပြော​ရုံ​မျှ​ပြု​သည်, he just speaks, i. e. does no more than speaking.
The particle ကာ is of somewhat similar import with ရုံ, as ရိပ်​ကာ​ပြော​သည်, he speaks allusively merely; ပြော​ကာ​မျှ​အား​ဖြင့်, by means of speaking merely.
The verbal formative မှန်း, from မှန်, to be right, true, is used chiefly in negative sentences, as ရောက်​မှန်း​ကို​မ​သိ, or ရောက်​မှန်း​မ​သိ, (he) knows not the fact of the arrival. It is sometimes used without a verbal root, as ဘု​ရား​မှန်း​မ​သိ။ တ​ရား​မှန်း​မ​သိ, (he) knows nothing about God or religion.
6. Beside verbal nouns formed from verbs used substantively, there is another kind which may be termed the honorific verbal, formed by combining the verbal root with the adjective တော်. This verbal, followed by the verb မူ​သည်, to do, perform, is always used instead of the simple verb, ​in speaking becomingly of deities, kings, or any exalted personages, as မိန့်​တော်​မူ​သည်, (the deity or king) speaks, literally, does divine or royal speaking, မိန့်​တော်​မ​မူ, he speaks not.
Most verbal nouns retain the same power of government as their verbs, that is, cause the preceding noun to take the same affix, as their verbs do, as ဇာတ်​ကို​ဟော​စ​ပြု​သည်, he makes a beginning of rehearsing the zat, ဇာတ်​ကို​ဟော​တော်​မူ​သည်, he rehearses the zat, or he does rehearsing the zat; but some, particularly the verbal in ခြင်း, govern the preceding noun in the possessive, as ဇာတ်​၏​ဟော​ခြင်း, the rehearsing of the zat.
ADVERBS.
Adverbs are of nine kinds, viz:—
1. Adverbs proper, as ဧကန်, certainly, အ​လ​ကား, in vain, လား​လား, an intensive before a negative, as လား​လား​မ​ပြော, he says nothing at all, ခပ်, rather, prefixed to adjectives, formed from verbal roots by reduplication.
2. Pronominal adjectives used to modify a following verb, as အ​ဘယ်​သို့​နေ​သ​နည်း, how does (he) remain? ထို​သို့​နေ​သည်, (he) remains thus; or combined with a secondary noun and similarly ​applied, as ဘယ်​လောက်​ကြီး​သ​နည်း, how large is (it)? သဉ်​က​လောက်, properly သဉ်​ခန့်​လောက်​ကြီး​သည်, (it) is so large. How? in what manner? and thus, in this manner, are also expressed, by combining pronominals, lightly accented, with နှယ်, manner, as ဘဲ့​နှယ်, how? သည့်​နှယ်, thus.
3. Adverbs formed from simple or compound verbs:—
    (1) from simple verbs—-
—by prefixing အ, as အ​လွန်​ကြီး​သဉ်, to be very great, အ​လျှင်​သွား, go quick;
—by affixing စွာ, as ကောင်း​စွာ, well;
—by reduplication, as ကောင်း​ကောင်း, well;
—by reduplication, with အ or တ prefixed, as အ​ပြား​ပြား, variously, တ​လဲ​လဲ, by turns;
—by reduplication, with အ prefixed to each member, as အ​သီး​အ​သီး, separately;—
    (2) from compound verbs—
—by affixing စွာ, as ကောင်း​မြတ်​စွာ, excellently;
—by prefixing အ to each member, as အ​ကွပ်​အ​ညှပ်, penally, by way of punishment;
—by prefixing အ to the first member, and တ ​to the latter, as အ​ဆော​တ​လျှင်, quickly, အ​မြတ်​တနိုး, affectionately;
—by prefixing အ or တ to the first, and reduplicating the latter, as အ​လျှင်​မြန်​မြန်, fast, တ​စိုး​ရိမ်​ရိမ်, anxiously;
—by prefixing အ to the first, and တ to the latter reduplicated, as အ​မွှေး​တ​ကြိုင်​ကြိုင်, fragrantly;
—by reduplicating both members, as ထူး​ထူး​ဆန်း​ဆန်း, extraordinarily;
—by prefixing အ or တ to each member reduplicated, as အ​ထူး​ထူး​အ​ဆန်း​ဆန်း, ditto, တ​လည်​လည်​တ​ဝိုက်​ဝိုက်, circuitously;
—by prefixing က or ပ (pron. ဂ and ဗ) to each member, as က​ရောက်​က​ရက်, disorderly, ပ​ရုန်း​ပ​ရင်း, tumultuously.
