Burmese language

Burmese(Burmese:မြန်မာဘာသာ;MLCTS:Mranma bhasa;pronounced[mjəmàbàθà]) is aTibeto-Burman languagespoken inMyanmar,where it is theofficial language, lingua franca, and the native language of theBamar, the country's largest ethnic group. Burmese is also spoken by the indigenous tribes in Bangladesh'sChittagong Hill Tracts, India'sMizoram,Manipur,Tripurastates and theBurmese diaspora. TheConstitution of Myanmarofficially refers to it as theMyanmar languagein English,though most English speakers continue to refer to the language asBurmese, afterBurma—a name with co-official status until 1989 (seeNames of Myanmar). Burmese is the most widely-spoken language in the country, where it serves as thelingua franca.In 2019, Burmese was spoken by 42.9 million people globally, including by 32.9 million speakers as a first language, and an additional 10 million speakers as a second language.A 2023World Banksurvey found that 80% of the country's population speaks Burmese.
Burmese is atonal,pitch-register, andsyllable-timed language,largelymonosyllabicandagglutinativewith asubject–object–verbword order. Burmese is distinguished from other major Southeast Asian languages by its extensive case marking system and rich morphological inventory.It is a member of theLolo-Burmese groupingof theSino-Tibetan language family. TheBurmese alphabetis ultimately descended from aBrahmic script, either theKadambaorPallavaalphabets.
Burmese belongs to theSouthern Burmishbranch of theSino-Tibetan languages.Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non-SiniticSino-Tibetan languages.Burmese was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, afterClassical Chinese,Pyu,Old TibetanandTangut.
The majority of Burmese speakers, who live throughout theIrrawaddy RiverValley, use variants of standard Burmese, while a minority speak non-standard dialects found in the peripheral areas of the country. These dialects include:
ArakaneseinRakhine StateandMarmainBangladeshare also sometimes considered dialects of Burmese and sometimes as separate languages.
Burmese dialects mostly share a common set of tones, consonant clusters, and written script. Several Burmese dialects differ substantially from standard Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, and rhymes. Below is a summary oflexical similaritybetween major Burmese dialects:
Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers,particularly those living in the Irrawaddy valley, all of whom use variants of Standard Burmese. Thestandard dialectof Burmese (theMandalay-Yangondialect continuum) originates from the Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers fromUpper Burma(e.g., Mandalay dialect), calledanya tha(အညာသား) and speakers fromLower Burma(e.g., Yangon dialect), calledauk tha(အောက်သား), largely occur in vocabulary choice, not in pronunciation. Minor lexical and rhyme differences exist throughout the Irrawaddy River valley.For instance, for the termဆွမ်း, "food offering [to a monk]", Lower Burmese speakers use[sʰʊ́ɰ̃]instead of[sʰwáɰ̃], which is the pronunciation used in Upper Burma.
The standard dialect is typified by the Yangon dialect because of the modern city's media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese. The most noticeable feature of the Mandalay dialect is its continued use of the first-person pronounကျွန်တော်,kya.nau[tɕənɔ̀]by both men and women. In Yangon, only male speakers use the same pronoun, while female speakers useကျွန်မ,kya.ma.[tɕəma̰]. Moreover, with regard tokinship terminology, Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family, whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not.
Mon has also influenced subtle grammatical differences between the varieties of Burmese spoken in Lower and Upper Burma.In Lower Burmese varieties, the verb ပေး ('to give') is colloquially used as a permissive causative marker, similar to other Southeast Asian languages, but unlike in most Tibeto-Burman languages.This usage is hardly used in Upper Burmese varieties, and is considered a sub-standard construct.
More distinctive non-standard varieties of Burmese emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of the country. These varieties include theYaw, Palaw,Myeik(Merguese),TavoyanandIntha dialects. Despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects, especially withlanguage convergence.
Dialects inTanintharyi Region, including Palaw, Merguese, and Tavoyan, are especially conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved the/l/medial, which is only found inOld Burmeseinscriptions. These dialects also often reduce the intensity of theglottal stop. Beik has 250,000 speakerswhile Tavoyan has 400,000. The grammatical constructs of Burmese dialects in Southern Myanmar show greater Mon influence than Standard Burmese.
The most pronounced feature of theArakanese languageofRakhine Stateis its retention of the[ɹ]sound, which has become[j]in standard Burmese. Moreover, Arakanese features a variety of vowel differences, including the merger of theဧ[e]andဣ[i]vowels. Hence, a word like "blood"သွေးis pronounced[θwé]in standard Burmese and[θwí]in Arakanese.
