The Burmese language

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The Burmese language (မြန်မာဘာသာ, MLCTS: myanma bhasa, [bəmà bàðà]) is the official language of Myanmar. Although the Constitution of Myanmar officially recognizes the English name of the language as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese.

Burmese is spoken as a first language by 32 million, primarily the Bamar people and related sub-ethnic groups, and as a second language by 10 million, particularly ethnic minorities in Myanmar and neighboring countries like the Mon.

Burmese is a tonal, pitch-register, and syllable-timed language,[5] largely monosyllabic and analytic language, with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family.

The Burmese alphabet is thought to be derived from the Mon script, but in any case is descended from Pallava, one of the Brahmic scripts that was adopted and adapted by various Southeast Asian languages (Khmer, Thai, Lao) due to Indian influence.

Classification

Burmese belongs to the Southern Burmish branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages. Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non-Sinitic Sino-Tibetan languages. Burmese was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after Chinese characters, the Pyu script, the Tibetan alphabet and the Tangut script.

Dialects

The majority of Burmese speakers, who live throughout the Irrawaddy River Valley, use a number of largely similar dialects, while a minority speak non-standard dialects found in the peripheral areas of the country. These dialects include:

    Tanintharyi Region: Merguese (Myeik, Beik), Tavoyan (Dawei), and Palaw

    Magway Region: Yaw

    Shan State: Intha, Taungyo and Danu

Arakanese (Rakhine) in Rakhine State and Marma in Bangladesh are also sometimes considered dialects of Burmese and sometimes as separate languages.

Despite vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among Burmese dialects, as for the most part, they share the same four tones, consonant clusters and the use of the Burmese script. However, several dialects substantially differ in Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, and rhymes.

Irrawaddy River valley

The standard dialect of Burmese (the Mandalay-Yangon dialect continuum) comes from the Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from Upper Burma (e.g., Mandalay dialect), called anya tha အညာသား, and speakers from Lower Burma (e.g., Yangon dialect), called auk tha အောက်သား, occur in vocabulary choice, not in pronunciation. Minor pronunciation differences do exist within the Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term ဆွမ်း "food offering [to a monk]", Lower Burmese speakers use [sʰʊ́ɴ] instead of [sʰwáɴ], which is the pronunciation used in Upper Burma.

The standard dialect is represented by the Yangon dialect because of the modern city's media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese. The most noticeable feature of the Mandalay dialect is its use of the first person pronoun ကျွန်တော် kya.nau [tɕənɔ] by both men and women, whereas in Yangon, the said pronoun is used only by male speakers while ကျွန်မ kya.ma. [tɕəma̰] is used by female speakers. Moreover, with regard to kinship terminology, Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not.

The spread of Burmese in Lower Burma

Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers, particularly those living in the Irrawaddy valley, who all use variants of Standard Burmese. The first major reason for the uniformity is the traditional Buddhist monastic education system, which encouraged education and uniformity in language throughout the Upper Irrawaddy valley, the traditional homeland of the Bamar people.

According to the 1891 British census conducted five years after the annexation of the entire country, Konbaung Burma had an "unusually high male literacy" rate where 62.5% of age 25 and over in Upper Burma could read and write. The figure would have been much higher if non-Bamars (e.g., Chins, Kachins, etc.) were excluded. For the whole country, the literacy rate was 49% for men and 5.5% for women.

The migration of Burmese speakers of Bamar descent to Lower Burma is relatively recent. As late as the mid-1700s, the Austroasiatic language Mon was the principal language of Lower Burma and the Mon people who inhabited it. After the Burmese-speaking Konbaung Dynasty's victory over the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757, the shift to Burmese began in Lower Burma. By 1830, an estimated 90% of the population in the region identified themselves as Bamar (and, as such, Burmese speakers) due the influx from Upper Burma, assimilation, and intermarriage. In the British colonial era, British incentives, particularly geared toward rice production, as well as political instability in Upper Burma, accelerated this migration.

Outside the Irrawaddy basin

Main articles: Arakanese language, Tavoyan dialects, Intha dialect, Yaw dialect and Myeik dialect

More distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of the country. These varieties include the Yaw, Palaw, Myeik (Merguese), Tavoyan and Intha dialects. Despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects. Dialects in Tanintharyi Region, including Palaw, Merguese and Tavoyan, are especially conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved the /l/ medial, which is otherwise only found in Old Burmese inscriptions. They also often reduce the intensity of the glottal stop. Myeik has 250,000 speakers while Tavoyan has 400,000.

The most pronounced feature of the Arakanese language of Rakhine State is its retention of the [ɹ] sound, which has become a [j] sound in standard Burmese. Also, Arakanese features a variety of vowel differences, including the merger of the ဧ [e] and ဣ [i] vowels. Hence, a word like "blood" သွေး is pronounced [θwé] in standard Burmese and [θwí] in Arakanese.

"When the 8888 Uprising occurred, approximately 3,000 people died."

	noun	verb	part.	noun	part.	adj.	part.	verb	part.	part.	part.
Literary (HIGH)	ရှစ်လေးလုံးအရေးအခင်း hracle:lum:a.re:a.hkang:	ဖြစ် hprac	သောအခါက sau:a.hkaka.	လူ lu	ဦးရေ u:re	၃၀၀၀ 3000	မျှ hmya.	သေဆုံး sehcum:	ခဲ့ hkai.	ကြ kra.	သည်။ sany
Spoken (LOW)			တုံးက tum:ka.		အယောက် a.yauk		လောက် lauk	သေ se		-	တယ်။ tai
Gloss	The Four Eights Uprising	happen	when	people	measure word	3,000	approximately	die	past tense	plural marker	sentence final

Spoken Burmese has politeness levels and honorifics that take the speaker's status and age in relation to the audience into account. The particle ပါ pa is frequently used after a verb to express politeness. Moreover, Burmese pronouns relay varying degrees of deference or respect. In many instances, polite speech (e.g., addressing teachers, officials, or elders) employs feudal-era third person pronouns or kinship terms in lieu of first and second person pronouns. Furthermore, with regard to vocabulary choice, spoken Burmese clearly distinguishes the Buddhist clergy (monks) from the laity (householders), especially when speaking to or about bhikkhus (monks). The following are examples of varying vocabulary used for Buddhist clergy and for laity :

• "sleep" (verb): ကျိန်း kyin: [tɕéɪɴ] for monks vs. အိပ် ip [eɪʔ] for laity
• "die" (verb): ပျံတော်မူ pyam tau mu [pjàɴ dɔ̀ mù] for monks vs. သေ se [θè] for laity