Burmese

Burmese is the main language of Myanmar (also known as Burma). In terms of nomenclature, within the Burmese language, Myanmar is the formal name of the country used for all official purposes, while Burma is the colloquial name of the country, which also used to be the official name of the country in English before 1989 when it was changed to Myanmar. The Burmese language is therefore sometimes called the Myanmar language to mirror this formal/colloquial distinction.

Burmese is a Sino-Tibetan language related to various other Burmic languages such as the Zaiwa, Achang, Hani, Lahu, Lisu, and Yi languages of northern Myanmar and southwestern China, and more distantly related to other language branches of Sino-Tibetan such as Sinitic, Karenic, and Tibetic. Within Burmic, its closer relatives are those of the Burmish clade such as Achang and Zaiwa, and within this clade the Burmese cluster includes Intha, Danu, Taungyo, Tavoyan, Rakhine of Rakhine State, and Marma of eastern Bangladesh.

The Burmese script is the most prominent orthography using the greater Myanmar script (Mon-Burmese script), which is also used for many other languages within the borders of Myanmar, such as Mon, Shan, Sgaw Karen, Pa-O, and others. The Myanmar script is thought to have been adapted for Old Burmese from Old Mon, and it is ultimately of Indic Brahmi origin. As such, it is helpful to learn some of the basic principles underlying the Indic script model to understand how the script was adapted to the features of Burmese.

Initials
In the table below, "Ancestral Indic" refers to the value of the consonant in the broader Indic script system, based on the Sanskrit/Pali sound, which sometimes differs from the sound in modern Burmese. All consonant initials carry an unwritten inherent vowel ā (/a̰˥ˀ/).

The typical Indic script template starts out with 5 basic series of 5 letters each; these five series each form a pattern of voiceless unaspirated consonant, voiceless aspirated consonant, voiced consonant, breathy voiced consonant, and nasal initial. The five series are organized by the part of the oral cavity that engages the sound, so they are the k kh g gh ṅ (velar), c ch j jh ñ (palatal), ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ (retroflex), t th d dh n (dental), and p ph b bh m (labial), from back of the mouth to front of the mouth. The Indic template then lists out a row of sonorants (in Burmese the y r l w) and a row of fricatives (in Burmese reduced to just s and h), then an extra sonorant ḷ used for Pali but not in Sanskrit. The Indic template letter for the short a (အ) follows after as it is used as the base initial for the glottal stop initial/null initial (commonly done in many Southeast Asian Indic orthographies).

Consonants can take a "killing stroke" ် on top of them that deletes the inherent vowel. At the end of a syllable, this indicates a coda (details in the rimes section). Word-medially, another way of deleting the inherent vowel is by creating a combined consonant letter, generally made by stacking the consonant on top of the subsequent consonant, so က + က = က္က. This is used for Indic-derived words.

ဃ ဈ ဎ ဓ ဘ
As can be seen from the table, Burmese does not pronounce these Indic breathy voiced initials (gh, jh, ḍh, dh, bh), merging them with their plain voiced counterparts. ဘ is actually the more common letter used for /b/ over ​ဗ, and ဓ is also used to some extent, but the others are uncommon.

စ ဆ ဇ ဈ
The Indic palatal series စ c,​ ဆ ch, ဇ j, ဈ jh has spirantized into modern Burmese s, hs, z, z. Some speakers do not distinguish aspirated hs /sʰ/ from /s/.

ည ဉ
The palatal nasal ñ has two forms; for initial ñ, ည is the default letter. The most common use for ဉ is as a final nasal coda ဉ်, though ည် is also used as a rime as well (details in the rimes section). ဉ is also used when this ဉ် is the first consonant in an Indic-derived stack such as ဉ္စ ñc ဉ္ဆ​ ñch ဉ္ဇ ñj ဉ္ဈ ñjh.

