| Burmese မြန်မာအက္ခရာ | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Script type | |
Period | c. 984 or 1035–present |
| Direction | Left-to-right  |
| Official script |  Myanmar |
| Languages | Burmese,Rakhine,Pali andSanskrit |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Mymr(350), Myanmar (Burmese) |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Myanmar |
| U+1000–U+104F | |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| TheBrahmi script and its descendants |
TheBurmese alphabet (Burmese:မြန်မာအက္ခရာ,MLCTS:mranma akkhara,pronounced[mjəmàʔɛʔkʰəjà]) is anabugida used for writingBurmese, based on theMon–Burmese script. It is ultimately adapted from aBrahmic script, either theKadamba orPallava alphabet ofSouth India. The Burmese alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages ofPali andSanskrit. In recent decades, other, related alphabets, such asShan andmodern Mon, have been restructured according to the standard of the Burmese alphabet (seeMon–Burmese script). Burmeseorthography is deep, with an indirect spelling-sound correspondence betweengraphemes (letters) andphonemes (sounds), due to its long and conservative written history andvoicing rules.
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 grammatical complications. There are several systems of transliteration into the Latin alphabet; for this article, theMLC Transcription System is used.
The rounded and even circular shapes dominating the script are thought to be due to the historical writing material, palm leaves, drawing straight lines on which can tear the surface.[3]
The Burmese alphabet was derived from thePyu script, theOld Mon script, or directly from a South Indian script,[4] either theKadamba orPallava alphabet.[1] 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.[1] Burmese calligraphy originally followed a square format, aspetroglyphs were a primary writing medium inOld Burmese.
The medial diacriticla hswe (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 andwa hswe) to form⟨◌္လျ⟩ ⟨◌္လွ⟩ ⟨◌္လှ⟩.[5][6] Similarly, until the Innwa period,ya pin was also combined withya yit to form⟨◌ျြ⟩. During the early Bagan period, the rhyme/ɛ́/, now represented with the diacritic⟨◌ဲ⟩ was represented with⟨◌ါယ်⟩.
The transition toMiddle Burmese in the 16th century included phonological changes (e.g., mergers ofsound pairs that were distinct in Old Burmese) that were accompanied by changes in the underlyingorthography.[7] The high tone marker⟨း⟩ was introduced in the 16th century (the high tone was previously indicated with ဟ်). Moreover,⟨အ်⟩, which disappeared by the 16th century, was subscripted to represent the creaky tone (it is now indicated with⟨◌့⟩). The diacritic combination⟨◌ိုဝ်⟩ disappeared in the mid-1750s, having been replaced with the⟨◌ို⟩ combination, introduced in 1638. The rounded cursive format of Burmese took hold from the 17th century when popular writing led to the wider use ofpalm leaves and folded paper known asparabaiks.[8] A stylus would rip these leaves when making straight lines.[8]
The standard tone markings found in modern Burmese can be traced to the 19th century.[6] During this time,⟨◌ော်⟩ replaced⟨ဝ်⟩ to indicate the rhyme/ɔ̀/. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because of ambiguities that arose over transcribing sounds that had been merged.[9] British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers.
In August 1963, the socialistUnion Revolutionary Government established 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.[9]
As with otherBrahmic scripts, the Burmese alphabet is traditionally arranged into groups calledwet (ဝဂ်, from Palivagga), each consisting of five letters forstop consonants based on articulation. Within each group:
This is true of the first twenty-five letters in the Burmese alphabet, which are called grouped together aswek byi (ဝဂ်ဗျည်း, from Palivagga byañjana), based on articulation:
The remaining eight letters⟨ယ⟩,⟨ရ⟩,⟨လ⟩,⟨ဝ⟩,⟨သ⟩,⟨ဟ⟩,⟨ဠ⟩,⟨အ⟩ are grouped together asa-wek (အဝဂ်, Paliavagga,lit. 'without group'), as they are not arranged according to phonemic principles.
