| Burmese | |
| Also Known As: | မြန်မာအက္ခရာ |
| Native Name: | Myanmar |
| Time: | c. 984 or 1035–present |
| Languages: | Burmese, Rakhine, Pali and Sanskrit |
| Type: | Abugida |
| Fam1: | Egyptian |
| Fam2: | Proto-Sinaitic |
| Fam3: | Phoenician |
| Fam4: | Aramaic |
| Fam5: | Brahmi script |
| Fam6: | Kadamba or Pallava script[1] |
| Fam7: | Pyu or Old Mon |
| Fam8: | Mon–Burmese script |
| Unicode: | U+1000–U+104F |
| Iso15924: | Mymr |
| Sample: | Burmese script sample.svg |
The Burmese alphabet (Burmese: မြန်မာအက္ခရာ myanma akkha.ya, in Burmese pronounced as /mjəmà ʔɛʔkʰəjà/) is an abugida used for writing Burmese. It is ultimately adapted from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The Burmese alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit. In recent decades, other, related alphabets, such as Shan and modern Mon, have been restructured according to the standard of the Burmese alphabet (see Mon–Burmese script.)
Burmese is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability and to avoid grammar complications. There are several systems of transliteration into the Latin alphabet; for this article, the MLC Transcription System is used.
The Burmese alphabet was derived from the Pyu script, the Old Mon script, or directly from a South Indian script,[2] either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet. The earliest evidence of the Burmese alphabet is dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984.[3] Burmese calligraphy originally followed a square format but the cursive format took hold from the 17th century when popular writing led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known as parabaiks. A stylus would rip these leaves when making straight lines.[4] The alphabet has undergone considerable modification to suit the evolving phonology of the Burmese language.
As with other Brahmic scripts, the Burmese alphabet is arranged into groups of five letters for stop consonants called wek (ဝဂ်, from Pali) based on articulation. Within each group, the first letter is tenuis ("plain"), the second is the aspirated homologue, the third and fourth are the voiced homologues and the fifth is the nasal homologue. This is true of the first twenty-five letters in the Burmese alphabet, which are called grouped together as wek byi (ဝဂ်ဗျည်း, from Pali). The remaining eight letters ((ယ), (ရ), (လ), (ဝ), (သ), (ဟ), (ဠ), (အ)) are grouped together as a wek (အဝဂ်,), as they are not arranged in any particular pattern.
A letter is a consonant or consonant cluster that occurs before the vowel of a syllable. The Burmese alphabet has 33 letters to indicate the initial consonant of a syllable and four diacritics to indicate additional consonants in the onset. Like other abugidas, including the other members of the Brahmic family, vowels are indicated in Burmese alphabet by diacritics, which are placed above, below, before or after the consonant character. A consonant character with no vowel diacritic has the inherent vowel pronounced as /[a̰]/ (often reduced to pronounced as /[ə]/ when another syllable follows in the same word).