While ည is the default letter for ñ in modern Burmese, in some Indic-derived words, ဉ is still used as consonant initial ñ. When an Indic word has this consonant initial ñ attached after another ñ, it becomes written identical to ည, but learners need to remember which words use ည as ဉ် + ဉ as they encounter them.

ဋ ဌ ဍ ဎ ဏ ဠ
The Indic retroflex consonants are not distinguished from the dental consonants in Burmese pronunciation, but are used for etymological spelling/transcription of the sounds in Indic words where needed, so they are relatively uncommon in Burmese. The letters ဋ ဌ ဍ ဠ (ṭ ṭh ḍ ḷ) have their default stacked forms turned sideways to fit more easily: ္ဋ ္ဌ ္ဍ ္ဠ. There are also special stacked combinations ဋ္ဋ ṭṭ ဋ္ဌ ṭṭh ဍ္ဍ ḍḍ ဍ္ဎ ḍḍh ဏ္ဋ ṇṭ. Note that the glyphs for ဌ (ṭh) and ဋ္ဌ (ṭṭh) appear quite similar.

ယ ရ
ရ r merged into ယ y, but in modern loanwords it can be used to indicate the r sound. There are also some occasional Indic-derived words that preserve the r sound. This r-y merger did not occur in the Rakhine language (Arakanese).

Learners should note that the <y> sound in Burmese can be realized as [ʝ] or [ʒ] for in the speech of some speakers.

သ
Ancestral Indic သ s became Burmese <thh> /θ ~ t̪θ ~ t̪/ (part of the chain shift that allowed c to spirantize into s), somewhat analogous to how some speakers of English may lisp and pronounce the s sound as a th. This sound is often described as a dental fricative, but the fricative component of it is quite reduced in most speakers, and learners should prime attune ears to listen for something closer to a dental /t̪/ sometimes with slight affrication /t̪θ/. When two သ letters are combined together, they can become a special letter ဿ.

Consonant Voicing

The voiceless first two consonants in each of the five basic consonant series (voiceless unaspirated, voiceless aspirated) can become voiced in non-initial position (changing to the corresponding voiced consonant in that row). This is very common in Burmese, but not a universal rule, so it is something that learners should pay attention to in listening and in the romanization when they are learning new words, because Burmese orthography does not use any mark to overtly indicate this voicing change in pronunciation, unlike, for example, in Japanese orthography, where this process (known as 連濁 rendaku in Japanese) is overtly indicated with the dakuten mark ゛on the letter. So for example in the Burmese word စကား, which has two syllables စ and ကား, the ​က in the second syllable actually gets voiced from k to g. Theoretically, if Burmese orthography were like Japanese orthography, စကားﾞ could be a way to represent in the script that this consonant change happens, but since it is not explicitly written out, learners will have to simply remember when it happens or doesn't happen. There are some principles to help predict when it doesn't happen, which will be brought up in later sections.

(သှ) <dhh>
In addition to the first two consonant letters in each of the five basic series, the letter သ <thh> (/θ ~ t̪θ ~ t̪/) can also undergo voicing, changing to its voiced equivalent /ð ~ d̪ð ~ d̪/, romanized as <dhh> in Lexx Rom. As mentioned above, consonant voicing is not explicitly marked out in Burmese, so you will always just see this sound written with the same သ letter in Burmese, but some reference books for learners use သှ with a mark  ှ to indicate this changed sound (more on this mark  ှ later).

ျ ြ ွ
There are three glide consonants that are commonly paired with Burmese consonant initials:

Notice that in Standard Burmese, the ရ -r - ယ -y- merger also applies when they are glides. As in the case with initial r-, Rakhine still preserves the -r- pronunciation of this glide.

Historically, there was a -l- medial glide ္လ as well, which in Standard Burmese not only merged with the -r-/-y-, but also got eliminated in spelling, whereas the -r- glide is still distinguished in spelling. However, in some parts of the Burmese linguistic clade such as Intha and Tavoyan, this -l- medial is still spelled and pronounced.