The Burmese alphabet has 33 letters to indicate the initial consonant of a syllable and fourdiacritics to indicate additional consonants in the onset. Like otherabugidas, including the other members of theBrahmic family, each consonant has an inherent vowel/a̰/ (often reduced to/ə/), while other vowels are indicated by diacritics, which are placed above, below, before or after the consonant character.
The following table provides the letter, the syllable onset in IPA and as transcription inMLC, and the letter's name in Burmese (which may describe the letter's form or is simply sound of the letter), arranged in the traditional order:
က k IPA:/k/ ကကြီး [ka̰dʑí] | ခ hk IPA:/kʰ/ ခကွေး [kʰa̰ɡwé] | ဂ g IPA:/g/ ဂငယ် [ɡa̰ŋɛ̀] | ဃ gh IPA:/g/ ဃကြီး [ɡa̰dʑí] | င ng IPA:/ŋ/ င [ŋa̰] |
စ c IPA:/s/ စလုံး [sa̰lóʊɰ̃] | ဆ hc IPA:/sʰ/ ဆလိမ် [sʰa̰lèɪɰ̃] | ဇ j IPA:/z/ ဇကွဲ [za̰ɡwɛ́] | ဈ jh IPA:/z/ ဈမျဉ်းဆွဲ [za̰mjɪ̀ɰ̃zwɛ́] | ည ny IPA:/ɲ/ ညကြီး [ɲa̰dʑí] |
ဋ t IPA:/t/ ဋသန်လျင်းချိတ် [ta̰təlɪ́ɰ̃dʑeɪʔ] | ဌ ht IPA:/tʰ/ ဌဝမ်းဘဲ [tʰa̰wʊ́ɰ̃bɛ́] | ဍ d IPA:/d/ ဍရင်ကောက် [da̰jɪ̀ɰ̃ɡaʊʔ] | ဎ dh IPA:/d/ ဎရေမှုတ် [da̰jèm̥oʊʔ] | ဏ n IPA:/n/ ဏကြီး [na̰dʑí] |
တ t IPA:/t/ တဝမ်းပူ [ta̰wʊ́ɰ̃bù] | ထ ht IPA:/tʰ/ ထဆင်ထူး [tʰa̰sʰɪ̀ɰ̃dú] | ဒ d IPA:/d/ ဒထွေး [da̰dwé] | ဓ dh IPA:/d/ ဓအောက်ခြိုက် [da̰ʔaʊʔtɕʰaɪʔ] | န n IPA:/n/ နငယ် [na̰ŋɛ̀] |
ပ p IPA:/p/ ပစောက် [pa̰zaʊʔ] | ဖ hp IPA:/pʰ/ ဖဦးထုပ် [pʰa̰ʔóʊʔtʰoʊʔ] | ဗ b IPA:/b/ ဗထက်ခြိုက် [ba̰tɛʔtɕʰaɪʔ] | ဘ bh IPA:/b/ ဘကုန်း [ba̰ɡóʊɰ̃] | မ m IPA:/m/ မ [ma̰] |
ယ y IPA:/j/ ယပက်လက် [ja̰pɛʔlɛʔ] | ရ r IPA:/j/ ရကောက် [ja̰ɡaʊʔ] | လ l IPA:/l/ လငယ် [la̰ŋɛ̀] | ဝ w IPA:/w/ ဝ [wa̰] | သ s IPA:/θ/ သ [θa̰] |
ဟ h IPA:/h/ ဟ [ha̰] | ဠ l IPA:/l/ ဠကြီး [la̰dʑí] | အ a IPA:/ʔ/ အ [ʔa̰] |
Burmese also has seven letters to indicate independent vowels; these are used primarily when spelling words of Pali or Sanskrit etymology:
| Letter | ဣ i. IPA:/ʔḭ/ | ဤ i IPA:/ʔì/ | ဥ u. IPA:/ʔṵ/ | ဦ u IPA:/ʔù/ | ဧ e IPA:/ʔè/ | ဩ au: IPA:/ʔɔ́/ | ဪ au IPA:/ʔɔ̀/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equivalent | အိ | အီ | အု | အူ | အေ | အော | အော် |
Burmese uses stacked consonants calledhna-lon-zin (နှစ်လုံးစဉ်), whereby specific two-letter combinations can be written one atop the other, orstacked — the first consonant letter is written normally (i.e., not super- or subscripted), while the second is stacked underneath the first one. Consonant stacking has an impliedvirama⟨◌်⟩, thus suppressing the inherent vowel of the first letter. For instance, 'world'⟨ကမ္ဘာ⟩ is read⟨ကမ်ဘာ⟩ (kambha), not⟨ကမဘာ⟩kamabha).