The Burmese language's early forms includeOld BurmeseandMiddle Burmese. Old Burmese dates from the 11th to the 16th century (PagantoAvadynasties); Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century (Toungooto earlyKonbaungdynasties); modern Burmese from the mid-18th century to the present. While Burmese phonology has evolved significantly,word order, grammatical structure, and vocabulary have remained markedly stable well into Modern Burmese, with the exception of lexical content (e.g.,function words).
The earliest attested form of the Burmese language is calledOld Burmese, dating to the 11th and 12th century stone inscriptions ofPagan. The earliest evidence of theBurmese alphabetis dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984.
Owing to the linguistic prestige of Old Pyu in thePagan Kingdomera, Old Burmese borrowed a substantial corpus of vocabulary from Pali via thePyu language.These indirect borrowings can be traced back to orthographic idiosyncrasies in these loanwords, such as the Burmese word "to worship", which is spelt ပူဇော် (pūjo) instead of ပူဇာ (pūjā), as would be expected by the original Pali orthography.
In the mid-15th century, bilingual Pali-Burmese texts callednissaya(နိဿယ) emerged.These texts played a significant role in shaping the standard language, leading Burmese postpositional markers to be reinterpreted as equivalents of Pali inflections, giving them new grammatical roles that were compatible with their original use but not inherent to them.Over time, these markers became integral to the morphological structure of Burmese and were seen as more obligatory in literary Burmese, and to a lesser extent, colloquial Burmese.
The transition toMiddle Burmeseoccurred in the 16th century.The transition to Middle Burmese included phonological changes (e.g. mergers ofsound pairsthat were distinct in Old Burmese) as well as accompanying changes in the underlyingorthography.
From the 1500s onward, Burmese kingdoms saw substantial gains in the populace'sliteracy rate, which manifested itself in greater participation of laymen in scribing and composing legal and historical documents, domains that were traditionally the domain of Buddhist monks, and drove the ensuing proliferation ofBurmese literature, both in terms of genres and works.During this period, theBurmese alphabetbegan employing cursive-style circular letters typically used inpalm-leaf manuscripts, as opposed to the traditional square block-form letters used in earlier periods.The orthographic conventions used in written Burmese today can largely be traced back to Middle Burmese.
Modern Burmese emerged in the mid-18th century. By this time, male literacy in Burma stood at nearly 50%, which enabled the wide circulation of legal texts,royal chronicles, and religious texts.A major reason for the uniformity of the Burmese language was the near-universal presence of Buddhist monasteries (calledkyaung) in Burmese villages. Thesekyaungserved as the foundation of the pre-colonial monastic education system, which fostered uniformity of the language throughout the Upper Irrawaddy valley, the traditional homeland of Burmese speakers. The1891 Census of India, conducted five years after the annexation of the entireKonbaung Kingdom, found that the former kingdom had an "unusually high male literacy" rate of 62.5% for Upper Burmans aged 25 and above. For all ofBritish Burma, the literacy rate was 49% for men and 5.5% for women (by contrast,British Indiamore broadly had a male literacy rate of 8.44%).
The expansion of the Burmese language intoLower Burmaalso coincided with the emergence of Modern Burmese. As late as the mid-1700s,Mon, anAustroasiaticlanguage, was the principal language of Lower Burma, employed by the Mon people who inhabited the region. Lower Burma's shift from Mon to Burmese was accelerated by the Burmese-speakingKonbaung Dynasty's victory over the Mon-speakingRestored Hanthawaddy Kingdomin 1757. By 1830, an estimated 90% of the population in Lower Burma self-identified as Burmese-speaking Bamars; huge swaths of former Mon-speaking territory, from theIrrawaddy Deltato upriver in the north, spanning Bassein (now Pathein) and Rangoon (now Yangon) to Tharrawaddy, Toungoo, Prome (now Pyay), and Henzada (now Hinthada), were now Burmese-speaking.The language shift has been ascribed to a combination of population displacement, intermarriage, and voluntary changes in self-identification among increasingly Mon–Burmese bilingual populations in the region.
Standardized tone marking in written Burmese was not achieved until the 18th century. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because of ambiguities that arose over transcribing sounds that had been merged.British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers.
Britain's gradual annexation of Burma throughout the 19th century, in addition to concomitant economic and political instability in Upper Burma (e.g., increased tax burdens from the Burmese crown, British rice production incentives, etc.) also accelerated the migration of Burmese speakers from Upper Burma into Lower Burma.British rule in Burmaeroded the strategic and economic importance of the Burmese language; Burmese was effectively subordinated to theEnglish languagein the colonial educational system, especially in higher education.
