Language

Burmese belongs to the Lolo-Burmese subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman language family, ultimately affiliated with Chinese in the Sino-Tibetan stock. Burmese is one of the principal literary languages of Tibeto-Burman with an extensive written record. The first attested written record in Burmese was Myacedi Stone Inscription (`m es tI ekjak\ sa mya.-zei-di kyau'-sa) dated 1113 A.D. (Burmese year 474).

                                                              Myacedi Stone Inscription of 1113 A.D.

Burmese is spoken as a first language by ethnic Burmans who constitute about two thirds of the population, and as a second language by all the other ethnic groups in Burma such as Akha, Chinsese, Chin, Indian, Kachin, Karen, Lahu, Lisu, Mon, Naga, Palaung, Shan, Wa, etc. to name a few. It is the sole official language of the country.

Writing System  

According to the Myanmar-English Dictionary (MED), the Burmese writing system was developed from the Brāhmi script which flourished in India from about 500 B.C. to 300 A.D. (MED: iv). 

Traditionally, thirty three initial consonants in Burmese have been established by “Burmese Primer”' (`mn\ ma qc\ pun\; @kI; myan-ma thin-boun:-ji:). Myanmar-English Dictionary describes Burmese Primer as shown below (MED:viii):

The consonants in the third row (number 11-15) are used mainly for Pali loan words. The consonant ± (number 32) which is usually called l @kI; la.-ji: "big letter L" is seldom used in Burmese.

In the Burmese Familiarization Course, we follow modern linguistic descriptions of colloquial Burmese such as Soe 1999, Okell 1969, and Wheatley 1982.  

Initial Consonants

Labial stops

p          p          plain voiceless bilabial stop;

                        like medial p in English spin.

P          hp        aspirated voiceless bilabial stop;

                        like initial p in English pin.

B/b    b          voiced bilabial stop;

                        like b in English bit.

Alveolar stops

t        t           plain voiceless alveolar stop;

                        like medial t in English stop.

T        ht         aspirated voiceless alveolar stop;

                        like initial t in English top.

d/D     d          voiced alveolar stop;

                        like d in English dot.

Velar stops

k        k          plain voiceless velar stop;

                        like medial k in English skin.

K          hk        aspirated voiceless velar stop;

                        like initial k in English kinship.

g          g          voiced velar stop;

                        like g in English get.

Glottal  stop   

A        unmarked         glottal stop;

                                    like h in English ah! a!

Dental fricative

q        th         voiceless dental fricative;

                        like th in English thin.

Alveolar  fricatives

s          s           plain alveolar fricative;

                        like s in English see.

S        hs         aspirated alveolar fricative;

                        no English equivalence. Many native speakers pronounce this sound like s s.

z/Z    z           voiced alveolar fricative;

                        like z in English zone.

Alveola-palatal  fricative

rH          sh         alveo-palatal fricative;

                        like s in English ship.

Glottal  fricative

h        h          glottal fricative;

                        like h in English hat.

Palatal  affricate

~k/kj            c          plain palatal affricate;

                                    like c in Italian ciò.

`K/Kj    hc         voiceless palatal affricate;

                                    like ch in English chin.

gj                     j           voiced palatal affricate;

                                    like j in English jump.

Labial  nasals

m          m         bilabial nasal;

                        like m in English man.

mH          hm        voiceless bilabial nasal;

                        no English equivalent. In the pronunciation of this sound, the breath expelled quietly through the nose just before the m sound begins.

Alveolar  nasals

n          n          alveolar nasal;

                        like n in English noun.

NH          hn         voiceless alveolar nasal;

                        no English equivalent. In the pronunciation of this sound, the breath expelled quietly through the nose just before the n sound begins.

Palatal  nasals

v        ny         palatal nasal;

                        no English equivalent.

vH        hny       voiceless palatal nasal;

                        no English equivalent. In the pronunciation of this sound, the breath expelled quietly through the nose just before the hny sound begins.

Velar  nasals

c          ng         velar nasal;

                        like ng in English sing. Note that this sound only appears in English as a final consonant.

cH          hng       voiceless velar nasal;

                        no English equivalent. In the pronunciation of this sound, the breath expelled quietly through the nose just before the ng sound begins.