Under this head, may be classed a few of anomalous construction, made up in imitation of some of the above forms, as အ​မှတ်​တ​မဲ့, without notice, အ​စိုးတ​ရ, as having power, ကြောက်​လန့်​တ​ကြား, frightedly, အ​ကျွေး​အ​ငမ်း in expectance of payment; also a few formed from negatives, by affixing chiming increments, as မ​ကောင်း​တ​ရောင်း, not well, မ​လှ​ဘ​မ, not handsome, not agreeable.
​4. Adverbs formed from verbal roots, by reduplication, prefixing the negative မ to the first member, and တ to the second, thus intending to convey both the ideas of affirming and denying, as မ​လောက်​တ​လောက်, just enough and hardly that, မ​မှီ​တ​မှီ, just reaching and yet not quite reaching.
5. Adverbs formed from a certain class of compound verbs, by affixing ခတ်, or ဆန်, or ဆန်​ခတ်, denoting collision, as ရောက်​ရက်​ခတ်​ပြု​သဉ်, to behave disorderly, ရုန်း​ရင်း​ဆန်​ခတ်​ပြု​သည်, to make a disturbance.
6. Adverbs formed from nouns by reduplication, dropping the syllabic အ, in the latter member, if it is the initial of the noun, and prefixing it to the former member, if the noun begins with a consonant, as အ​ခါ​ခါ, repeatedly, from အ​ခါ, a time; အ​လို​လို, of one’s own accord, from အ​လို, will, pleasure; အ​သောင်း​သောင်း, tens of thousands, from အ​သောင်း, ten thousand; အ​ပြည်​ပြည်, of various countries, or from country to country, from ပြည်, a country.
N. B. Adverbs formed from verbs or nouns are sometimes used adjectively, as ​အ​ပြား​ပြား​သော​အ​ကြောင်း​တို့, various reasons, အ​ပြည်​ပြည်​သော​မင်း​တို့, kings of various countries.
7. Adverbs formed from nouns, beginning with a syllabic အ, by dropping the အ, prefixing တ, one, and affixing တည်း, only, as တ​ညီ​တဉ်း, even, all together, from အ​ညီ, evenness, uniformity.
8. Incomplete clauses, as အ​ကယ်​၍ certainly, for အ​ကယ်​ဖြစ်​၍; အ​ထူး​သ​ဖြင့်, exceedingly, for အ​ထူး​ဖြစ်​သ​ဖြင့်.
9. Adverbial affixes, as follows:—
ချည်း, only, merely, nothing but, as လူ​တို့​ချည်း, men only, nothing but men, သွား​သည်​ချည်း, he only goes, does nothing but go.
စင်, even, slightly emphatic.
စီ, each, as တ​ယောက်​စီ, each one, ကိုယ်​စီ, ditto; apiece, as တ​ခု​စီ, one apiece.
တစေ, same as ချည်း.
တည်း, used to designate an object with some particularity, as မိ​မိ​သား​ငယ်​ကို​တည်း​ပေး​သဉ်, he gives to his youngest son,—particularly—or in distinction from the others;—in this sense, used frequently, in connection with ဟူ​သော, or ဟု, after a word explanatory of a ​subsequent word, as ကောင်း​မှု​တည်း​ဟူ​သော​မျိုး​စေ့, seed-grain, which means merit, မောင်​လောက်​တည်း​ဟု​အ​မည်​ရှိ​သည်, he has the name of Moung Louk;—used also, in asking questions, to designate the point on which the question turns, and frequently repeated after those words or clauses, in successive questions, which are intended to be set adversatively, as အ​သီး​ဧ​ကို​တဉ်း​စား​လို​သ​လော။ အ​သီး​မူ​ကို​တဉ်း​စား​လို​သ​လော, do you wish to eat cold fruit or hot? ငါ​၌​အ​ပြစ်​ရှိ​၍​တည်း​နှစ်​လုံး​မ​သာ​ရှိ​တော်​မူ​သ​လော။ ကိုယ်​တော်​၌​တ​စုံ​ဘ​ခု​စိုး​ရိမ်​ဘွယ်​ရှိ​၍​တဉ်း​နှစ်​လုံး​မ​သာ​ရှိ​တော်​မူ​သ​လော, is thy mind distressed, because there is some fault in me, or because there is some cause of concern in thee?
