SECTION 42
Burmese Writing
Julian K. Wheatley
History
The Burmese
script, attested in
twelfth century c.e.,
is
stone inscriptions at least as far back as the early
a phonologically based script, adapted from
Mon, and
ulti-
mately based on an Indian (Brahmi) prototype. (Several other scripts closely resemble the Burmese, including the Tai Yai script, which
Shan language and
is
of considerable antiquity.
the
is
most widely used for the
Some Karen
scripts devised in
recent times are explicitly modeled on Burmese.) Traditionally,
scribes,
it is
thought that
more
Mon
brought to the city of Pagan after the sack of their capital by the Burmese king
Anawrahta
in
1057
c.e.,
provided the stimulus for adapting the
writing of Burmese. There have been
some changes
most notably: consistent use of the "rounded"
Mon
script to the
since the inscriptional period,
rather than the "square" style of letters,
changes in permissible combinations of vowel and
final
consonant signs, and
stabili-
zation of the system for marking tones.
Symbols
For the examples that follow,
transliterations are given in a slightly
modified version
of the "standard" Blagden-Duroiselle system (summarized by Okell 1971). This system tends to go beyond the internal evidence of the Burmese script, assigning Mon
and Indian values
to the letters.
TABLE 42.1 shows
der (reading
the 33 consonant signs of Burmese arranged in traditional or-
left to right),
port), accords
which, except for the
with Indian phonetic order.
English Dictionary (1966), place 33
scriptive
first
names (Roop 1972: 119-22),
final position
Some works,
rather than
last.
e.g. oosoccx^)
of 39 (the vowel sup-
including Judson's
Burmese-
Letters generally have de-
tha-chan-thu: 'elephant fetter
though some, including most of the sonorants, are simply named by
sound: 9 is [ma], 33 is [a], etc.
[t^a]',
Boxed consonants
their
in the table are those that occur finally as well as initially in
many others occur finally in Indie loanwords. (Final -y marks
come to be used to write only the
of the -an rhyme: thus gog hhah [pi], but gggS^ Mann: [jii].
native syllables, though
a tone.)
The
palatal nasal g, rare as an initial, has
nasalized reflexes
Certain of the -m rhymes are spelled with a superscript circle
than the ordinary consonant sign: oSwo sim: [Sei], but
450
- (anusvdra)
suni: [650].
rather
SECTION
TABLE
42:
BURMESE WRITING
42.1: Consonants
Voiced S iops
Voiceless Stops
Unaspirated
Aspirated
Unaspirated
Velar
00
[k]
kh
[k*^]
[g]
Palatal
[s]
so
ch [si
[z]
Retroflex
[t]
th
[d]
Dental
CO
[t]
00
th
[t*^]
[d]
Labial
[p]
C5
[b]
ph [pi
Aspirated
'>:>
gh
[g]
Nasals
452
PART
VII:
TABLE
SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS
42.2: Vowels
and Tones (open
syllables)
SECTION
TABLE
42.3: Regular
Rhymes
42:
BURMESE WRITING
PART
SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS
VII:
dha) rather than c^sq (regular rhyme, c^oos); ej.G x) mantale: 'Mandalay' rather
than Wc^oOOGCos. As the last example shows, the top member of a stack is neither
"killed" nor
down
for tone. In general, the second consonant of a cluster is
marked
when
to subscript position; but
the
-fi is
consonant
first
pushed
pushed up, and
it is
mark: 39o1g<^^ angdne Tuesday' (rather than 33co1gc|). In some
cases, the lower member of a stack is abbreviated or reoriented (cf. Okell ibid., "spe-
keeps
killing
its
cial stacks").
(h)
The sonorant consonants oo
mha
[hlja] or [Ja].
tests to
^ ra, o wa, and
m ha have diacritical or me-
[mja], Gg^ mwe: [mwe],
, 3, 7. Thus: ^00 khyak
consonant: aj Ihya
single
on
a
cluster
[hma], ^ rha [Ja]. Two medials may
dial variants,
<j
ya,
mran
[c'e?], c^
-J,
The Old Burmese of the
an earlier medial,
later lost
inscriptions
shows a subscript
through mergers
-/-,
which
at-
in the standard dialect.
Pronunciation
Burmese, which form the basis of the standard
language, sound changes occurring since the language was reduced to writing have
multiplied or changed the values of many letters. The peripheral dialects, such as ArParticularly in the Central dialects of
akanese and Tavoyan, have preserved a number of initial clusters and final consonants
and are a closer reflection of the orthography. The main developments in the standard
language are as follows.
