Journal of Asian and African Studies, No., Source Material

The Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese*Sounds, Conversational Texts, and Basic Vocabulary
Kato, Atsuhiko
Osaka University

Khin Pale
West Yangon University

is paper presents a phonological analysis, conversational sample texts, anda basic vocabulary for the Myeik dialect of Burmese.
e Myeik dialect has peculiar characteristics in terms of tonal contours,
and voice quality in the tones and vowels.
e tone of this dialect, which corresponds to the Standard Burmese creaky falling tone, has a rising contour
and is pharyngealized.
e vowels of the syllables corresponding to Standard
Burmese stopped syllables are pronounced with a conspicuous creaky phonation. Previous studies have paid little attention to these facts. Tone sandhis
peculiar to this dialect are also described in this paper.
e texts are translations of the twenty dialogues in Kato’s (1998) Burmese primer. Since these dialogues cover as many as possible of the most basic
grammatical items of Burmese, translating them into the Myeik dialect can be
the basis for future studies of morphosyntactic phenomena of this dialect.
e basic vocabulary contains about nine hundred items.

ten Burmese

1 Introduction

3 Texts

2 Sounds
2.1 Consonants

3.1 Dialogues

2.2 Vowels

3.2 Notes to function words and aﬃxes

2.3 Tones

4 Basic vocabulary

2.4 Some suprasegmental phenomena

Abbreviations

2.5 Morphophonemic alternations

References

2.6 Regular correspondences with Writ-

Keywords:

Burmese, Dialectology, Myeik Dialect, Glottalization, Pharyngealization＊ The consultant for the research is Khin Pale (born in ), who is a linguist and one of theauthors of this article. She is a bilingual speaker in the Myeik dialect and Standard Burmese.
She happened to stay in Osaka from  to , as her husband Dr. Maung Maung conducted
his duties as visiting professor in Burmese at Osaka University. Kato, the other author of thisarticle, co-taught a ﬁeld research class on the Myeik dialect with Khin Pale in the academic year/. In the class, the students and we compiled basic vocabularies and conversational
texts while making analyses in phonology and morphosyntax. The authors also conducted aconsiderable amount of additional research outside the class. e present paper presents↗

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Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

1 Introduction

Map 1: Myeik and other places in Tanintharyi, Myanmar

The Myeik dialect is a dialect of
Burmese that is spoken in Myeik (Beik),a town situated in the southern part ofTanintharyi Division (around 12°25'N,
98°37'E), Republic of the Union of
Myanmar.

is dialect is one of the south-

ernmost dialects of Burmese and can be
regarded as the southernmost distributionof the Tibeto-Burman languages. Myeik
was formerly called Mergui in English.
Standard Burmese pronunciation of thename of the town is /myei/ or /bei/,and the Myeik dialect calls the town/bi/. It is called /marít/ in Thai. This
article presents basic material on the
Myeik dialect of Burmese (Myanmar),covering sounds, conversational texts,
and basic vocabulary.
There have been some preceding
descriptive studies on the Myeik dialect, including Ono (1971), Nishida (1972: Ch. 6, sec.
4), Khin Pale (1974), and Wang (2008: Ch. 14).

e present article is intended to present a

more comprehensive and precise view of this dialect. Previous studies are somewhat superﬁcial, and especially have paid little attention to the Myeik peculiar characteristics in termsof tonal contours, and voice quality in the tones and vowels.

is paper presents a precise

description of these aspects.
e Myeik dialect has many common characteristics with the dialect of Dawei (Tavoy),
which is situated about 200 km north of Myeik in the same Tanintharyi division (see Map 1).
However, there are considerable diﬀerences between the Myeik and Dawei dialects in every
linguistic level, especially in phonology; thus, the degree of mutual intelligibility between
the two dialects is not very high.

e Dawei dialect has been studied more in detail thanthe Myeik dialect. For the Dawei dialect, see Taylor (1921), Pe Maung Tin (1933), Bernot(1965), Ono (1971), Khin Pale (1979), and Okell (1995). Dialects that can be classiﬁed into
the same group as the Myeik dialect are distributed from Palaw in the north to Kawthaungin the south.

ese dialects can be called the “Myeik group”.

e boundary between the↗ some of the outcomes of this research.
We wish to thank the students who attended our field research class and asked us a lot of
productive questions. We are also indebted to Professor Emeritus Shiro Yabu, who joined ourclass every week and gave us valuable suggestions. We are also grateful to two anonymous
reviewers for helpful criticism on the ﬁrst dra. To cite the present paper, use either one of thefollowing references: “Kato and Khin Pale” or “Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale”.

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

119

Myeik group and the “Dawei group”, which is a group of dialects including the Dawei
dialect, can probably be placed north of Palaw.

us, the authors assume the language of

Palaw to be a dialect of the Myeik group. However, it needs further consideration on theclassification of the Palaw dialect because it has more common characteristics with theDawei dialect than does the Myeik dialect.
In section 2, the phonemic system will be shown, and phonetic descriptions will bemade for each phoneme. In section 3, conversational texts will be shown. Section 4 is abasic vocabulary of the Myeik dialect.
2 Sounds
e syllable structure of the Myeik dialect can be represented as C1(C2)V/T, where C1
is an initial consonant; C2, a medial consonant; V, a vowel; and T, a tone that covers thewhole syllable. In phonemic terms, there is no closed syllable. In the following subsections,the inventories of consonants, vowels, and tones are shown, and each sound is phoneticallydescribed.
2.1 Consonants
The consonant phonemes are shown in Table 1. There are twenty-seven consonant
phonemes. Note that /ph/, /th/, /ch/, /kh/, and /sh/ are not consonant clusters, but single
consonants.
Table 1: Consonant phonemes
p

t

t

c

k

ph

th

ch

kh

b

d

j



s



h







sh


z
m

n

w

y
l
All the consonant phonemes can be a C1, and only two phonemes, /w/ and /y/, canoccur as a C2. Out of all the consonants, twenty-two initial consonants, /p/, /t/, /t/, /c/,/k/, /ph/, /th/, /ch/, /kh/, /b/, /d/, /j/, //, /s/, //, /sh/, /z/, /m/, /n/, //, /y/, /l/, can befollowed by the medial /w/, and ﬁve initial consonants, i.e., /p/, /ph/, /b/, /m/, /l/, can befollowed by the medial /y/.
e phonetic value of each consonant phoneme is described phonetically below.
/p/ is a voiceless unaspirated bilabial stop [p], e.g., /póyw/ ‘ant’.
/t/ is a voiceless unaspirated upper dental apical stop or an unaspirated interdental

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Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. stop, e.g. /t/ ‘new’. We can roughly say that this stop corresponds to the English fricative [θ]from the point of view of the place of articulation. Since IPA lacks an individual symbol forthis stop, we use a symbol with a diacritic mark, i.e., “t”, for this sound.
/t/ is a voiceless unaspirated dental alveolar stop [t], e.g., /t/ ‘ascend’.
/c/ is a voiceless unaspirated alveopalatal aﬀricate [t], e.g., /cé/ ‘copper’.
/k/ is a voiceless unaspirated velar stop [k], e.g., /kã u/ ‘good’.
// is a glottal stop [], e.g., /á/ ‘strength’.
/ph/ is a voiceless aspirated bilabial stop [pʰ], e.g., /ph/ ‘where’.
/th/ is a voiceless aspirated alveolar stop [tʰ], e.g., /thá/ ‘put’.
/ch/ is a voiceless aspirated alveopalatal aﬀricate [tʰ], e.g., /chò/ ‘sweet’.
/kh/ is a voiceless aspirated velar stop [kʰ], e.g., /khã u/ ‘head’.
/b/ is a voiced bilabial stop [b], e.g., /b/ ‘emp’. It may be pronounced as an implosive
when it is directly followed by a glottalized vowel (See section 2.2): e.g., /bi/ [()]‘Myeik’, /busà/ [s] ‘what’. Note that when a medial appears, it is never pronounced
as an implosive: e.g., /by/ [bj ()] ‘tray’.
/d/ is a voiced alveolar stop [d], e.g., /dusà/ ‘this’.

is phoneme, unlike /b/, is neverpronounced as an implosive.
/j/ is a voiced alveopalatal aﬀricate [d], e.g., /jé/ ‘dirt’.
// is a voiced velar stop [], e.g., /ù/ ‘cave’.
/s/ is a voiceless unaspirated alveolar fricative [s], e.g., /sà/ ‘sparrow’.
// is a voiceless alveopalatal fricative [], e.g., /à/ ‘tongue’. Some speakers substitutethis phoneme with /sh/.

is phenomenon can be widely observed among many dialects of

Mon State, Karen State, and Tanintharyi Division.
/h/ is a voiceless glottal fricative [h], e.g., /hĩ/ ‘side dish’.
/sh/ is a voiceless aspirated alveolar fricative [sʰ], e.g., /shá/ ‘salt’.
/z/ is a voiced alveolar fricative [z], e.g., /zé/ ‘market’.
// is a voiced glottal fricative [], e.g., // ‘with’. Many function words have this phoneme word-initially.
/m/ is a voiced bilabial nasal [m], e.g., /mò/ ‘mushroom’.
/n/ is a voiced alveolar nasal [n], e.g., /n/ ‘milk’.
// is a voiced nasal that can be transcribed as [], e.g., /n/ ‘night’. Its place ofarticulation is slightly more front than a pure palatal nasal but is more back than // in thisdialect; thus, we transcribe this phoneme with “”, not “N”.
// is a voiced velar nasal [], e.g., // ‘small’.
/w/ is a voiced bilabial semivowel [w], e.g., /wá/ ‘bamboo’.
/y/ is a voiced palatal semivowel [j], e.g., /y/ ‘laugh’.

is phoneme has a tendency to

become a fricative [] before the front vowels /i/ and /e/.
/l/ is a voiced alveolar lateral [l], e.g., /l/ ‘moon; beautiful’.
It is noteworthy that there are no voiceless counterparts of /m/, /n/, //, //, /w/, and/l/, as are found in dialects such as the Yangon dialect.

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e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

2.2 Vowels
ere are three types of vowels: plain vowels, nasalized vowels, and glottalized vowels.
Each type includes seven vowels, as shown in Table 2. Note that diphthongs among thenasalized and glottalized vowels are transcribed with two IPA characters, but they are
single phonemes.
Table 2: Vowel phonemes
Plain vowels

Nasalized vowels

Glottalized vowels

i

u

ĩ

ũ





e

o

i

õu

i

u



ãi

ãu

i


a

u


ã

e phonetic value of each vowel is as follows:(1) Plain vowels/i/ is a close front unrounded vowel [i], e.g., /cí/ ‘big’.
/e/ is a close-mid front unrounded vowel [e], e.g., /nè/ ‘sun’.
// is an open-mid front unrounded vowel [], e.g., /mm/ ‘mother’.
/a/ is an open back unrounded vowel [], e.g., /nà/ ‘ache’.

is vowel is considerably

more back than Yangon /a/, as has been already pointed out by Wang (2008: 327).
// is an open-mid back rounded vowel [], e.g., /m/ ‘tired’.
/o/ is a close-mid back rounded vowel [o], e.g., /có/ ‘cord’.
/u/ is a close back rounded vowel, e.g., /ù/ ‘intestines’.
but its roundness is less than Yangon /u/.

is vowel is a rounded vowel,

us, it can be transcribed as [ ].

