Parallel with this course

Burmese—An Introduction to the Spoken Language, Book 1

Burmese—An Introduction to the Spoken Language, Book 2

Burmese—An Introduction to the Literary Style

 (Myanmar)

BURMESE An Introduction to
the Script

John Okell
With assistance from U Saw Tun
and Daw Khin Mya Swe

Northern
Illinois
University
Press
DeKalb
© 1994, 2010 Northern Illinois University

Published by the Northern Illinois University Press in conjunction with the

Center for Southeast Asian Studies, DeKalb, Illinois 60115

Manufactured in the United States using postconsumer-recycled, acid-free paper.

All Rights Reserved

Cover Design: Shaun Allshouse

ISBN:978-0-87580-644-0

Series: Southeast Asian language text series

LC Control No.: 2010448364

Front Cover Photo—Kalaga or Burmese tapestry representing a detail of the

Vessantara Jataka. BC90.4.275 from the Burma Art Collection at NIU.

 viii

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR xi

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xiii
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xix
xix
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261
308

313
325
358

369

375

378

382
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388

399
403
404
417
424
428

viii
 U AungKhin Dr. Daw Khin Hla Thi Ma Thuza
UAungNaing Daw Khin Mya Swe Ma Tin May Aye
Dr. Ba Maw Ma Khin Nan Oo UTunMin
Ma Kay Towe Dr.Nay Tun Wa Wa Tin
u Khin Daw San San Me Daw Yi Yi Mya
Saw Yu Win
I am grateful to them all for their willing cooperation and perseverance: the second and
third hours in a stuffy recording studio with pernickety microphones demand a high degree
of concentration and discipline.

Prototype versions of the course were used by the beginners' classes at SOAS in the four
years from 1990/91 to 1993/4, and at the SEASSis held at Cornell University in 1990 and at
the University of Washington in 1992. Members of all these classes made many helpful
comments, as well as finding numerous typing errors, and I would like to thank them for
being so tolerant and constructive.

My greatest debt is to many friends in and from Burma, who not only answered my questions
about their language and customs with immense patience and goodwill, but also made me
welcome in their homes and daily lives, and went to staggering lengths to ensure that my
needs were met in generous measure. To them all I extend my heartfelt thanks.

The photograph used for the cover is of a carved wooden doorway in the Shwe Inbin
Monastery in Mandalay. It was taken by Dr. Elizabeth Moore of SOAS, and the design of
the cover was implemented by Alfred Birnbaum, who was attending my class at the time.
The photographs used in the text were taken on my visit to Burma in 1991. The remaining
illlustrations are from books, magazines and other material published in Burma.

I am responsible for typesetting the text, which includes three home-made fonts, and for
editing the tapes. Professionals would have been more skilled but also more costly, so
readers are asked to be indulgent when my lack of expertise shows through.

ix
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Change of publisher
Publication of all four volumes of Burmese: An Introduction, first published in 1994, has been
transferred to the Northern Illinois University Press and the books are now re-issued with minor
revisions.

Change of audio format

At the time of initial publication, the audio component of Burmese: An Introduction was issued
on cassette tapes. Now that digital recordings are more widely used than tapes, the audio material
has been converted to digital. Two advantages of this change are, first, that digital files are less
bulky to store and transport than cassette tapes and, second, that it is far easier to find a particular
section in the audio.
Neither the printed text nor the audio files have been changed to reflect the transfer from
tape to digital. So when you read or hear a reference to a particular tape, please understand it as
referring to the corresponding track in the audio files.

Changes in Burma since the publication of this course

Sixteen years have passed since the first publication of this course. During that time several
aspects of life in Burma have changed.

First and most obvious are price levels:

• A cup of tea that cost K4 in 1993 now costs K150, and costs may well rise further. So, when
practicing prices in the exercises, bear in mind that most prices need to be multiplied by
30 or 40 to correspond with the cost of living today.

Second, some institutions that appear in the course have been renamed, relocated, or
discontinued. For example:
• Tourist Burma has been renamed Myanmar Travel and Tours.
• The National Museum has moved from Pansodan to Pyay Road.
• The Diplomatic Store is no longer operating.
If you search in Burma for places mentioned in the course, remember that they may no
longer be there.

Third, digital cameras have largely replaced film cameras, and most telephones now have
keys to press rather than dials to turn. References in the Lessons to film and dialing should
be understood as reflecting technology at the time of writing.
Apart from such obvious physical changes in the life of the country, the language of the
course is still the language that you will hear and read in Burma today.

Errata lists
While using the course over the years, teachers, colleagues, and students have helpfully pointed
out some errors and inconsistencies in the text. These have been listed and are to be found, with
their corrections, on a page at the end of each volume.
INTRODUCTION
Scope and method
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script (referred to henceforth as BIS) aims to enable
students with no previous knowledge of Burmese to become competent in reading and writing
Burmese script.

Traditionally, script courses have relied on a romanization as a way of indicating to the

learner the sound associated with a given Burmese letter: "the letter ~ represents the
sound b ," and so on. This approach works up to a point, but romanizations have serious
disadvantages. Learners often confuse the sounds the roman letters are meant to stand for:
pain sometimes gets read as~~ (like English pine) and sometimes as 8~ (like English
pane). And romanizations suggest mistaken pronunciations: lay makes people rhyme GCD
with English lay, and M1n makes them rhyme~~: with pin. (On ways of representing
Burmese in roman letters, see below: Burmese in roman letters.)

Now that cassette tape players are within reach of most students, using tape recordings
seems the obvious escape route from the romanization problem. BIS presents the sounds
associated with the characters of the Burmese script as sounds, on tape, and not as roman
letters on the page. (The romanization is used, but sparingly, to aid the memory when
characters are first presented.) The aim is to cut out the intermediate step of romanization
and its pitfalls, and thereby to enable the learner to establish a more immediate and
accurate link between sound and symbol.

It is assumed that students who are working through BIS will at the same time be learning
to speak Burmese, and that their spoken language lessons will include some guidance and
practice in pronunciation. For this reason, BIS does not give exercises in pronunciation.
However, some coverage of pronunciation is unavoidable: you can't learn what sound a
letter represents unless you can recognize the sound. So BIS includes some observations on
sounds, and even here and there an opportunity to practise sounds, but this element is kept
to a minimum. Where there is an overlap between what BIS says about pronunciation and
what you are told on the subject in your spoken language course, you will often find that a
little repetition is not unwelcome, and may even be helpful.

Lesson structure
The typical Lesson begins by presenting one or two new characters - in the text you see
their shapes and how to draw them, and on the tape you hear the sounds they represent.
Then there is a Practice section: a list of words that are both printed on the page and read
out on the tape. Learners can use the words either (a) as reading practice, by pausing the
tape, reading a word aloud, and listening to the tape again for confirmation; or (b) as
writing practice, by listening to the word first, then pausing the tape and writing down the
word, and checking with the printed list for confirmation. You can use the whole list for
reading and then again for writing; or use part of it one way and part of it the other.

In the first three Lessons there are two separate lists of words: one set for reading and one
for writing.

xiii
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

Letter names. Most of the letters in the Burmese alphabet have a descriptive name. In
reading classes in English primary schools, teachers sometimes tell children that "Cap" is
spelled with "curly k-," but "Keep" is spelled with "kicking k-." Burmese letter names are
similar: "twisty S," "capped P," and so on.