In some Indic-derived words, you may encounter a y initial with a -y- glide ယျ; in Burmese, this is pronounced identically to single ယ.

When the -w- glide and either of the other two glides are present together on the same carrier consonant, the -w- glide is dominant and the other glide is generally not pronounced unless one decides to do so for very careful, literary, recitation-style speech.

◌ွ can also be used underneath ဗ b as ဗွ to indicate the sound /v/ (Lexx Rom v) in modern loanwords, though Burmese is inconsistent about this, so plain ဗ by itself is sometimes used for this v sound as well.

ကျ ချ ဂျ ဃျ ငျ ကြ ခြ ဂြ ဃြ ငြ
When the velar series က k, ခ kh, ဂ g, ဃ g  င ng take on either of the two -y- medial glides, they become palatalized into palatal affricates:

Of these, you are not going to run into the combinations ဃျ ငျ ဃြ ငြ are rare (ဃျ ငျ ဃြ are theoretically only needed if dealing with direct transliteration of Indic texts), but they are listed here for completeness.

Remember that the original ancestral palatal series had spirantized into the modern s, hs, z series, so that made space in the phonological system for this new series of palatalized consonants to emerge.

◌ှ
Burmese also has another letter ှ that looks like a glide but is more of a devoicing marker, equivalent to adding an initial ဟ h- in front of the modified letter:

Note that in နှ the long tail of the letter န gets folded up to make space for this ှ marker. Also note that the <hng> combination should not be mixed up with the similar-appearing ဌ (ṭh) and ဋ္ဌ (ṭṭh).

This devoicing mark causes different behavior on the two y letters ရ (ancestral r) and ယ (ancestral y), causing them to turn into a sibilant /ʃ/ <sh>. This sound also applies to a couple other idiosyncratic consonant clusters as well (to be discussed later).

This <sh> sound is by far most commonly spelled with ရှ, but some dictionaries use ယှ as the default form.

Very rarely, a writer may use ှ under the letter ဖ ph as ဖှ to transcribe the sound /f/ (Lexx Rom f) from modern loanwords. Most frequently though, Burmese will generally just use the plain letter ဖ by itself even if pronouncing it as f.

ၐ ၑ
The Burmese script also has two special consonant letters for <sh> that are only used when writing Sanskrit (they do not occur in Pali):

These two characters are practically never used in written Burmese (Pali merged them into /s/, and it is more common for Burmese to borrow Pali forms). Learners should remember ရှ as the default way to indicate <sh>.

Other letters dedicated to transcribing consonant sounds from other languages are even less common, but ဍ့ (ḍ with ring underneath) and ​ဎ့ (ḍh with ring underneath) have been documented for Hindi retroflex flaps ड़ /ɽ/ ṛ and ढ़ /ɽʱ/ ṛh.

Tones

Before getting to rimes, the tones of Burmese will be discussed, as Burmese spells some of its rimes slightly differently depending on the tone.

Burmese has four tones, a mid-low tone, a high creaky tone, a high tone, and a checked tone with a glottal stop.

Tones

The low tone is the default unmarked tone in Burmese; it is the most commonly encountered tone. It is a mid-low flat tone that can have a little bit of optional updrift towards the end.

The creaky tone is a relatively short high-pitched tone that carries some creaky glottalization, and it can have downdrift towards the end. It is the least common of the four tones in Burmese, and is generally indicated with a ring towards the bottom right of the syllable( ့ ).

The high tone is a high falling tone that can sometimes carry some breathiness. It is generally indicated with two rings to the right, the Indic visargah (း).

The checked tone is analogous to the Sinitic Rusheng tone as well as the Tai-Kadai "dead" tone (East Asian Tone Category D); this tone is only paired with syllables that end in checked coda (a glottal stop coda in modern Burmese). If a syllable does not end in a checked coda, it must only be in one of the other three tones (mid-low, creaky, or high). The checked tone is a high tone that is stopped abruptly by a glottal stop (the "uh" sound in the English uh-oh); from its starting point, it can fall in pitch a bit before it reaches its glottal stop ending.