(2) Nasalized vowels/ĩ/ is a nasalized near-close near-front unrounded vowel [], e.g., /lĩ/ ‘husband’.
/i/ is [e] , e.g., /ti/ ‘cloud’. It is a nasalized diphthong that begins as a close-mid
front unrounded vowel and glides to a near-close near-front unrounded vowel. Nasalization
occurs at the end of the diphthong.

e nasalization sometimes does not occur, in whichcase the phoneme is pronounced as [e].
/ãi/ is [a] , e.g., /shãi/ ‘shop’. It is a nasalized diphthong that begins as an open central
unrounded vowel and glides to a near-close near-front unrounded vowel.
occurs at the end of the diphthong.

e nasalizatione nasalization sometimes does not occur, in whichcase the phoneme is pronounced as [a].
/ã/ is a nasalized near-open front unrounded vowel, as is transcribed as [], e.g., /lã /‘road’.
/ãu/ is [a ], e.g., /hã u/ ‘old’. It is a nasalized diphthong that begins as an open central
unrounded vowel and glides to a close back unrounded vowel.
the end of the diphthong.

e nasalization occurs at

e nasalization sometimes does not occur, in which case the122

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. phoneme is pronounced as [a].
/õu/ is [ ], e.g., /õ u/ ‘coconut’. It is a nasalized diphthong that begins as a midcentral unrounded vowel and glides to a close back unrounded vowel. The nasalization
occurs at the end of the diphthong.

e nasalization sometimes does not occur, in whichcase the phoneme is pronounced as [].
/ũ/ is a nasalized near-close near-back rounded vowel [], e.g., /sũ/ ‘expensive’.
(3) Glottalized vowels
e glottalized vowels are considerably creaky, and sometimes end with a glottal stop
[] especially when they are in utterance-ﬁnal position.

eir creakiness is much more con-spicuous than that of the stopped syllables of the Yangon dialect. Previous studies have notpaid attention to this strong creakiness.
e glottalized vowels are always pronounced with a rising pitch [14], which we consider to be the rising tone occurring with the glottalized vowels. In other words, the glottalized vowels can occur only with the rising tone.
e phonetic values of the glottalized vowels are as described below:// is a creaky near-close near-front unrounded vowel [()], e.g., /ay/ ‘liquor’.
/i/ is [()], e.g., /i/ ‘bag’. It is a creaky diphthong that begins as a close-mid front
unrounded vowel and glides to a near-close near-front unrounded vowel.
/i/ is [()], e.g., /ki/ ‘bite’. It is a creaky diphthong that begins as an open central
unrounded vowel and glides to a near-close near-front unrounded vowel.
// is a creaky near-open front unrounded vowel [ ()], e.g., // ‘needle’.
/u/ is [()], e.g., /cu/ ‘stone’. It is a creaky diphthong that begins as an open central unrounded vowel and glides to a close back unrounded vowel.
/u/ is [()], e.g., /pu/ ‘rotten’. It is a creaky diphthong that begins as a mid-central
unrounded vowel and glides to a close back unrounded vowel.
// is a creaky near-close near-back rounded vowel [()], e.g., /w/ ‘wear’.
It could be argued that the rising pitch contour with which the glottalized vowels arepronounced should be interpreted as a creaky-voiced rising tone additional to the three
tones shown in section 2.3. This argument resembles the position that the pitch of the
stopped syllables in Standard Burmese should be interpreted as an independent tone. Suchan interpretation of the stopped syllables in Standard Burmese has been made by manyscholars, including Stewart (1939, 1955), Cornyn (1944), McDavid (1945), Minn Latt (1962),
Okell (1969), Nishida (1972), Wheatley (1982), Yabu (1992), Myint Soe (1999), and Green(2005). However, we do not interpret the pitch of the Myeik glottalized vowels as an independent tone because the pitch contour of the glottalized vowels behaves in the same way
as the rising tone in terms of tone sandhi, as will be described in section 2.3. In Standard
Burmese as well, scholars such as Armstrong & Pe Maung Tin (1925), Mînn Latt Yêkháun(1966), and Kato (2006) consider the pitch of the stopped syllables to be an allophone ofKato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese123

the creaky tone1).
Note that // corresponds to both Standard Burmese /i/ and // in comparativelinguistic terms. Myeik does not have the vowel //.
2.3 Tones
ere are three tones in Myeik, as is shown in Table 3.
Table 3: Tones/ - /

low level tone

/ - /

high level tone/- /rising tone
e low level tone / - / is pronounced [11], e.g., /mà/ ‘hard’. In phrase-initial position,

it is likely to be pronounced with a slight falling contour, which can be represented as [21]or [31]. This tone has an environmentally conditioned allophonic variation pronouncedwith a falling contour that can be represented as [51]; the contexts in which this variant
appears will be described in section 2.3.1. When this tone occurs with a voiced initial, thefollowing vowel sometimes becomes breathy.
e high level tone / - / is pronounced [55], e.g., /ná/ ‘ear’.

is tone corresponds to

the Yangon high level tone (also called “heavy tone” or “breathy tone”).

is tone tends tohave a falling contour in utterance-ﬁnal position, just like the Yangon high level tone. It
is also noteworthy that while the Yangon high level tone is sometimes pronounced with abreathy voice in utterance-ﬁnal position, the Myeik high level tone is always pronouncedwith a normal voice.
e rising tone / - / is pronounced [14], e.g., /m/ ‘li’. Nishida (1972: 297) describes
this as a tone with a rising contour [35]. Ono (1971) says that it is high-short in plain syllables and that it has three conditional variations in stopped syllables: high-short, rising,and low-short. Wang (2008: 330) describes it as a mid-falling tone with a contour that hetranscribes as [32]. It seems that Nishida’s description is the most correct, because this tone
evidently has a rising contour in any environment. It has some allophonic variations, ofwhich the rising contours are ﬂatter, when two or more syllables with this tone are adjacent.
is phenomenon is described in section 2.3.1.
A peculiarity of the rising tone is the pharyngealization it entails; this pharyngealization has not been noted by previous studies. The word /l/ ‘moon’, for example, is pronounced [l14]. Similarly, the words /m/ ‘catch’, /mě/ ‘forget’, /t/ ‘straight’, /k/ ‘curled’,/sh/ ‘choke’, and /k/ ‘cure’ are pronounced as [mi14], [me14], [t14], [k14], [sʰo14],and [ku14]. When a vowel is wide, pharyngealization is more conspicuous. Thus, fromthese examples, the pharyngealization of /l/ /t/ /k/ is stronger than that of the others.
1)

ere is another possibility for interpretation of the pitch of the Standard Burmese stopped
syllables. It considers the pitch as a non-constrative pitch. Bradley (1982: 121) implies sucha possibility.

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Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

It is worth noting that the Yangon falling tone (also known as “creaky tone”), which corresponds to the Myeik rising tone, entails a creaky voice. Generally speaking, Burmese dialects including the Yangon dialect have tone systems that can be characterized by the term“phonation-prominent tone system”, which was coined by Matisoﬀ (1998), but no dialect
has been reported as having a tone pronounced with pharyngealization.
e rising tone is the only tone with which the glottalized vowels can co-occur.

us,

we do not mark tone where glottalized vowels are concerned. For example, the phonological transcription of the word /n/ ‘spirit’ could be /n/, but since the tone is predictable,
we use the former. In the Yangon dialect, the stopped syllable occurs with contrasting highand low pitches, as was ﬁrst pointed out by Kato (2006). For example, /ltì/ [lt53.t11]‘armrest’ and /ltì/ [lt11.t11] ‘the Latin language’ is a minimal pair. In Myeik, however,these words are pronounced the same: /ltĩ/ [l14.t51] ‘armrest; Latin’.
When the rising tone occurs with a glottalized vowel, pharyngealization is notobserved, and only a creaky voice (i.e., glottalization) appears. Thus, /k/ ‘to attach’ ispronounced [k 14], not as pharyngealized [kæ14]. Compare the pronunciations of theexamples below:(1) / k /[k 14 51]

attach real‘(I) attached (it)’(2) / k /[k14 51]

dance real‘(I) danced’.
/k/ in (1) is pronounced with a creaky voice, and /k/ in (2) is pronounced with pharyngealization. According to Suzuki (2010, 2011), languages that have pharyngealization are rarein the Tibeto-Burman linguistic stock2).

is means that languages having both creakiness(glottalization) and pharyngealization are rare in the same linguistic stock.
Lastly, we have to point out that this dialect has atonic syllables.
ble.

eir pitch is unsta-

e vowel of atonic syllable is [ ~ ], which we interpret as a weakened /a/; thus, wetranscribe atonic syllables as /Ca/ (C is a consonant) without tone marking.
2.3.1 Tone sandhi
Tone sandhi in the Myeik dialect is not phonological, but phonetic; i.e., there is nophonological tonal alternation, such as occurs between 2nd tone and 3rd tone in Mandarin
Chinese. Tone sandhi in this dialect has never been described.

2)

Suzuki (2010) enumerates some Tibeto-Burman languages which have pharyngealization, suchas Axi and Azha Lolo (Iwasa 2003), Hongyan Qiang (Evans 2006), Zhollam Tibetan (Suzuki2009), and Sanba Naxi (personal research by Suzuki).

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

125

Two types of tone sandhi are observed; in both cases, the rising tone is involved.
ese sandhis not only occur within a word, but also may cross a word boundary or phraseboundary.

ey are almost obligatory word-internally but optional in the other cases.

First, the low level tone is pronounced with a falling contour [51] when it is precededby the rising tone.
[

us, /c(c).c(c)/ is pronounced [14.51], which can be diagramed as]. Below are examples:(3) /t/ [(4) / c 

] ‘guest’
 /

[

]

[

]

look real‘(I) looked.’(5) / ti /

3sg house‘his house’
Second, when two or more syllables with the rising tone are juxtaposed, no syllable
takes the pitch contour [14], but the whole series of syllables is pronounced as [14].

us,a combination of two syllables /c(c).c(c)/ as a whole is pronounced with a pitch [14],which can be diagramed as []. It is not pronounced as [tion of three syllables /c(c).c(c).c(c)/ is not pronounced as []. Similarly, a combina], but as [].