The following table provides the letter, the syllable onset in IPA and the way the letter is referred to in Burmese, which may be either a descriptive name or just the sound of the letter, arranged in the traditional order:
| Group name | Grouped consonants | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unaspirated (သိထိလ) | Aspirated (ဓနိတ) | Voiced (လဟု) | Nasal (နိဂ္ဂဟိတ) | ||||||||||||
| Velars (ကဏ္ဍဇ) ကဝဂ် | က | k | pronounced as //k// | ခ | hk | pronounced as //kʰ// | ဂ | g | pronounced as //ɡ// | ဃ | gh | pronounced as //ɡ// | င | ng | pronounced as //ŋ// |
| ကကြီး pronounced as /[ka̰ dʑí]/ | ခကွေး pronounced as /[kʰa̰ ɡwé]/ | ဂငယ် pronounced as /[ɡa̰ ŋɛ̀]/ | ဃကြီး pronounced as /[ɡa̰ dʑí]/ | င pronounced as /[ŋa̰]/ | |||||||||||
| Palatals (တာလုဇ) စဝဂ် | စ | c | pronounced as //s// | ဆ | hc | pronounced as //sʰ// | ဇ | j | pronounced as //z// | ဈ | jh | pronounced as //z// | ဉ / ည | ny | pronounced as //ɲ// |
| စလုံး pronounced as /[sa̰ lóʊɰ̃]/ | ဆလိမ် pronounced as /[sʰa̰ lèɪɰ̃]/ | ဇကွဲ pronounced as /[za̰ ɡwɛ́]/ | ဈမျဉ်းဆွဲ pronounced as /[za̰ mjɪ̀ɰ̃ zwɛ́]/ | ညကလေး/ ညကြီး pronounced as /[ɲa̰ dʑí]/ | |||||||||||
| Alveolars (မုဒ္ဓဇ) ဋဝဂ် | ဋ | t | pronounced as //t// | ဌ | ht | pronounced as //tʰ// | ဍ | d | pronounced as //d// | ဎ | dh | pronounced as //d// | ဏ | n | pronounced as //n// |
| ဋသန်လျင်းချိတ် pronounced as /[ta̰ təlɪ́ɰ̃ dʑeɪʔ]/ | ဌဝမ်းဘဲ pronounced as /[tʰa̰ wʊ́ɰ̃ bɛ́]/ | ဍရင်ကောက် pronounced as /[da̰ jɪ̀ɰ̃ ɡaʊʔ]/ | ဎရေမှုတ် pronounced as /[da̰ jè m̥oʊʔ]/ | ဏကြီး pronounced as /[na̰ dʑí]/ | |||||||||||
| Dentals (ဒန္တဇ) တဝဂ် | တ | t | pronounced as //t// | ထ | ht | pronounced as //tʰ// | ဒ | d | pronounced as //d// | ဓ | dh | pronounced as //d// | န | n | pronounced as //n// |
| တဝမ်းပူ pronounced as /[ta̰ wʊ́ɰ̃ bù]/ | ထဆင်ထူး pronounced as /[tʰa̰ sʰɪ̀ɰ̃ dú]/ | ဒထွေး pronounced as /[da̰ dwé]/ | ဓအောက်ခြိုက် pronounced as /[da̰ ʔaʊʔ tɕʰaɪʔ]/ | နငယ် pronounced as /[na̰ ŋɛ̀]/ | |||||||||||
| Labials (ဩဌဇ) ပဝဂ် | ပ | p | pronounced as //p// | ဖ | hp | pronounced as //pʰ// | ဗ | b | pronounced as //b// | ဘ | bh | pronounced as //b// | မ | m | pronounced as //m// |
| ပစောက် (pronounced as /[pa̰ zaʊʔ]/) | ဖဦးထုပ် (pronounced as /[pʰa̰ ʔóʊʔ tʰoʊʔ]/) | ဗထက်ခြိုက် (pronounced as /[ba̰ tɛʔ tɕʰaɪʔ]/) | ဘကုန်း (pronounced as /[ba̰ ɡóʊɰ̃]/) | မ pronounced as /[ma̰]/ | |||||||||||
| Miscellaneous consonants | |||||||||||||||
| Without group (အဝဂ်) | ယ | y | pronounced as //j// | ရ | r | pronounced as //j// | လ | l | pronounced as //l// | ဝ | w | pronounced as //w// | သ | s | pronounced as //θ// |
| ယပက်လက် pronounced as /[ja̰ pɛʔ lɛʔ]/ | ရကောက် pronounced as /[ja̰ ɡaʊʔ]/ | လငယ် pronounced as /[la̰ ŋɛ̀]/ | ဝ pronounced as /[wa̰]/ | သ pronounced as /[θa̰]/ | |||||||||||
| ဟ | h | pronounced as //h// | ဠ | l | pronounced as //l// | အ | a | pronounced as //ʔ// | |||||||
| ဟ pronounced as /[ha̰]/ | ဠကြီး pronounced as /[la̰ dʑí]/ | အ pronounced as /[ʔa̰]/ | |||||||||||||
| Independent vowels | |||||||||||||||
| ဣ | i. | pronounced as //ʔḭ// | ဤ | i | pronounced as //ʔì// | ဥ | u. | pronounced as //ʔṵ// | ဦ | u | pronounced as //ʔù// | ||||