Overall, the Burmese tone system is relatively fluid and forgiving compared to the tone systems in many other languages of East and Southeast Asia, having been described as being in a state of instability or advanced decay. In isolation, the creaky tone may sound like the checked tone to learners, but one clue to distinguish them is that they take different sets of rimes (since the checked tone can only take checked rimes). In connected speech, the creaky tone is starting to merge to some degree with the high tone for some speakers, but the two tones are still distinguished in writing.

Rimes

Burmese has seven basic vowels. The table below shows their representation in the three non-checked tones of Burmese:

Basic Vowels

For the Burmese vowels a, i, and u, the glyph for the short vowel in the Indic script template was utilized for the vowel with creaky tone, and the glyph for the long vowel was utilized for the vowel with low tone (there is no short-long vowel length distinction in Burmese).

The vowel a in the low tone is usually written as ာ, but for certain consonants, if it would look too similar to a different consonant,  a tall version ါ is used instead. This applies to the following consonants:

​ဂါ (to distinguish from က)​
ငါ (to distinguish from က)​
ဒါ (to distinguish from အ)
ဓါ (to distinguish from မာ)
ပါ (to distinguish from ဟ)
ဝါ (to distinguish from တ)

The same principle applies to the vowel ɔ, as its right-side component consists of the same shape as the vowel a.

For the vowel ɛ, a y letter with the vowel deletion marker ◌ယ် is appended to the base consonant in the low tone, while the special vowel letter is used for the high tone (which doesn't need the း), and the creaky tone is created regularly.

For the vowel ɔ, the vowel deletion marker ် is used to indicate the low tone, so a syllable without this marker has the high tone even without the  း. The creaky is created regularly.

These vowels with the null initial/glottal stop initial are generally appended to the null consonant , but in some words (mostly Indic-derived words), some of the null-initial vowels have dedicated letters.

ဧ is generally <e>, but in some words it represents <ê>.

ဦ can also take the high tone marker as ဦး <û>.

Initial Minor Syllable

Over time, many Burmese words have shifted towards sesquisyllabic structure, which is typologically common in Southeast Asia. A typical Southeast Asian sesquisyllabic (literally meaning 'one and a half syllable') word is made of a minor syllable plus a full (normal) syllable.

In Burmese, the minor syllable can only have one rime: an initial consonant plus the unstressed schwa /ə/, which in Burmese only occurs in this minor syllable. In terms of pitch height, this neutralized syllable is a lower pitch than subsequent syllables.

There is no specific letter or way to write this schwa, because it can be a result of any first syllable in a word getting neutralized and destressed into a minor syllable, and this neutralization of the syllable is not reflected in the orthography. In many cases, a first syllable with the creaky tone ā (meaning no additional vowel marker) will become reduced into a minor syllable, but any rime, even one with a final coda, can become reduced into a minor syllable. In Lexx Rom, this is indicated by <ă>. Some books for learners will use an apostrophe if wanting to mark out that the entire preceding syllable becomes a destressed minor syllable.

Destressing a syllable into a minor syllable will often also cause a minor syllable's initial to change into its voiced counterpart, if available (review the section above on Consonant Voicing). As nothing in the spelling of a word is changed with the destressing of a syllable, learners will need to pay attention to pronunciation and Lexx Rom when watching out for this change. For example, the Burmese word ပုစွန် 'shrimp' has two syllables ပု <pū> + စွန် <sun>, but when combined, not only does the စ in the second syllable get voiced from s to z due to consonantal voicing, but the first syllable gets destressed, and correspondingly the ပ changes from p to b. The final result is that ပုစွန် becomes <băzun>, quite different from the <pūsun> that the spelling would otherwise suggest.