As a result, the rising pitch of each syllable becomes flatter than in isolation. Below are
examples:(6) /bb/ [](7) /ml/ [] ‘you (pl)’(8) / kpy / [‘father’]dance show
‘Show dancing!’(9) / bb / []

father with
‘with Father’e falling contour of the low-level tone also occurs aer a series of rising-tones:(10) / bbmm/ [] ‘parents’126

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. (11) / kpy / [y]

dance show must real‘(I) had to show dancing.’
In both types of tone sandhi described above, syllables with glottalized vowels behavein the same way as other syllables with the rising tone. First, the low level tone takes a falling contour aer a glottalized vowel:(12) /busà/ [] ‘what’(13) /mynà/ [] ‘face’(14) / bi / [

nà]

stomach ache real‘(I) have a stomachache.’Second, two or more syllables with glottalized vowels are pronounced with the rising contour [14] as a whole:(15) /lt/ [(16) /uthu/ [(17) /lkuw/ [] ‘birthmark’] ‘hat’] ‘bracelet’

is is also true when a plain-vowel syllable with the rising tone is involved:(18) /mys/ [] ‘eye’(19) /lshu/ [] ‘waning of the moon’ese facts concerning sandhi of the rising pitch in syllables with glottalized vowels are
why we consider the pitch to be the rising tone in phonological terms.
2.3.2 Wave-forms and pitch diagrams of the tones
Figure 1 presents wave-forms and pitch diagrams for the words /mà/ ‘to be hard’, /ná/‘to take a rest; ear’, /m/ ‘to li’, and /m/ ‘to be steep’, which were pronounced in isolation. Figure 2 presents wave-forms and pitch diagrams for the phrases /mà / ‘(it) is hard’,/ná / ‘(he) took a rest’, /m / ‘(I) lied (it)’, and /m / ‘(it) is steep’.

e word // isa realis marker. We used SIL Speech Analyzer (Version 3.0.1) for this analysis.
From Figure 1, we can say that /m/ ‘to li’ and /m/ ‘to be steep’ have quite similar

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

Figure 1: Myeik /mà/, /ná/, /m/, and /m/, from le to right

Figure 2: Myeik /mà /, /ná /, /m /, and /m /, from le to right

127

128

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

Figure 1’: Standard Burmese /mà/, /ná/, /mâ/, and /ma/, from le to right

Figure 2’.: Standard Burmese /mà d/, /ná d/, /mâ d/, and /ma t/, from le to rightKato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

129

rising contours. This fact serves as one source of evidence for our interpretation, which
considers the pitch contour of glottalized vowels to be the rising tone.
From the pitch diagrams of /m / ‘(I) lied (it)’ and /m / ‘(it) is steep’ in Figure
2, the falling variant [51] of the low level tone can be seen. We can also see that the vowelof the ﬁrst syllable of /ná / ‘(he) took a rest’ is much more level than the falling pitch
observed when /ná/ is pronounced in isolation.
Figures 1’ and 2’ present wave-forms and pitch diagrams of Standard Burmese words
and phrases pronounced by the same speaker (Khin Pale). Figure 1’ is for /mà/ ‘to be
hard’, /ná/ ‘to take a rest; ear’, /mâ/ ‘to li’, and /ma/ ‘to be steep’. Figure 2’ is for /màd/ ‘(it) is hard’, /ná d/ ‘(he) took a rest’, /mâ d/ ‘(I) lifted (it)’, and /ma t/ ‘(it) is
steep’. It is noteworthy that in Standard Burmese the vowels of /mâ/ (creaky tone) and/ma/ (stopped tone) have falling pitch contours.
2.4 Some suprasegmental phenomena
Here we will see some important non-phonological suprasegmental phenomena.
2.4.1 Intonations
Various intonations are utilized in the Myeik dialect, although interrogative sentences
cannot be made with a certain intonation. Intonations distort the pitch contours of thetones.

eir domains usually consist of one syllable, but may consist of bigger units. An

essential diﬀerence between tones and intonations is that intonations themselves have theirown meanings but tones do not. Below are some of the important intonations.
An intonation with a rising pitch, as can be represented as [113] or [112], is sometimes
used in the sentence-ﬁnal position, as is shown in (20) below:(20) / ma tbì[113] /not go already‘I won’t go anymore.’
It probably denotes the speaker’s attitude of hoping to inform the hearer that the sentence
includes some important information.
A falling intonation, which can be represented by [553], occurs with certain morphemes
such as /d/, a particle denoting constrastiveness, and /à/, a subordinate-clause marker
denoting supposition.
uncertainness.

e function of this intonation is probably to denote hesitation ore particle /d/ is frequently pronounced with this intonation.

An extra-high intonation with a falsetto voice, as can be represented as [66], is sometimes used in expressions such as that in (21). This intonation emphasizes negation. It
always falls on the preceding syllable of the morpheme /l/ ‘also’. In order to show its considerably high pitch, we here use the digit ‘6’ for its notation.

130

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. (21) / takhà[66 {falsetto}] l

one time

ma sá

 /

also not eat vsm‘I didn’t eat a single time.’
2.4.2 Vowel prolongatione morpheme /òzà/ is a particle nominalizing clauses. See the example below:(22) / àsáòzà /

1sg eat nmz‘what I ate’ or ‘my eating (something)’
Clauses nominalized by /òzà/ can express either entities or events, as the translation aboveshows.

is morpheme has a free variant that lacks the ﬁrst syllable, namely /zà/. When theform /zà/ is used, the vowel of the preceding syllable may be prolonged as a compensation
for lacking /ò/, and the duration of the syllable is longer than that of an ordinary syllable.
In the case of diphthongs, the ﬁrst elements are prolonged. Below are examples. Prolongation of the vowels is indicated by ‘[]’.
(23) / àsá[] zà /1sg eatnmz‘what I ate’ or ‘my eating (something)’(24) / tùy[] zà /3sg laugh nmz‘his laughing’(25) / ày[] zà /1sg getnmz‘what I got’ or ‘my getting (something)’(26) / àch[]

zà /

1sg

cook

nmz

‘what I cooked’ or ‘my cooking (something)’(27) / àci[]1sg likezà /nmz‘what I like’ or ‘my liking (something)’
One might speculate that these long vowels are the long phonemic counterparts of thevowel phonemes presented in 2.2, but we interpret the prolongation as an intonation-like
non-phonemic phenomenon that indicates lack of a syllable, because it does not changeKato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese131

the meaning of words. We have so far not found any other morphemes that induce such avowel prolongation.
2.5 Morphophonemic alternations
When two or more words are compounded, the word-initial voiceless unaspirated
consonant(s) of the latter element(s) may alternate with the voiced counterpart(s). Suchalternations do not occur aer glottalized vowels. Pairs of voiceless and voiced consonants
are shown below:
/p/

/t/

/c/ /k/ /s/

|

|

|

|

/b/ /d//j/// /z/|For example:(28) /yè/ ‘water’ + /pù/ ‘hot’ > /yèbù/ ‘hot water’(29) /myè/ ‘soil’ + /cí/ ‘big’> /myèjí/ ‘earth’Note that aspirated phonemes do not show such alternations:(30) /hĩ/ ‘side dish’ + /chò/ ‘sweet’ > /hĩchò/ ‘soup’(31) /mí/ ‘ﬁre’ + /phò/ ‘make a ﬁre’ + /khã / ‘room’ > /míphòkhã / ‘kitchen’
Below is an exception for this general rule. In this case, /kh/ alternates with //.

is might

be because this word is a loan word from Standard Burmese.
(32) /yè/ ‘water’ + /kh/ ‘freeze’ > /yè/ ‘ice’
e consonant /t/ also does not show such an alternation because it does not have avoiced counterpart. It is phonetically also never voiced.
(33) /õ u/ ‘coconut palm’ + /tí/ ‘fruit’ > /õutí/ [ 55.ti55] ‘fruit of coconut’
In Standard Burmese, the initial consonant of the first syllable of a particle shows
voiceless-voiced alternation. For example, the verb sentence marker {pì} has two allomorphs, /pì/ and /bì/, which alternate according to the preceding phoneme. When thepreceding phoneme is a glottal stop, /pì/ occurs, and otherwise /bì/ occurs: e.g., /t pì/ ‘(It)is already rising’; /là bì/ ‘(It) is already coming’. In the Myeik dialect, however, particles
do not show such alternations. We take the particle /bì/, which corresponds to Standard
Burmese {pì}, as an example:

132

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. (34) / tbì /rise already‘(It) is already rising’(35) / làbì /come already‘(It) is already coming.’
2.6 Regular correspondences with Written Burmese
In this section, we will present regular correspondences between the Myeik dialect
phonemes and Written Burmese (WB). Romanization of WB follows Okell (1995).
First, the initial consonants of Myeik basically correspond to the Written Burmese (WB)
consonants, as shown below. Voiced stops and fricatives, namely /b/, /d/, /j/, //, /z/, and//, are excluded because they do not show regular correspondences.
Myeik /p/ /t/ /t/ /c/ /k/ // /ph/ /th/ /ch/ /kh/ /s/ // /h/ /sh/
WB

|

|

|

/\

|

|

|

|

/\

p

s

t ky krkphth khy khr kh

/m/

/n/

//

//

/w/

/y/

/l/

/\

/\

/\

/\

/\

/\

/\

m hm n hn  h  h w hw y r hl

|

|

/\

|

|

c hy hr hchlSecond, the vowels basically correspond to the WB rhymes, as shown below.
Myeik
WB

/i/ /e/ // /a/ // /o/ /u/
|

|

|

|

|

|

i

e ai aññ a

/\

o

ui

u

/ĩ/

/i/

/ãi/ /ã/ /ãu/ /õu/

/ũ/

/\

/\

|

/\

/\

|

/\

a añ in im ui an am o un um wan wam
//

/i/

/i/

// /u/ /u/

//

/\

/\

|

/\

/\

|

/\

ak ac it ip uik at ap ok ut up wat wap
Third, the tones basically correspond to the WB tones, as is shown below. We take thenasalized vowel /ãu/ as an example.

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:/ãu/ /ã u/e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

133

/ãu/

|

|

|

o

o:

o.
3 Texts

is section presents conversational texts in the Myeik dialect.

ese texts are transla-

tions of the dialogues in Kato (1998), a colloquial Burmese primer.

e primer has twenty

lessons, and each lesson has a dialogue in Standard Burmese. We translated all of theminto the Myeik dialect. Since Kato’s (1998) dialogues cover as many as possible of themost basic grammatical items of Burmese, translations of them into the Myeik dialect canbe a basis for future studies of morphosyntactic phenomena in this dialect.

e translated

dialogues are numbered [1] to [20] below. Transcription is phonemic. Glosses are given toeach word, and important function words and aﬃxes are listed with notes in section 3.2.
In the dialogues, these function words and aﬃxes appear in boldface in the glosses, in thesame forms as those of the phonemic transcriptions immediately above. When there aresynonyms, they are distinguished by superscript numbers. English translations are shownin parentheses.
3.1 Dialogues[1]

is is a coconut(A: a male foreigner B: a Myanmar woman)

A: d

pã tí

hàlà.

this thing apple là‘Is this an apple?’.

B: ma huma be.so 2dusà

taytí.

this.one

mango

‘No.

is is a mango.’

A: dusàbusà.

this.onewhat‘What is this?’
B: dusà
this.one‘õ utí.
coconut

is is a coconut.’[2] I’m ﬁne(A: Ko Win [a young man] B: Ma Hla [a young woman])
A: ml

nè

kã u

là.

Ma.Hla stay good là‘Are you ﬁne, Ma Hla?’134

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. . kòwĩ

B: kã umágood  Ko.Win  má‘Yes, I’m ﬁne. How about Ko Win?’. cũd kh zé

A: kã ugood  1sgtm. limalà.

now market go m follow ma2 là‘I’m ﬁne. I will go to the market now. Will you follow me?’B: ĩ.

m. cũm llib kh b zé

t

.

also b now b market go 

yes follow m 1sg‘Yes, I will follow you. I’m going to the market now, too.’[3] I don’t like pork curry(A: Ma Hla [a young woman] B: Ko Win [a young man])
A: kòwĩbusà sá

Ko.Win whatm.

eat m

‘What will you eat, Ko Win?’
B: cũd wtáhĩ
1sg

m. ml

sá

l

b wtáhĩ‘I will eat pork curry. Will you also eat pork curry, Ma Hla?’.

A: ma sáma eat 2cũm wtáhĩma ci.

pork.curry ma like 2

1sg

‘No, I won’t. I don’t like pork curry.’
B: busà hĩ

ci



lã.

side.dish like  lã

what‘What curry do you like?’
A: ctáhĩ

.

ci

chicken.curry like ‘I like chicken curry.’[4] Have you ﬁnished eating?
(A: Ma Hla [a young woman] B: Ko Win [a young man])
A: mĩ

sá

ì lá.

pí

rice eat ﬁnish ì lá‘Have you ﬁnished eating?’
B: sáì. mlpí

eat ﬁnish ì



má.

