About Burmese

by Pisith Phlong

Number of speakers
Burmese is the official language of Burma. An estimated 31 million people, accounting for about 68% of the total population, speak Burmese. (Strazny, p. 160)

Language group
Of the many languages and dialects spoken in Burma, Burmese is the language spoken by the largest group of people in Burma. The language is directly related to Chinese and Tibetan. It belongs to Burmese Lolo sub-branch of Tibeto-Burman language branch under the Sino-Tibetan phylum. It shares some similar typological characteristics with several languages of western China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. Some languages that are closely related to Burmese are Akha, Lahu and Lisu, spoken in parts of Kashi and Shan States in Burma. (Strazny, p. 160)

History of written language and script
Around the 9th century, the Burmese moved south into the area between the Chindwin and Irrawaddy rivers. They absorbed the Pyu, who had adopted Buddhism and Hinduism from India. They continued southward and contacted with the Mon civilization before establishing their first city in Pagan around the 11th century. One of the great influences of the Mon on the Burmese was the introduction of the Pali language, which became known to the Burmese through Theravada Buddhism even before the first written record in the Burmese language. The earliest dated writing of Burmese is the inscription of Myazedi, 1113AD, written in four languages, Burmese, Mon, Pyu and Pali, found in Pagan. (Herbert and Milner, p. 1)

Language
Over the centuries, the Burmese language has changed its structure and vocabulary slightly between the old and contemporary language. The language is classified into three different periods: Old Burmese (from 1100s to 1500), Middle Burmese (from 1500s to 1700) and Modern Burmese (from 1700s onward). Though there are a few vocabulary differences between regions, pronunciation is identical from region to region. (Herbert and Milner, p. 5) Though the modern Burmese language developed from its older roots spoken by the population of the lower valleys of the Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers, it borrowed some vocabulary from other languages too. There are word loans from English (such as car, telephone, radio, plug, committee, cadre, coupon), from Sanskrit (in the fields of philosophy and grammar), from Chinese (in the fields of game and food), from Indic languages (in the fields of food, administration and shipping) and loanwords from the Mon language covering a wide range of fields, including flora and fauna, administration, textiles, foods, boats, crafts, architecture and music.

There are two language forms in Burmese and they are different according to the choice of words. 'Spoken' (colloquial or informal) Burmese is used for everyday conversation, and is written in informal letters or in the dialogue passages of novels, while 'written' (literary or formal) Burmese is used for reading news bulletins on the radio or for writing formal letters, books and journalistic pieces. However, there is no clear distinction between the two styles by now (Herbert and Milner, p. 5).

Burmese is a tonal language with four lexical tones characterized by both pitch and voice phonation, often described as plain, breathy or creaky (Strazny, p. 161). The tonal system was influenced by the Mon language which introduced voice phonation as additional tonal features beyond simple pitch. Change of pitch and pitch contour can change the meaning of words.

Scripts
Although spoken Burmese belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language branch, the Burmese script is an adaptation of the Mon script which has roots from the Grantha alphabet of the Pallavas of South India. The Mon made some modification to the script to suit the phonology of their language, and the Burmese further adapted it by adding symbols to mark lexical tones. (Herbert and Milner, p. 6) Present forms of the script mostly take the shape of circles or connected parts of circles. There are 32 initial consonants, two medial consonants, ten vowels, and two types of final consonants. The initial consonant forms the nucleus of each syllable and vowels are written as attachments above, below, before or after the consonants. (Strazny, p. 161)

Dialects
The majority of the population of Burma speaks Burmese. The language of the Irrawaddy valley is considered to be the national standard for the country, while there are over a hundred dialects spoken in peripheral regions which differ mostly in pronunciation and word choice rather than grammatical structure. Other languages in Burma belong to four family groups; 1) Tai: including the Shan language, spoken mainly in the Shan States; 2) Austro Asiatic: including the Mon language, spoken around Moulwein, Palaung, Wa and in some parts of the Shan States; 3) Malay Polynesia: including Salon and Moken, spoken in the islands of the Mergui Archipelago, 4) Sino-Tibetan: consisting of the Tibeto-Burman group which is divided into subgroups: a) Burmese Lolo: closely related to Maru, Lashi and Atsi, spoken throughout the central plain and Lolo areas, with its relatives Akha, Lahu and Lisu spoken in parts of Kashi and Shan States, b) the Kuk-Naga: a subgroup of Chin spoken along the Assam border, c) the Kachin (also called Jingpaw) spoken in the Kachin State. Outside the Tibeto-Burman group is Karen, of which the two most common languages are Sgaw and Pwo, spoken in Karen and Kayah States and in parts of the Irrawaddy delta. (Herbert and Milner, p. 4).

Comparison to Western languages
Burmese differs from the Western European languages in a number of ways. It has no agreement, either in gender or number; words are formed by compounding rather than derivation; the sentence structure is arranged in Subject-Object-Verb order; the Burmese equivalent of prepositions follow the word they modify rather than precede it; and relative clauses always precede their head and classifiers. (Herbert and Milner, p. 5)

References

• Frawley, W. J. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 1. (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Herbert, P. and Milner, A. Southeast Asia, Languages and Literatures. University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu, 1989.
• Strazny, P. Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 1. New York: Fitzroy D