| ဧ | e | pronounced as //ʔè// | ဩ | au: | pronounced as //ʔɔ́// | ဪ | au | pronounced as //ʔɔ̀// | |||||||
Consonant letters may be modified by one or more medial diacritics (three at most), indicating an additional consonant before the vowel. These diacritics are:
A few Burmese dialects use an extra diacritic to indicate the /l/ medial, which has merged to /j/ in standard Burmese:
All the possible diacritic combinations are listed below:
| ျ ya pin | မျ | pronounced as /[mj]/ | my | Generally only used on bilabial and velar consonants (က ခ ဂ ဃ င ပ ဖ ဗ မ လ သ). Palatalizes velar consonants: ကျ (ky), ချ (hky), ဂျ (gy) are pronounced pronounced as /[tɕ], [tɕʰ], [dʑ]/. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| မျှ | pronounced as /[m̥j]/ | hmy | သျှ (hsy) and လျှ (hly) are pronounced pronounced as /[ʃ]/. | ||
| မျွ | pronounced as /[mw]/ | myw | |||
| မျွှ | pronounced as /[m̥w]/ | hmyw | |||
| ြ ya yit | မြ | pronounced as /[mj]/ | mr | Generally only used on bilabial and velar consonants (က ခ ဂ ဃ င ပ ဖ ဗ မ). (but in Pali and Sanskrit loanwords, can be used for other consonants as well e.g. ဣန္ဒြေ) Palatalizes velar consonants: ကြ (kr), ခြ (hkr), ဂြ (gr), ငြ (ngr) are pronounced pronounced as /[tɕ], [tɕʰ], [dʑ], [ɲ]/. | |
| မြှ | pronounced as /[m̥j]/ | hmr | |||
| မြွ | pronounced as /[mw]/ | mrw | |||
| မြွှ | pronounced as /[m̥w]/ | hmrw | |||
| ွ wa hswe | မွ | pronounced as /[mw]/ | mw | ||
| မွှ | pronounced as /[m̥w]/ | hmw | |||
| ှ ha hto | မှ | pronounced as /[m̥]/ | hm | Used only in ငှ (hng) pronounced as /[ŋ̊]/, ညှ/ဉှ (hny) pronounced as /[ɲ̥]/, နှ (hn) pronounced as /[n̥]/, မှ (hm) pronounced as /[m̥]/, လှ (hl) pronounced as /[l̥]/, ဝှ (hw) pronounced as /[ʍ]/. ယှ (hy) and ရှ (hr) are pronounced pronounced as /[ʃ]/. |
Letters in the Burmese alphabet are written with a specific stroke order. The letter forms of the Burmese script are based on circles. Typically, one circle should be done with one stroke, and all circles are written clockwise. Exceptions are mostly letters with an opening on top. The circle of these letters is written with two strokes coming from opposite directions.
The ten following letters are exceptions to the clockwise rule: ပ, ဖ, ဗ, မ, ယ, လ, ဟ, ဃ, ဎ, ဏ. Some versions of stroke order may be slightly different.
The Burmese stroke order can be learned from ပထမတန်း မြန်မာဖတ်စာ ၂၀၁၇-၂၀၁၈ (Burmese Grade 1, 2017-2018), a textbook published by the Burmese Ministry of Education. The book is available under the LearnBig project of UNESCO.[5] Other resources include the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University[6] and an online learning resource published by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan.[7]
Syllable rhymes (i.e. vowels and any consonants that may follow them within the same syllable) are indicated in Burmese by a combination of diacritic marks and consonant letters marked with the virama character ် which suppresses the inherent vowel of the consonant letter. This mark is called asat in Burmese (pronounced as /[ʔa̰θaʔ]/), which means "nonexistence" (see Sat (Sanskrit)).