Ma.Hla  má‘Yes, I have. How about you, Ma Hla?’
A: sá

sá

m

là.

pork.curry eat m Ma.Hla also b pork.curry eat m là

y

té

.

eat y still 

2cũm wũ
1sg‘Not yet. I’m hungry.’hà

stomach hungry

nè

bì.

stay bì

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:

B: dshò à cũd mõudì

this say à 1sg

pé

e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

sá

135

m.

mohinga give eat m

‘So, I will buy you some monhingar noodle.’
A: da

b lá. phreally b lámà.

where mà‘Really? Where?’
B: tachĩ shãifriend  taw kã u

mà. sá

eat   very

shop mà. làgood 

.

come SFP‘At my frined’s shop. It’s very good. Come on!’Note 1: “pé + verb” denotes benefactive causation.

is construction exists also in Stan-

dard Burmese, as is pointed out by Kato (1998: 145), but the Myeik dialect uses it more
frequently.
Note 2: In order to express possession, the ‘possessor noun’ is simply put before the ‘possessed noun’, e.g. /tachĩ shãi/ (friend / shop) ‘my friend’s shop’.

ere is no equivalentof the genitive case marker /y/ of Standard Burmese. However, in the case of personalpronouns that have the low level tone in the last syllable, namely, /à/ ‘1sg’, /nĩ/ ‘2sg’, and/tù/ ‘3sg’, the low level tone alternates with the rising tone in order to express possession,e.g., / i/ (1sg / house) ‘my house’.
[5] I’ll go to Mandalay(A: a young man B: a young woman)
A: cũd mólĩtãi1sg

àkhayí thw

m.

tomorrow time travel go.out m

‘I’ll go for a trip tomorrow.’
B: ph

t. baàn là.

where go 

Bagan là‘Where will you go? Bagan?’.

A: ma humándalé

t

m.

ma be.so 2 Mandalay go m
‘No. I’ll go to Mandalay.’
B: busà 
what

t

.

 go ‘How will you go?’
A: míyathá tm. míyathá lm go m train

train



b w

whot. tachĩ  go 

friendì.

ticket also b buy ﬁnish ì‘I will go by train. I have already bought a ticket.’
B: phtù 

pí

là.

 là

‘Who will you go with? With your friends?’

136

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

A: bbmm 

t

túdù

m.

 together go mparents‘I’ll go with my parents.’[6] What does your father do?
(A: Ko Win’s friend [a woman] B: Ko Win [a young man])ab

A: kòwĩbusà alu lu .

Ko.Win father  what

work

do



‘What does your father do, Ko Win?’
B: cã uschoolshayà

lu . mùldã cã uteacherdomà myãmàzà

 elementary.school mà Burmese

tĩ

.

teach ‘He is a school-teacher. He’s teaching Burmese at an elementary school.’
A: am 

má busà lu .

mother  má what

do



‘What does your mother do?’yã u . tikhà myómyó yã u .

B: zé

market sell  goods various

sell ‘She sells at a market. She sells various things.’mà yã u .

A: ph

where mà sell ‘Where does she sell?’
B: mĩalàzé

mà yã u .

Mingalar.Market inside mà sell mm

shãilùcimyá.

mother shop  people.who.like many ‘She sells at Mingalar Market. Mother's shop is popular.’[7] I have about ten books(A: a male friend of Ma Hla B: Ma Hla [a young woman])
A: mlmà jàpãsàu  là.

Ma.Hla mà Japan book exist là‘Ma Hla, do you have any Japanese books?’
B:  .

exist ‘Yes, I do.’A: phmy
how.manyu  .

NC exist ‘How many do you have?’
B: sh u lu

 

.

ten NC about exist ‘I have about ten.’Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:

A: myá

má. cũd mà taz

2many z málu pí y

how

do

‘

u àb 

137

.

mà one NC only exist 

1sg

phmyóe Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese.

pí get 

at’s a lot! I have only one. How did you get them?’

B: tachĩ ta

yu jàpã

p

pé

.

one NC Japan  send give 

friend‘One of my friends sent them to me from Japan.’[8] I want to go to Shwedagon Pagoda(A: Ma Hla’s friend [a man] B: Ma Hla [a young woman])
A: ml

dně

t

ph

.

chĩ

Ma.Hla today where go want.to ‘Where do you want to go today, Ma Hla?’
B: cũm dněwèdaõuphayátchĩ .

1sg

today Shwedagon.Pagoda go want.to 

d



nè

ká



t

y

là.

here  stay car  go y là‘I want to go to Shwedagon Pagoda today. Do we have to go there by car from here?’
A: ká



t

 ma lò.

wèdaõuphayá



ní

.

car  go  ma need 2 Shwedagon.Pagoda  near 
lán

u

t

  y.

road walk go   get ‘You don’t need to go by car. Shwedagon Pagoda is close. We can go on foot.’
B: db cũm kh chè nà
but

nè. shiká

‘Even so, my legs ache today. Can we go by trishaw?’
A: t  y. dmyóshò à shiká



t

z.

go  get  like.this say à trishaw  go z‘Yes, we can. If that’s so, let’s go by trishaw.’
B: phalu

pé

y

m.

how.much give y m
‘How much will we have to pay?’
A: ásh lu
ﬁy

t

 y

là.

now leg ache stay  trishaw  go  get là

1sg

pé

y

m.

about give y m

‘We’ll have to pay about ﬁy.’138

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. [9] Is there a shop selling electric stuﬀ?
(A: a woman B: a male stranger)
A: d

mà lysnáyã u òpysí

shãithis nearby mà electricity goods sell ò2

lá ĩ.

shop exist lá ĩ‘Is there a shop selling electric stuﬀ near here?’
B:  khĩbyá.

exist  khĩbyákh chènĩbi thwòlà

go.out come ò

now bicycle

nabé mà 

nèyà
2. myĩ là.

mà exist  seeplace sidelà

‘Yes, there is. It’s right beside the place where that bicycle just came out from. Do you see it?’
A: huk myĩ 
yes

see

d

shãi

myĩ .

 see

mà yèttàyã u là. yèttà

cíjí

lò

chĩ

.

refrigerator big.one need want.to 

this shop mà refrigerator sell là‘Yes, I see it. I see it. Does that shop sell refrigerators? I want a big one.’mà cí[] zà ma  

B: hu shãi



nè

m

khĩbyá.

that shop mà big

zà ma exist 2 stay m khĩbyá

[]mzà d  

nè

m.

small zà d exist m stay m
‘I don’t think that shop sells big ones. Maybe they have small ones.’
A: hulà. busà b phy

be.so là
cézú

what

tĩ



phy

t

c

i

m.

b to.be to.be go look i mĩ.

thanks put  ĩ‘Is that so? Anyway, I will have a look there.


B: y

ank you!’l.

get  SFP‘

at’s OK.’

Note: /nè m/ (stay / m) can be translated with ‘probably’ or ‘maybe’, etc. Standard Burmese equivalents are /phyi m/ and /-n tù d/.
[10] Gourds are good if you fry them
(A: a foreign friend of Ma Hla [a young man] B: Ma Hla [a young woman])
A: kòwĩ



bútí

yù

là

pé

.

Ko.Win  gourd take come give bútíò phmyó

gourd ò how

sá

y

m. dtã i kieat y m this as

sá

y

là.

bite eat y là‘Ko Win brought me a gourd. How do you eat a gourd? Do I have to bite it without peeling?’

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:

B: ma huma be.so 


bútí

akhũ nwé pí sál.
2

SFP huskce Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmesem.

peel pí eat y mà kã u

sá

y

139

.

gourd  fry eat à good sáà kh c

chĩ

pé

m

l.

eat want.to à now fry give m SFP‘No, that’s wrong! You have to peel the skin to eat it. Gourds are good if you fry them.
If you want to eat it, I will fry it for you now.’---------------------------------------------------------------------------B: cì. mypí

fry ﬁnish ì

c.

to.taste look lookchĩy 

d

c 

t

sá

l.

phmyó.

nèthis sauce  put eat SFP how

stay 

‘I’ve ﬁnished frying it. Taste a bit of it. Dip it in this sauce to eat. How do you like it?’.

A: taw kã uverygood 

ml

jàpã

t

mà yã u à kã upí huyã u y

nè

m.

mà sell à good m stay m

Ma.Hla Japan go pí there
taw

m

b.

much sell y b
‘

is is very good! You better go to Japan and sell fried gourds, Ma Hla.


B: myu ma pyli

ey will sell well!’l.

ma speak 

2

SFP‘Don’t ﬂatter me.’[11] Because I ate too much coconut noodles(A: father B: daughter of A)
A: mí,dně

ma t

cã udaughter today schoolma go 

là.
2

là

‘Don’t you have school today?’
B: dněcã utoday schoolbb

  tpi

 ma lò.

close   go  ma need 2

má yõ uma t



father  má oﬃce ma go 

là.
2

là

‘I don’t have to go because school is oﬀ today. Don’t you also have oﬃce, Dad?’
A: dněbinà

  ma tbì.

today stomach ache   ma go bìhu maněõ unkhushw taw

sá

i

.

that yesterday  coconut.noodle much eat i ‘I have a stomachache today, so I’ve decided not to go, because I ate too much coconut
noodles yesterday.’

140

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

B: dbb cã màyé dad ayl

father  also b health

õu

si

l.

a.little attention to.plant õu SFP‘Please take a little care of your health, Dad.’
A: ay



si



b phy‘I take care, but it happens.
B: db dmpĩbã

capable ma can 2

ere is no way out there.’dadã dã  shfather  mother oenma nãi .

b. tattention to.plant also b happen  bb d[66 fa.] lná ma khã



má.

also ear ma accept 2 má2scold also b a.littlez.

tired z
‘Although Mom oen scolds you, you don’t listen to her. You’re diﬃcult.’
A: imà am yu  nòhouse mà mother two NC exist ò

2myób má.

likeb má2‘It’s like there are two moms here at home!’
Note: ‘[66 fa.]’ denotes the extra-high intonation with a falsetto voice (See 2.4.1)[12]

is one is better than this one(A: a young woman B: a friend of A [a young man])
A: cũm ĩali

abd
 ã

lò

.

chĩ

1sg

English dictionary need want.to 

d

abd
 ã



abd
 ã

d

ph

hà

pò

kã u

.

this dictionary  this dictionary which thing more good ‘I want an English dictionary. Which is better, this dictionary or this dictionary?’
B: d



hà

d

hà

th

pò



kã u

nè

m.

this thing  this thing than more good  stay mbusà phy  ĩali

abd
 ã

lò

chĩ

.

happen   English dictionary need want.to 

what‘I think this one is better than this one. Why do you want an English dictionary?’
A: cũm ĩalitĩdãzaápy

t

nè

.

1sg

English conversation class ascend stay 

d



b cũm mà ĩalithis also b 1sg

abd
 ã

ma 

.

mà English dictionary ma exist ‘I attend an English conversation class now. But I don’t have an English dictionary.’
B: d

myó

shò à cũd ithis kind say à 1sg

mà 

òzà pé

abd
 ã

kã u

là.

this dictionary good là‘Is that dictionary good?’m.

house mà exist òzà give i m

‘If that’s so, I’ll give you the one that I have at my house.’
A: d

iKato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:

B: kã u. cũd tõ u phú ògood  1sg
i

li

mà a

th

use phú òkã ukh b pé

i

141

shõu b.

inside mà a good end

2

l.

e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

b

m.

house follow SFP now b give i m‘Yes, it’s good. It’s the best among the ones that I have used. Come to my house. I’ll
give it to you now.’
A: á

nà

z.

strength ache z
‘ank you.’