In the 1930s, the Burmese language saw a linguistic revival, precipitated by the establishment of an independentUniversity of Rangoonin 1920 and the inception of a Burmese language major at the university byPe Maung Tin, modeled onAnglo Saxon languagestudies at the University of Oxford.Student protests in December of that year, triggered by the introduction of English intomatriculation examinations, fueled growing demand for Burmese to become the medium of education in British Burma; a short-lived but symbolic parallel system of "national schools" that taught in Burmese, was subsequently launched.The role and prominence of the Burmese language in public life and institutions was championed by Burmese nationalists, intertwined with their demands for greater autonomy and independence from the British in the lead-up to the independence of Burma in 1948.
The 1948Constitution of Burmaprescribed Burmese as theofficial languageof the newly independent nation. TheBurma Translation Societyand Rangoon University's Department of Translation and Publication were established in 1947 and 1948, respectively, with the joint goal of modernizing the Burmese language in order to replace English across all disciplines.Anti-colonial sentiment throughout the early post-independence era led to a reactionary switch from English to Burmese as the national medium of education, a process that was accelerated by theBurmese Way to Socialism.In August 1963, the socialistUnion Revolutionary Governmentestablished the Literary and Translation Commission (the immediate precursor of theMyanmar Language Commission) to standardize Burmese spelling, diction, composition, and terminology. The latest spelling authority, named theMyanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan(မြန်မာ စာလုံးပေါင်း သတ်ပုံ ကျမ်း), was compiled in 1978 by the commission.
Burmese is a diglossic language with two distinguishableregisters(ordiglossic varieties):
The literary form of Burmese retains archaic and conservative grammatical structures and modifiers (including affixes and pronouns) no longer used in the colloquial form.Most verbs and some nouns also have longer forms in literary Burmese.Literary Burmese, which has not changed significantly since the 13th century, is the register of Burmese taught in schools.Case markingis highly developed and consistently used in literary Burmese, covering markers for subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, the ablative and locative.Spoken Burmese also uses case markers, but does so less consistently, particularly for subjects and direct object marking.The equivalent affixes used in Literary and Spoken Burmese are totally unrelated to each other.Examples of this phenomenon include the following lexical terms:
Historically the literary register was preferred for written Burmese on the grounds that "the spoken style lacks gravity, authority, dignity". In the mid-1960s, some Burmese writers attempted to abandon the literary form in favour of the spoken vernacular form.Some Burmese linguists such asMinn Latt, a Czech academic, proposed moving away from the high form of Burmese altogether.Although the literary form is heavily used in written and official contexts (literary and scholarly works, radio news broadcasts, and novels), the recent trend has been to accommodate the spoken form in informal written contexts.Nowadays, television news broadcasts, comics, and commercial publications use the spoken form or a combination of the spoken and simpler, less ornate formal forms.
Burmese uses also distinct spoken and written forms for question pronouns.The following examples demonstrate significant differences in the pronouns, verbs, and other markers used between the literary and spoken forms (contrasts inbold):
Burmese has politeness levels andhonorificsthat take into account the speaker's status and age in relation to the audience. The suffixပါ(pa) is frequently used after a verb to express politeness.Moreover,Burmese pronounsrelay varying degrees of deference or respect.Polite speech (e.g., addressing teachers, officials, or elders) employs feudal-era third person pronouns orkinship termsin lieu of first- and second-person pronouns.
Honorific vocabulary is used in Burmese to distinguish Buddhist clergy from the laity (householders), especially when speaking to or aboutbhikkhus(monks).Distinct honorific vocabulary (often euphemistic in nature) is also employed to distinguish commoners from royals. The honorific markers-တော်(daw) and -တော်မူ(dawmu) are suffixed to nouns and verbs respectively, in relation to Buddhist clergy and royals. Lexical items from standard Burmese, royal vocabulary, and clerical vocabulary are shown side by side in the table below:
Burmese has primarily inherited its monosyllabic vocabulary from Sino-Tibetan stock. The language has also adopted polysyllabic loanwords fromIndo-European languageslike Pali and English, as well assesquisyllabicwords from Mon, an Austroasiatic language.Burmese loanwords are overwhelmingly in the form ofnouns.