| က | pronounced as /[ka̰], [kə]/ | ka. | pronounced as /[a̰]/ is the inherent vowel, and is not indicated by any diacritic. In theory, virtually any written syllable that is not the final syllable of a word can be pronounced with the vowel pronounced as /[ə]/ (with no tone and no syllable-final pronounced as /[-ʔ]/ or pronounced as /[-ɰ̃]/) as its rhyme. In practice, the bare consonant letter alone is the most common way of spelling syllables whose rhyme is pronounced as /[ə]/. | |
| ကာ | pronounced as /[kà]/ | ka | Takes the alternative form ါ with certain consonants, e.g. ဂါ ga pronounced as /[ɡà]/.[8] | |
| ကား | pronounced as /[ká]/ | ka: | Takes the alternative form ါး with certain consonants, e.g. ဂါး ga: pronounced as /[ɡá]/. | |
| ကက် | pronounced as /[kɛʔ]/ | kak | ||
| ကင် | pronounced as /[kɪ̀ɰ̃]/ | kang | ||
| ကင့် | pronounced as /[kɪ̰ɰ̃]/ | kang. | ||
| ကင်း | pronounced as /[kɪ́ɰ̃]/ | kang: | ||
| ကစ် | pronounced as /[kɪʔ]/ | kac | ||
| ကည် | pronounced as /[kì], [kè], [kɛ̀]/ | kany | ||
| ကဉ် | pronounced as /[kɪ̀ɰ̃]/ | |||
| ကည့် | pronounced as /[kḭ], [kḛ], [kɛ̰]/ | kany. | ||
| ကဉ့် | pronounced as /[kɪ̰ɰ̃]/ | |||
| ကည်း | pronounced as /[kí], [ké], [kɛ́]/ | kany: | ||
| ကဉ်း | pronounced as /[kɪ́ɰ̃]/ | |||
| ကတ် | pronounced as /[kaʔ]/ | kat | ||
| ကန် | pronounced as /[kàɰ̃]/ | kan | ||
| ကန့် | pronounced as /[ka̰ɰ̃]/ | kan. | ||
| ကန်း | pronounced as /[káɰ̃]/ | kan: | ||
| ကပ် | pronounced as /[kaʔ]/ | kap | ||
| ကမ် | pronounced as /[kàɰ̃]/ | kam | ||
| ကမ့် | pronounced as /[ka̰ɰ̃]/ | kam. | ||
| ကမ်း | pronounced as /[káɰ̃]/ | kam: | ||
| ကယ် | pronounced as /[kɛ̀]/ | kai | ||
| ကံ | pronounced as /[kàɰ̃]/ | kam | ||
| ကံ့ | pronounced as /[ka̰ɰ̃]/ | kam. | ||
| ကံး | pronounced as /[káɰ̃]/ | kam: | ||
| ကိ | pronounced as /[kḭ]/ | ki. | As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔḭ]/ is represented by ဣ. | |
| ကိတ် | pronounced as /[keɪʔ]/ | kit | ||
| ကိန် | pronounced as /[kèɪɰ̃]/ | kin | ||
| ကိန့် | pronounced as /[kḛɪɰ̃]/ | kin. | ||
| ကိန်း | pronounced as /[kéɪɰ̃]/ | kin: | ||
| ကိပ် | pronounced as /[keɪʔ]/ | kip | ||
| ကိမ် | pronounced as /[kèɪɰ̃]/ | kim | ||
| ကိမ့် | pronounced as /[kḛɪɰ̃]/ | kim. | ||
| ကိမ်း | pronounced as /[kéɪɰ̃]/ | kim: | ||
| ကိံ | pronounced as /[kèɪɰ̃]/ | kim | ||
| ကိံ့ | pronounced as /[kḛɪɰ̃]/ | kim. | ||
| ကိံး | pronounced as /[kéɪɰ̃]/ | kim: | ||
| ကီ | pronounced as /[kì]/ | ki | As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔì]/ is represented by ဤ. | |
| ကီး | pronounced as /[kí]/ | ki: | ||
| ကု | pronounced as /[kṵ]/ | ku. | As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔṵ]/ is represented by ဥ. | |
| ကုတ် | pronounced as /[koʊʔ]/ | kut | ||
| ကုန် | pronounced as /[kòʊɰ̃]/ | kun | ||
| ကုန့် | pronounced as /[ko̰ʊɰ̃]/ | kun. | ||
| ကုန်း | pronounced as /[kóʊɰ̃]/ | kun: | ||
| ကုပ် | pronounced as /[koʊʔ]/ | kup | ||
| ကုမ် | pronounced as /[kòʊɰ̃]/ | kum | ||
| ကုမ့် | pronounced as /[ko̰ʊɰ̃]/ | kum. | ||