While you are learning to read Burmese script it is often useful to be able to refer to the
letters by name, so the names are introduced in each Lesson. At this stage it is only
necessary for learners to be able to recognize a name when they hear it, so there are no
Exercises to help learn the names.

Later on, when you can speak Burmese a little, it is handy to be able to ask how something
is spelled - there are a number of sounds in Burmese that can be spelled one way or another
- and to be able to follow the answer. I hope to write a supplement to BIS designed to help
you acquire this skill.

Review. For those who simply want to review the ground they have covered, or who are
coming back to Burmese after a break and need to brush up their reading, BIS provides
Review Exercises. The Review Exercises are recorded on a separate tape, and are not
accompanied by explanations. The text to be used with this tape is printed at the
appropriate point in this booklet: the Review of material presented and practised up to
Lesson 12 is printed following Lesson 12, and so on.

Take heart
Leaming a new script imposes a heavy load on your memory, not at the very beginning, but
after a few Lessons, when your mind begins to bulge under the strain. You feel your
recognition of the writhing mass of symbols and sounds is rapidly diminishing, and each
new arrival weakens your hold on the old. Don't despair: persevere. There comes a phase
after that, when you wonder why you thought it was difficult. And remember that the
Burmese alphabet only has 33 consonants and some eight vowels (and no capitals), as
against the 26 lower case and 26 capitals of the roman alphabet.

To the teacher
BIS is written in such a way that Learners can work through it on their own, without a
Teacher. However, a Teacher can help in two ways. First he or she can present the
material of the next Lesson in class, so that when the Learners come to study it in their own
time it will already be partly familiar. Secondly, after the Learners have worked
through a Lesson on their own, the Teacher can practise the material in class. Here are
some activities you may find helpful.
1. The teacher gives the number of an example in the text, the Learners find the example on
the page and one (or more) of them reads it aloud.
2. The Teacher (or a Leamer) reads a word aloud, and the other Learners find where it is on
the page.
3. The Teacher (or a Leamer) writes a word on the blackboard, and one of the Learners (or
more) reads it aloud.
4. The Teacher (or a Learner) says a word, and the other Learners write it down. Their
work is then checked by the Teacher (or another Learner).

xiv
 Introduction

If you wish to give some extra homework tasks to provide variety, you can try the
following:
1. The Teacher issues a passage from a book, and the Learners mark on it any words or
syllables they recognize.
2. All the examples in Part I of Burmese: An Introduction to the Spoken Language are
written in both script and romanization. The Teacher can specify a set of lines in
that volume, and the Learners' task is to identify which words are not pronounced
as written.
3. The Teacher issues a list of words written as pronounced, and the Learners' task is to
write out the correct spelling - looking it up if they need to. This activity cannot
start till after the first mismatch words have been introduced in Lesson 13.1 or
later.

Lines from a Burmese inscription dated A.O. 1274

Taken from an inked "rubbing" (List n!! 349), in which the letters incised in the stone
appear white against a black background

HISTORY
The earliest examples of writing in Burmese are found on stone inscriptions dating from the
11th and 12th centuries. The letters of the inscriptions are square, as opposed to the
rounded shapes of the present day, and some of the spellings have changed over time, but
otherwise the writing system has changed little. The script was probably acquired from
the Mon people, who inhabited the Moulmein-Pegu area at the time, and the Mon in turn
seem to have adopted a script used in the area of Madras on the east coast of India. (For
more detail see Roop's Introduction to the BurmeseWriting System, p. ix f.)

The purpose of most of the inscriptions is to make a permanent record of the dedication of
land, buildings and other property to the religion. Other texts produced before the advent
of printing in the 19th century were written either on paper or palm-leaf.

xv
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

The paper was like a· thick lightweight card about 18 inches wide. It was made in lengths
of several yards, then folded like a fan to form books (y'l_~o3 parabaiq) with pages about 6
inches long. In one type of parabaik the paper was coloured black, and you wrote on it with
a white steatite rod like a slate pencil. In the other, the paper was white, and written on
in ink. For further information on this subject, see The Life of the Buddha, by P. Herbert
(London, The British Library, 1993).

Lines from a palm-leaf manuscript copied in 1871

Last leaf of 6P~O<J?l

from the facsimile edition by OOCJ;>~c:0'tr:QY.)3rcS~O?CX?o5GoG'l_:Gcdi~d5
( 0 (' (' ) . 0 ('
GO'f'l_'{ffiQY.)Q)2" 11 Published byQY.)GOt,{:}')tRangoon, 1974.

Palm-leaf is a longer lasting material. The leaves were selected and prepared, then cut
into even strips about 18 inches long and 4 inches wide, and stacked up and provided with
covers to form a book (GOQY.) pe-za). The letters were incised in the surface of the leaf with
a sharp metal stylus, then rubbed with black to make them more legible.
The main texts for which the Mon-Burmese script was first used were not in Mon or in
Burmese, but in Pali. Pali is a dead language of ancient India, related to Sanskrit and the
other Indo-European languages, and is the language in which the scriptures of Theravada
Buddhism, the branch of Buddhism practised in Burma, are written. As the language of
the sacred texts Pali is held in high esteem in Burma. The texts and their language have
been studied by the Burmese for over nine centuries, and Pali is used a a source for loanwords
in the same way that Greek and Latin are used for new words in English.

As the Mon-Burmese script was developed for Indian languages, of which Pali is one, it was
ideally suited for writing Pali (which can also be written satisfactorily in Thai,
Cambodian, Lao, Sinhalese and other scripts - all descended from the same source as the
Burmese script), but less suitable as a vehicle for Burmese and Mon. Predictably, there are
sounds in Pali that don't exist in Mon and Burmese, and vice versa. This has had two
results. One is that the early Mon and Burmese scholars had to devise modifications of the
characters to represent the Mon and Burmese sounds that were missing Gust as European
languages have had to devise combinations like ch and sh, and characters like a,(;,e, and
so on). The other is that the Mon-Burmese alphabet still contains a residue of letters that
are not needed for writing Mon or Burmese words. However, this doesn't mean that they

xvi
 Introduction

are never used in Burmese texts. When Burmese borrows a word from Pali, it still spells the
word in the way it is spelled in the Pali texts, including the characters that are not used for
writing Burmese words Gust as we write fianr;ein English although we don't use ,; and e for
writing English words). Many of the words that use these non-Burmese characters belong to
learned vocabulary (religion, grammar, medicine), but some of them are current in everyday
speech, such as al CU'.) "moment" (which uses Pali C1l'.) rather than the standard t ), and ~0t
"department" (which uses Pali~ rather than the standard co).

Burmese pronunciation of Pali words

The pronunciation of Pali words in Burmese differs in two ways from their pronunciation in
India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. Firstly, there are the sounds that are needed for Pali but
not used in Burmese (like German ch, which is not used for native English words). These are
given the Burmese sound nearest to them (like the English pronunciation of German Bach as
"bark"); for example, the voiced aspirate Pali sound written m in Burmese script and gh in
romanized Pali: in Burmese this character is given the same sound as the unaspirated o ,
romanized g. Secondly, there have been changes in Burmese pronunciation since the script
was established, and these changes are also applied to words from Pali; for example, the
Pali word u~~ = paficama "fifth" is pronounced /pyin-zama/, because the earlier /c/ has
changed to /s/ and has then been voiced to /z/. As a result it is not always easy for foreign
and Burmese scholars of Pali to communicate orally. Where the foreigner says: Buddharh
sarar:iarh gacchami, the Burmese says: Bouq-dan tharanan giq-sha-mi. There is a
similar mismatch in the pronunciation of Latin by, say, a Spaniard and a German.