Of the Indo-European languages,Pali, the liturgical language ofTheravadaBuddhism, had the most profound influence on enriching the Burmese vocabulary. Burmese has readily adopted words of Pali origin; this may be due tophonotacticsimilarities between the two languages, and the Burmese script's inherent ability to reproduce Pali spellings with complete accuracy.Paliloanwordsare often related to religion, government, arts, and science.Burmese loanwords from Pali primarily take four forms:
Burmese has also adapted numerous words from Mon, traditionally spoken by theMon peopleofLower Burma. Most Mon loanwords are so well assimilated that they are not distinguished as loanwords, as Burmese and Mon were used interchangeably for several centuries in pre-colonial Burma.Mon loans are often related to flora, fauna, administration, textiles, foods, boats, crafts, architecture, and music.
As a natural consequence ofBritish rule in Burma,Englishhas been another major source of vocabulary, especially with regard to technology, measurements, and modern institutions. English loanwords tend to take one of three forms:
To a lesser extent, Burmese has also imported words fromSanskrit(religion),Hindi(food, administration, and shipping), andChinese(games and food).Burmese has also imported a handful of words from other European languages such asPortuguese.
Here is a sample of loan words found in Burmese:
Since the end of British rule, the Burmese government has attempted to limit usage of Western loans (especially from English) by coining new words (neologisms). For instance, for the word "television", Burmese publications are mandated to use the termရုပ်မြင်သံကြား(lit.'see picture, hear sound') in lieu ofတယ်လီဗီးရှင်း, a direct English transliteration.Another example is the word "vehicle", which is officiallyယာဉ်[jɪ̃̀](derived from Pali) butကား[ká](from Englishcar) in spoken Burmese. Some previously common English loanwords have fallen out of use with the adoption of indigenous neologisms. An example is the word "university", formerlyယူနီဗာစတီ[jùnìbàsətì], from Englishuniversity, nowတက္ကသိုလ်[tɛʔkət̪ò], a Pali-derived neologism recently created by the Burmese government and derived from the Pali spelling ofTaxila(တက္ကသီလTakkasīla), an ancient university town in modern-day Pakistan.
Some words in Burmese may have many synonyms, each having certain usages, such as formal, literary, colloquial, and poetic. One example is the word "moon", which can beလla̰(native Tibeto-Burman),စန္ဒာ/စန်း[sàndà]/[sã́](derivatives of Palicanda'moon'), orသော်တာ[t̪ɔ̀dà](Sanskrit).
The consonants of Burmese are as follows:
According toJenny & San San Hnin Tun (2016:15), contrary to their use of symbols θ and ð, consonants ofသare dental stops (/t̪,d̪/), rather than fricatives (/θ,ð/) or affricates.These phonemes, alongside/sʰ/, are prone to merger with/t,d,s/.
An alveolar/ɹ/can occur as an alternate of/j/in some loanwords.
The final nasal/ɰ̃/is the value of the four native final nasals:⟨မ်⟩/m/,⟨န်⟩/n/,⟨ဉ်⟩/ɲ/,⟨င်⟩/ŋ/, as well as the retroflex⟨ဏ⟩/ɳ/(used in Pali loans) and nasalisation markanusvarademonstrated here above ka (က → ကံ) which most often stands in for a homorganic nasal word medially as inတံခါးtankhá'door', andတံတားtantá'bridge', or else replaces final-m⟨မ်⟩in both Pali and native vocabulary, especially after the OB vowel *u e.g.ငံngam'salty', သုံးthóum('three; use'), and ဆုံးsóum'end'. It does not, however, apply to⟨ည်⟩which is never realised as a nasal, but rather as an open front vowel[iː][eː]or[ɛː].
The final nasal is usually realised as nasalisation of the vowel. It may also allophonically appear as a homorganic nasal before stops. For example, in/mòʊɰ̃dáɪɰ̃/('storm'), which is pronounced[mõ̀ũndã́ĩ].
Thevowelsof Burmese are:
The monophthongs/e/,/o/,/ə/,/ɛ/and/ɔ/occur only in open syllables (those without asyllable coda); the diphthongs/ei/,/ou/,/ai/and/au/occur only in closed syllables (those with a syllable coda)./ə/only occurs in aminor syllable, and is the only vowel that is permitted in a minor syllable (see below).
The close vowels/i/and/u/and the close portions of the diphthongs are somewhat mid-centralized ([ɪ,ʊ]) in closed syllables, i.e. before/ɰ̃/and/ʔ/. Thusနှစ်/n̥iʔ/('two') is phonetically[n̥ɪʔ]andကြောင်/tɕàũ/('cat') is phonetically[tɕàʊ̃].
Burmese is atonal language, which meansphonemiccontrasts can be made on the basis of thetoneof a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not onlypitch, but alsophonation, intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality. However, some linguists consider Burmese apitch-register languagelikeShanghainese.Spoken Burmese exhibitstone sandhiin the form of a shift from a low to an induced creaky tone, to indicate possession.