Nasal Rimes

In Burmese, nasal codas have all merged together and boiled down to a weak uvular nasal /ɴ/ that often just surfaces as nasalization on the preceding vowel with a slight glide [ɰ̃]. The nasal coda just transcribed as <-n> in Lexx Rom, but the glyph letter representing it in the Burmese script can be င် -ng, ဉ် -ñ, န် -n, မ် -m, or ံ -ṃ, depending on the rime (ṃ is the Indic anusvara that indicates either nasalization or a nasal consonant).

The " in the table indicates the the rime is pronounced identically to the rime above in modern Burmese. Spelling should be memorized by lexical item.

Sometimes, mostly in Indic-derived words, the nasal rime င် in front of a velar consonant can take on a new miniature form ​င်္ that rides on top of the velar consonant. Its pronunciation remains the same.

Learners should note that the /a/ in the /aɴ/ rime can get fronted to result in [æɴ] for many speakers.

Irregular Coda ည်

ည် may appear to be a nasal rime coda -ññ, but it is actually a highly irregular coda letter that can indicate one of three basic vowel rimes <-i>, <e>, or <ę> depending on the word. Which vowel is used must be learned word by word, but in general, -i is considered the literary pronunciation for many words, and <ę> its colloquial counterpart.

Confusingly, in pre-modern texts ည် was also often used for the <-in> rime, but in modern orthography those words are now assigned to the half-sized ဉ်, leaving ည် still with the significant load of three basic vowel rimes.

Checked Rimes

In Burmese, all checked codas have merged together into a glottal stop coda, which Lexx Rom transcribes as -t (common practice in Myanmar, based on the English glottal stop allophone of t). The glyph letter representing this checked coda in the Burmese script can be က်, စ်, တ်, ပ် p, depending on the rime.

As with the nasal rimes, the " in the table indicates that the rime is pronounced identically to the rime above it in modern Burmese, so spelling should be memorized by lexical item.

As with in its corresponding nasal rime, learners should note that the /a/ in the /aʔ/ rime can get fronted to result in [æʔ] for many speakers.

It is important to mention that the Burmese consonant voicing phenomenon described earlier will not occur after a checked rime, so this is a good rule for learners to remember as it can prevent them from accidentally applying the consonant voicing where it is not phonotactically possible.

Non-standard Rime Spellings

With loanwords, particularly words derived from Indic, there are many other sequences spelled with coda letters that are different from the standard nasal and checked rime spellings listed above, but these will all be pronounced as one of the standard rimes described in the previous section. There are some principles that determine which spelling results in which rime pronunciation.

First, determine if the coda letter is a nasal rime coda letter or a checked rime coda letter. The nasal letters are င်, ဉ်, ဏ်, န်, မ်, same as used in the standard nasal rimes.

The checked rime coda letters are the letters associated with the standard checked rime letters, which make up the majority of the consonant initials. They can be grouped according to which of the standard checked rime coda letters they share a series with:

Note that သ် (ancestral s, modern thh) aligns with the -t coda class.

Other coda letters that do not fall into either of these two categories form a miscellaneous coda class that for the most part behaves like the nasal coda class. This class includes ယ် y, ရ် r, လ် l, ဝ် w, ဟ် h, ဠ် ḷ.

Then, examine the vowel structure on the preceding consonant. The rime output with nasal and checked coda letters is as follows:

As you can see, ော◌် with the velar series as coda simply results in the normal rimes as one would expect in standard ောင် <-aon> and ောက် <-aot>, but with coda letters from any other series (palatal, retroflex dental, labial), the rime will be <-un> (nasal) or <-ut> (checked) respectively.

In the case of a consonant with no vowel marking plus a subsequent coda letter, the velar and palatal series will result in the normal expected rimes of ◌င် <in> / ◌က် <et> and ◌ဉ် <in> / ◌စ် <it> respectively. For anything else, the result will be rimes <an> and <at>.

The one case where miscellaneous coda letters do not behave like nasal codas is in the pattern ို်, in which they become silent (completely unpronounced) instead, leaving a simple rime <o>.