BIS has a section towards the end for learning to read words with Pali characters, though
one or two characters are introduced earlier because they are used in common words.

BURMESE IN ROMAN LETTERS

Because Burmese has its own script, people writing about Burma in roman-script languages
(like English) have been obliged to devise ways of representing Burmese names and words
in the roman alphabet. People who are more interested in the spelling of the words than in
their sound (such as historical linguists, epigraphists) have established a set of corres-
pondences between Burmese letters and roman letters, so they can represent Burmese words
in roman by consulting a table of equivalents and simply substituting roman letters for
Burmese letters. We call this letter-for-letter method a "transliteration." There is an
example of a transliteration table at the end of this book.

The transliteration tables are constructed to match similar tables for classical languages of
India, like Pali and Sanskrit, and because the pronunciation of Burmese has changed over
time, the roman letters used for transliterating are not a very helpful guide to the way the
words are pronounced today; so, for people who are more interested in the sound of Burmese
words than in their spelling, transliteration is not an appropriate method of romanization.

To represent the sounds of Burmese words in roman letters, rather than their spelling, many
different systems have evolved. There are two main approaches. In the earliest days of

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Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

contact between Burma and Europe, European travellers would write the best
approximation they could manage to the sound of a Burmese word or name. Although a few
of the details of the method have changed (for example, people now write Wun for the
18/19th century Woon), this approach is still widely used today by people writing about
Burma in English and other European languages. For this reason we call this the
"traditional romanization."

One advantage of the traditional romanization is that, thanks to its widespread use, it is
familiar to many readers, both Burmese and foreign. For some purposes, however, it has
serious shortcomings. As I have written elsewhere,
For a language learner ... the traditional romanization is far from
adequate. Words romanized in the ad hoc traditional way don't show tone, they
don't reliably show whether a consonant is aspirated or not, and they don't always
distinguish one vowel from another. As a result, the syllable written "pe" (for
example) in the traditional romanization, may represent any one of 12 different
syllables in pronunciation:
C:
(9U) '
(9
C:
()U) ()
For the learner of the language, ambiguity of this order is intolerable. It is like
providing, for a learner of English, one written syllable to cover the sounds of the
eight English words pat, bat, pet, bet, pad, bad, ped, and bed.

A further deficiency is that traditional romanization often offers two, or

sometimes three, different ways of romanizing the same sound. So the Burmese
word G~, for example, may be romanized me, or may, or mae. This inconsistency is
particularly rife in Burmese personal names, where some people deliberately
adopt a variant spelling for their own name in order to make it more distinctive.
From: Burmese: An Introduction to the Spoken Language, parallel with this volume

For these reasons, linguists and others have devoted much ingenuity to devising systems of
romanization where each Burmese sound is consistently and unambiguously represented by
one roman equivalent - whether that is one letter or a sequence of letters. We call
romanizations of ths type "systematic romanizations."

Unfortunately the problem of matching Burmese sounds and roman letters is so great that
hardly any two linguists find the same system satisfactory. As a result, there are many
variations on the same theme. Each system is entirely consistent and systematic within
itself; but one will use the roman letter e (for example) for one Burmese vowel sound, and
another system will use it for a different vowel sound.

Following this tradition with some reluctance, I have perpetrated yet another systematic
romanization system to use in this course and its sister language books. I have done this
because I believe the new variations are easier for students to use than the alternatives.
However, the best solution to the romanization problem is the most radical:
Don't use a romanization:learn the script instead.

xviii
 Introduction

SELECTING VOCABULARY FOR SCRIPT PRACTICE

Linking script learning with learning the spoken language

How can you start to learn a language with a non-roman script? You have to be able to
handle the script before you can read or write down any words to learn; but it's not easy to
learn the script unless you can recognize the words you are reading: mouthing meaningless
syllables is a demoralizing endeavour.

The obvious candidates for script practice are the first words you learn to speak: each new
word you learn to say, you also learn to read and write in the script, so all the words you
read and write are words you already know. With this advantage in mind, I intended
originally to design BIS as a parallel course to the early parts of my spoken language course
(Burmese: An Introduction to the Spoken Language, abbreviated to BISL).

When you get down to the details, however, you find that the assumed advantages of this
plan are less enticing than they seem. The vocabulary you need in the early stages of a
spoken language course contains a high proportion of words with spelling irregularities of
one kind or another (see Irregular spellings below), and such words are not at all suitable as
material for a well-graduated introduction to the (mostly) systematic way in which the
letters of the Burmese script represent the sounds of the spoken language.

For this reason I abandoned the attempt to link the vocabulary used for practice in BIS
with the vocabulary presented in the early stages of BISL, and decided to write BIS as an
independent entity. This loses the rewards of running parallel with the acquisition of the
spoken language, but it has some compensating advantages. You can still use the script
course at the same time as you are working through a spoken language course - mine or any
other. In addition, BIS can be taken at whatever pace suits the timetabling arrangements
of the students, and they can start doing it when they like. They can start the script course
before they start the spoken course, or defer starting it till after they are well into the
spoken course; and they can either take it intensively, or space it out, to match the time
they have to spend on it.

Irregular spellings in everyday vocabulary

The Burmese writing system has been in use in its present form for several centuries. During
this time the pronunciation of a number of words has changed, but the spelling has not
changed to match. As a result there are many words that look, from the written form, as if
they should be pronounced one way, though in practice they are pronounced another way.
Here are some examples:

xix
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

written form pronunciation in script pronunciation in roman meaning

as spelled* as spoken as spelled as spoken
::Y?'P: I ~o:Y):I / UOY):/ bu-ya p'aya pagoda
0.
G~OOfl !G~o3<t~/ /c;.~31~/ shwe-t 1-goun shwe-dagoun Shwedagon
C:
<ft© l<f.t~I /~~tM k'u-hniq k'un-hniq seven
~~ /~~/ /~~~/ thu-nya thoun-nya zero
C:
<f0~~ I 'f0~/ I 'f~~u5! na-myi nan-meh name
* = the pronunciation indicated by the spelling

A more systematic divergence between script and sound is due to "weakening," a feature
that is predictable in some words (such as number phrases with one, two, seven) but not in
all; for example:
oo~..ou5 I oo~..ou5/ I oo..ou5/ tiq-s'eh tas'eh ten
t~'P I t~o:Y)/ I to:Y)I hniq-ya hnaya two hundred
c: oc:
©©Oj>C:
I c: o c: I
©©Oj>C: I@~ 8:/ Siq-ka1n Zaga1n Sagaing [town]
yo /yo/ loo/ Pu-gan Pagan Pagan [town]
o~:m~ I o~:m~/ loo! pan-kan pagan plate, bowl

But the most pervasive problem for the beginner is "voicing," a feature that is often
predictable (e.g in suffixes like -oou5 or -m ), but not always; for example:
@~a5 l@?~a5/ l@?~a5/ pya-taiq pya-daiq museum
o~:~ I o~:~I I o~:(9/ pan-c'an pan-jan park
Ga:>:..ou5 / Ga:>:..ou5/ / Ga:>:@u5/ le-s'eh le-zeh forty
C\Y.)~8oloou5 /C\Y.)~8oloou5/ /C\Y.)ru8C::YJ3u5/ la-c'in-pa-teh la-jin-ba-deh Iwanttocome