Stacked consonants are largely used inloan words from Indic languages like Pali, Sanskrit, and occasionally English. For instance, the Burmese word for 'self' (via Paliatta) is spelt⟨အတ္တ⟩, not⟨အတ်တ⟩, although both are pronounced identically. Stacked consonants are generally not found in native Burmese words, except as informal abbreviations. For example, the word⟨သမီး⟩ ('daughter') is sometimes abbreviated to⟨သ္မီး⟩, even though the stacked consonants do not belong to the same row in the⟨ဝဂ်⟩ and a vowel is pronounced between. Similarly,⟨လက်ဖက်⟩ 'tea' is commonly abbreviated as⟨လ္ဘက်⟩.
Stacked consonants are alwayshomorganic (pronounced in the same place in the mouth), which is indicated by thetraditional arrangement of the Burmese alphabet into the seven five-letter groups of letters (calledwet or ဝဂ်). Consonants not found in the rows beginning with⟨က⟩⟨စ⟩⟨ဋ⟩⟨တ⟩ or⟨ပ⟩ can only be doubled — that is, stacked with themselves. The combination of-ss- is written⟨ဿ⟩, instead of⟨သ္သ⟩.
| Group | Possible combinations | Example | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ka wet | က္က kk | က္ခ kkh | ဂ္ဂ gg | ဂ္ဃ ggh | dukkha. (ဒုက္ခ) 'suffering' | |||||
| Sa wet | စ္စ cc | စ္ဆ cch | ဇ္ဇ jj | ဇ္ဈ jjh | ဉ္စ nyc | ဉ္ဆ nych | ဉ္ဇ nyj | ဉ္ဈ nyjh | wijja (ဝိဇ္ဇာ) 'knowledge' | |
| Ta wet | ဋ္ဋ tt | ဋ္ဌ tth | ဍ္ဍ dd | ဍ္ဎ ddh | င္ဋ nt | င္ဍ nd | kanda. (ကဏ္ဍ) 'section' | |||
| Ta wet | တ္တ tt | တ္ထ tth | ဒ္ဒ dd | ဒ္ဓ ddh | န္တ nt | န္ထ nth | န္ဒ nd | န္ဓ ndh | န္န nn | sadda (သဒ္ဒါ) 'vowel' |
| Pa wet | ပ္ပ pp | ပ္ဖ pph | ဗ္ဗ bb | ဗ္ဘ bbh | မ္ပ mp | မ္ဗ mb | မ္ဘ mbh | မ္မ mm | kambha (ကမ္ဘာ) 'world' | |
| A-wet | ဿ ss | လ္လ ll | ဠ္ဠ ll | pissa (ပိဿာ) 'viss' | ||||||
Burmese letters are written with a specificstroke order. The letter forms 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 theBurmese Ministry of Education. The book is available under the LearnBig project ofUNESCO.[10] Other resources include the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University[11] and an online learning resource published by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan.[12]
Burmese employs numerous combinations ofdiacritics to mark medial consonants, vowels and tones.