| ကုမ်း | pronounced as /[kóʊɰ̃]/ | kum: | ||
| ကုံ | pronounced as /[kòʊɰ̃]/ | kum | ||
| ကုံ့ | pronounced as /[ko̰ʊɰ̃]/ | kum. | ||
| ကုံး | pronounced as /[kóʊɰ̃]/ | kum: | ||
| ကူ | pronounced as /[kù]/ | ku | As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔù]/ is represented by ဦ. | |
| ကူး | pronounced as /[kú]/ | ku: | As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔú]/ is represented by ဦး. | |
| ကေ | pronounced as /[kè]/ | ke | As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔè]/ is represented by ဧ. | |
| ကေ့ | pronounced as /[kḛ]/ | ke. | ||
| ကေး | pronounced as /[ké]/ | ke: | As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔé]/ is represented by ဧး. | |
| ကဲ | pronounced as /[kɛ́]/ | kai: | ||
| ကဲ့ | pronounced as /[kɛ̰]/ | kai. | ||
| ကော | pronounced as /[kɔ́]/ | kau: | Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ gau: pronounced as /[ɡɔ́]/. As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔɔ́]/ is represented by ဩ. | |
| ကောက် | pronounced as /[kaʊʔ]/ | kauk | Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါက် gauk pronounced as /[ɡaʊʔ]/. | |
| ကောင် | pronounced as /[kàʊɰ̃]/ | kaung | Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင် gaung pronounced as /[ɡàʊɰ̃]/. | |
| ကောင့် | pronounced as /[ka̰ʊɰ̃]/ | kaung. | Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင့် gaung. pronounced as /[ɡa̰ʊɰ̃]/. | |
| ကောင်း | pronounced as /[káʊɰ̃]/ | kaung: | Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင်း gaung: pronounced as /[ɡáʊɰ̃]/. | |
| ကော့ | pronounced as /[kɔ̰]/ | kau. | Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ့ gau. pronounced as /[ɡɔ̰]/. | |
| ကော် | pronounced as /[kɔ̀]/ | kau | Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ် gau pronounced as /[ɡɔ̀]/. As an open vowel, pronounced as /[ʔɔ̀]/ is represented by ဪ. | |
| ကို | pronounced as /[kò]/ | kui | ||
| ကိုက် | pronounced as /[kaɪʔ]/ | kuik | ||
| ကိုင် | pronounced as /[kàɪɰ̃]/ | kuing | ||
| ကိုင့် | pronounced as /[ka̰ɪɰ̃]/ | kuing. | ||
| ကိုင်း | pronounced as /[káɪɰ̃]/ | kuing: | ||
| ကို့ | pronounced as /[ko̰]/ | kui. | ||
| ကိုး | pronounced as /[kó]/ | kui: | ||
| ကွတ် | pronounced as /[kʊʔ]/ | kwat | ||
| ကွန် | pronounced as /[kʊ̀ɰ̃]/ | kwan | ||
| ကွန့် | pronounced as /[kʊ̰ɰ̃]/ | kwan. | ||
| ကွန်း | pronounced as /[kʊ́ɰ̃]/ | kwan: | ||
| ကွပ် | pronounced as /[kʊʔ]/ | kwap | ||
| ကွမ် | pronounced as /[kʊ̀ɰ̃]/ | kwam | ||
| ကွမ့် | pronounced as /[kʊ̰ɰ̃]/ | kwam. | ||
| ကွမ်း | pronounced as /[kʊ́ɰ̃]/ | kwam: |
| Symbol | Burmese name | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burmese: ◌် | Burmese: အသတ်, တံခွန် ရှေ့ထိုး | Virama
| |
| Burmese: ◌င်္ (Burmese: ◌<sup>င်</sup>) | Burmese: ကင်းစီး | Superscripted miniature version of Burmese: င်; phonetic equivalent of nasalized Burmese: င် (pronounced as /[ìɰ̃]/) final. Found mainly in Pali and Sanskrit loans (e.g. "Tuesday," spelled Burmese: အင်္ဂါ and not Burmese: အင်ဂါ). | |
