Burmese language
The
Burmese language is the official language of
Myanmar. Although the government officially recognises the language as
Myanmar, most continue to refer to the language as
Burmese. It is the
mother tongue of the
Bamar,
Rakhine, and other related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar. Burmese is a member of the
Tibeto-Burman languages, which is a subfamily of the
Sino-Tibetan family of languages. It is spoken by 32 million as a first language, and as a second language by minorities in Myanmar. Burmese is a
tonal and
analytic language. The language utilises the
Burmese script, which derives from the
Mon script and ultimately from the
Brāhmī script.
Burmese has two words for "language":
ca refers to written language, and
ca.ka: refers to spoken language. There are therefore two names for Burmese:
mranma ca means "written Burmese", while
mranma ca.ka: means "spoken Burmese". The
mranma portion of these names may be pronounced or, more colloquially, . The Burmese saying "the pronunciation is merely the sound, whilst the orthography is correct" ( ) reflects upon the differences between spoken and written Burmese, as spelling is often not an accurate reflection of pronunciation.
The
standard dialect of Burmese comes from
Yangon, because of its media influence, but there are several distinctive dialects in Upper Myanmar and Lower Myanmar. Dialects include Merguese, Yaw, Palaw, Beik (Myeik), and Dawei (Tavoyan). The most noticeable feature of the
Mandalay dialect is its use of the pronoun (
kya. nau ) for both males and females, whereas in Yangon, (
kya. ma. ) refers to females. The Rakhine dialect (Arakanese) is most reminiscent of archaic Burmese, especially in its usage of the sound, which has become a sound in standard Burmese. Dialects in
Tanintharyi Division (such as Beik) often reduce the intensity of the glottal stop. The Dawei dialect has preserved the medial, which is only found in Old Burmese transcriptions. Despite vocabulary and pronounication differences, there is
mutual intelligibility among the dialects.
Burmese is classified into two categories. One is formal, which is used in literary works, official publications, radio broadcasts, and formal speeches. The other is colloquial, which is used in daily conversation. There are various branches of the colloquial form as well. One form is used when speaking to elders and teachers. Different pronouns referring to oneself (such as the usage of or ) are used. When speaking to a person of the same status or of younger age, (
nga ) is used. When speaking to a
monk, a person must refer to the monk as
poun-poun and to himself as (
da. ga ). Burmese monks may speak to fellow monks using
Pāli, and it is expected of faithful
Burmese Buddhists to have a basic knowledge of Pāli.
Diglossia
Diglossia occurs to a large extent in Burmese. The discrepancy is quite large, and many linguists consider formal Burmese to be a separate language from colloquial Burmese. The written and prestige form of Burmese has undergone only a few changes and tends not to accommodate the colloquial phonology of standard Burmese today. In addition, different particles (to modify nouns and verbs) are used in the prestige form than in the spoken form. Literate Burmese speakers are able to interpret Burmese despite transcriptions that date many centuries because of intuition and innate pronunciation rules. For example, (
hnai.), which serves as a
postposition after nouns is only used in formal Burmese, and is (
hma) in colloquial Burmese.
Despite the large differences, Burmese speakers rarely distinguish formal and colloquial Burmese as separate languages, but rather as two parts of the same language.
Many have contended that a newer system of
orthography for Burmese be created (one based on
phonology), to accommodate such differences. In addition, some Burmese linguists have proposed to shift away from formal Burmese, as seen in the gradual changes in form on television broadcasts. However, formal Burmese remains well-established in Burmese. Another obstacle in reforming Burmese orthography are conservative Burmese dialects (that retain older pronunciations more similar to formal Burmese), which primarily come from
coastal areas.
There is no official
romanisation system for Burmese. There have been attempts to make one, but none have been successful. Replicating Burmese sounds in the Latin script is complicated. There is a
Pāli-based transcription system in existence, which was devised by the Myanma Language Commission (MLC). However, it only transcribes sounds in formal Burmese and is based on the orthography rather than the phonology. Several colloquial transcription systems have been proposed, but none is overwhelmingly preferred over others.
Transcription of Burmese is not standardised, as seen in the varying English transcriptions of Burmese place names.
The Burmese script is characterised by its circular letters and diacritics. It is an
abugida, with all letters having an inherent vowel (
a. or ). Tone markings are in the form of diacritics placed to the left, right, top, and bottom of letters, but are not always indicative of the proper tone. Likewise, written Burmese has preserved all nasalised finals (), which have merged to in spoken Burmese. The exception is , which, in spoken Burmese, can be one of many open vowels (). Likewise, other consonantal finals () have been reduced to . Similar mergings are seen in other languages, including
Shanghainese, and to a lesser extent,
Cantonese.
