The Burmese language is the official languageof Myanmar. Although the Constitution of Myanmarofficially 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, 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, which was derived from theMon script, one of the Brahmic scripts that was adopted for Southeast Asian languages due to Indian influence.
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, theTibetan alphabet and the Tangut script.
The Burmese alphabet consists of 33 letters and 12 vowels, and is written from left to right. It requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability. Characterized by its circular letters and diacritics, the script is an abugida, with all letters having an inherent vowel အa. [a̰] or [ə]. The consonants are arranged into six consonant groups (called ဝဂ် based on articulation, like other Brahmi scripts. Tone markings and vowel modifications are written as diacritics placed to the left, right, top, and bottom of letters.
The development of the script followed that of the language, which is generally divided into Old Burmese, Middle Burmese and modern Burmese. Old Burmese dates from the 11th to the 16th century (Pagan and Ava dynasties); Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century (Toungoo to early Konbaung dynasties); modern Burmese from the mid-18th century to the present. Orthographic changes followed shifts in phonology (such as the merging of the [-l-] and [-ɹ-]medials) rather than transformations in Burmese grammatical structure and phonology, which has not changed much from Old Burmese to modern Burmese.[17] For example, during the Pagan era, the medial [-l-] ္လ was transcribed in writing, which has been replaced by medials [-j-] ျ and [-ɹ-] ြin modern Burmese (e.g. “school” in old Burmese က္လောင် [klɔŋ] → ကျောင်း [tɕáʊɴ] in modern Burmese). Likewise written Burmese has preserved all nasalized finals [-n, -m, -ŋ], which have merged to [-ɴ] in spoken Burmese. (The exception is [-ɲ], which, in spoken Burmese, can be one of many open vowels [i, e, ɛ].
Written Burmese dates to the early Pagan period. The British colonial period scholars believed that the Burmese script was developed c. 1058 from the Mon script. However, evidence shows that the Burmese script has been in use at least since 1035 (perhaps as early as 984) while the earliest Burma Mon script, which is different from the Thailand Mon script, dates to 1093. The Burmese script may have been sourced from the Pyu script. (Both Mon and Pyu scripts are derivatives of the Brahmi script.) Burmese orthography originally followed a square format but the cursive format took hold from the 17th century when popular writing led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known as parabaiks ပုရပိုက်. Much of the orthography in written Burmese today can be traced back to Middle Burmese. Standardized tone marking was not achieved until the 18th century. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because ambiguities arose over spelling sounds that had been merged. During British colonial rule, Burmese spelling was standardized through dictionaries and spellers. The latest spelling authority, named the Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan မြန်မာ စာလုံးပေါင်း သတ်ပုံ ကျမ်း, was compiled in 1978 at the request of the Burmese government.