Burmese has 5 medial diacritics. Consonant letters may be modified by up to three medial diacritics at a time, to indicate additional consonants before the vowel. These diacritics are:
| Diacritic | Name | Usage |
|---|---|---|
ျ -y- IPA:/j/ | ya pin (ယပင့်) | Indicates medial /j/ or palatalization of velar consonants such as/c/,/cʱ/,/ɟ/,/ɲ/. |
ြ -r- IPA:/j/ | ya yit (ရရစ်) | Functions similarly to⟨ျ⟩; also indicates medial /j/ or palatalization of velars. |
ွ -w- IPA:/w/ | wa hswe (ဝဆွဲ) | Indicates medial /w/ in open syllables, or /ʊ̀/ ~ /wà/ in closed syllables. May combine with vowel marks (⟨ေ⟩,⟨ွ⟩,⟨ာ⟩, etc.) to add /w/ before the vowel. Rarely used in⟨◌ွိုင်⟩,⟨◌ွိုက်⟩ to represent English /ɔɪ/.[13] |
ှ h- IPA:/ʰ/ | ha hto (ဟထိုး) | Indicates voicelessness of a sonorant consonant. |
္လ -l- IPA:/l/ | la hswe (လဆွဲ) | Represents a medial /l/ in a few conservative dialects; now obsolete in standard Burmese. |
All of the possible medial diacritic combinations are listed below, using⟨မ⟩ [m] as a sample letter:
| Diacritic | Base medial | with -h- | with -w- | with -h- + -w- |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ျ -y- IPA:/j/ | မျ my IPA:[mj] | မျှ hmy IPA:[m̥j] | မျွ myw IPA:[mw] | မျွှ hmyw IPA:[m̥w] |
ြ -r- IPA:/j/ | မြ mr IPA:[mj] | မြှ hmr IPA:[m̥j] | မြွ mrw IPA:[mw] | မြွှ hmrw IPA:[m̥w] |
ွ -w- IPA:/w/ | မွ mw IPA:[mw] | မွှ hmw IPA:[m̥w] | ||
ှ h- IPA:/ʰ/ | မှ hm IPA:[m̥] |
Burmese has several vowel diacritics that also indicate an inherent tone:
| Diacritic | Name(s) | Usage |
|---|---|---|
◌့ . | အောက်မြစ် | Creates creaky tone. Used only with nasal finals or vowels which inherently indicate a low or high tone. |
◌း : | ဝစ္စပေါက်, ဝိသဇ္ဇနီ, ရှေ့ကပေါက်, ရှေ့ဆီး | Visarga; creates high tone. Can follow a nasal final marked with virama, or a vowel which inherently implies creaky tone or low tone. |
◌ာ - | ရေးချ, မောက်ချ, ဝိုက်ချ | When used alone, it indicates/à/. Generically referred to as⟨ရေးချ⟩/jéːtʃʰa̰/, this diacritic takes two distinct forms (see row below). By default, it is written⟨◌ာ⟩ which is called⟨ဝိုက်ချ⟩ /waɪʔtʃʰa̰/ for specificity. Although typically not permissible in closed syllables, solitary ◌ာ or ◌ါ can be found in some words of Pali origin such as ဓာတ် (essence, element) or မာန် (pride). |
◌ါ - | မောက်ချ | When used alone, it indicates/à/. It is used when combined with the consonants ခ ဂ င ဒ ပ ဝ, it is written tall as ◌ါ and called⟨မောက်ချ⟩ /maʊʔtʃʰa̰/, to disambiguate similarly looking letters. |