The
sets of four final occlusives
are reduced to a single occlusive
ized as glottal stop
[?]
and
and four nasals represented in the orthography
and a single nasal value. In
citation, these are real-
nasalization T] respectively; thus, c\po lup [lou?]; o^o lum:
[150].
Except for the vowel represented by
a,
vowels have diphthongized in historically
closed syllables, resulting in divergent readings of the sort illustrated by the following
pairs: , <| spelled mi, min, but pronounced [mi], [mef]; c|, <^| spelled nu, nun, but
pronounced
GopcD
[nu], [noO]; ,
^o5, spelled /7w/,/7w/^, but pronounced
spelled ro, rok, but pronounced
as palatal stops:
[ca?]. In all other
(mcD krak
can be regarded as the
affecting several series of consonants:
making way
for [c]
>
[s] etc. (cf.
^i
[s]
>
One is
sandhi,
cd: [sa]),
as suggested
rice' is
the orthography are pro-
The
palatalization of velars, re-
last step
of a chain of developments
[j].
oSo sip
making way
'to
by the
script.
read [t'^amT] not
put to sleep' [Gei?]),
for [kj]
which affects the reahzation of sounds
fects the first syllables of certain
'cooked
~r- in
>
[c], etc.
Wheatley 1987) are not represented in
in certain grammatically defined contexts. E.g.,
[lut*"!!],
or
[6] (cf.
A number of phonological processes (cf.
the script.
-y~
'chicken' [ce?]; a|| 6 kyap (the unit of currency)
combinations, y and r are read
flected in the reading rule,
Gsp,
[jo], [jau?].
Combinations of velar (oral) stop and medial
nounced
[po], [par?];
ojo^
Another process
lil-thu
is
at syllable
'crowd'
is
boundaries
read [ludu] not
vocalic weakening,
which
af-
words (mostly nouns and adverbs): 00 gc^ thamaii:
[t'^ami];
cq^pi bhurd: 'god; pagoda'
is
read
[p'^sya],
TABLE
42.4: Abbreviations
Source
Gloss
^
c
8
c
[ywe]
subordinate marker
[i]
genitive/declarative
marker
Burmese
^oj
ruy in Old
(3^
e in Old Burmese
456
PAI^T VII:
SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS
I
2.
mranmacakailum: caccacmya:kui re:sa:ra<L>pan
3.
mjama-zsgslou
si?si?-mja-go
jetha-ja-hnai?-p1
4.
Burma-words
real-many-ACC
writing-place-at-even
1.
no
c o o c c
o g (JO c| 00 o5 (7D g]
Co
<|i
o^ 90 c
xf
s|
::x:y3
000 o)[00 OD go O^
2.
palihaiikuiluik<L>
nhaclumxhan
re:sa:lakhaikrasannkui
J.
pali-ha-go-lai?-jwe
hnQ-16u-s''i
jetha-la-g-ja-9i-g6
4.
Pali-appearance-ACC-follow-ing two-CLF-stack
write-come-Disp-PL-DECL-ACC
1.
6O0^]G00OgK0C
2.
twerasokron
^^[^Cll
00000011 ^f'^^|[J
ooll'
phrac<L>. sadhaka. pakhukkumrui, cakku, kukkuipan.
3.
twejaSocau
p'ji?-?!
4.
meet-able-GEN-cause be-DECL
'Pali writing
reason
we
we
Godlll
seems
say this
to
9adaka
psk^ouVkumjo
example
(a
town)
s?ku
kou?kobi
paper
(a tree)
have had considerable influence on Burmese writing. The
is that
even when
we
write real
Burmese words, we see
follow the Pali model, writing letters one on top of the other
[i.e.
that
in stacks].
For example: (three examples of words with stacked consonants).'
From the
introduction of the
Mranmd Ahhidhdn
(vol
J,
p. e-s).
Bibliography
Burmese Language Commission. 1978. Mranmd Abhidhdn: akyah:khyup [Abridged Burmese dictionary]. Rangoon: Burmese Ministry of Education.
Judson, Adoniram. 1966. Burmese-English Dictionary, rev. ed. Rangoon: Baptist Board of Publications.
Okell, John. 1968. "Alphabetical Order in Burmese." Journal of the
Burma Research
Society 15:
145-71.
.
97 1. A Guide
to the
Romanization of Burmese. London: Luzac.
1994. Burmese: An Introduction to the Script. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, Center
for Southeast Asian Studies.
Roop, D. Haigh. 1972. An Introduction
to the
Burmese Writing System. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Wheatley, Julian K. 1987. "Burmese." in The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, pp.
834-54. London:
Croom Helm; New York: Oxford University
THE WORLD'S
WRITING SYSTEMS
='*
William Bright
Press.