There are four contrastive tones in Burmese. In the following table, the tones are shown marked on the vowel/a/as an example.
For example, the following words are distinguished from each other only on the basis of tone:
In syllables ending with/ɰ̃/, the checked tone is excluded:
In spoken Burmese, some linguists classify two real tones (there are four nominal tones transcribed in written Burmese), "high" (applied to words that terminate with a stop or check, high-rising pitch) and "ordinary" (unchecked and non-glottal words, with falling or lower pitch), with those tones encompassing a variety of pitches.The "ordinary" tone consists of a range of pitches. Linguist L. F. Taylor concluded that "conversational rhythm and euphonic intonation possess importance" not found in related tonal languages and that "its tonal system is now in an advanced state of decay."
Spoken Burmese exhibitstone sandhiin the form of a shift from a low to an induced creaky tone: to indicate possession and to pronounce low-toned numerals in conjunction with other digits.For the former, this does not occur in literary Burmese, which uses ၏[ḭ]as postpositional marker for possessive case instead ofရဲ့[jɛ̰]. Examples include the following:
Thesyllablestructure of Burmese is C(G)V((V)C), which is to say theonsetconsists of a consonant optionally followed by aglide, and therimeconsists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong with a consonant. The only consonants that can stand in thecodaare/ʔ/and/ɰ̃/. Some representative words are:
Aminor syllablehas some restrictions:
TheMon languageis attributed with the development of frequentsesquisyllabicreduction in Burmese words, a pattern that does not appear in other Burmic languages.Some examples of words containing minor syllables:
The Burmese alphabet consists of 33 letters and 12 vowels and is written from left to right. It requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability. Characterized by its circular letters and diacritics, the script is anabugida, with all letters having an inherent vowelအa.[a̰]or[ə]. The consonants are arranged intosix consonant groups(calledဝဂ်vag) based on articulation, like other Brahmi scripts. Tone markings and vowel modifications are written as diacritics placed to the left, right, top, and bottom of letters.
Orthographic changes subsequent to shifts in phonology (such as the merging of the[-l-]and[-ɹ-]medials) rather than transformations in Burmese grammatical structure and phonology, which by contrast, has remained stable between Old Burmese and modern Burmese.For example, during the Pagan era, the medial[-l-]္လwas transcribed in writing, which has been replaced by medials[-j-]ျand[-ɹ-]ြin modern Burmese (e.g. "school" in old Burmeseက္လောင်[klɔŋ]→ကျောင်း[tɕã́ʊ̃]in modern Burmese).Likewise, written Burmese has preserved all nasalized finals[-n,-m,-ŋ], which have merged to[-ɰ̃]in spoken Burmese. (The exception is[-ɲ], which, in spoken Burmese, can be one of many open vowels[i,e,ɛ].) Similarly, other consonantal finals[-s,-p,-t,-k]have been reduced to[-ʔ]. Similar mergers are seen in other Sino-Tibetan languages likeShanghainese, and to a lesser extent,Cantonese.
Written Burmese dates to theearly Pagan period. Burmese orthography originally followed a square block format, but the cursive format took hold from the 17th century when increased literacy and the resulting explosion of Burmese literature led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known asparabaiks(ပုရပိုက်).
The basicword orderof the Burmese language issubject-object-verb. Pronouns in Burmese vary according to the gender and status of the audience, although pronouns are often omitted. Affixes are used to convey information. Verbs are almost always suffixed and nouns declined.
Burmese is anagglutinative languagewith an extensivecase systemin which nouns are suffixed to determine their syntactic function in a sentence or clause. Sometimes the case markers are different between the two registers.
The case markers are:
Burmese does not haveadjectivesper se. Rather, it has verbs that carry the meaning "to be X", where X is an English adjective. These verbs can modify a noun by means of the suffixတဲ့tai.[dɛ̰]in colloquial Burmese (literary form:သောsau:[t̪ɔ́]), which is suffixed as follows:
Adjectives may also form acompoundwith the noun (e.g.လူချောlu hkyau:[lùtɕʰɔ́]'person' + 'be beautiful').
Comparativesare usually ordered: X +ထက်ပိုhtak pui[tʰɛʔpò]+ adjective, where X is the object being compared to.Superlativesare indicated with the prefixအa.[ʔə]+ adjective +ဆုံးhcum:[zṍʊ̃].