For modern loanwords, if a final consonant of a syllable is pronounced, it can be written out in Burmese by using a standard checked rime coda combined with an additional coda consonant indicating the consonant sound. For example, the English word 'bus' was loaned into Burmese as ဘတ်စ်ကား ("bus car"), in which the first syllable can be pronounced as <bas> by educated speakers who are adapted to pronouncing the final -s coda. The တ် coda is still used to indicate that the standard rime coda is bat, and then the စ် makes the consonant -s. Without using the two codas together, a spelling ဘစ် would instead lead the reader to infer the pronunciation to be <bit>.

ၒ, ၓ, ၔ, ၕ
For Sanskrit transliteration, there are special letters ၒ, ၓ, ၔ, ၕ to transcribe the Sanskrit syllabic liquid vowels /r̩, r̩ː, l̩, l̩ː/ <r̥, r̥̄, l̥, l̥̄>. Their combining vowel forms are ၖ, ၗ, ၘ, ၙ. These are very rarely used.

Other Glyph Combination Irregularities

The letter လ l exhibits some irregularities in pronunciation when taking on medial glide -y-, where in some words it merged into the glide y-, and in some cases the l- and -y- are treated as broken up and pronounced separately as lăy-.

The predictable behavior can be seen when combines with the h- devoicing marker, so လျှ can indicate either initial <sh> (analogous to ယှ​) or it can be treated as broken up and pronounced separately as hlăy-.

As the pronunciation is unpredictable for လျ and လျှ, it needs to be learned word by word.

When သ <thh> takes on the h- devoicing marker as well as medial glide -y-, it becomes a rare irregular cluster သျှ that is pronounced <sh>.

Spelling Mismatches

While the rules and principles described thus far in this introduction will cover the vast majority of what a learner needs to know in order to transcribe and pronounce Burmese, there are a number of cases where the pronunciation will idiosyncratically deviate from the possible expected pronunciations, meaning that the learner will need to simply memorize the word's spelling along with its irregular pronunciation.

Some categories of these mismatches include:
Unexpected voicing of a voiceless letter
Unexpected aspiration of a voiceless letter
Unexpected aspiration of a voiced letter (only found with ဘ)
Unexpected h- devoicing ှ on a nasal letter
Unexpected drop of written medial ျ -y-
Unexpected pronunciation of medial ျ -y-
Unexpected pronunciation of written ေ as ီ
Shift to high tone before a stacked consonant sequence
Treating a single consonant as a geminate (stacked) sequence of itself (predictable before the rare လှ hl, ဋ ṭ, and ဝှ hw in Indic-derived words, must be noticed and memorized in other words)

... and many other idiosyncratically irregular mismatches that do not form overarching trends that a learner could anticipate.

Special Literary Abbreviations

There are four abbreviated syllables with special glyphs that are used for writing literary Burmese; these abbreviations are the default orthographic representation of their respective words, and the full spelling of the words is practically never used, but they are provided in the table for reference.

၏ is the possessive particle that attaches to a noun, equivalent to colloquial Burmese ရဲ့ <yę̄>. It can also be used attached to the end of a verb, functionally similar to colloquial Burmese တယ် <tę>.

၍ is a verb suffix that connects two verbs or verb clauses together.

၌ is a locative marker similar to the colloquial Burmese မှာ <hma>.

၎င်း means 'ditto, as well as.' The first syllable of this word can also get destressed into a minor syllable, resulting in lăgâon.

This glyph has an interesting origin. In the Old Burmese pronunciation of this word, the first syllable is လေး <lê>, which is identical to the Burmese number 4 (Burmese numeral: ၄), so people started to abbreviate this word with the numeral ၄. Eventually, the numeral was slightly modified to become the ၎ used in modern ၎င်း.

Numerals

The Burmese numerals are as follows:

Punctuation

၊
A small section marker that roughly corresponds to the comma in Roman script.

။
A section marker that roughly corresponds to the period (full stop) in Roman script.