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Burmese Writing
Julian K. Wheatley
History
The Burmese
script, attested in
is
Mon, and
ulti-
mately based on an Indian (Brahmi) prototype. (Several other scripts closely resemble the Burmese, including the Tai Yai script, which
is
of considerable antiquity.
the
is
Some Karen
scripts devised in
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.,
some changes
Mon
script to the
final
stabili-
Symbols
For the examples that follow,
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
to the letters.
left to right),
port), accords
first
final position
Some works,
rather than
last.
e.g. oosoccx^)
including Judson's
Burmese-
Boxed consonants
their
a tone.)
The
nasalized reflexes
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
42.2: Vowels
syllables)
SECTION
TABLE
42.3: Regular
Rhymes
42:
BURMESE WRITING
PART
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
marked
when
the
-fi is
consonant
first
pushed
it is
keeps
killing
its
cial stacks").
(h)
mha
[hlja] or [Ja].
tests to
dial variants,
<j
ya,
mran
[c'e?], c^
-J,
an earlier medial,
later lost
inscriptions
shows a subscript
through mergers
-/-,
which
at-
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
[?]
and
[150].
a,
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]; ,
as palatal stops:
(mcD krak
making way
for [c]
>
^i
[s]
>
One is
sandhi,
cd: [sa]),
as suggested
rice' is
The
last step
of a chain of developments
[j].
oSo sip
making way
'to
by the
script.
for [kj]
'cooked
~r- in
>
[c], etc.
or
[6] (cf.
-y~
Gsp,
[jo], [jau?].
nounced
[po], [par?];
ojo^
Another process
lil-thu
is
at syllable
'crowd'
is
boundaries
vocalic weakening,
which
af-
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:
I
2.
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)
is that
even when
we
write real
follow the Pali model, writing letters one on top of the other
[i.e.
that
in stacks].
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.
Burma Research
Society 15:
145-71.
.
97 1. A Guide
to the
1994. Burmese: An Introduction to the Script. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, Center
to the
Press.
Wheatley, Julian K. 1987. "Burmese." in The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, pp.
834-54. London:
THE WORLD'S
WRITING SYSTEMS
='*
William Bright
Press.