Another set of words that present problems for the beginner student of the script are those
with non-standard spellings - spellings that use rare characters or rare combinations of
characters; for example:
non-standard orthography pronounced pronunciation meaning
element as if spelled in roman
C:
-mm ©'J?ll ©m~ seq-ku paper
C: C:. C:.
-')O') rnooy 3ooy daq-poun photograph
~flC\Y.)ol ~COC\Y.)':YY)
C:
Min-gala-ba Goodmoming
C:
-& ~~Ga:>: ~<f:3Ga:>: Man-dale Mandalay
=
-(\)
C: 0 C: C: C:
Cj?a:>~loro~:
0 C:
Cj?'lJlOa:>~:
C:
Bo-jouq Lan Bogyoke Street
C: C: C:
-&Q ~ O'Y.)C, il (\)(\)~: ~ O'Y.)C, 'f ~ (\)(\)~: Maha Ban-du-la Lan Maha Bandoola St

Leaming a new script demands a sustained and committed effort from the learners. When
they have just struggled through to the stage of being able to read ~8 and ol and oou5 as
c'in and pa and teh, to have their teacher tell them at that point that "in some contexts
these words are actually pronounced jin and ba and deh" is demoralizing and counter-
productive. The same is true of having to tell students who are justifiably proud of having
learned to read 3Q3 (daq) that in the word for "photograph" (daq-poun) you have to write
not 3 o3but G1o3, introducing a character (G ) and a combination (-0o3), which they won't
need for any other words for a long time to come. It is for these reasons that vocabulary
from the early lessons of BISL is not used for script practice in the early parts of BIS.

xx
 Introduction

Words suitable for script practice

Given that so many words in the normal everyday vocabulary are unsuitable as material
for learning to read the script, words for practice have to be found elsewhere. To be suitable
for this purpose, words have to meet two requirements: (a) they must be free from the
voicing, weakening, non-standard letters, and miscellaneous irregularities exemplified
above; and (b) they should be words that the learner can recognize, even though he may not
yet know many words of Burmese.

There are two categories of words that meet these requirements. One is Burmese personal
names, which almost always consist of discrete syllables without irregularities or rare
letters. An added advantage of using personal names for practice is that learners will
become more familiar with the elements and shapes of names. Names play a larger part in
Burmese discourse than they do in the West (for example, Burmese often uses names where
English uses "you" and "I"}, and they are not marked in the script with capital initial
letters, so the ability to handle and recognize names is an important skill for the foreign
learner.

The second category of words that meet the requirements is foreign words that are used in
Burmese (like tr.?O?o.5 ho-teh "hotel"), foreign place names (like rum0000 Jaka-ta
"Jakarta"}, and the foreign first names that some Burmese use as nicknames (like c;;;~<:'3
Maw-Ii "Molly"). All these are written in Burmese script in a way that exactly reflects the
way they are pronounced when spoken with a strong Burmese accent. A possible objection to
using this category for practice is that the learners are not learning Burmese words.
However, loanwords and foreign names do offer a high degree of regularity and
recognizability, and they have one added advantage. Many students report that, after
studying and using Burmese for a year or two, failing to recognize English and other
loanwords in Burmese frequently causes them difficulty. Using loanwords for script
practice, as BIS does, should give you sufficient familiarity with the sound correspondences
to reduce the size of this problem.

It sometimes happens, particularly in the early portion of BIS, that there are not enough
names or loanwords to provide sufficient practice with a given sequence of letters. In this
situation BIS uses Burmese words that the beginner is unlikely to meet elsewhere (such as
0?0 ta "embankment"}, or even made-up words that don't exist in the language. As the
learner progresses through the course and his/her repertoire of syllables grows, the need
for words in this category eventually disappears.

Once the learner has mastered a number of common consonants and vowels, the course begins
to introduce phrases with voicing and weakening and other unexpected pronunciations; so
that the need for foreign or made-up words diminishes progressively and phrases from the
spoken language take their place.

xxi
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

DETAILED CONTENTS (For use as a finder list)

Part 1: Standard characters and combinations of characters
Lesson heads rhymes other

1. (\)- ~- --0 -Q
1.1 figures ::> J ~
2. -:n- <l>- suffix-~
2.1 figuresc; ~ G
L3. -: suffix-C\Y.): -.y:,:
3.1 figures 7 6) e0
4. 00- m-
4.1 suffix -E'3:
5. [&]
<:
-<l>
0
t suffix-('? prefix rq[Name]
5.1 word@t1n
<:
6. G- -c -GCD:

7. prefixes 2: G3T ~ (rq)[Name]

8. :).)- ()- [-1]
8.1 suffix -"t')
9. G--0/1:J[G-1/f]
10. 3- '1]- [-~n <:
this/that; is-stce qns ~ [noun]11 31 [noun]-C\Y.):11
11. G--0C TL: [-1F] prefix Gin~ [Name]
12. (.).)- 3'd-

!i2R REVIEW
13. '/o5 verb sentences in [Verb]-~o.511
is-stce qns 31 :Y.Y.>[noun]ro11
::no.5[noun]ro
13.1 voicing: is-stces in 3l [noun ]-u 111
13.2 phrasetJj>~O?II 31 [noun]-ulu ~"/')ulu
14. -=!~ prefix3d[vb]11 (~[name])11 suffix: [noun]-~11
14.1 phrase ~Uj>o5u1::Ji?: 11
14.2 voicing: verb stces in [Verb]-ul
15. '"[- 0-
15.1 stacked cons: .:
15.2 voicing: vb stces in [Vb]u1 ooo.5-~[ Vb ]u1 ::Ji?:
11
15.3 weakening suspended: '"[,ulooo.5 and others
<: <:
16. -m -00

16.1 voicing: review

16.2 voicing: verb stces in :Y.Y.>[Vb]::x>ro-[Vb]::x>C\Y.):11
16.3 stacked consonants: moo& &
m 0000 3
li6R REVIEW
17 ©- ;;o-
17.1 voicing ©-;;o and generally
O<: <:
18 Le -©
18.1 voicing ::x>
19. al- CX)- (.9-

xxii
 Introduction

19.1 voicingm-Q
20.
. (.'
-'=l prac from BISL:~ro~: :)'Y.)CD~:ruand so on
verb stces in[Vb]-'=loSG,011 [Vb]-ol 11
20.1 voicing oo-ro
20.2 C

21. CJ)-

21R REVIEW
21.1 voicing~
22. 0-
22.1 voicing o-(j
0 (.'
23. -0') -t :
0<'/

23.1 voicing suspended

24. (:?- @-

24.1 ~ word G~:

25. "} t cy
25.1 weakening: 1U oo~-[noun]
26. reading aid: voiced cons written in bold
26.1 weakening: c1: ~ :).)0: ro et al
27.
0
28
28R REVIEW
28.1 weakening: <c-O?C\Y.>:-cl:- ro~:-
28.2 . 1 (.' (.'~
rrreg sp gs<?t®" ::qGp:I ::>?t:e:3:1'=l-:J'ril:11
29
29.1 .
rrreg sp 1gs ®®O?c:1
(.' Q(.' o~:
'
an d o th er towns
30 ({]-~
30.1 G
31 G-0r:i:i reading aid: weak syllable written with y