ပင်, even, slightly emphatic.
ဘက်, ditto,—colloquial.
မျှ, (from အ​မျှ, as much as,) frequently pron. မှ, used as an intensive, in negative sentences, as ဘယ်​သူ​မျှ​မ​ရှိ, there is not so much as one person, or there is not even one person; ဘ​ဟာ​ကို​မျှ​မ​ရ, or briefly ဘာ​မှ​မ​ရ, (he) obtains nothing at all; ရောက်​သည်​ကို​မျှ​မ​သိ, (he) knows not even of the arrival; sometimes expletive, ​as ရုန်း​ရင်း​ခက်​မျှ​ပြုသည်, to make a disturbance.
လည်း, also; sometimes used familiarly for the continuative affix လျှင်.
လည်း​ကောင်း, both—and, placed after other all affixes, and repeated at the close of successive clauses, as င​ကို​၎င်​င​သား​ကို​၎င်​မြင်​သည်, he sees both me and my son; in judicial language, equivalent to the pronominal adjective ထို, that, as ၎င်​နေ့, that day, ၎င်​နည်း, in the same manner.
လျှ, distributive, as တ​လ​လျှင်​တ​တင်း, a basket a month; sometimes definitive or emphatic.
သာ, only.
Verbal affixes are used adverbially, when placed after an adverbial or noun affix. The same is true of noun affixes, when placed after a verbal or adverbial affix.
The noun affix ကား is sometimes used emphatically after another noun affix, as အ​ရိုက်​ကို​ကား​ခံ​​နှိုင်​ပါ​သ​လော, can you indeed bear the beating? also repeated after successive clauses, intended to be set adversatively, as မြေ​အ​ပြင်​၌​ကား​မြင်​သာ​သည်။ ရေ​ထဲ​၌​ကား​မ​မြင်​​နှိုင်, on the land, it is easy to see; in the water, we cannot see.
INTERJECTIONS
A few of the most common are as follows:—
အမယ်, အ​မယ်​လေး, အ​မယ်​ကြီး​လေး, mother! denoting surprize or distress.
အလယ်, အလယ်​လေး, alas! expressive of pain.
အလို, အ​လို​လေး, oh! alas! denoting sorrow or distress.
အိမ်း, pron. eh, yes! expressive of assent.
အေ, don’t, disapprobatory—prohibitive.
အေ့ပော, aa haa! contemptuous.
အေး, အေး​အေး, yes!
အဲ, အဲအဲ, that’s right.
အော o! of various applications.
အောအော, o! expressive of satisfaction.
အော်, oh!
အို, o! vocative, or indicative of pain.
ယော, there now! expressive of disapprobation.
ယော့, here! take it!
လားလား, threatening.
သယ်, wonderful! rather ironical or disapprobatory.
သာမု, well done!
ဟေ့, haa! a familiar vocative, rather disrespectful.
APPENDIX.
numerals.
| Cardinal. | Ordinal. |
| တစ်, or တ, ၁, one, | ပဌမ, first, |
| နှစ်, ၂, two, | ဒုတိယ, second, |
| သုံး, ၃, three, | တတိယ, third, |
| လေး, ၄, four, | စတုတ္ထ, fourth, |
| ငါး, ၅, five, | ပည္စမ, fifth, |
| ချောက်, ၆, six, | ဆတ္တမ, sixth, |
| ခုနှစ်, ၇, seven, | သတ္တမ, seventh, |
| ရှစ်, ၈, eight, | အဌမ, eighth, |
| ကိုး, ၉, nine, | နဝမ, ninth, |
| တဆယ်, ၁၀, ten, | ဒသမ, tenth, |
| တဆယ်တစ်, ၁၁, eleven, | ဧကာဒသမ, eleventh, |
| တဆယ်နှစ်, ၁၂, twelve,&c. | ဒွါဒသမ, twelfth |
နှစ်ဆယ်, ၂၀, twenty,
သုံးဆယ်, ၃၀, thirty, &c.
တရာ, ၁၀၀, one hundred,
တထောင်, ၁၀၀၀, one thousand,
တသောင်, ၁၀၀၀၀, ten thousand,
တသိန်း, ၁၀၀၀၀၀, one hundred thousand,
တသန်း, ၁၀၀၀၀၀၀, one million,
တကုဋေ, ၁၀၀၀၀၀၀၀, ten million.