| Burmese: ◌့ | Burmese: အောက်မြစ် | Creates creaky tone. Only used with nasal finals or vowels which inherently indicate a low or high tone. | |
| Burmese: ◌း | Burmese: ဝစ္စပေါက်, ဝိသဇ္ဇနီ, ရှေ့ကပေါက်, ရှေ့ဆီး | Visarga
| |
| Burmese: ◌ာ or Burmese: ◌ါ | Burmese: ရေးချ, မောက်ချ, ဝိုက်ချ | When used alone, it indicates pronounced as //à//.Generically referred to as Burmese: ရေးချ pronounced as //jéːtʃʰa̰// this diacritic takes two distinct forms. By default it is written Burmese: ◌ာ which is called Burmese: ဝိုက်ချ /waɪʔtʃʰa̰/ for specificity, but to avoid ambiguity when following the consonants Burmese: ခ ဂ င ဒ ပ ဝ, it is written tall as Burmese: ◌ါ and called Burmese: မောက်ချ /maʊʔtʃʰa̰/. Although typically not permissible in closed syllables, solitary Burmese: ◌ာ or Burmese: ◌ါ can be found in some words of Pali origin such as Burmese: ဓာတ် (essence, element) or Burmese: မာန် (pride). | |
| Burmese: ◌ေ | Burmese: သဝေထိုး | Indicates pronounced as //è//. Generally only permissible in open syllables, but occasionally found in closed syllables in loan words such as Burmese: မေတ္တာ (metta) | |
| Burmese: ◌ော Burmese: ◌ေါ | – | A combination of Burmese: ◌ေ and Burmese: ◌ာ or Burmese: ◌ါ. Indicates pronounced as //ɔ́// in open syllables or pronounced as //àʊ// before Burmese: က or Burmese: င. The low-tone variant of this vowel in open syllables is written Burmese: ◌ော် or Burmese: ◌ေါ်. | |
| Burmese: ◌ဲ | Burmese: နောက်ပစ် | Indicates pronounced as //ɛ́//. Only found in open syllables. | |
| Burmese: ◌ု | Burmese: တစ်ချောင်းငင် | When used alone, indicates pronounced as //ṵ// in open syllables or pronounced as //ɔ̀ʊ// in closed syllables. | |
| Burmese: ◌ူ | Burmese: နှစ်ချောင်းငင် | Indicates pronounced as //ù//. Only found in open syllables. | |
| Burmese: ◌ိ | Burmese: လုံးကြီးတင် | Indicates pronounced as //ḭ// in open syllables, or pronounced as //èɪ// in closed syllables. | |
| Burmese: ◌ီ | Burmese: လုံးကြီးတင်ဆံခတ် | Indicates pronounced as //ì//. Only found in open syllables. | |
| Burmese: ◌ို | – | Indicates pronounced as //ò// in open syllables, or pronounced as //aɪ// before Burmese: က or Burmese: င. A combination of the Burmese: ◌ိ i and Burmese: ◌ု u vowel diacritics. | |
| Burmese: ◌ွ | Burmese: ဝဆွဲ | used alone, indicates pronounced as //wa̰// in open syllables or, variously, pronounced as //ʊ̀/ or /wà// in closed syllables. In open syllables it may also be combined with the vowel marks Burmese: ေ ဲ ာ ါ ယ် and the tone markers to add a medial /w/ between the initial and vowel.Rarely found in the combinations Burmese: ◌ွိုင် and Burmese: ◌ွိုက် to transcribe the pronounced as //ɔɪ// vowel of English. | |
| Burmese: ◌ံ | Burmese: သေးသေးတင် | Anusvara, within multisyllabic words it functions as a homorganic nasal. Word finally it functions like a final -m, changing the vowel and implying a low tone by default, although it may be combined with tone markers to create high or creaky tone syllables. It is most commonly used alone or combined with the vowel Burmese: ◌ု; however, it may also be combined with Burmese: ◌ွ or Burmese: ◌ိ. Combined to form Burmese: ◌ုံ့ Burmese: ◌ုံ Burmese: ◌ုံး, which changes rhyme to pronounced as //o̰ʊɰ̃ òʊɰ̃ óʊɰ̃// | |