Labial glides

w          w         plain labial glide;

                        like w in English win.

wH          hw        voiceless labial glide;

                        like wh in English what..

Palatal glide

r/y   y          palatal glide;

                        like y in English you.

Alveolar lateral

l        l           plain alveolar lateral;

                        like l in English land.

lH        hl          voiceless alveolar lateral;

                        no English equivalent. In the pronunciation of this sound, the breath expelled quietly just before the l sound begins.

The consonant r is very rare in Burmese, and usually appears in loan words. When it does appear the Burmese letter r is used to represent the r sound.  

Medial Consonants

Burmese has two medial consonants -w- and -y- written as (Q) and (j) respectively. Medial -w- can follow all the consonants. But consonants that palatal glide -y- (j) follow are restricted to p, hp, b, m, hm, l, hl. 

Final Consonants

The Burmese writing system has four final stopped consonants (k, t, s, p). But in modern colloquial Burmese, these final consonants have merged into a glottal stop, which is marked in these lessons with " ' ", e.g. kp\ ka' 'stick'. When these consonants appear word-finally, there is a marker called A qt\ a-tha' ("killer mark") on top of these consonants, as in k\, t\, s\, p\. Similarly, the Burmese writing system has four nasal final consonants. But in modern spoken Burmese, only the vowels are pronounced with a nasalized sound (aka nasalized vowels) when the word has a nasal final, e.g. kc\ kin “to roast.” This nasalized sound is represented in these lessons with a final -n.

Vowels and Tones

It seems best to describe the writing systems of vowels and tones together in Burmese since the system links the description of vowels and tones. Burmese has six monophthongal vowels and three diphthongal vowels. It also has three tones in smooth syllables and a stopped tone (a word that ends with a glottal stop). These tones are usually called Level tone (unmarked in our romanization), Heavy tone (marked in our romanization with colon, e.g. hka: 'bitter'), Creaky tone (marked in our romanization with a period, e.g. hka. “cost”), and Stop tone (marked in our romanization with apostrophe, e.g. yei hka' 'draw water'). The chart below describes how the tone is marked in accordance with the vowels and diphthong.

For syllables with nasalized vowels, the following chart is drawn to indicate the correspondence between tones and its vowels.

For a syllable that ends with glottal stop, there are three possible nuclear vowels and a diphthong, as shown in the chart below.

Junctural voicing

Junctural voicing is a phenomenon where certain consonants change their form from aspirated/plain voiceless consonants into voiced consonants, i.e. voiceless obstruents become voiced by a process “junctural voicing”. For example, voiceless consonants p or hp may change into a voiced consonant b depending on a context.  This voicing has many phonological conditions (cf. VanBik 2004) and it affects the initial voiceable consonants of both content words (e.g. nouns, verbs, etc.) and function words (e.g. post position markers, particles, etc.). The voiceable initial consonants and their voiced counterparts are as follows (cf. Okell 1969, Vol.-I:12):

voiceable          (plain)               k          t           p          c          s           th

                        (aspirate)          hk        ht         hp        hc         hs        

voiced counterpart                    g          d          b          j           z           dh

Note that this voicing is indicated only in romanization, not in the Burmese writing system.

References:

CADY, John F. 1976. The United States and Burma. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

CLARK, Michael and Joe CUMMINGS. 2000. Myanmar (Burma). Melbourne, Oakland, London, Paris: Lonely Planet Publications.

MYANMAR LANGUAGE COMMISSION. 1994. Myanmar-English Dictionary  (MED).

        Yangon: Ministry of Education.

OKELL, John. 1969. A Reference Grammar of Colloquial Burmese.  Two Vol. London:

        Oxford Univ.  Press.

SOE, Myint. 1999.  A Grammar of Burmese. Ph.D. Dissertation.

            University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.

VANBIK, Kenneth. 2004. Junctural and parasitic voicing in Burmese. Proceedings of the 29th Annual  Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society (BLS 29): 473-484.

WHEATLEY, K. Julian. 1982. Burmese: a Grammatical Sketch. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.