Evidence of written Burmese dates to the early
1100s, from the Myazedi stone inscription (written 1113), which was a story written about Prince Yazukuma in
Pyu,
Mon,
Pali, and Burmese. During the reign of King
Anawrahta, the Mon script, which descended from the
Brāhmī script, was adopted for transcribing Burmese. Many changes to suit the phonology of Burmese were made. Standardised tone marking was not achieved until the
1700s. Much of the orthography in written Burmese today can be traced back to middle Burmese, which had a wider range of finals. However, during colonial rule under the
British, spelling was standardised through dictionaries and spellers.
The transcriptions in this section use the
International Phonetic Alphabet.
Consonants
The consonants of Burmese are as follows:
The approximant is rare, and is only used in
place names that have preserved
Sanskrit or
Pali pronunciations (e.g.
Amarapura, which is pronounced ), and in English-derived words. Likewise, is rare, having disappeared from modern Burmese, except in transcriptions of foreign names. is uncommon, except as a
voiced allophone of .
The phones are often pronounced as , as , as , and as in
compound words. , when following a nasalised final can become a sound. For example, "blouse" (
ang kri) can be pronounced or . However, this effect only occurs in compound words.
The placeless nasal is realized as
nasalization of the preceding vowel or as a nasal
homorganic to the following consonant; thus "storm" is pronounced .
Vowels
The
vowels of Burmese are:
The monophthongs , , , and occur only in open syllables (those without a
syllable coda); the diphthongs , , , and occur only in closed syllables (those with a syllable coda).
Tones
Burmese is a
tonal language, which means
phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the
tone of a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not only
pitch, but also
phonation, intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality. There are four contrastive tones in Burmese. In the following table the tones are shown marked on the vowel as an example; the phonetic descriptions are from Wheatley (1987)
| Tone name | Symbol
(shown on a)! Description | | Low | | Normal phonation, medium duration, low intensity, low (often slightly rising) pitch |
| High | | Sometimes slightly breathy, relatively long, high intensity, high pitch; often with a fall before a pause |
| Creaky | | tense or creaky phonation (sometimes with lax glottal stop), medium duration, high intensity, high (often slightly falling) pitch |
| Checked | | Centralized vowel quality, final glottal stop, short duration, high pitch (in citation; can vary in context) |
For example, the following words are distinguished from each other only on the basis of tone:
*Low 'shake'
*High 'be bitter'
*Creaky 'fee'
*Checked 'draw off'
In syllables ending with , the Checked tone is excluded:
*Low 'undergo'
*High 'dry up'
*Creaky 'appoint'
Syllable structure
The
syllable structure of Burmese is C(G)V((V)C), which is to say the
onset consists of a consonant optionally followed by a
glide, and the
rhyme consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong with a consonant. The only consonants that can stand in the
coda are and . Some representative words are:
*CV 'girl'
*CVC 'crave'
*CGV 'earth'
*CGVC 'eye'
*CVVC (term of address for young men)
*CGVVC 'ditch'
A syllable whose vowel is has some restrictions:
*It must be an open syllable (no coda consonant)
*It cannot bear tone
*It has only a simple (C) onset (no glide after the consonant)
*It must not the final syllable of the word
Some examples of words containing -syllables:
* 'knob'
* 'flute'
* 'mock'
* 'be wanton'
* 'rice-water'
The
word order of the Burmese language is
subject-
object-
verb. The only exception to this rule is the verb 'to be', (
kà. ), which is placed directly after the subject. Pronouns in Burmese vary according to the gender and status of the audience. Burmese is
monosyllabic, that is, every word is a root to which a particle but not another word may be prefixed (Ko, 1924, p viii). Sentence structure determines syntactical relations, and verbs are not conjugated but have particles suffixed to them. For example, the verb 'to eat' is (
ca: ), and remains the same.
Adjectives
Adjectives may precede a noun (e.g.
hkyau: tai. lu "beautiful" + + "person") or follow a noun (e.g.
lu hkyau: "person" + "beautiful").
Superlatives are usually indicated with the prefix (
a. ) + adj. + (
hcum: ). Numeric adjectives follow the noun.
Verbs
The roots of Burmese
verbs are almost always suffixed with at least one particle which conveys such information as tense, intention, politeness, mood etc. In fact, the only time in which no particle is attached to a verb is in commands. However Burmese verbs are not conjugated in the same way as most European languages; the root of the Burmese verb always remains unchanged, and does not have to agree with the subject in person, number or gender.
The most commonly used verb particles and their usage are shown below with the verb root (
ca: ) which means "eat".
* (
ca: tai ) - I eat
The suffix tai
can be viewed as a particle marking the present tense and/or a factual statement.
* (ca: hkai. tai
) - I ate
The suffix (hkai.
) denotes that the action took place in the past. However, this particle is not always necessary to indicate the past tense such that it can convey the same information without it. But to emphasise that the action happened before another event that is also currently being discussed, the particle becomes imperative. Note that the suffix (tai
) in this case denotes a factual statement rather than the present tense.
* (ca: ne tai
) - I am eating
(ne
) is a particle used to denote that the action is in progression, and is equivalent to the English '-ing'.