B: á



ma nà

l.

strength ma ache 

2

SFP‘Not at all.’
Note: /á nà/ means ‘be embarrassed by a feeling of thanks’.
[13] I can speak Japanese(A: Ko Win [a young man] B: Ma Hla [a young woman])
A: mljàpãlò

py

t

là.

Ma.Hla in.Japanese speak capable là‘Ma Hla, do you speak Japanese?’
B: py

.

ma t

speak ma capable 

2



kòwĩ

má.

Ko.Win  má‘I can’t. How about you, Ko Win?’A: dàb

py

.

t

a.little.bit speak capable hu ayĩ dõ ukhà 

ta

n

tĩ

lu

phú .

 one year about study phú that ago time

‘I can speak a little bit. I studied it for about a year long ago.’
B: tayuzaámá pytlà.

Chinese language má speak capable là‘Do you speak Chinese?’
A: tayuzaád taw pyChinese language d well

dõ ukhà 

i

.

t

speak capable nátayu

phójí

ta

yu

young time house nearby  Chinese old.man one NCcũd ò y

tã i

1sg

tĩ

pé

.

ò day every teach give ‘I can speak Chinese very well. When I was a child, an old Chinese man nearby taught
me every day.’

142

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

B: dshò à ĩalilò

myó



b taw py

this kind say à in.English also b well



t

b.

speak capalbe  SFP‘If that’s so, you can also speak English very well, can’t you?’
A: ĩ.

py

.

t

yes speak capable ‘Yes, I can.’
B: t

z

má.

excellent z má2‘How excellent!’[14] I like Myanmar harp
(A: Ma Hla’s Myanmar harp teacher B: Ma Hla [a young woman])ml



da

ò

b

ta

khà

sã ushayà zãu

Ma.Hla  one week each one time harpist
sã u

tí

tĩ

mà

zãu mà.

nèharp play study stay ‘Ma Hla studies Myanmar harp at the harp teacher’s house once a week.’
A: mlnuap àachi là

ph

tĩ

.

come study 

Ma.Hla next week time which time

‘Ma Hla, what time will you come to study next week?’
B: sznsh nàyìlu  ylà

là.

morning ten clock about come  get là‘Can I come at about ten o’clock in the morning?’
A: cũd szn
1sg

ma á

.

my

morning ma free 2ò t 

.

town inside ò go  exist ‘I’m not going to be free in the morning, because I need to go downtown.’
B: dshò à nèn

lé

nàyì



má y

là.

this say à evening four clock  má get là‘So is it OK at four o’clock in the evening?’
A: ĩ,y. dshò à nèn

lé

nàyì

chi iyes get  this say à evening four clock ﬁxml

sã u

tí

tĩ

y

m.

i mòzà py b là.

Ma.Hla harp play study y òzà fun b là‘Yeah, that’s OK. Then we’ll meet at four o’clock in the evening. Ma Hla, is it fun
studying Myanmar harp?’
B: tawpy , shayà.

sã umuch fun  teacherdjãu  cũm taw
thus

1sg

ci

.

much like‘Yes, it’s a lot of fun.

atã

taw

ná khã  kã uharp sound  much listen

e sound of the harp is so comforting.

.

  good 

at’s why I like it so much.’Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

143[15] He was bitten by a dog(A: a male friend of Ko Win B: a female friend of Ko Win)khthth 

A: kòwĩ



ma là

má.

Ko.Win up.to.now ma come 2

má2‘Ko Win hasn’t come even now.’
B: cũm twě òsee ò

1sgkhà
2d làb py .

m

time d come m b tell bì (~ b) là ma t.

ma là

ma come bìlà ma know

‘When I saw him, he said he would come. I wonder if he’s not coming.’
A: physhãi mà thãi yĩ
tea.shop



sãu

z.

while  wait zmà sit‘Let’s wait for him in a tea shop.’
B: cũm tzãuò phõ u

sh

c

m.

1sg

3sg zãu ò phone connect look md

mà khansãuõ u.

nè

here mà for.a.while wait stay õ u‘I’ll go and give him a phone call. Wait for a while here.’ml



kòwĩ

zãu

ò phõ ush

pí pyãlà.

Ma.Hla  Ko.Win zãu ò phone connect pí return come ‘Aer calling Ko Win, Ma Hla came back.’
B: tùdně

khwé ki

3sg today dog

khã

th 

 là

ma nãi bì d.

bite bear touch  come ma can bì hearsay‘He can’t come today because he was bitten by a dog.’
A: m wé.

dukh b.

mother SFP disaster bdshò à tzãuò chchĩtpí á pé

y

m.

this say à 3sg zãu ò at.once go pí encourage y m
‘Oh, my god! So we have to go to him right now and cheer him up.’Note:e “passive construction” is formed by “verb+khã th-”, e.g., /yi khã th / ‘I washit’. /khã/ is a verb meaning ‘bear, suﬀer, accept’, and /th/ is a verb meaning ‘touch’. In
this construction, the verb and /khã/ form a noun phrase, and /th/ functions as the headof the clause. Standard Burmese equivalent is “a-verb+khà yâ d”.
[16] I came here to study Burmese(A: a woman B: Ko Aung Tun [a Japanese male friend of A])
A: kòãuthũ

bamàpyì

mà busà là

Ko.AungTun Myanmar mà whatlu .

come do‘What did you come to do here in Myanmar, Ko Aung Tun?’

144

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

B: cũd bamàsàtĩ bamàpyì

ò là

.

Burmese study  Myanmar ò come 1sg‘I came here to study Burmese.’
A: bamàpyì

òzà phalu

yu

 

bì.

Myanmar arrive òzà how.much exist bì‘How long have you been here?’
B: khan l

 

lu

bì.

seven month about exist bì‘It’s been about seven months.’

A: khan l

d

lu

tãukh pyseven month  this about evenã

z



t

lá.

speak can  lákw.

surprise z SFP
bamàpyì

ma là

khĩ

mà tĩ

hu



là

lá.

mà study come  lá

Myanmar ma come before there‘You’ve learned to speak this much in only seven months? That’s amazing! Did you
study Burmese before coming to Myanmar?’ma tĩ

B: d[66 fa.] l. dlàò yum b s

tĩ

zà.

also ma study come 2 here ò arrive m b begin study thinga.littled myã myã py

thus

fast

ãu

t

taw

cózá

y

.

speak can so.that much endeavor y ‘No, I didn’t study any. I began to study only aer I arrived here.

at’s why I had tomake a lot of eﬀort to be quickly able to speak Burmese.’
A: bamàtachĩ má shò



t

lá.

Myanmar song má sing can  lá
shò

à da

t

bu

lu

shò

py

l.

sing can à one stanza about sing show SFP‘Can you sing a Burmese song? If you can, please sing a song.’
B: tachĩ shòyòzà 

 kã u.

song sing y òzà ashamed  good num b shò

py

m.

future m b sing show m
‘I feel embarrassed to sing a song. I’ll sing it later.’[17] How much is this?
(A: Ko Aung Tun [a Japanese man] B: a friend of A C: a storekeeper)
A: cũd bamàpyìyuò ad  lõujìtakhà[66 fa.] l

1sg

Myanmar arrive ò since  sarong one timed cũd kh b lõujì

thus

1sg

2

t

w

.

now b sarong go buy 

ma w

phú .

also ma wear phú 2

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:bamàpyì

mà nè

e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmesedõ ukhà lõujì kã u

w



145

m.

sarong wear  good  SFP

Myanmar mà stay when

‘I haven’t worn a longyi since I came to Myanmar. So I’m going to go to buy a longyi
now. It’s better to wear a longyi while I live in Myanmar, isn’t it?’. lõujì

B: mã

t

w

.

right  sarong wear should kòãuthũlõujì

w

thá shò à

Ko.AungTun sarong wear put  say ànãiãchátá mã
foreigner‘

phtù[66 fa.] lt  ma hu.

also know  ma be.so 2that who

at’s right. You should wear a longyi. If you wear a longyi, no one will notice that you

are a foreigner, Ko Aung Tun.’---------------------------------------------------------------------------A: dphlu.

lõujì

this sarong how.much‘How much is this longyi?’
C: chuyà.
six.hundred‘It’s six hundred.’
A: sũ

má. 

z

õ u

l.

expensive z má2 discount õ u SFP‘

at’s too expensive. Please discount it.’ò

C: d

b. 

zémã

this EMP net.price b
‘ ma ybì.

discount   ma get bì

at’s a net price. I can’t discount it.’

A: áyà thá l.
500

put SFP‘Take ﬁve hundred.’
C: dshò à[553] áyàásh thá péthis say à
d

550

thpyĩ 

this than

m

l.

put give m SFP
ma nãi bì.

discount ma can bì‘Well, I will take ﬁve hundred ﬁy. I can’t discount it more than this.’[18] I came out without an umbrella(A: a man from Mandalay B: a woman who lives in Yangon)
A: siz. da

ãu

lõ u

sò

kõu

bì.

mind dirty z one body whole wet run.out bì‘is is too bad! My whole body got wet.’

146

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. . mó

B: busà phy

m 



lá.

happen  rain catch  lá

what‘What happened? You got caught in the rain?’. thí

A: hub 

ma pà

i



thw

là

m 

l.

be.so  umbrella ma be.with b  house  go.out come m   SFP
d

lu

tãukh mó

ywà

m

.

ma thĩrain to.rain m ma think 

this about even‘Yes. I carelessly came out of my house without an umbrella. I didn’t think it would
rain this much.’
B: yãõumà shò à mókàl

mà ytã i

myó

Yangon mà say à wet.season mà daily like

d

lu

b ywà l.

this about b rain  SFP‘In Yangon, it rains this much almost every day in the rainy season.’
A: mólĩtãi

má ywà mlà ma t.

tomorrow  má rain m là ma know
‘Will it rain again tomorrow?’à ywà m.

B: ywà chĩrain want.to à rain m
‘It may rain.’
A: cũd 1sg

aàtáma t .

 upper.Burman  much ma know 2cũd mã dalé1sg  tawmà nè

dõ ukhà 

Mandalay mà stay whilethíb 

ma pà

t

ph

b tt where b go go
.

t

umbrella ma be.with b  go be.likely.to ‘I don’t know the weather well because I’m from Upper Burma. When I lived in
Mandalay, wherever I went, I would go without an umbrella.’
B: hi,heydphábã i aé m mamyã myã tu

 fast

this towel
cu

py

i.

wipe throw i  l.

cold catch ma2 afraid   SFP‘Hey, wipe your body with this towel right now, because I’m afraid you’ll catch a cold.’
Note 1: ‘V chĩ à V m’ means ‘may V’ or ‘might V’.
Note 2:e word /aàtá/ ‘Upper Burman’ is not frequently used in the Myeik dialect. All

the ethnic Burmese people that live outside Tanintharyi Division are called /baã/ (male)and /baãm/ (female) in Myeik by using the name of the ancient city Bagan (Pagan),where the ﬁrst Burmese kingdom was established.