◌ေ - | သဝေထိုး | Indicates/è/. Generally only permissible in open syllables, but occasionally found in closed syllables in loan words such as⟨မေတ္တာ⟩ (metta). |
◌ော aw: | – | A combination of⟨◌ေ⟩ and⟨◌ာ⟩ or⟨◌ါ⟩. Indicates/ɔ́/ in open syllables or/àʊ/ before⟨က⟩ or⟨င⟩. The low-tone variant of this vowel in open syllables is written⟨◌ော်⟩ or⟨◌ါ်⟩. |
◌ေါ် aw | used to denote⟨◌ော်⟩ in some letters to avoid confusion for⟨က, တ, ဘ, ဟ, အ⟩. | |
◌ဲ e: | နောက်ပစ် | Indicates/ɛ́/. Only found in open syllables. |
◌ု u. | တစ်ချောင်းငင် | When used alone, indicates/ṵ/ in open syllables or/ɔ̀ʊ/ in closed syllables. |
◌ူ u | နှစ်ချောင်းငင် | Indicates/ù/. Only found in open syllables. |
◌ိ i. | လုံးကြီးတင် | Indicates/ḭ/ in open syllables, or/èɪ/ in closed syllables. |
◌ီ i | လုံးကြီးတင်ဆံခတ် | Indicates/ì/. Only found in open syllables. |
◌ို ui | – | Indicates/ò/ in open syllables, or/aɪ/ before⟨က⟩ or⟨င⟩. A combination of the⟨◌ိ⟩i and⟨◌ု⟩u vowel diacritics. |
Burmese finals are indicated by the following diacritics:
| Letter | Name(s) | Usage |
|---|---|---|
် IPA:/-ʔ/ | အသတ်, တံခွန်, ရှေ့ထိုး | Virama; this mark is calledasat in Burmese (Burmese:အသတ်,MLCTS:a.sat,[ʔa̰θaʔ]), meaning "nonexistence." It deletes the inherent vowel, creating a final consonant. Common after⟨က င စ ည (ဉ) ဏ တ န ပ မ⟩; also found in loanwords. Used as a marginal tone mark: e.g.,⟨ယ်⟩,⟨◌ော်⟩,⟨◌ေါ်⟩ (low-tone variants of⟨ယ⟩,⟨◌ော⟩, and⟨◌ေါ⟩). In this role, it's called⟨ရှေ့ထိုး⟩/ʃḛtʰó/.[13] |
င် -ng IPA:/-ɪɰ̃/ | ကင်းစီး | Superscripted form of⟨င်⟩ representing nasalization ([ìɰ̃]) as final. Found mainly in Pali and Sanskrit loanwords (e.g., အင်္ဂါ not အင်ဂါ).[13] |
ံ -n IPA:/-ɰ̃/ | သေးသေးတင် | Anusvara; marks a homorganic nasal in multisyllabic words, or a final -m that changes the vowel and implies a low tone. May occur with tone markers for high or creaky tone. Often appears with⟨◌ု⟩,⟨◌ွ⟩, or⟨◌ိ⟩. Common combinations include⟨ုံ့⟩,⟨ုံ⟩, and⟨ုံ့း⟩, with rhymes/o̰ʊɰ̃òʊɰ̃óʊɰ̃/ respectively. |
Burmese has adeep orthography, with a one-to-many relationship between phonemes and graphemes.[14] While the pronunciation can be deduced for the majority of words, many Burmese words have spellings with irregular pronunciations, especially words of Indic and foreign etymology.[14] Several phonemic changes, including vowel weakening and voicing of consonants (e.g., in compound words) is not transcribed.[14] An example is the words 'to link' ([tɕʰeɪʔ]) and 'hook' ([dʑeɪʔ]), both of which are spelt⟨ချိတ်⟩.