31.1 irreg spellings -[91 [g:-

31.2 weakening: :x,~001 G~ and the like
32
.----..i.l....;l,l...~---.&.:....-___;1,1;1,1...:1,1.;i,1.1,i.. _ ___.,
practice includes hotel names
32R
gg (.' (.'
32.1 d ou bl e tones:~- 'f'f. '=l3d'=Y,)
Ol.JG'f'?;;oo.;,
, (.' (.' (.' E
32.2 irreg splgs t?t:G'=Y.>CXY.):ooo(J):).)000
32.3 English finals incl ~fiC\Y.>:G~~
0(.'
33 -'=l L
33.l irreg splgs Glo5~, ~olo5 and other ..JJo5
33.2 irreg splgs G~o3ci 1 <?:{3~,
a:>O'Y.):I
ooQl:1 ro:~1 @008:Golr:i:i
34 ~ 6 ~ § incl~ ~ §] ~ butexcl 0 o5/ 0 ~
34.1 .rrreg sp 1°(.'
gs 9ro an dthO(.'
o er Lro
c: oc: c: do <' <'
...3_5
___________ ...___-_o_-_o_-
....
o__ __., prac wor 9ro~lo
35Rl REVIEW: BISL runthrough part 1
35R2 REVIEW: BISL runthrou h art 2
36 ~ rs2 including i?-?~ i2 ea~

xxiii
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

C C C
37 00') cu o1 0
C C C
38 000 OU 01 0
C
39 -~
-~ = /~/
C
-ptl
-~C = IG-1
C
-pt2
-pt3 -~ = l-u51
C
-pt4 -~ mixed
39.1 literary-style :)..)~ and~~
d C
wor d s 10~~ an OO<DGUY.)moo~:
C C C
39.2
40
40R REVIEW: sentences from BISL Part 1
and newspaper headlines

Part 2: Less common characters and combinations of characters

• Rare combinations Section 20 ~
C
Section 1 C\1] Section 21 CO) CO) CO)
C1D
C
Section 2 C'2I Section 22 C
'1.
C
'1.
C
st
CO)

Section 3 ~ Section 23
C "
~ ~ ~
CO)
tn
C
Section 4 <XJ Section 24 ~ ~ i{ CO)
nr
C
• Free-standing vowel syllables Section 25 V V 1f> CO)V
Section 5 <;:Q • Non-standard rhymes
Section 6 ill1 - Stop-class finals
Section 7 2 Section 26 ~i
Section 8 2 Section 27 p
C

Section 9 ~ Section 28 G**

C

Section 10 ~ Section 29 p
oc
Section 11 G~ Section 30 G*'J*
C

• Abbreviated syllables Section 31 **

C

Section 12 ®~
- Nasal finals
Section 13 ~
Section 32
Section 14 ~
All vowels with non-standard nasal finals
Sectionl 5 c,~:
- Other finals
• Consonants used in Pali words
Section 33
Section 16 J 2 All vowels with non-standard other finals
Section 17 -~-
• Symbols for Sanskrit
Section 18 - °'ij-
Section 34 Sanskrit S-l?, r-r, !:-!
Section 19 m

xxiv
 Introduction

Types of mismatch between spelling and pronunciation

Mismatch in initial consonant
Consonant written plain or aspirate, pronounced voiced
Consonant written plain, pronounced aspirate
Consonant written voiced, pronounced aspirate
Nasal consonant written plain, pronounced aspirate
Mismatch in medial consonant
Consonant pronounced with unwritten -J
Medial consonant written but often not pronounced
Mismatch in rhyme
Vowel written G- pronounced/~/
Syllables written with stacked consonant, pronounced with high tone
Unwritten final consonant
Final consonant acts as initial of next syllable
Some unique mismatches

Lady in the costume of the Burmese royal court holding a parabaik,

a fanfold book of stiff paper used for writing before the spread of printing.

xxv
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

The alphabet
Consonants
The Burmese alphabet has 33 consonants. There are no capitals.

m o> () m C

~
~ ~
0) @
2
C
'i. ~ ~
() ao
G
~
0) 00 3

0 (.9 e> J) ~

m st (\) 0 J,.)

m ~ 3d

Vowels
The vowels are less systematized than the consonants. Traditionally there are 12,
written in the form of free-standing syllables as follows:

2 2
0

3d

This list has several omissions and anomalies. A more complete picture is gained
from listing the vowel symbols in their "attached" forms: the forms used for
attaching them to consonants to make syllables. In the following list a hyphen
("-") is used to show the position of the consonant.
Q C' C' 0
low tone: -') G- -U) G-0
IL L
Q 0
high tone: -')~ 0
0
ii:
0

0
G-~ ' G-0 Lo
0

0 0
creaky tone: G- ' G-0
Lo
L 0 0 0

Other rhymes are represented by adding a final consonant to these consonant+vowel

combinations. For a full listing of combinations and additional symbols see
Appendix 1: Conspectus.

xxvi
 Lesson 1

Part 1
Standard characters and combinations
of characters

LESSON 1

Read through the text below, down to the heading "Reading practice," then listen to the
tape for Lesson 1, keeping the book open.

"Heads" and "rhymes"

Words written in Burmese script are made up of a series of distinct single syllables; and
when you are learning to read and write the script it is often useful to think of each syllable
as made up of two parts:
(a) a consonant, or sometimes two consonants together; and
(b) a vowel, or a vowel and a final consonant together.
In the notes that follow we shall call that first part of the syllable the head, and the
second part the rhyme. As an example, here is the same principle applied to some English
words:
(a) head + (b) rhyme = syllable
[consonant or [vowelor
two consonants] vowel and consonant]
T + EE = TEE
T + ICK = TICK
TR + ICK = TRICK
TR + EE = TREE
In each Lesson below we shall present some new heads, or some new rhymes, or sometimes
both, and give you some exercises to practise reading and writing both the new characters
and the characters you learned in previous Lessons.

New letters
Heads

C\)
:) = 1 J =2
I- m-

The dotted line under each letter is there to show whether they are written on, or above, or
below the line on the page.

Diphthongsin the roman transcription: 1

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introductionto the Script

Rhymes

G
-0
~ =3 c;=4
-i -a

The hyphen. Vowels in Burmese script are are always attached to their head - they're
not letters in their own right, like the a, e, i, o, u of the roman alphabet, and they are not
normally written independently. When we extract them for presentation purposes, as in
boxes 3 and 4, we write a hyphen("-") to show the position of the vowel symbol in relation
to the head. As you see, Burmese vowel symbols don't always come after a consonant, like
the vowels in English. Some of them do, like the symbol for the vowel -a in box 4, but the
vowel -i comes over the consonant, and there are other vowels that are written underneath
the consonant, or even in front of it. Some are written with a pair of symbols, above and
below, or before and after. That's why you need the hyphen when you write a vowel
without its consonant.

Example syllables
Head Rhyme Syllable

G G
(\) + => C\)
~ =5 G=6 7 =7
I- -i Ii

G G
~ + ~
6) =8 B=9 :)Q =10
m- -i mi

C\) + -0
JJ = 11 Jj = 12 J~ =13
I- -a la

2 Diphthongsin the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 1

+ ==>
::><;
= 14 :)~ = 15 ::>G
= 16
m- -a ma

The roman transcription under the characters above is only there in case you need to jog your
memory. Try and ignore it as much as you can. Transcriptions of Burmese sounds in roman
letters often interfere with a learner's pronunciation and reading.

Notes
Position of vowel symbols. The shapes of most consonants in Burmese script are based on
circles: either a single circle, like~ , or two circles side by side, like(\) . Notice that with
a single-circle consonant the symbol for the -i vowel is positioned directly over the centre of
the circle:

Over a double-circle consonant it is placed over the right-hand circle, not over the centre of
the whole consonant:
G G
(\) not (\)

The vowel -0 is written after the consonant, like vowels in English, but it's always an
attachment to the consonant, so you write it almost touching the consonant: ~ and (\)') .