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:147

e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese[19] My car seems broken(A: a female teacher at a university B: Ko Win [a former student of A])
A: cũm mólĩtãi
1sg

t

baó

y

m.

tomorrow time Bago go y m


ká

à

li

p



pé

à

lù

car  follow send give 

.

nè

person search stay 

2‘I’ll have to go to Bago tomorrow. I’m looking for a person who will take me there.’
B: cũd li
1sg

p

pé

m

l.

follow send give m SFP‘I will take you.’
A: y

malà.

get ma2 là‘Is that OK?’
. shayàm 

B: y

get  teachershò à kùì y

m

b.

for say à help y m SFP‘It’s OK. I have to help you because you are my teacher, don’t I?’
A: cézúcũm káb n.

 

nó

py

nè

bì nè

m.

car  break stay bì stay mthanks b SFP 1sg
s



dãu

ma y

bì.

machine awake   even ma get bì‘

ank you! My car seems broken. I can’t even start the engine.’

B: cũd pyĩ
1sg

m

l.

repair give m SFP

cũd 1sgpé

shò à ph

s

hà

b phy phy pyĩ machine say à which thing b be

be

t

.

repair can ‘I’ll ﬁx it for you. I can ﬁx everything when it comes to machines.’
A: hu

lá. nuà takhkh

be.so  lákòwĩ pyĩshò à

future something repair  exist  say àò pyĩkhã im.

Ko.Win ò repair order m
kòwĩ



á

kó

y

z

má.

Ko.Win  strength rely y z má2db busà phy
but

what

  ithãuma nèlã.

happen   household ma stay lã‘Is that so? In the future if I need to have something ﬁxed, I will ask you to ﬁx it. You
are a reliable man! But why haven’t you gotten married?’
B: dusà ma py 
thisma tell l,
2shayàm wé.

SFP teacher‘Please don’t ask that, ma’am.’

SFP

148

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. [20] I don’t want to go back yet(A: Ko Aung Tun [a Japanese man] B: Ma Hla [a young woman])
A: kòãuthũphkhà jàpã

.

pyã

Japan return 

Ko.AungTun when

‘When will you go back to Japan, Ko Aung Tun?’à

B: nul

.

pyã

next.month time return amã shò à ma pyã
truth

lò

.

té

say à ma return hope.to still 2

‘I’ll go back next month. Actually, I don’t want to go back yet.’ò pyã

A: phkhà bamàpyì

.

là

Myanmar ò return come 

when‘When will you come back to Myanmar?’nãi 

B: physhò à d



n

mà

happen can  say à this year inside mànuth ta

khà

pyã

õ u

là

m

l.

one time return come õ u m SFP

futuremyã myã pyãnãi  sh tã u pé.

là

return come can  pray

fast

give

‘If it’s possible, I will come back once again this year. Please pray that I can come back soon.’ò pyã

A: hu
there



yu

shò à cũml ò měò return arrive  say à 1pl



m

nè

m.

ò forget  m stay m‘When you are back there, I think you will forget us.’
B: cũd phkhà l
1sg

when

b bamàpyìdè ò mělù ma hubì.

also b Myanmar  person pl ò forget  ma be.so bì‘I’ll never forget the people of Myanmar.’
A: jàpã

pyã

yu

à busà lu m.

píJapan return arrive ﬁnish à what

do

m

‘What will you do when you are back in Japan?’
B: bamàpyì

pt

òMyanmar  related òsàu yé
2 sikú

há .

book write  mind cross há ‘I’m planning to write a book on Myanmar.’
3.2 Notes to function words and aﬃxes
When the function word or aﬃx has an etymologically corresponding Standard Burmese form, the corresponding Standard Burmese form is shown aer “SB”.
bSubordinate clause marker meaning ‘without V-ing’. SB /ph/.

bParticle denoting emphasis. SB /p/.

bì

Verb sentence marker denoting a ‘perfect-like’ meaning. It tends to be pronounced/ì/ aer the verb /pí/ ‘ﬁnish’. SB /pì/.

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:

149

e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of BurmeseĩTerm of address used by a female speaker. SB /ì/.

dParticle denoting contrastiveness. SB /t/.

há

Auxiliary denoting provision or result. It originates in the verb /thá/ ‘put’.

à

Subordinate clause marker meaning ‘if’ or ‘when’.



Case particle denoting ‘subject’, past time, and source. SB /kâ/.

Verb sentence marker for a negative sentence. This particle functionally corre-2

sponds to the Standard Burmese verb sentence marker /phú/.
i

Auxiliary denoting thoroughness. SB /lai/.

Verb sentence marker denoting realis modality. SB /t/.

Case particle denoting instrument, accompanier, and enumeration. SB /n/.

Verb sentence marker denoting prohibition. SB /n/.

ì

A variant of /bì/.

2

 

Subordinate sentence marker meaning ‘because’, ‘as a result of’, etc.

is particle

etymologically corresponds to the Literary Burmese particle /ywê/. // can follow
either a verb or a noun.
ò

Case particle denoting patient, goal, recipient etc. SB /kò/.

òRealis relative-clause marker. Its irrealis counterpart is //, which is diﬀerent from2/ò/ only in tone.
òzàParticle which has a function of nominalization of realis clauses.
terpart is /zà/.

e irrealis coun-e ﬁrst syllable may delete, and only the second syllable /zà/remain, but in that case, the preceding vowel may be prolonged, as described in
section 2.4.2.
e second syllable also may delete, yielding /ò/.

Morpheme that has a similar function to the infinitive to in English. When it isused in the sentence-ﬁnal position, it functions like an irrealis marker. SB /ăphô/.



Irrealis relative-clause marker. SB /ăphô/.

zàParticle that has a function of nominalization of irrealis clauses.

Auxiliary denoting completeness. It originates in the verb /t/ ‘go’.

2khĩbyá Term of address used by a male speaker. SB /khmyá/.
làParticle denoting a question. It is also pronounced /lá/. SB /lá/.

lá

See /là/.

lã

Particle used in the sentence-ﬁnal position of interrogative sentences with interrogative words. It is functionally similar to the particle /l/ of Standard Burmese
but diﬀerent from /l/ in that /lã/ is optional, whereas the occurrence of /l/ isobligatory.

ma

Preﬁx denoting negation.

is preﬁx is omittable when the verb is followed by an

auxiliary. For example, /(ma) sá lò / (ma / eat / want-to / 2) ‘I don’t want toeat’. SB /mă/.
2

ma

A variant of irrealis marker /m/. It may be used before the question particle /là/(/lá/) and certain other morphemes. Note that the form /m/ also can be used
before /là/. SB /mă/.

màCase particle denoting location. SB /hmà/.

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máParticle denoting the contrastive topic of an interrogative sentence.

2

máParticle denoting exclamation.

mParticle meaning ‘not until V-ing’ or ‘not until N’. SB /hmâ/.

mVerb sentence marker denoting irrealis modality. SB /m/.

m 

Auxiliary denoting inadvertency. SB /mî/.

phú

Auxiliary denoting experience. SB /phú/.

pí

Subordinate clause marker denoting sequential actions. SB /pí/.

téParticle meaning ‘still’ or ‘again’. SB /té/.

y

Auxiliary meaning inevitability. It can be translated into English with ‘can’ or‘must’. SB /yâ/.

zà

See /òzà/.

z

Particle marking an exclamatory statement. It is put directly aer verbs.

is par-ticle etymologically corresponds to the Literary Burmese particle /swâ/.
zãuRelator noun that denotes the place where an entity exists. An equivalent of Standard Burmese /shì/.

z

Particle meaning ‘let’s V’. SB /sô/.

aPreﬁx that nominalizes verbs. SB /ă-/.

õ uParticle meaning ‘still’ or ‘again’. It is also used as the meaning of ‘please’. SB/óu/.
4 Basic vocabularyThis section presents a basic vocabulary of the Myeik dialect (about nine hundred

items).

e items of this vocabulary are based on Hattori (1957), with some modiﬁcations

by the authors. Item numbers with an alphabetic designator, e.g., “98-2a” and “113-a”, havebeen added by the present authors. Verbs are presented with the verb sentence marker //because it is used for the citation of verbs by speakers of this dialect.
1. head /khã u/

10. mouth /baz/22. face /mynà/

1-1. hair /shã bĩ/11. lip /nakhã /23. cheek /pá/1-2. to be bald /khã u pyãu

12. tongue /à/24. beard /mushimwé/

13. dumb / /25. neck /lbĩ/

1-3. brain /õ unu/

14. tooth /twá/

26. throat /lchã u/

2. forehead /naphú/

15. saliva /nwèy/

27. shoulder /pakhõu/

3. eye /mys/ , /mylõ u/

16. breathe /at ù /27-1. armpit /lkadí/

4. eyebrow /mykhõumwé/

17. voice /atã/

28. arm /lmã u/

5. tear /myy/

18. cough /khã u shó /,29. elbow /dadãuz//

6. blind /mys  kã //chã u shó /29-1. wrist /lkuw/7. nose /nakhã u/

19. sneeze /hchó chì /30. hand /l/

8. ear /náyw/20. yawn /tã /31. ﬁnger /lchã u/

9. deaf /ná pĩ /, /ná lé /21. jaw /mézě/32. nail /lt/Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

151

33. breast /yĩph/55. ﬂesh /atá/71-8. peanut /myèb/34. breast of woman /n/56. strength /á/

72. ﬂour /amõu/34-1. nipple /ntíkhã u/

57. look at /c /72-a. taro /pi/34-2. rib /nãyó/

58. to smell (vt) /nã /72-b. yam /myu/34-3. lung /ashu/59. listen /ná khã /72-c. potato /àlú/35. heart /nalõ u/

60. laugh /y /72-d. sweet potato /myukhã u/

36. belly /bi/

61. cry /ò /73. meat /atá/

37. internal organs /wũ twĩtá /62. shout / /73-1. onion /ctũnì/37-1. intestines /ù/

63. clothes /awasá/

73-1a. garlic /ctũphyù/37-2. stomach /asài/64. wear /w /74. fruit /atí/38. liver /at/65. take oﬀ /ch /75. seed /asě/38-1. kidney /cuk/66. naked /chétut/75-1. ﬁsh /á/

39. navel /ch/66-1. cap /uthu/

76. egg //40. back /c/66-2. shirt /ĩjì/77. salt /shá/41. waist /khá/

66-3. sarong /lõujì/77-1. sugar /tajá/

42. buttock /phĩthu/66-4. trousers /bã ubì/77-2. honey /pyáy/42-1. excrement /ché/66-5. belt /kháb/77-3. oil /shì/42-2. have a bowel movement/ché pu /66-6. jacket /chã ĩjì/78. grease /ashì/66-7. collar /klà/, /klã/78-1. butter /thb/

42-3. bladder /shíi/66-8. sandal /phan/

79. milk /n/42-4. urine /té/

66-9. bare foot /chèbalà/

80. water /yè/42-5. urinate /té pu /66-10. cloth /ath/, /ĩjìà/80-1. hot water /yèbù/42-6. break wind /í pu /66-11. cotton /wàũ /80-2. steam /yèwě/42-7. penis /lí/66-12. hemp /õuyi/80-3. tea plant /laph/42-8. testicles /wézě/, /pã /66-13. wool /tómwé/80-4. rice porridge /mĩbyu/42-9. vulva /sup/

66-14. silk /póth/80-5. soup /hĩchò/42-10. intercourse /ló /67. hide (n) /tayè/

80-6. bread /pãumõu/42-11. thigh /pãu/67-1. comb /khã uphí/80-7. liquor /ay/

43. knee /dú/67-2. ring /ls/80-8. drunk /mú /44. leg /chèdu/67-3. scissors /kcé/80-9. tobacco /shéli/