The roots of Burmeseverbsalmost always have affixes which convey information like tense, aspect, intention, politeness, mood, etc. Many of these affixes also have formal/literary and colloquial equivalents. In fact, the only time in which no suffix is attached to a verb is in imperative commands.
The most commonly used verb affixes and their usage are shown below with an example verb rootစားca:[sá]('to eat'). Alone, the statementစားis imperative.
The affixတယ်tai[dɛ̀](literary form:သည်sany[d̪ì]) can be viewed as an affix marking the present tense and/or a factual statement:
The affixခဲ့hkai.[ɡɛ̰]denotes that the action took place in the past. However, this affix is not always necessary to indicate the past tense such that it can convey the same information without it. But to emphasize that the action happened before another event that is also currently being discussed, the affix becomes imperative. The affixတယ်tai[dɛ̀]in this case denotes a factual statement rather than the present tense:
The affixနေne[nè]is used to denote an action in progression. It is equivalent to the English '-ing'.
This affixပြီpri[bjì], which is used when an action that had been expected to be performed by the subject is now finally being performed, has no equivalent in English. So in the above example, if someone had been expecting the subject to eat, and the subject has finally started eating, the affixပြီis used as follows:
The affixမယ်mai[mɛ̀](literary form:မည်many[mjì]) is used to indicate the future tense or an action which is yet to be performed:
The affixတော့tau.[dɔ̰]is used when the action is about to be performed immediately when used in conjunction withမယ်. Therefore, it could be termed as the "immediate future tense suffix".
Whenတော့is used alone, however, it is imperative:
Verbs are negated by the prefixမma.[mə]. Generally speaking, there are other suffixes on verb, along withမ.
The verb suffixနဲ့nai.[nɛ̰](literary form:နှင့်hnang.[n̥ɪ̰̃]) indicates a command:
The verb suffixဘူးbhu:[bú]indicates a statement:
Nounsin Burmese are pluralized by suffixingတွေtwe[dwè](or[twè]if the word ends in a glottal stop) in colloquial Burmese orများmya:[mjà]in formal Burmese. The suffixတို့tou.[to̰], which indicates a group of persons or things, is also suffixed to the modified noun. An example is below:
Plural suffixes are not used when the noun is quantified with a number.
Although Burmese does not have grammatical gender (e.g. masculine or feminine nouns), a distinction is made between the sexes, especially in animals and plants, by means of suffix particles. Nouns are masculinized with the following suffixes:ထီးhti:[tʰí],ဖhpa[pʰa̰], orဖိုhpui[pʰò], depending on the noun, and feminized with the suffixမma.[ma̰]. Examples of usage are below:
Burmese uses numerical classifiers (also called measure words) when nouns are counted or quantified. This is similar to neighbouring languages likeThai,Bengali, andChinese. This approximately equates to English expressions such as "two slices of bread" or "a cup of coffee". Classifiers are required when counting nouns, soကလေး ၅hka.le: nga:[kʰəléŋà](lit.'child five') is incorrect, since the measure word for peopleယောက်yauk[jaʊʔ]is missing; it needs to suffix the numeral.
The standard word order of quantified words is: quantified noun + numeral adjective + classifier, except inround numbers(numbers that end in zero), in which the word order is flipped, where the quantified noun precedes the classifier: quantified noun + classifier + numeral adjective. The only exception to this rule is the number 10, which follows the standard word order.
Measurements of time, such as "hour",နာရီ"day",ရက်or "month",လdo not require classifiers.
Below are some of the most commonly used classifiers in Burmese.
The Burmese language makes prominent usage ofaffixes(calledပစ္စည်းin Burmese), which are untranslatable words that are suffixed or prefixed to words to indicate tense, aspect, case, formality etc. For example,စမ်း[sã́]is a suffix used to indicate the imperative mood. Whileလုပ်ပါ('work' + suffix indicating politeness) does not indicate the imperative,လုပ်စမ်းပါ('work' + suffix indicating imperative mood + suffix indicating politeness) does. Affixes are often stacked next to each other
Some affixes modify the word'spart of speech. Among the most prominent of these is the prefixအ[ə], which is prefixed to verbs and adjectives to form nouns or adverbs. For instance, the wordဝင်means "to enter", but combined withအ, it means "entrance"အဝင်. Moreover, in colloquial Burmese, there is a tendency to omit the secondအin words that follow the patternအ+ noun/adverb +အ+ noun/adverb, likeအဆောက်အအုံ, which is pronounced[əsʰaʊʔú]and formally pronounced[əsʰaʊʔəõ̀ʊ̃].