​One half is expressed by တဝက်, placed after the noun of dimension or quantity, as ယူ​ဇ​နာ​တ​ဝက်, half a yoozana; one and a half, two and a half, &c. by တ, နှစ်, &c. placed before, and ခွဲ after, as တ​ယူ​ဇ​နာ​ခွဲ, one yoozana and a half, နှစ်​ယူ​ဇ​နာ​ခ, two yoozanas and a half, &c. One and a quarter, &c. is expressed by prefixing တ, &c. and affixing တ​စိတ်, connected to the noun, by နှင့်, as တ​ယူ​ဇ​နာ​နှင့်​တ​စိတ်, one yoozana and a quarter, &c. All fractions, except one half, are commonly expressed by the help of အစု, a collection; thus သုံး​စု​တွင်​တ​စု, one third, လေး​စု​တွင်​တ​စု, one quarter, ငါး​စု​တွင်​သုံး​စု, three fifths.
time.
The true epoch of Burman time is the annihilation of Gaudama, the last Boodh or deity, which is placed five hundred and forty-four years before Christ; but the vulgar epoch is placed eleven hundred and eighty-two years later, or six hundred and thirty-eight years after Christ.
Time is measured by lunar months, consisting of twenty-nine and thirty days alternately. Twelve lunar months make a common year, and every ​third year admits an intercalar month of thirty days. The names of the months are as follows:—
| တံကူး, April, (nearly,) | သတင်းကျွတ်, October, |
| ကဆုန်, May, | တန်ဆောင်မုန်း, Nov’er. |
| နယုန်, June, | နတ်တော်, December, |
| ဝါဆို, July, | ပြာသိုလ်, January, |
| ဝါခေါင်, August, | တပို့ထွဲ, February, |
| တော်သလင်း, September, | တပေါင်း, March. |
တံကူး consists of twenty-nine days, က​ဆုန် of thirty, and so on. In leap-year, the month ဝါ​ဆို is repeated, under the name of ဒု​တိ​ယ​ဝါ​ဆို, second July.
A month is distinguished into two parts, the waxing, လ​ဆန်း, and the wane, လ​ပြည့်​ကျော်. The full moon, လ​ပြည့်, falls on the fifteenth of the waxing, after which a new count of days begins, and the change or disappearing of the moon, လ​ကွယ်, falls on the fourteenth or fifteenth of the wane.
The days of worship are the eighth of the waxing, the full, the eighth of the wane, and the change.
Time is also divided into weeks, or periods of seven days, which are, of course, independent of ​the lunar arrangement, and follow the same order, that obtains in all other parts of the world, viz.
| တနင်္ဂနွေ, Sunday, | ကြာသပတေး, Thursday, |
| တနင်္လာ, Monday, | သောက်ကြာ, Friday, |
| အင်္ဂါ, Tuesday, | စနေ, Saturday, |
| ဗုဒ္ဓဟူး, Wednesday. | |
The day and the night are each divided into four periods, which as they terminate, are designated by their appropriate beat of drum. The single beat, တ​ချက်​တီး, accords with 9 o’clock, morning or evening; the double beat, နှစ်​ချက်​တီး, accords with 12 o’clock; the triple beat, သုံး​ချက်​တီး, with 3 o’clock; and the quadruple beat, လေး​ချက်​တီး, with 6 o’clock.
A natural day is also divided into sixty equal parts, called နာ​ရီ, which are again subject to various subdivisions, seldom used but in astrological works.
weights.
ချင်ရွေး, the seed of the abrus precatorius, marked ( ွေ), as ၁ွေ, တရွေး.
ရွေးကြီး, the seed of the adenanthera pavonina, double the weight of the above, marked the same.
​8 ချင်ရွေး, or 4 ရွေး​ကြီး make one ပဲ great, marked ( ဲ), as ၁ဲ, တပဲ
6 ချင်, or 3 ရွေး​ကြီး make one ပဲ small, marked the same.
4 ပဲ great, or 5 ပဲ small make one မတ်, marked ( ံ), as ၁ံ, တမတ်.
4 မတ် make one ကျပ်, marked ( ိ), as ၁ိ, တ​ကျပ်
100 ကျပ် make one ပိဿာ, marked ( ိါ), or ( ါ), as ၁ိါ or ၁ါ, တပိဿာ).