45. foot /chè/

68. needle //81. cook /ch /46. lame /thjóthjó t /69. thread /ch/81-1. roast /kĩ /47. body /akãu/70. sew /chu /81-1a. deep-fry /c /48. hair of body /amwé/

71. food /sázayà/

81-1b. steam /pã u /49. skin /ayèkhũ/71-1. rice /zabábĩ/ (rice plant),

81-2. boil water /yèbù t /49-1. mole /nã //zabá/ (paddy), /shã/81-3. raw /si /50. pus /py/(uncooked rice), /mĩ/82. ripe /m /51. sweat /chwé/(cooked rice)

83. eat /sá /52. dirt /jé/71-1a. side dish /hĩ/84. lick /y /53. blood /twé/

71-2. wheat /jõu/85. chew /wá /54. bone /ajó/

71-7. bean /p/86. drink /tu /

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87. suck /su /106-1. bed /khadĩ/120-1. box /ttà/

88. vomit /ã /107. lay down /l ch /120-2. lid /aphõu/89. spit /thwé /108. sleep /i /120-3. basket /chĩ/90. hungry /wũ hà /109. dream /im m /120-4. bag /i/90-a. full /w /109-1. wake /nó / (vi, vt)

121. cord /có/

91. thirsty /yè  /110. stand up /th /122. net /pi/, /pikũ/

92. taste /aytà/111. stand /mt y /122-1. cane /tãumwé/

92-1. tasty /mi /111-1. well /yèdwĩ/123. stick /du/

93. sweet /chò /111-2. hedge /wĩthayã/123-1. ladder /lèá/

93-1. salty /ã /112. shut (vt) /pi /123-2. plank /pyĩbyá/

93-1a. spicy /s /113. open (vt) /phw /123-3. to be born /mwé /94. bitter /khá /114. live /nè /125. grow /cí t là /94-1. sour /chĩ /114-1. stay at (a hotel) /t /126. alive /ĩ /94-2. to smell (vi) /nã /114-2. machine /s/127. fat /w /95. rotten /pu /114-3. mirror /mã/128. thin /pi /95-1. mould /mò/114-3a. fan /ytãu/129. tired /m /96. house /i/

114-4. cup /khw/129-1. ﬁne /cã mà /97. build /shu /114-5. dish /zãbyá/130. sick /yà/97-1. entrance /wĩbu/

114-6. spoon /zũ /130-1. fever /aphyá/

98. door /daá/115. pot /ó/131. wound /dãyà/98-1. room /akhã /116. pan /dó/132. to ache /nà /98-2. ﬂoor /cã byĩ/

116-1. scoop (water) /yè kh133. itchy /yá /98-2a. mat /phyà//133-a. ticklish /yá /98-3. post /tãi/

116-2. pour /yè th /134. scratch /ku /99. wall /khayã/, /thayã/

116-3. spill /phi /134-1. medicine /shé/99-1. window /ltãbu/117. knife /dá/135. cure /k /100. roof /khãumó/

118. edge /dátwá/

135-1. cured /kã u  bì/

100-1. kitchen /míphòkhã /118-1. mortar /shõu/135-2. poison /ashi/101. ﬁre /mí/118-2. pestle /shõuthã uyó/

136. kill /t /101-1. ﬁre (v) /mí th /118-3. grind /ci /137. die /tè /101-2. ﬂame /mídu/118-4. pound /thã u /137-1. funeral /matà/

102. smoke /míkhó/118-5. hammer /tù/137-2. tomb /tĩchã i/103. ash /pyà/

118-6. nail /tã/138. spirit /n/103-1. charcoal /mítwé/

118-7. saw /lw/138-1. pray /sh tã u /103-2. ﬁrewood /thĩ/

118-8. ax /kp/139. quarrel /yã phy /104. extinguish /mí t /118-9. mattock /putú/

139-1. war /s/105. burn (vi) /mí lãu /118-10. sickle /dazĩ/

139-2. win /nãi /105-1. burn (vt) /mí  /118-11. plow /th/139-3. to be defeated /õ u /105-2. desk /zabw/118-13. whet /twé /140. run away /thw pyé /105-3. chair /kalàthãi/119. dust /phõu/141. pursue /li /106. sit /thãi /120. wipe /tu /142. sword /dámjí/Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:

143. spear /lã/e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese(not /ìakò/)153

164. to work /alu lu /143-1. shield /dã i/

156-d. sisters /ìnam/165. take a rest /ná /144. bow /lé/157. younger brother165-1. plow /thũ /, /ththó /145. arrow /myá//ì/ (brother of a male145-1. gun /tèn/

speaker), /mãu/ (brother146. human being /lù/of a female speaker) Note:147. male /yucá/

Some speakers use /mãu/165-3. reap (paddy) /yi /148. female /mim/

instead of /ì/.

165-3a. plant (paddy) /si /165-2. plant seed /myózě c/

148-1. baby /táĩ/157-a. younger sister /ìm/

166. peel /nwé /149. child /tá/

157-1. brother in law /yuph/

166-1. knit /y /149-1. boy /kãu/157-2. sister in law /mayí/

166-2. spin thread /ch ĩ /149-2. girl /kãum/157-3. nephew /tù/166-3. weave /ykã y /149-3. young person /lù/

157-4. niece /tùm/

167. go /t /149-5. adult /lùjí/157-5. cousin /tawũ w/168. come /là /150. young / /158. husband /lĩ/

168-1. return /pyã /151. old /at cí /159. wife /mayá/

168-2. remain /cã /152. father /bb/, /db/

159-1. daughter-in-law

168-3. follow /li /153. mother /mm/, /dm/,/chwém/169. go out /thw /159-2. son-in-law /tam/170. enter /wĩ /153-1. parents /mp h/

159-3. marry /i t /171. to be bent /ku /153-1a. stepfather /ph/159-3a. family /mtáz/

171-1. spin /l /153-1b. stepmother /m /

159-4. widow /mushóm/

171-1a. rotate /p /153-2, 3 parents in law

159-5. orphan /mphm tá/

171-2. to be lost /lã má /159-6. friend /tachĩ/

171-3. arrive /yu /153-4. grandfather /aphó/

159-7. enemy /yãtù/

172. stop /y /153-5. grandmother159-8. host /iĩ/

172-1. go beyond /c /159-9. slave /cũ/

172-1a. cross /kú /159-10. name /nãm/173. walk /lã u /than parent), /ú/ ~ /yí/160. village /t/174. run /pyé /(younger than parent)

160-1. city /my/

175. fast /myã /153-7. aunt /cíjí/ (older than160-2. market /zé/176. slow /sélé //dm//yukham//aphwá/153-6. uncle /phjí/ (older

parent), /d/ (younger

161. hunt /am li /177. crawl /twá /than parent)

162. shoot /py /177-1. ride /sí /154. son /tá/

162-1. trap /thãuchu/177-2. carry /yùshãu /155. daughter /tamí/

162-2. catch ﬁsh /á myá /177-3. take away /yùshãu t155-1. grandchild /myé/

162-3. rich /cíbyá  /156. elder brother /akò/, /nãu/162-4. poor /cíbyá ma  /177-4. bring /yùshãu là /156-a. elder sister /am/163. steal /khó /178. road /lã /156-b. brothers and sisters

163-1. rob /l /178-1. halfway /lã taw/163-2. rice-ﬁeld /lbyĩ/

179. bridge /dadá/

163-3. ﬁeld /yà/179-1. to travel /khayí t //ìnam/156-c. brothers /ìnakò/

/

154

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195. strike /yi /219. repair /pyĩ /181. wheel /bi/

195-1. request /tã u /220. to be torn /su /182. boat, ship /lè/, /tĩph/195-2. help /kùì /221. bend /kwé i /180. carriage /l/

182-1. paddle /ld/

196. bite /ki /222. break (as stick) /chó /182-2. row a boat /lè l /197. take /yù /223. wash /shé / (as dish),182-3. sail /yw/198. hold /kãi // / (as shirt), /t /183. language /zaá/

199. grasp /shu /184. speak /py /200. release /l /224. roll /li /185. say /py /201. throw /py /225. tie /ch /185-1. quiet /i /201-1. discard /w py /226. untie /phyì /(face)

186. ask /mé /202. touch /th  /227. cover /u /186-1. answer /pyã py /203. rub /p /228. swell /phã u /186-2. folktale /põu/204. wave /lu /228-2. paste /k /186-3. tell a lie /li /204-a. shake /lu /228-3. tear oﬀ /khwà /,186-4. truth /amã/205. push /tũ /186-5. letter, alphabet /sàlõ u/

205-a. push a switch /ni /228-4. pull out /nu /186-6. write /yé /206. pull /shw /229. pierce /thó /186-7. read /ph /207. squeeze / /230. cut /phy / (as string),

186-8. paper /skù/207-1. carry on shoulder /thã

186-9. point at /py ///khwàthu //khu / (as wood), / /(as paper)

187. call /kh /208. carry on back /õ u pó /231. mix /y /187-1. command /mà /, /sè

209. kick /kã /232. dig /tú /210. stamp on /nĩ /233. do /lu /187-2. mark /dazi/

210-1. use /tõ u /233-1. begin /s /189. play /kzá /210-2. to be lost /pyu /233-2. to be ﬁnished /pí /190. sing /tachĩ shò /211. conceal / /233-3. continue /sh lu /191. dance /k /211-1. put back /ti /233-4. discontinue /phy /192. give /pé /212. seek /à /234. move /ywě /192-1. get /y /213. ﬁnd /myĩ /234-1. slip and fall down /ch

192-2. sell /yã u /214. show /py d/192-3. buy /w /215. put /thá /, /tĩ / (load)

234-2. fall down /l c /192-4. borrow /á /215-1. wrap /thu /234-3. get together /s /192-5. borrow (money) /ché215-2. unfold /phyã /235. jump /khõu //l c / (not /ch/)215-3. hang /chi /236. ascend /t /192-6. send /p /215-4. put in /th /237. descend /shĩ /193. meet /twě /215-5. take out /thu /,238. fall /c //194. wait /sãu /194-1. mimic /at khó h/
194-2. praise /chémũ //yùthu /216. collect /ti há / cf.
save money /cíbyá s

239. wet /sò /240. dry /twě /240-1. compare /nã iĩ /194-3. scold /sh /217. make /lu /240-2. choose /ywé /194-4. deceive /li /218. break(vt) /phy /240-3. get used /ac phy nè

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:/e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

257. snow /nĩkh/285. island /cũ /240-4. repair /pyĩ /258. ice /yè/

286. stone /cu/240-5. hurry /adã amã lu259. freeze /yè kh /286-1. rock /cutõ u/260. melt /ay py /287. sand /t/240-6. change /pyã u /261. sun /nè/

288. earth /myè/240-7. be good at /t /262. moon /l/

288-1. mud /ũ/

241. think /sĩzá /263. star /c/

288-2. clay /ũzé/242. know /t  /264. light /alĩyãu/288-3. iron /tã/242-1. understand /ná l /265. shade /ayi/288-4. gold /wè/, /shwè/242-2. remember /mm  /266. bright /tu /288-5. silver /wè/

243. forget /mě /267. dark /mi /288-6. copper /cé/243-1. remind /tad  y /268. wind /lè/

288-7. lead /kh/244. teach /tĩ /269. blow /lè pu /289. tree /tpĩ/244-1. learn /tĩ /269-1. silent /ti /289-1. wood /ttá/