Names
Most of the letters of the Burmese alphabet have descriptive names. It is convenient to be
able to use these names to refer to elements of the script while you are learning it, so there
is a section in each Lesson giving the names of the letters introduced in the Lesson. If you
have a teacher he or she may give you some practice in spelling out words letter by letter.
At this stage all you need to know is that when the tape uses the phrase G6l:6U (ye-c'a), for
example, it is referring to the symbol -0 . There is a full list of the names of all the letters
in the alphabet at the end of the text in Appendix 4.

(\) no descriptive name: referred to as(\) , pronounced/(\)/ = la

~ no descriptive name: referred to as~ , pronounced/~/ = ma
The names of vowel symbols don't include the sound they represent, like the consonants:
they just describe the shape of the symbol.

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 3

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

Q • ~ C C C
in script: 0?:~:mc ~'f o>m
pronunciation: I 0?'f:<cl:mc
C Q C C
~'fo>mC/
= Ioun-11-tin
' ., . s ' an-k' aq
meaning: a big round placed on top, with a kernel set inside

-') in script: G6Pi!J

pronunciation: I GOO:~/ = ye-c'a
meaning: a line set down

At this point, switch on the tape.

Reading practice for Lesson 1

Tape format for reading practice:
Prompt: Read word number 1.
Leamer (during silent gap on the tape): C\Y.l

Burmese speaker on the tape: C\Y.l

... andsoon

Syllables
Q Q
J =1 C\Y.) ~(\)

J =2 ITT C\Y.)C\Y.)
Q Q
~ =3 ~ ~ =7 ~C\Y.)
Q Q
<; =4 (\) 6) =8 (\)C\Y.)

Words
Mask the English equivalents in the right-hand column when you are reading these words.
Some of them give you too much help.

B=9 C\Y.)- come

80 =10 ITT- be tough, hard

Q
JJ=ll -(\) times [multiplication]
Q
8 j =12 ITTCD gardener

J~ =13 ITTC\.YJ flower [also girl's name]

Q Q
8<; = 14 (\)(\) Lily [girl's English name]
Q
J~ =15 CDITT Lima

JG =16 C\.YJITT Lama

4 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 1

A note on the glosses. For reasons given in the Introduction, the words we use for practising
reading in the early stages are restricted to certain categories. Most of the words best suited
to this purpose are Burmese personal names, and foreign words and names that are used in
Burmese. We supplement these with sets of syllables selected for practising, which aren't
necessarily words that have a meaning in Burmese. As your script repertoire widens, we
shall be able to use more real words and fewer made-up ones. It is not vital for you at this
stage to know the words you are practising with, but to save you working in the dark, the
glosses give some meanings.

Some of the words in the lists are followed by a hyphen (like ~- ). This shows that they
are verbs. The hyphen is there because in actual language use Burmese verbs are (almost)
always followed by a suffix (a word that is attached to the ends of other words). Other
words have a hyphen before them, which is to show that they are suffixes: words that
cannot stand on their own but have to be attached to the end of another word, like the -ing
in the English word talking.

Burmese who have learned English will usually pronounce English loanwords with a good
English accent. Others will produce a heavily Burmanized version. The script, being
designed for Burmese sounds and not for English ones, coincides with the Burmanized
pronunciation, and this is the version we record on the tapes.

Forming the characters

At this point tum off the tape, and practise writing the new characters until you are ready
to do the dictation exercise below.

If you're going to write letters that are clear to read and pleasing to look at it's important to
make the strokes in the right direction and the right order - at least to start with. When
you're writing at a reasonable speed you may find you want to take some short cuts; but for
now practise making the strokes in the way that's set out below. This is the way Burmese
children learn to write the characters in school. Knowing the right direction and order also
helps you to interpret fast cursive handwriting, when parts of some of the letters become
separated. For more on cursive shortcuts see Appendix 78.

You will see that most of the strokes are drawn clockwise. Make them as circular as you
can. One of the commonest words of praise for handwriting in Burma is
C' 0 C' 0 C' ,
C\)O)GEi)_: :).)0 '(C:OY.>011
"Your writing is so round!"

G
CD G ')
Order of strokes: 1 2 1 2
For cursive shortcuts see Appendix 78.

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 5

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

When you write syllables with ~ or - 0 , write the consonant first, and the vowel symbol second.
G
Stages in writing o3 (1) (\) (2) (\)

Stages in writing ~ (1) ~ (2) B0

Writing practice for Lesson 1

Copying. Write out the following, making the strokes in the right order:

G
(\)

Dictation. When you've written the syllables enough times to feel at home with them, tum
on the tape again, and do the Dictation Exercise. This is the procedure:

• First close the book, or at least cover up the Key to the Dictation Exercise printed below.
• Next, have a pen and paper ready, switch on the tape and listen to word 1; then stop (or
pause) the tape and write the word in Burmese script on your paper.
• Do the same for all the words in the Exercise.
• When you get to the end of the Exercise, look at the text again and compare your script with
the Key.

KEY TO LESSON 1 DICTATION

Syllables
G
8 =1 B0 ~ =5 C\Y.)~
GG
J =2 C\Y.) G=6 (\)~
G G
~ =3 (\) 7 =7 B')~
G G G
9 =4 ~ 6) =8 ~(\)

LESSON 1.1 FIGURES 1, 2, 3

The first three Lessons in BIS are each followed by a short additional Lesson which
introduces you to the numerals in Burmese script. From Lesson 4 onwards all words in the
reading and writing examples are numbered with Burmese figures in order to give you
practice in reading them. There is no tape for this Lesson.

6 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 1

New figures

d
1 2 3

Notice that the Burmese 8 is like our own 1: ours is straight and the Burmese 8 is curved,
but they're both made with a single stroke. And the~ is not so different from our 3 either:
in this case the Burmese figure has a straight line in the lower half where ours has a
curved one. Given those helpful resemblances, the only figure you've really got to work at
here is the J.

Forming the characters

J ~
Try writing the figures a few times to help memorize their shapes, then tackle the Reading
Practice.

Reading practice for Lesson 1.1

Take pen and paper, mask the key below, and convert the Burmese figures to Arabic
(Western) figures. Then check your results against the Key.

BURMESE

A. 8J C.
JJ E. ~J
B.
J~ D. J~ F. J8
KEY
A. 12 C. 22 E. 31
B. 23 D. 13 F. 21

Writing practice for Lesson 1.1

Mask the key below and write out the Burmese equivalents of the Arabic figures.

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 7

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

ARABIC
A. 1 D. 22 G. 32
B. 2 E. 31 H. 23
C. 3 F. 11 I. 13

KEY
A. J D.
JJ G.
~J
B. E.
J ~J H.
J~
C.
~ F. JJ I. J~

LESSON 2

Look at the new heads and examples below, down to "Reading practice," then listen to the
tape for Lesson 2.

New heads

:) = 1 J =2
b- n-

Shape. Note that -::r:, is composed of two broken circles, one with the opening to the east,
and the second opening to the south-west. The tail of the 'f descends below the line.

Example syllables

G G
J)
<;=4 ~ =5 '7= 7
bi ni ba na
Notice that the ~ sits centrally over the 'f , but is written over the right-hand half of the
-::r:,, not over the centre. (There is no box 3.)