Burmese orthography remains conservative, with spellings that preserve rhymes and consonants that have since merged. Due to its conservatism, Burmese spellings have been used to reconstruct earlier stages of the Burmese language and inTibeto-Burman historical linguistics.[15] Since the earliest stages of the language, Burmese has assimilated thousands of Indic words, especially from the classical languages ofPali andSanskrit.[16] These borrowings can be deduced from orthography, with later borrowings adopting more orthographically transparent loans.[16] Examples include words like⟨သဘော⟩ (sa.bhau, 'disposition') and⟨သဘာဝ⟩ (sa.bhava., 'nature'), both from Palisabhāva.[16]
Burmese orthography has preserved all the nasalized finals[-n,-m,-ŋ], which have merged to[-ɰ̃] in spoken Burmese. Similarly, Burmese orthography has preserved the consonantal finals[-s,-p,-t,-k], which have since been reduced to[-ʔ]. Burmese has retained a number of phonetically redundant graphemes ( used primarily in words of Indic etymology; phoneme when word is voiced), including separate letters that are used to spell words of Indic origin:
| Phoneme | Grapheme | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /tɕ/ | ကျ ky | ကြ kr | ||
| /tɕʰ/ | ချ hky | ခြ hkr | ||
| /ɡ/ | က k | ခ hk | ဂ g | ဃ gh |
| /dʑ/ | ကျ ky | ကြ kr | ချ hky | ခြ hkr |
ဂျ gy | ဂြ gr | ဃျ ghy | ဃြ ghr | |
| /z/ | စ c | ဆ hc | ဇ j | ဈ jh |
| /ɲ/ | ည ny | ဉ ny | ||
| /ɲ̥/ | ညှ hny | ဉှ hny | ||
| /t/ | ဋ t | တ t | ||
| /tʰ/ | ဌ ht | ထ ht | ||
| /d/ | ဋ t | တ t | ဌ ht | ထ ht |
ဒ d | ဓ dh | |||
| /n/ | ဏ n | န n | ||
| /n̥/ | ဏှ hn | နှ hn | ||
| /b/ | ပ p | ဖ hp | ဗ b | ဘ bh |
| /j/ | ယ y | ရ r | ||
| /ʃ/ | ယှ hy | ရှ hr | သျှ hsy | လျှ hly |
| /l/ | လ l | ဠ l | ||
| /l̥/ | လှ hl | ဠှ hl | ||
| Phoneme | Grapheme | |
|---|---|---|
| /ʔḭ/ | ဣ i. | အိ i. |
| /ʔì/ | ဤ i | အီ i |
| /ʔṵ/ | ဥ u. | အု u. |
| /ʔù/ | ဦ u | အူ u |
| /ʔè/ | ဧ e | အေ e |
| /ʔɔ́/ | ဩ au. | အော au. |
| /ʔɔ̀/ | ဪ au | အော် au |
The following lists all the permissiblesyllable rhymes (i.e.,vowels and any consonants that may follow them within the same syllable) and their spellings (graphemes); these rhymes are written using a combination ofdiacritic marks and consonant letters.
Below are the possible combinations of open syllable rhymes in Burmese spelling, used with the letter⟨က⟩[k] as a sample.[a̰] is theinherent 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[ə] (with no tone and no syllable-final[-ʔ] or[-ɰ̃]) as its rhyme. In practice, the bare consonant letter alone is the most common way of spelling syllables whose rhyme is[ə].
| Vowel | Creaky tone | Low tone | High tone | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoneme | Grapheme | Phoneme | Grapheme | Phoneme | Grapheme | |
| /a/ | [ka̰] | က ka. | [kà] | ကာ ka | [ká] | ကား ka: |
| /ɛ/ | [kɛ̰] | ကဲ့ kai. | [kɛ̀] | ကယ် kai | [kɛ́] | ကဲ kai: |
ကည့် kany. | ကည် kany | ကည်း kany: | ||||
| /i/ | [kḭ] | ကိ ki. | [kì] | ကီ ki | [kí] | ကီး ki: |
ကည့် kany. | ကည် kany | ကည်း kany: | ||||
| /u/ | [kṵ] | ကု ku. | [kù] | ကူ ku | [kú] | ကူး ku: |
| /e/ | [kḛ] | ကေ့ ke. | [kè] | ကေ ke | [ké] | ကေး ke: |
| /ɔ/ | [kɔ̰] | ကော့ kau. | [kɔ̀] | ကော် kau | [kɔ́] | ကော kau: |
| /o/ | [ko̰] | ကို့ kui. | [kò] | ကို kui | [kó] | ကိုး kui: |
Below are the possible combinations ofglottal stop syllable rhymes in Burmese spelling, used with the letter⟨က⟩[k] as a sample. Burmese spelling retains the consonantal finals that have since merged to the glottal stop in spoken Burmese.