| Burmese: ◌ၖ | used exclusively for Sanskrit r̥ | ||
| Burmese: ◌ၗ | used exclusively for Sanskrit r̥̄ | ||
| Burmese: ◌ေါ် | Burmese: သဝေထိုးရေးချရှေ့ထိုး | used to denote Burmese: ◌ော် in some letters to avoid confusion for Burmese: က, တ, ဘ, ဟ, အ.[10] |
La hswe (Burmese: လဆွဲ) was used in old Burmese from the Bagan to Innwa periods (12th century – 16th century), and could be combined with other diacritics (ya pin, ha hto and wa hswe) to form Burmese: ◌္လျ Burmese: ◌္လွ Burmese: ◌္လှ.[11] [12] Similarly, until the Innwa period, ya pin was also combined with ya yit to form Burmese: ◌ျြ. From the early Bagan period to the 19th century, Burmese: ဝ် was used instead of Burmese: ◌ော် for the rhyme pronounced as //ɔ̀//. Early Burmese writing also used Burmese: ဟ်, not the high tone marker Burmese: ◌း, which came into being in the 16th century. Moreover, Burmese: အ်, which disappeared by the 16th century, was subscripted to represent creaky tone (now indicated with Burmese: ◌့). During the early Bagan period, the rhyme pronounced as //ɛ́// (now represented with the diacritic Burmese: ◌ဲ) was represented with Burmese: ◌ါယ်). The diacritic combination Burmese: ◌ိုဝ် disappeared in the mid-1750s (typically designated as Middle Burmese), having been replaced with the Burmese: ◌ို combination, introduced in 1638. The standard tone markings found in modern Burmese can be traced to the 19th century.[12]
Certain sequences of consonants are written one atop the other, or stacked. A pair of stacked consonants indicates that no vowel is pronounced between them.
For example, the word Burmese: ကမ္ဘာ (kambha), which means "world", contains the stacked consonant Burmese: မ္ဘ (m-bh). The first consonant is Burmese: မ (m) and the second consonant is Burmese: ဘ (bh). No vowel is pronounced between m and bh.
When stacked, the first consonant is written normally (i.e., not super- or subscripted). It has an implied virama Burmese: ◌် and is the final of the preceding syllable. In the case of Burmese: ကမ္ဘာ, an implied virama is applied to the first consonant (Burmese: မ်), which is the final of the preceding syllable Burmese: က, producing Burmese: ကမ် (kam).
The second consonant is subscripted beneath the first consonant and is the onset of the following syllable. In the case of Burmese: ကမ္ဘာ, Burmese: ဘ is the second consonant and is the onset of Burmese: ◌ာ (the following syllable), producing Burmese: ဘာ (bha).
The equivalent form of Burmese: ကမ္ဘာ is thus read Burmese: *ကမ်ဘာ (kambha). If the Burmese: မ (m) and Burmese: ဘ (bh) were not stacked (i.e., Burmese: ကမဘာ), the pronunciation would be different as the inherent vowel "a" would apply to the Burmese: မ (i.e., Burmese: *က'''မ'''ဘာ kamabha).