* ((ca.) ca: pri
) - I am eating (now)
This particle or tense has no equivalence in English. It is used when an action which another person or persons expected to be performed by the subject from is finally being performed. So in the above example, if someone had been expecting you to eat and you have finally started eating, the particle (
pri ) is used.
* (
ca: mai ) - I will eat
This particle is used to indicate the future tense or an action which is yet to be performed.
* (
ca: tau. mai ) - I will eat (straight-away)
The particle (
tau. ) is used when the action is about to be performed immediately. Therefore it could be termed as the "immediate future tense particle". The particle (
mai ) is still imperative in this case.
Nouns
Nouns in Burmese are pluralised by the addition of the suffix (
twe or if the word ends in a glottal stop). The suffix
mya (or
nè, which means "few") is also used, which by itself means "many". The suffix
day, which also pluralises nouns, is only used colloquially and
mya is used literally and formally.
* (
nwa: ) - cow
* (
nwa: mya: ) - cows
* (
mrac ) - river
* (
mrac mya: ) - rivers
The plural suffix however is not used when the noun is quantified by being counted.
* (
hka.le: nga: yauk ) is in the order "child" + "five" + (classifier), which is equivalent to "five children".
Numerical classifiers
Burmese, just as in neighbouring languages such as
Thai,
Bengali, and
Chinese, uses nominal classifiers when nouns are being counted or quantified. This approximately equates to English expressions such as "two slices of bread" or "a cup of coffee". In the above example,
yauk is the classifier used when referring to people. Classifiers are imperative when counting nouns, so (
hka.le: nga: literally "children five") is ungrammatical. There are many classifiers in Burmese, and some of the most commonly used ones are shown below.
| Burmese | MLC transcription | Phonetic transcription | Usage | Remarks |
|---|
| pa: | | for people | Used exclusively for monks and nuns of the Buddhist order |
| hli: | | for slices | Used in context of food |
| kaung | | for animals |
| hku. | | general classifier | Used with almost all nouns except for animate objects |
| hkwak | | For open containers with liquid |
| lum: | | for round objects |
| pra: | | for flat objects |
| cang: | or | for vehicles |
| cu. | or | for groups |
| u: | | for people | Used in formal context and also used for monks and nuns |
| yauk | | for people | Used in informal context |
Pronouns
Subject
pronouns begin sentences. In the imperative forms, the subject is omitted. There are certain pronouns used for different audiences. Object pronouns must have a
-go attached immediately after the pronoun. Proper nouns are often substituted for pronouns. In addition,
nga and
nein are rarely used. One's status (
wa) in relation to the audience determines the pronouns used. The basic pronouns are:
| Burmese | MLC transcription | Phonetic transcription | English | Remarks |
|---|
| nga | | I/me | Informal, used with family and friends |
| nga tui. | or | we | Informal |
| kya. nau
kya. ma. |
| I/me | Formal, used by males
Formal, used by females |
| da. ga
da. ga ma. |
| I/me | Formal, used while speaking to a monk or nun (lit. "donor") exclusively |
|
¦¦ ta. pany. tau
ta. pany. tau ma.
| I/me | Formal, used while speaking to a monk or nun (lit. "disciple") exclusively |
| nang | or | you | Informal |
| nang tui. | | you all | Informal |
| mang: | | you | Informal, used among close friends |
| a hrang | | you | Formal |
| hkang bya: | or | you | Formal |
| su | | he/she | Informal |
| su tui. | | they | Informal |
| ai: (da) ha | | it/that | Informal, used rudely to refer to animate objects |
Reduplication
Reduplication is prevalent in colloquial Burmese, and is used to intensify or weaken adjectives' meanings. For example, (
hkyau: ), which means "beautiful" is reduplicated, the intensity of the adjective's meaning increases.
The majority of Burmese vocabulary is of
Tibeto-Burman stock. However, the Burmese language has been influenced by Pali, English, and Mon, and to a lesser extent, by Chinese, Sanskrit and Hindi.
Pali loan words are often related to religion, government, arts, and science. Loan words from
English are often related to technology, measurements and modern institutions. However, there are some loan words from
Sanskrit,
Chinese, and
Hindi, but they are found less abundantly in Burmese.
Mon has heavily influenced Burmese, and many loan words have become so well incorporated in the Burmese language that they are not distinguished as loan words.
The following are examples of loan words found in Burmese from various languages:
* suffering: (), which comes from
Pāli dukkha* eggroll: (), which comes from
Hokkien 潤餅 (jūn-piáⁿ)
* potato: (), which comes from
Hindi आलू
* radio: (), which comes from
English "radio"
* dish: (), which comes from
Mon*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Burmese at
Ethnologue*
Online Burmese lessons*
Omniglot: Burmese Language*
Burmese language resources from
SOAS*
Online Burmese Bible*
Myanmar Character Picker