| Rhyme | -k (-က်) | -c (-စ်) | -t (-တ်) and -p (-ပ်) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoneme | Grapheme | Phoneme | Grapheme | Phoneme | Grapheme | |
| /-ɛʔ/ | [kɛʔ] | ကက် kak | ||||
| /-ɪʔ/ | [kɪʔ] | ကစ် kac | ||||
| /-aʔ/ | [kaʔ] | ကတ် kat | ||||
ကပ် kap | ||||||
| /-ʊʔ/ | [kʊʔ] | ကွတ် kwat | ||||
ကွပ် kwap | ||||||
| /-eɪʔ/ | [keɪʔ] | ကိတ် kit | ||||
ကိပ် kip | ||||||
| /-oʊʔ/ | [koʊʔ] | ကုတ် kut | ||||
ကုပ် kup | ||||||
| /-aʊʔ/ | [kaʊʔ] | ကောက် kauk | ||||
| /-aɪʔ/ | [kaɪʔ] | ကိုက် kuik | ||||
Below are the possible combinations of nasalised syllable rhymes in Burmese spelling, used with the letter⟨က⟩[k] as a sample.
| Rhyme | Creaky tone | Low tone | High tone | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoneme | Grapheme | Phoneme | Grapheme | Phoneme | Grapheme | |
| /-ɪɰ̃/ | [kɪ̰ɰ̃] | ကင့် kang. | [kɪ̀ɰ̃] | ကင် kang | [kɪ́ɰ̃] | ကင်း kang: |
ကဉ့် kany. | ကဉ် kany | ကဉ်း kany: | ||||
| /-aɰ̃/ | [ka̰ɰ̃] | ကန့် kan. | [kàɰ̃] | ကန် kan | [káɰ̃] | ကန်း kan: |
ကမ့် kam. | ကမ် kam | ကမ်း kam: | ||||
ကံ့ kam. | ကံ kam | ကံး kam: | ||||
| /-eɪɰ̃/ | [kḛɪɰ̃] | ကိန့် kin. | [kèɪɰ̃] | ကိန် kin | [kéɪɰ̃] | ကိန်း kin: |
ကိမ့် kim. | ကိမ် kim | ကိမ်း kim: | ||||
ကိံ့ kim. | ကိံ kim | ကိံး kim: | ||||
| /-oʊɰ̃/ | [ko̰ʊɰ̃] | ကုန့် kun. | [kòʊɰ̃] | ကုန် kun | [kóʊɰ̃] | ကုန်း kun: |
ကုမ့် kum. | ကုမ် kum | ကုမ်း kum: | ||||
ကုံ့ kum. | ကုံ kum | ကုံး kum: | ||||
| /-aʊɰ̃/ | [ka̰ʊɰ̃] | ကောင့် kaung. | [kàʊɰ̃] | ကောင် kaung | [káʊɰ̃] | ကောင်း kaung: |
| /-aɪɰ̃/ | [ka̰ɪɰ̃] | ကိုင့် kuing. | [kàɪɰ̃] | ကိုင် kuing | [káɪɰ̃] | ကိုင်း kuing: |
| /-ʊɰ̃/ | [kʊ̰ɰ̃] | ကွန့် kwan. | [kʊ̀ɰ̃] | ကွန် kwan | [kʊ́ɰ̃] | ကွန်း kwan: |
ကွမ့် kwam. | ကွမ် kwam | ကွမ်း kwam: | ||||
Burmese uses adecimal numbering system based on theHindu–Arabic numeral system, with unique numerals for the digits from zero to nine. Separators, such as commas, are traditionally not used to group numbers. For instance, the number 1945 is written⟨၁၉၄၅⟩.