8 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 2

Names
C
JJ in script: in script: <fCOO
pronunciation: pronunciation: I <f,coSI= na-ngeh
meaning: meaning: little na
Now switch on the tape to do -

Reading practice for Lesson 2

Syllables G
8<;=14 (\) ITT Lima
:) =1 JY)
G English first names
J =2 J)
G
(\)(\)
G
G Lily
~ =3 'f Lena
<;=4 t0
Nina
~ =5 ITT
G
G=6 ~
G
Burmese names
~ =7 (\)
GG
6) =8 (\)0 :)B=19 t t Ni Ni

B =9 JY)(\)0 JO=20 ITTCD0 Mala

G
80 =10 -::J)ITT Burmese words
GG
JJ =ll ~~ J:J=21 what
G
:)j =12 (\)'f0 JJ =22 be sore

Foreign place names J~ =23 be red

Mask the English equivalents in the J<;=24 sapphire

right-hand column when you read these
words: they give the game away. J~ =25 gardener
G
8~ =13 JYJ(\) Bali JG=26 Lama

Forming the characters

At this point tum off the tape and practise writing the new characters until you are ready
to do the dictation exercise below.

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 9

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

Order of strokes: 1 2
For cursive shortcuts see Appendix 7B.

Writing practice for Lesson 2

Copying. Write out the following, making the strokes in the right order. Make sure that the tail of
your i goes below the line.

Dictation. 12 words. Cover up the Key below, and proceed as for Lesson l.

KEY TO LESSON 2 DICTATION

Syllables
G
J =1 JY) 7.=7 C\Y)'f
G
J =2 'fG 6) =8 ITT'f'J
G
~ =3 J) B=9 ~C\Y)
G G
7 =4 'f') JO =10 'fJ)
G G G
~ =5 ~(\) JJ =11 'f')~
G
G=6 J)JY) J j =12 C\Y)JY)

Having much leisure during this six weeks' voyage I now set myself with great
industry to acquire the language. . . . I soon mastered the written character. As the
language is essentially monosyllabic, there is hardly a combination of two or
three letters which has not its appropriate signification, and it was my daily
amusement to put together a number of these at a venture, and then ferret out their
meaning from my interpreter. Words gained by this process became indelibly fixed
on the memory, and it surprised me to see how soon I became possessed of a large
stock of them.
From Henry Gouger: A Personal Narrative of Two Years Imprisonment in Burmah. London,
1864, p. 22.

10 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 2

LESSON 2.1 FIGURES4, 5, 6

There is no tape for this Lesson.

New figures

G
4 5 6

Notice that the 9 is not so different from our 4, and the Gis a pretty close match to our 6 too.
So the ~ is the one you need to concentrate on.

Forming the characters

As before, write out the figures a few times to help memorise their shapes, then go on to the
Reading practice.

Reading practice for Lesson 2.1

BURMESE

A.
9 D. 9G G. :JG J. ~J
B.
~ E. G~ H.
J9 K.
J~
C. G F.
~9 I. ~:) L.
9~
KEY
A. 4 D. 46 G. 16 J. 52
B. 5 E. 65 H. 24 K. 23
C. 6 F. 54 I. 51 L. 43

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 11

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

Writing practice for Lesson 2.1

ARABIC
A. 5 D. 45 G. 21 J. 43
B. 4 E. 16 H. 63 K. 35
C. 6 F. 52 I. 34 L. 26

KEY

A.
~ D.
9~ G. jJ J. 9~
B.
9 E. JG H. G~ K.
~~
C. G F.
~J I.
~9 L. JG

LESSON 3

Read down to "Reading practice," then listen to the tape.

Tone mark

0
0

~ =1
[marks high tone]

In Burmese, if you pronounce a syllable with a high pitch it means one thing, and if you say
the same syllable on a low pitch it means another. Examples:
i0 [low pitch] na to hurt
i0: [high pitch] na to pause

~ [low pitch] ni to be red

~: [high pitch] n1 to be near
Fortunately for us, Burmese script marks the speech tones clearly (there are some tone
languages that don't), and the "two-dot" symbol is one of the ways it does so. In the roman
transcription we mark the high pitch with a grave accent (-); and (as for most vowels in
Burmese script) if a syllable doesn't have a tone mark then you know it's a low-pitch
syllable.

We speak of "high-pitch syllable" and "low-pitch syllable" for brevity. To be more

precise, what matters in Burmese is that a high-pitch syllable should start high - which

12 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 3

means higher than any neighbouring low-pitch syllables. Similarly, a low-pitch syllable
should start lower than any nearby highs. Which way they go after they've started is not
critical - as it is in tone languages like Thai and Chinese.

Tones won't be a serious obstacle to learning Burmese - on one condition. The condition is
that you must take them seriously, from the beginning: whenever you say a Burmese word
you must make sure you're conscious of the pitch, and when you learn a word you must learn
its tone as well. That's why tones are brought in so early, here in Lesson 3. Some students
are tempted to pay little attention to them at first, thinking they will polish them up some
time later. This is a bad mistake. It can't be done. When such students get to the stage of
being able to speak quite a lot of Burmese, the bemused Burmans they talk to don't know
whether they're talking about resting or hurting, about being red or being near - and the
students misinterpret what the Burmese say. This is tragic, because all that confusion and
frustration is unnecessary: all you have to do is to take the tone of a word as seriously as you
take its consonants and vowels. Tone is just as important in identifying a word as its vowels
and consonants are; and in some ways you can argue it's even more important. If you're
talking in a noisy room, people can often make out what you're saying because they can hear
the ups and downs of your sentence, even though they can't hear the vowels and consonants
very clearly.

Example syllables

G G
21.) 21.) 0
0 :rY)_ :rY)_~
J =2 ~ =3 c;= 4 ~ =5
bi bl ba ba

6) =8 G=9
mi ma ma

Name
in script: G<jl.mGol~
pronunciation: I GCJ:J.O,Gt:n~I= she-ga-bauq
meaning: dots in front

This symbol has several different names, but in BIS we shall be using the name given above.
You will find some others in Appendix 4 on the names of the letters.

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 13

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

Now listen to the tape.

Reading practice for Lesson 3

Syllables
G
6) =8 9 ~(\)')
J =2 ITTITT B=9 4>0~(\)')
~ =3 ITTITT~ 80 =10 90CD0
9=4 ITT~ITT~ Words
G G G G
~ =5 8')~9 88 =11 8')~9 red.comb
G G G G
G=6 ~~4> 8 j =12 ~~4> red light
G
7.=7 9 (\)')

Phrases
The suffix -,r): , attached to the end of a word for a place or person, means "near [place/
Q
person]." For example C\) ~<f0: means "near Lima." Here are some more phrases with
-<f0: -
G
8~ =13 (\)~90~ near Lima
G
89 =14 JY)(\) 4>0~ near Bali
G G
8~ =15 (\)(\)4>0 ~ near Lily

8G =16 ITT CD0 90~ near Mala

The suffix-(\)'): , attached to the end of a word, is like a question mark. If you say~~ C\Y.):
it means "Ni Ni?" As in English, people use questions like this to mean "Is that Ni Ni?" or
"Do you mean Ni Ni?" or "Did you say Ni Ni?" Here are some phrases with -C\Y.):
GG
87_=17 'f 9(\)')~ Ni Ni?
G
86) =18 ITT(\)(\)')~ the gardener?
G G
8B =19 ~~9(\)')~ a red light?