Stacked consonants are always homorganic (pronounced in the same place in the mouth), which is indicated by the traditional arrangement of the Burmese alphabet into the seven five-letter rows of letters (called Burmese: ဝဂ်). Consonants not found in the rows beginning with Burmese: က, စ, ဋ, တ, or Burmese: ပ can only be doubled — that is, stacked with themselves.
| Group | Possible combinations | Transcriptions | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| K | Burmese: က္က, က္ခ, ဂ္ဂ, ဂ္ဃ | kk, kkh, gg, ggh [also ng?] | dukkha (Burmese: ဒုက္ခ), meaning "suffering" |
| C | Burmese: စ္စ, စ္ဆ, ဇ္ဇ, ဇ္ဈ, ဉ္စ, ဉ္ဆ, ဉ္ဇ, ဉ္ဈ | cc, cch, jj, jjh, nyc, nych, nyj, nyjh | wijja (Burmese: ဝိဇ္ဇာ), meaning "knowledge" |
| T | Burmese: ဋ္ဋ, ဋ္ဌ, ဍ္ဍ, ဍ္ဎ, ဏ္ဋ, ဏ္ဍ | tt, tth, dd, ddh, nt, nd | kanda (Burmese: ကဏ္ဍ), meaning "section" |
| T | Burmese: တ္တ, တ္ထ, ဒ္ဒ, ဒ္ဓ, န္တ, န္ထ, န္ဒ, န္ဓ, န္န | tt, tth, dd, ddh, nt, nth, nd, ndh, nn | manta. le: (Burmese: မန္တလေး), Mandalay, a city in Myanmar |
| P | Burmese: ပ္ပ, ပ္ဖ, ဗ္ဗ, ဗ္ဘ, မ္ပ, မ္ဗ, မ္ဘ, မ္မ | pp, pph, bb, bbh, mp, mb, mbh, mm | kambha (Burmese: ကမ္ဘာ), meaning "world" |
| (other) | Burmese: ဿ, လ္လ, ဠ္ဠ | ss, ll, ll | pissa (Burmese: ပိဿာ), meaning viss, a traditional Burmese unit of weight measurement |
Stacked consonants are largely confined to loan words from languages like Pali, Sanskrit, and occasionally English. For instance, the Burmese word for "self" (via Pali) is spelt Burmese: အတ္တ, not Burmese: *အတ်တ, although both would be read the same.
Stacked consonants are generally not found in native Burmese words, with a major exception being abbreviations. For example, the Burmese word Burmese: သမီး "daughter" is sometimes abbreviated to Burmese: သ္မီး, even though the stacked consonants do not belong to the same row in the Burmese: ဝဂ် and a vowel is pronounced between. Similarly, Burmese: လက်ဖက် "tea" is commonly abbreviated to Burmese: လ္ဘက်. Also, ss is written Burmese: ဿ, not Burmese: သ္သ.
See main article: Burmese numerals.
A decimal numbering system is used, and numbers are written in the same order as Hindu–Arabic numerals.
The digits from zero to nine are: ၀၁၂၃၄၅၆၇၈၉ (Unicode 1040 to 1049). The number 1945 would be written as ၁၉၄၅. Separators, such as commas, are not used to group numbers.
There are two primary break characters in Burmese, drawn as one or two downward strokes: ၊ (called ပုဒ်ဖြတ်, ပုဒ်ကလေး, ပုဒ်ထီး, or တစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်) and ။ (called ပုဒ်ကြီး, ပုဒ်မ, or နှစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်), which respectively act as a comma and a full stop. There is a Shan exclamation mark ႟. Other abbreviations used in literary Burmese are:
-possessive particle('s, of)
See main article: Myanmar (Unicode block). Myanmar script was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.
The Unicode block for Myanmar is U+1000–U+109F:
. Michael Aung-Thwin . The Mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma . illustrated . University of Hawai'i Press . 2005 . Honolulu . 978-0-8248-2886-8.
. Victor Lieberman . Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland . 2003 . Cambridge University Press . 978-0-521-80496-7.