0 ၀ | 1 ၁ | 2 ၂ | 3 ၃ | 4 ၄ | 5 ၅ | 6 ၆ | 7 ၇ | 8 ၈ | 9 ၉ |
Burmese has two native punctuation marks. Burmese also uses Western-style punctuation marks, includingparentheses,ellipses, andslashes. Others like theexclamation mark andquestion mark are used more sparingly.
| Symbol | Usage |
|---|---|
၊ | Calledpot-phyat (ပုဒ်ဖြတ်),pod-gale (ပုဒ်ကလေး). Equivalent to acomma, used to introduce a break within a sentence. Also calledpot-hti (ပုဒ်ထီး) orta-chaung-pot (တစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်). |
။ | Calledpot-ma (ပုဒ်မ). Equivalent to afull stop, used at the end of a complete sentence. Also calledpot-gyi (ပုဒ်ကြီး) orhna-chaung-pot (နှစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်). |
The literary register of Burmese also uses several symbols used to abbreviate frequently used grammatical particles:
| Symbol | Usage |
|---|---|
၏ IPA:/ʔḭ/ | possessive ( 's, of), also used as a full stop if the sentence immediately ends with a verb |
၍ IPA:/jwḛ/ | conjunction |
၌ IPA:n̥aɪʔ | locative ('at') |
၎င်း IPA:ləɡáʊɴ | 'ditto' or 'ibid.' (typically used in columns and lists). Abbreviation of⟨လည်းကောင်း⟩. |
The Burmese script was added to theUnicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.
The Unicode block for Myanmar is U+1000–U+109F:
| Myanmar[1] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+100x | က | ခ | ဂ | ဃ | င | စ | ဆ | ဇ | ဈ | ဉ | ည | ဋ | ဌ | ဍ | ဎ | ဏ |
| U+101x | တ | ထ | ဒ | ဓ | န | ပ | ဖ | ဗ | ဘ | မ | ယ | ရ | လ | ဝ | သ | ဟ |
| U+102x | ဠ | အ | ဢ | ဣ | ဤ | ဥ | ဦ | ဧ | ဨ | ဩ | ဪ | ါ | ာ | ိ | ီ | ု |
| U+103x | ူ | ေ | ဲ | ဳ | ဴ | ဵ | ံ | ့ | း | ္ | ် | ျ | ြ | ွ | ှ | ဿ |
| U+104x | ၀ | ၁ | ၂ | ၃ | ၄ | ၅ | ၆ | ၇ | ၈ | ၉ | ၊ | ။ | ၌ | ၍ | ၎ | ၏ |
| U+105x | ၐ | ၑ | ၒ | ၓ | ၔ | ၕ | ၖ | ၗ | ၘ | ၙ | ၚ | ၛ | ၜ | ၝ | ၞ | ၟ |
| U+106x | ၠ | ၡ | ၢ | ၣ | ၤ | ၥ | ၦ | ၧ | ၨ | ၩ | ၪ | ၫ | ၬ | ၭ | ၮ | ၯ |
| U+107x | ၰ | ၱ | ၲ | ၳ | ၴ | ၵ | ၶ | ၷ | ၸ | ၹ | ၺ | ၻ | ၼ | ၽ | ၾ | ၿ |
| U+108x | ႀ | ႁ | ႂ | ႃ | ႄ | ႅ | ႆ | ႇ | ႈ | ႉ | ႊ | ႋ | ႌ | ႍ | ႎ | ႏ |
| U+109x | ႐ | ႑ | ႒ | ႓ | ႔ | ႕ | ႖ | ႗ | ႘ | ႙ | ႚ | ႛ | ႜ | ႝ | ႞ | ႟ |
Notes
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It is said that the rounder forms were developed to permit writing on palm leaves without tearing the writing surface of the leaf.