N. B. The term အခွက် is substituted for ပိဿာ, in connection with any capital number above ten, as အ​ခွက်​နှစ်​ဆယ် for ပိဿာ​နှစ်​ဆယ်, twenty pikthahs. Ten pikthahs is written အ​ခွက်​တ​ဆယ်, or ဆယ်​ပိဿာ.
Also,
8 မူး great make one ကျပ်,
2 ပဲ small make one မူး small, marked as above.
measures of length.
| 8 သစ် | make | one မိုက်, marked ( ိ), as ၁ိ. |
| 12 သစ် | 12 သစ် | one ထွေ, marked ( ါ), as ၁ါ. |
| 2 ထွာ | 2 ထွာ | one တောင်, marked (င် ), as င်္၁. |
| 4 တောင် | 4 တောင် | one လံ. |
| 7 တောင် | 7 တောင် | one တာ, marked ( ါ), as ၁ါ. |
| 1000 တာ | 1000 တာ | one တိုင်. |
| 6400 တာ | 6400 တာ | one ယူဇနာ. |
Also,
| 20 တာ | make | one ဥဿဘ. |
| 20 ဥဿဘ | 20 ဥဿဘ | one ကောသ. |
| 4 ကောသ | 4 ကောသ | one ဂါဝုတ်. |
| 4 ဂါဝုတ် | 4 ဂါဝုတ် | one ယူဇနာ. |
N. B. According to the royal cubit, which measures 19 1-2 English inches, a yoozana is 13 1-2 English miles.
measures of capacity.
| 4 စလယ် | make | one ပြည်, marked ( ်), as ၁်. |
| 2 ပြည် | 2 ပြည် | one စရွတ်. |
| 2 စရွတ် | 2 စရွတ် | one စိတ်, marked ( ိ), as ၁ိ. |
| 2 စိတ် | 2 စိတ် | one ခွဲ. |
| 2 ခွဲ, or 16 ပြဉ် | 2 ခွဲ, or 16 ပြဉ် | one တင်း, marked (င် ), as င်္၁. |
POSTCRIPT.
Notwithstanding the notice in the preface, the work has been so long in passing through the press, that a great part has been re-written, The following corrigenda and addenda also have occurred:—
| Page | 8, | line | 10, | for တဝမ်ပု, read တဝမ်ပူ. |
| 10, | 10, | 3, | 3, | for ယပင်, ——ယပင့်, |
| 10 | 10 | 6, | 6, | ditto. |
| 15, | 15, | 4, | 4, | for သင်ဘော, ——သင်းဘော. |
| 16, | 16, | 14, | 14, | ditto. |
| 23, | 23, | 6, | 6, | for ဝန်ကျင်း, ——ဝန်းကျင်, |
    23, between ပတ်​လုံး and အ​ညီ, insert the following items:—
အစား, stead; ကိုယ်​စား, instead of self.
အတု, likeness; ထို​နည်း​တု, in like manner.
အလောက်, about so much, (obsolete); လူ​လောက်​ကြီး​သည်, to be about as large as a man.
​အခန့်, about so much; တနှစ်​ခန့်, about a year.
Page 24, line 19, for ကျန်​တော်, read ကျွန်​တော်.
Page 42, line 2, for ကတည်း, read သည်လို့.
Page 47, instead of the present definition of ဆိတ်, read thus :—
ဆိတ်, (from ဆိတ်, to be still; quiet,) to be quiet, unmoved, though the occasion calls for exertion, as နေ​ဆိတ်​သည်, to remain unmoved.
* ↑ Corrected on p. 75 to တဝမ်ပူ.
* ↑ Corrected on p. 75 to ယပင့်
* ↑ Corrected on p. 75 to သင်းဘော
* ↑ Corrected on p. 75 to သင်းဘော
* ↑ Corrected on p. 75 to ဝန်းကျင်
* ↑ See pp. 75–76 for additions to be inserted here
* ↑ Corrected on p. 76 to ကျွန်​တော်
* ↑ Corrected on p. 76 to သည်လို့
* ↑ This paragraph has been replaced on p. 76 by: “ဆိတ်, (from ဆိတ်, to be still; quiet,) to be quiet, unmoved, though the occasion calls for exertion, as နေ​ဆိတ်​သည်, to remain unmoved.”
* ↑ An old unit of length equal to approximately 21.7 km or 13.5 miles (see note on p. 74)

## Notes (Wikisource)

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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