Burmese exhibitspronoun avoidance, where pronouns are avoided for politeness.In Burmese, speakers account for social distinctions linguistically, reflecting gender, relative age, kinship, social status, and intimacy.Burmese uses "negative politeness," whereby speakers avoid directly addressing people.Instead, Burmese relies on status and kinship terms, titles, personal names, and other terms of address, rather than regular pronouns.Burmese kinship termsare commonly substituted as pronouns. For example, an older person may useဒေါ်လေးdau le:[dɔ̀lé]('aunt') orဦးလေးu: lei:[ʔúlé]('uncle') to refer to himself, while a younger person may use eitherသားsa:[t̪á]('son') orသမီးsa.mi:[t̪əmí]('daughter').
Burmese has developed an elaborate hierarchical system of pronouns that are grammatically underspecified, but highly marked for the complex relation between speaker and addressee according to their relative position in the society.In Burmese, the polite forms of first-person pronounsကျွန်တော်(kya. nau[tɕənɔ̀],lit.'royal slave') for males, andကျွန်မ(kya. ma.[tɕəma̰],lit.'female slave') for females humble the speaker, while the polite forms of second-person pronounsမင်း(min[mɪ́ɴ];lit.'lordship'),ခင်ဗျား(khang bya:[kʰəmjá];lit.'master lord')orရှင်(hrang[ʃɪ̀ɴ];lit.'ruler, master') elevate the addressee.The original pronounsငါnga[ŋà]('I/me') andနင်nang[nɪ̃̀]('you') have been relegated to use with people of higher or equivalent status, although most speakers prefer to use third person pronouns.
Burmese also uses case markers to mark subjectpronouns(က[ɡa̰]in colloquial,သည်[t̪ì]in formal) and object pronouns (ကို[ɡò]in colloquial,အား[á]in formal), although these are generally dropped in spoken Burmese.
The basic pronouns are:
Other pronouns are reserved for speaking withbhikkhus(Buddhist monks). When speaking to a bhikkhu, pronouns likeဘုန်းဘုန်းbhun: bhun:(fromဘုန်းကြီးphun: kri:'monk'),ဆရာတော်chara dau[sʰəjàdɔ̀]('royal teacher'), andအရှင်ဘုရားa.hrang bhu.ra:[ʔəʃɪ̃̀pʰəjá]('your lordship') are used depending on their statusဝါ. When referring to oneself, terms likeတပည့်တော်ta. pany. tau('royal disciple') orဒကာda. ka[dəɡà], ('donor') are used. When speaking to a monk, the following pronouns are used:
Kinship terms vary across Burmese dialects. Upper Burmese dialects still differentiate maternal and paternal sides of a family, unlike Lower Burmese dialects:
The youngest (paternal or maternal) aunt may be calledထွေးလေး[dwélé], and the youngest paternal uncleဘထွေး[ba̰dwé].
In a testament to the power of media, the Yangon-based speech is gaining currency even in Upper Burma. Upper Burmese-specific usage, while historically and technically accurate, is increasingly viewed as distinctly rural or regional speech. In fact, some usages are already considered strictly regional Upper Burmese speech and are likely to die out. For example:
In general, the male-centric names of old Burmese for familial terms have been replaced in standard Burmese with formerly female-centric terms, which are now used by both sexes. One holdover is the use ofညီ('younger brother to a male') andမောင်('younger brother to a female'). Terms likeနောင်('elder brother to a male') andနှမ('younger sister to a male') now are used in standard Burmese only as part of compound words likeညီနောင်('brothers') orမောင်နှမ('brother and sister').
Reduplicationis prevalent in Burmese and is used to intensify or weaken adjectives' meanings. For example, ifချော[tɕʰɔ́]"beautiful" is reduplicated, then the intensity of the adjective's meaning increases. Many Burmese words, especially adjectives with two syllables, such asလှပ[l̥a̰pa̰]"beautiful", when reduplicated (လှပ→လှလှပပ[l̥a̰l̥a̰pa̰pa̰]) becomeadverbs. This is also true of some Burmese verbs and nouns (e.g.ခဏ'a moment' →ခဏခဏ'frequently'), which become adverbs when reduplicated.
Some nouns are also reduplicated to indicate plurality. For instance,ပြည်[pjì]('country'), but when reduplicated toအပြည်ပြည်[əpjìpjì], it means "many countries", as inအပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ[əpjìpjìsʰã̀ɪ̃jà]('international'). Another example isအမျိုး, which means "a kind", but the reduplicated formအမျိုးမျိုးmeans "multiple kinds".