245. fear /cu /269-2. noisy /ã /290. grass /my/shãu  /155245-1. surprised /ãá t /270. hot /pù /291. trunk /pĩzì/

246. like /ci /271. cold /é /292. bark /akhu/

246-1. dislike /ma ci /272. warm /pù /293. stem /ayó/

247. glad /wũ tà /272-1. ground /myèjí/

294. branch /akã i/, /akh/

247-1. sad /wũ n /273. mountain /tãu/295. leaf /ayw/247-2. suspect /ma yõu /273-1. hill /tãuõu/295-1. vine /nw/247-3. believe /yõu /273-2. valley /my/

295-2. thorn /shú/248. angry /si pu /274. forest /tt/296. ﬂower /pã /248-1. forgive /khw l /275. plain /kwĩ/

297. root /amy/248-2. ashamed / /276. lake /yèã/298. sprout /pu /248-3. anxious /si pù /276-1. spring /sã chã u/299. wither /ó /248-4. patient /tí khã /277. river /my/, /chã u/299-1. bamboo /wá/248-5. stupid /thõu /277-1. water /yè/299-2. mushroom /mò/248-6. clever /limà /278. bubble /yèmyu/299-a. coconut /õu/249. mind /si/279. sink /n /299-b. palmyra palm /thã /249-1. mad /yú /, /õunu280. ﬂoat /p /299-c. nipa palm /dan/

280a. aﬂoat /põuspõus

299-d. banana /bytí/ywě /250. sky /mó/, /kã uĩ/phy (~p) nè /300. animal /talishã/

250-1. weather /mólèwat/281. ﬂow /my shĩ  /301. bird //251. cloud /ti/

281-1. waterfall /yèdaũ/

302. ﬁsh /á/

252. fog /nĩ/

282. shore /kã /303. insect /póãu/253. rain /mó/282-1. cliﬀ /ju/304. dog /khwé/

254. thunder /mójó/

283. sea /pĩl/

304-1. cat /cãu/255. lightning /lys/ (not283-1. gulf /pĩl/304-2. horse /myĩ/283-2. cape /asũ /, /aù/

304-3. cattle /nwá/

284. wave /lã i/

304-3a. baﬀalo /cw//lysí/)256. rainbow /ttã/

156

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

304-4. sheep /tó//tut/ (gecko), /bad/336. green /si /304-5. goat /b/(leiolepis), /mjã u/337. white /phyù /304-6. pig /w/(crocodile)338. black /m /304-7. chicken /c/

311-1a. frog /phá/338-1. paint /tu /304-8. lion /chĩtě/312. horn /jò/338-2. dye /ayãu shó /304-9. tiger /cá/

312-1. fur /amwé/

339. sound /atã/304-10. bear /wwũ/

312-2. leather /tayè/

340. smell /anã/304-11. wolf /wũpalwè/

313. claw /chèt/

340-1. rude /yã i /304-12. fox /myèkhwé/

314. tail /phĩmwé/

340-2. kind /tab kã u /304-13. deer /tamĩ/

315. beak /nutí/340-3. compassionate /taná /304-14. monkey /myu/316. wing /atãu/340-4. brave /y /304-15. rabit /yõu/317. feather /mwé/

340-5. coward /ma y /304-16. mouse /cw/317-1. ﬁn /áshúdãu/340-6. honest /yó /304-17. elephant /shĩ/

317-2. scale /acékhũ/340-7. sly /ac yu /304-18. camel /kalau/318. nest /ti/

340-8. lazy /pyĩ /304-19. bat /lĩn/

319. ﬂy /pyã /341. strong /á cí /, /á kã u304-20. whale /wèlá/

320. swim /yè kú /304-21. crab /kanã /320-1. call (as animal) / /342. weak /á n /304-22. shrimp /bazũ/

320-2. lay eggs / /343. right /mã //305. shellﬁsh /khay/

320-3. breed, rear /mwé /343-a. false /ywĩ /305-1. eagle /lĩyõu/321. round /wã i /344. good /kã u /305-2. crane /jójà/

322. sharp /th / (as a knife),

345. bad /shó //chũ / (as a needle)

345-1. easy /lw /305-3. swallow /byãlwá/
305-4. goose /b/

323. dull /tõ u /345-2. diﬃcult /kh /305-5. dove, pigeon /jó/, /khò/323-1. ﬂat /ì /345-3. dangerous /ãday  /305-6. crow /cíã /324. hole /apu/345-4. tight /c /305-7. sparrow /sà/325. straight /tã /345-5. loose /chãu /305-8. butterﬂy /lipyà/

325-1. line /myĩjã u/346. smooth /ch /306. ant /póyw/325-2. trace /ayà/

346-1. rough /cã /306-1. spider /pĩkhalù/325-3. corner /dãu/347. old /hã u /306-2. bee /pyá/

325-4. thing /pysí/, /tikhà/

348. new /t /307. mosquito /chĩ/

326. big /cí /349. beautiful /l /308. ﬂy /yĩãu/327. small / /349-1. ugly /yu shó /308-a. cockroach /póh/

328. long / /350. clean /tãĩ /309. ﬂea /tã /329. short /tò /351. dirty /p /310. louse /tã /330. thick /thù /352. hard /mà /311. snake /mwè/

331. thin /pá /353. so /py /311-1. reptiles /imyãu/332. color /ayãu/353-1. place /nèyà/(house lizard), /ph/

333. red /nì /354. front /ě/

(monitor lizard),

334. blue /pyà /355. back /nu//phtãkhã u/ (chameleon),335. yellow /wà /355-1. beside /nabé/Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

356. between /já/386-a. frequently /pã cpã c/356-1. center /al/

386-1. sometimes /khàlèkhà/,

357. upside /ath//shkhàtakhà/

157/khankh/, 8 /kh/, 9/kókh/, 10 /shkh/
406-2. numeral classiﬁers

358. downside /u/387. today /dně/, /dkhaně/for animals (one to ten

359. inside /ath/

388. yesterday /hu maně /animals): 1 /daãu/,360. outside /apyĩ/

389. tomorrow /mólĩtãi/

2 /nkãu/, 3 /tõuãu/,361. right /àph/

390. everyday /ytã i/

4 /léãu/, 5 /áãu/,362. le /bph/

391. day /ně/6 /chukãu/, 7 /khankãu/,363. tip /asũ /391-1. week /ap/

8 /kãu/, 9 /kóãu/,363-1. circumference /ppl/

391-2. month /l/

10 /shãu/364. near /ní /392. year /n/

406-3. each one /takh chĩ/

365. far /wé /392-1. age /at/406-4. ﬁrst /ptham/366. high /my /392-2. hot season /nwèkàl/406-5. second /dty/

367. low /ni /392-3. rainy season /mókàl/406-6. third /tdy/368. deep /n /392-4. cool season /shã ukàl/406-7. last /nushõu/,369. shallow /ti /393. count /yè /370. wide /c /394. one /t/371. narrow /cĩ /395. two /n//daãud/372. together /túdù/396. three /tõu/407. all /álõu/373. full /pyě /397. four /lé/407-1. everyone /lùdã i/,

374. empty /hã ulã u/398. ﬁve /á//yutã i/375. direction /aymynà/

399. six /chu/408. half /taw/375-1. east /aě/400. seven /khan/408-2. one fourth375-2. west /anu/401. eight //375-3. south /tãu/402. nine /kó/408-3. both things /nkhlõ u/375-4. north /myu/403. ten /tash/

408-4. weigh /chi /375-5. dawn /ctũ/403-1. eleven /sht/

409. heavy /lé /376. morning /mólĩ/, /szn/

403-2. twelve /shn/410. light /p /377. daytime /něn/404. twenty /nsh/

411. much /dabõu b/378. evening /nèn/,404-1. twenty-one /nsht/

412. few /n /405. one hundred /tayà/

412-1. increase /myá là /405-1. one hundred one /tayà

412-2. decrease /n là //nèén/379. night /n/
379-a. dusk /tishà/ t//nupiché/
406-8. alone /tayuth/,/lébõudabõu/413. I /à/380. early /s /405-11. one thousand /tathãu/414. we /d/381. late /nu c /405-14. ten thousand /tatã u/415. thou /nĩ/, /m/382. now /kh b/406. time /akhà/

416. ye /nl/, /ml/

382-1. immediately /chchĩ/406-1. numeral classiﬁers for417. he, she /tù/

383. before /ayĩ/

objects (one thing to ten

418. they /tl/

384. aerwards /nu/

things): 1 /takh/, 2 /nkh/,419. oneself /kò/385. always /amyb/

3 /tõ ukh/, 4 /lékh/, 5419-1. by oneself /kzàkò/386. oen /dadã dã //ákh/, 6 /chukh/, 7420. this one /d/, /dhà/,158

Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 

431. some /tach/447-2. Is it good? /kã u là/

421. that one /huhà/, /husà/431-1. very /taw/447-3. He said that it was

421-2. this+N ‘/d/+N’ Note:

431-1a. a little /d/, /dad//dzà/, /dusà/

ere is no counterpart
for Standard Burmese
demonstrative /dì/. In

431-2. best /a kã u shõu/431-3. not good at all/(da)d l ma kã u /contexts where Standard

432. again /nukhà/

Burmese uses /dì/,

433. It is still there. / té /Myeik uses /d/.

433-a. It will be still there.

421-3. that+N ‘/hu/+N’
421-5. like this /dmyó/
421-6. like that /humyó//  m nè m/434. It is no longer there. /ma  bì/there. (quotation) / shò py /448. I didn’t go, because it
was rainy. /mó ywà  mat /449. Although it was rainy,
I went. /mó ywà  b t/450. I ordered him to go. /tò t khã i /, /t ò t sè i /422. here /d mà/434-1. each other /chĩchĩll/

423. there /hu mà/435. if it is so /d myó shò à/423-2. to here /d ò/436. to /ò/

423-3. to there /hu ò/437. till now /kh th/452. I want to eat. /sá chĩ /424. who /ph tù/438. from //453. exist / /425. what /busà/

439, 440. in, at /mà/454. capable /t /426. which /ph hà/

441. with (someone) //454-1. I have a car. / mà

427. how /ph myó/442. and //428. where /ph mà/443. Mother’s shop /mm

428-1. to where /ph ò/shãi/

451. I was hit. (passive) /yikhã th /ká  /455. same /túdù b/ (regarding color or shape), /

428-2. why /busà phy /444. also / b/429. when /phkhà /,445. (better) than this /d th/455-1. alike /tù //phkhàdõ u / (past),

446. with (something) //456. another house /tachá i//phkhà/ (future)446-1. Only he went. /tù b

457. for children /tá /430. how many pieces/phmy kh/
430-1. how much /phalu/,/phlu/430-2. something /takhkh/t /446-2. She is Merguian. /tùbitù b/

nmz: nominalizer
pl: plural
real: realis modality
sb: Standard Burmese

457-2. Do as the teacher
does. /shayà myó lu/457-3. I must go. /t y m/447-1. Don’t go. /ma t /457-4. yes /ĩ/, /huk/1, 2, 3: ﬁrst, second, and third person
nc: numeral classiﬁer

457-1. as much as this /d lu/447. not ‘/ma/+V+//’Abbreviations

emp: emphasisb/ (regarding size)

Kato, Atsuhiko and Khin Pale:e Myeik (Beik) Dialect of Burmese

159

sg: singularsfp: sentence ﬁnal particle
vsm: verb sentence marker
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原稿受理日―2011 年 7 月 13 日