JO=20 ITT CD0 CD0 ~ Mala?

G
J8 =21 JY)(\) 90~ (\)')~ near Bali?
G
JJ =22 9 (\)')9° ~ (\)')~ near the sapphire?

14 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 3

Meanings of some single syllables written with the new characters

For referenceonly: not practised on the tape
C\Y.): question suffix, mule comb
Q
ro: penis (vulgar) ·~>'):- pause, rest
Q
~: fire, light 10: ear
Q
:Y.YJ: bar 1:- be near

Forming the characters

At this point tum off the tape, and practise a few syllables with the tone mark until you
are ready to do the dictation exercise below. Write the tone mark after you have written
the consonant and vowel; like this: :)')-:J3-:J3:
Before paper was used widely for writing in Burma, people wrote on lengths of palm leaf,
treated by soaking and smoking to make them flexible and long lasting. They etched the
shapes of the letters on them with a metal point, and then rubbed black colouring into the
lines to make the letters show. One of the weaknesses of palm leaf as a writing material is
that it is liable to split. Clearly, to mark a dot by jabbing the leaf with a metal stylus
would be unwise; so scribes drew a dot by making a very small circle. This convention is still
observed in printing, but in handwriting most people just write dots.

Writing practice for Lesson 3

Copying. Write out the following, making the strokes in the right order.

G G
~ ~
~
0 0 0 0
0
~Q 0 0 0

G
0 0
0 C\Y) 0
0 G 0
0

Dictation. Cover up the Key, and proceed as for Lesson 1.

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 15

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

KEY TO LESSON 3 DICTATION

::) =1 C\Y.) ~ C\Y.) G=6 1l)tf0~

G
J =2 ITT~ITT 7 =7 JY.)tf
G G G G
~ =3 ~~~ 6) =8 0)(\)
G
7 =4 JY.)~JY.) (3 =9 ITTCDtf0~
G G
~ =5 tf 0 tf ~ ::)0 =10 JY.)(\) tf0 ~

LESSON 3.1 FIGURES7, 8, 9, 0

There is no tape for this Lesson.

New figures

6) 0
7 8 9 0

Memorizing the 7 and the o won't give much trouble; but the 6) and the B will need some
practice. Notice that the 7 and the B extend below the line. For cursive shortcuts see
Appendix 78.

Forming the characters

Q
As before, practise writing the new figures, then move on to the Reading practice.

16 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 3

Reading practice for Lesson 3.1

BURMESE

A.
B E. 6)B I. JG M. 70~
B. 6) F. ~o J. 79 N. J~B
C.
7 G. B6) K. 6)8 0. GJO
D. 0 H. 70 L.
~~ P. 906)
KEY
A. 9 E. 89 I. 26 M. 703
B. 8 F. 30 J. 74 N. 159
C. 7 G. 98 K. 81 0. 620
D. 0 H. 70 L. 35 P. 408

Writing practice for Lesson 3.1

ARABIC
A. 7 E. 80 I. 57 M. 308
B. 5 F. 97 J. 81 N. 694
C. 9 G. 90 K. 30 0. 915
D. 0 H. 78 L. 26 P. 472

BURMESE

A.
7 E. 6)0 I.
~7 M. ~06)
B.
~ F.
B7 J. 6)J N. GB9
C.
B G. BO K. ~o 0. BJ~
D. 0 H. 76) L. JG P.
97J
That brings you to the end of your coverage of the Burmese figures. In the next Lesson, and
all the subsequent lessons, we'll be using Burmese figures on the page to identify the
examples. That's to let you have plenty of practice in reading Burmese figures. And when
you're doing dictation, I strongly advise you to use Burmese figures for the numbers of the
words, so that you get some practice in writing the figures as well as reading them.

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 17

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

LESSON 4

Read down to the Practice section, then listen to the tape.

New heads

m m
:)
J
t- k-

Shape. These two consonants have almost the same shape, but the oo has a full circle for
its first half, while the m has only a horseshoe. In both letters the second circle is open to
the southwest, like the second half of JJ .

Pronunciation. oo and m represent "voiceless unaspirated plosives," or "foreign T and K":

more on the tape.

Example syllables

G
m
c; ~ G ~
ti ta ki ka
(There is no box 3.)

Forming the characters

___.Oro.er of strokes: 1 2 1
m 2
For syllables to copy, use the "Example syllables" above.
For cursive shortcuts see Appendix 7B.

18 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
 Lesson 4

Names
C
oo in script: ooo~:~ m in script: m@3:
pronunciation: I m,o~:)2/ pronunciation: / m,1:/
= ta-wun-bu = ka-j,
meaning: pot-bellied ta meaning: big ka

Change of Lesson format.

Now that you have worked through three Lessons and have got the measure of the task
before you, we're going to change the format of the Lessons to something that gives you more
flexibility in the way you do your practice.

Up to this point you have had separate sets of words for reading practice and writing
practice. In fact, a single set of words can be used for both purposes, so from here on you will
find only one (longish) set of words for practice. You can use the whole set for reading, and
then go through it again to practise writing from dictation; or you can use the first half for
reading and the remainder for dictation; or do dictation first and reading second. Assess
your strengths and weaknesses and go for what you need most.

You will probably find it more rewarding to treat the loanwords and foreign names as
reading practice, rather than dictation, at least for the first time through. There is some
satisfaction to be gained from recognizing familiar words in the unfamiliar script.

When you are writing down words from the tape, write the number of each word in Burmese
numerals. This will give you practice in writing them. From this point on the numbers are
shown in their Burmese form only. Each number is followed by the symbol II This is a mark
of punctuation that is used to mark the end of a sentence, and to mark numbers in numbered
lists, like the full stop in English. It is known by two names:

C C~
II in script: y3~ ory3t:f
pronunciation: I yd:J~Ior I ychE3:I= pouq-ma or pouq-c1
meaning: main section or big section

Now listen to the tape.

Practice for Lesson 4

The following words are read aloud on the tape.

G
Syllables m
G G
:>II Cf) m~~0
G
j II ~ffi')~
G
~ II '7II Cf)')~~

Diphthongs in the roman transcription: 19

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.
Burmese: An Introduction to the Script

G
6) II C\Y.)CI)~ litre
G G
1~(\) colour
G G
10~2/Y.) ffi (\) Keighley
G
J)~CYY) [Rangoon road name]
G
:)j II ~ II ~ CfY) metre, meter
G
:)~II GII CYY)ffi khaki
GG
:>911 ~ Cl) 1 Martini
G G G
:>~ II ~ (\) (\) CfY) millilitre
G GG
Loanwords from English ~ (\) ~ CfY) millimetre
G G
:) II Cl)J) TB

Burmese words and phrases

G
:) II CYY)~1 red car
GG
j II m4> red worm
G G
~ II Cl) J) C\Y.) ~ TB?

CYY) C\Y.) C\Y.) ~ colour?

911
G
~ II CYY)ffi C\Y.) ~ khaki?
G
GII CYY) ~ 1 C\Y.) ~ a red car?
G
'7II Cl) 10~ C\Y.) ~ near the worm?
G
6) II CYY) ~ 11° ~ C\Y.) ~ near the red car?

For reference:meanings of some single syllables written with the new characters
c/J earthworm cm- ward off
beat, strike spread out
[measure of length] car
block the way

20 Diphthongs in the roman transcription:

ronounce ei as in vein, ai as in Thailand, ou as in thou h, au as in Sauerkraut.