A few measure words can also be reduplicated to indicate "one or the other":
Burmese digits are traditionally written using a set of numerals unique to theMon–Burmese script, althoughArabic numeralsare also used in informal contexts. Thecardinal formsof Burmese numerals are primarily inherited from theProto-Sino-Tibetan language, with cognates with modern-day Sino-Tibetan languages, including theChineseandTibetan. Numerals beyond 'ten million' are borrowed from Indic languages like Sanskrit or Pali. Similarly, theordinal formsof primary Burmese numerals (i.e., from first to tenth) are directly borrowed fromPali.Ordinal numbers beyond ten are suffixedမြောက်(lit.'to raise').
Burmese numerals follow the nouns they modify, with the exception ofround numbers, which precede the nouns they modify. Moreover, numerals are subject to severaltone sandhiand voicing rules that involve tone changes (low tone → creaky tone) and voicing shifts depending on the pronunciation of surrounding words. A more thorough explanation is found onBurmese numerals.
There is no officialromanizationsystem for Burmese.There have been attempts to make one, but none have been successful. Replicating Burmese sounds in the Latin script is complicated. There is a Pali-based transcription system in existence,MLC Transcription Systemwhich was devised by theMyanmar Language Commission(MLC). However, it only transcribes sounds in formal Burmese and is based on theBurmese alphabetrather than the phonology.
Several colloquial transcription systems have been proposed, but none is overwhelmingly preferred over others.
Transcription of Burmese is not standardized, as seen in the varying English transcriptions of Burmese names. For instance, a Burmese personal name likeဝင်း[wɪ̃́]may be variously romanized as Win, Winn, Wyn, or Wynn, whileခိုင်[kʰã̀ɪ̃]may be romanized as Khaing, Khine, or Khain.
The Burmese alphabet can be entered from a standardQWERTY keyboardand is supported within the Unicode standard, meaning it can be read and written from most modern computers and smartphones.
Burmese hascomplex character renderingrequirements, where tone markings and vowel modifications are noted using diacritics. These can be placed before consonants (as withေ), above them (as withိ) or even around them (as withြ). These character clusters are built using multiple keystrokes. In particular, the inconsistent placement of diacritics as a feature of the language presents a conflict between an intuitiveWYSIWYGtyping approach, and a logical consonant-first storage approach.
Since its introduction in 2007, the most popular Burmese font,Zawgyi, has been near-ubiquitous in Myanmar. Linguist Justin Watkins argues that the ubiquitous use of Zawgyi harms Myanmar languages, including Burmese, by preventing efficient sorting, searching, processing and analyzing Myanmar text through flexible diacritic ordering.
Zawgyi is notUnicode-compliant, but occupies thesame code spaceas Unicode Myanmar font. As it is not defined as a standard character encoding, Zawgyi is not built in to any major operating systems as standard. However, allow for its position as thede facto(but largely undocumented) standard within the country, telcos and major smartphone distributors (such as Huawei and Samsung) ship phones with Zawgyi font overwriting standard Unicode-compliant fonts, which are installed on most internationally distributed hardware.Facebook also supports Zawgyi as an additional language encoding for their app and website.As a result, almost all SMS alerts (including those from telcos to their customers), social media posts and other web resources may be incomprehensible on these devices without the custom Zawgyi font installed at the operating system level. These may include devices purchased overseas, or distributed by companies who do not customize software for the local market.
Keyboards which have a Zawgyi keyboard layout printed on them are the most commonly available for purchase domestically.
Until recently,Unicode compliant fonts have been more difficult to type than Zawgyi, as they have a stricter, less forgiving and arguably less intuitive method for ordering diacritics. However, intelligent input software such as Keymagicand recentversions of smartphone soft-keyboards includingGboardand ttKeyboardallow for more forgiving input sequences and Zawgyi keyboard layouts which produce Unicode-compliant text.
A number of Unicode-compliant Burmese fonts exist. The national standard keyboard layout is known as the Myanmar3 layout, and it was published along with the Myanmar3 Unicode font. The layout, developed by theMyanmar Unicode and NLP Research Center, has a smart input system to cover the complex structures of Burmese and related scripts.
In addition to the development of computer fonts and standard keyboard layout, there is still a lot of scope of research for the Burmese language, specifically for Natural Language Processing (NLP) areas like WordNet, Search Engine, development of parallel corpus for Burmese language as well as development of a formally standardized and dense domain-specific corpus of the Burmese language.
The Myanmar government has designated 1 October 2019 as "U-Day" to officially switch to Unicode.The full transition is estimated to take two years.
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rightsin Burmese:
Theromanizationof the text into theLatin alphabet:
Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rightsin English: