Language/Burmese/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-Pronunciation

Myanmar (Burmese) Alphabet and Pronunciation

🤗 Hello Myanmar learners,

➡ In today's lesson you will learn how to write and pronounce the Burmese Alphabet.

Burmese is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Myanmar where it is an official language and the language of the Bamar people, the country's principal ethnic group.

The Burmese alphabet consists of 33 consonants. The first 25 consonants are distributed into five classes: gutturals, palatals, cerebrals, dentals and labials. The rest are called liquids, sibilant and aspirate.

As you finish mastering this content, you might find these related areas appealing: Plurals, Adjectives.

Consonants

Letter	Name	IPA
က	ကကြီး [ka̰ dʑí]	/k/
ခ	ခကွေး [kʰa̰ ɡwé]	/kʰ/
ဂ	ဂငယ် [ɡa̰ ŋɛ̀]	/ɡ/
ဃ	ဃကြီး [ɡˀa̰ dʑí]	/ɡˀ/
င	င [ŋa̰]	/ŋ/
စ	စလုံး [sa̰ lóʊɴ]	/s/
ဆ	ဆလိမ် [sʰa̰ lèɪɴ]	/sʰ/
ဇ	ဇကွဲ [za̰ ɡwɛ́]	/z/
ဈ	ဈမျဉ်းဆွဲ [zˀa̰ mjɪ̀ɴ zwɛ́]	/zˀ/
ဉ / ည	ညကလေး/ ညကြီး [ɲa̰ dʑí]	/ɲ/
ဋ	ဋသန်လျင်းချိတ် [ta̰ təlɪ́ɴ dʑeɪʔ]	/t/
ဌ	ဌဝမ်းဘဲ [tʰa̰ wʊ́ɴ bɛ́]	/tʰ/
ဍ	ဍရင်ကောက် [da̰ jɪ̀ɴ ɡaʊʔ]	/d/
ဎ	ဎရေမှုတ် [dˀa̰ jè m̥oʊʔ]	/dˀ/
ဏ	ဏကြီး [na̰ dʑí]	/n/
တ	တဝမ်းပူ [ta̰ wʊ́ɴ bù]	/t/
ထ	ထဆင်ထူး [tʰa̰ sʰɪ̀ɴ dú]	/tʰ/
ဒ	ဒထွေး [da̰ dwé]	/d/
ဓ	ဓအောက်ခြိုက် [dˀa̰ ʔaʊʔ tɕʰaɪʔ]	/dˀ/
န	နငယ် [na̰ ŋɛ̀]	/n/
ပ	ပစောက် [pa̰ zaʊʔ]	/p/
ဖ	ဖဦးထုပ် [pʰa̰ ʔóʊʔ tʰoʊʔ]	/pʰ/
ဗ	ဗထက်ခြိုက်‌ [ba̰ lɛʔ tɕʰaɪʔ]	/b/
ဘ	ဘကုန်း [bˀa̰ ɡóʊɴ]	/bˀ/
မ	မ [ma̰]	/m/
ဟ	ဟ‌ [ha̰]	/h/
ဠ	ဠကြီး [la̰ dʑí]	/l/
အ	အ [ʔa̰]	/ʔ/

Vowels

Letter	Diacritic	IPA
ဣ	ိ	í
ဤ	ီ	i
	ီ + း	ì
	◌	á
	ာ	a
	ာ + း	à
ဥ	ု	ú
ဦ	ူ	u
	ူ + း	ù
	ေ + ့	é
ဧ	ေ	e
	ေ + း	è
	ိ + ု + ့	ó
	ိ + ု	o
	ိ + ု + း	ò
	ဲ + ့	ɛ́
	◌ယ်	ɛ
	ဲ	ɛ̀
ဩ	ေ + ာ့	ɔ́
	ေ + ာ်	ɔ
ဪ	ေ + ာ	ɔ̀

PHONOLOGY ISSUES

• Vowels cause many problems for Burmese learners of English.

• The language consists of 10 vowels (a, i, u, ou, o, [O], ei, e, [E]).

• • The tone of each vowel is expressed in either a high pitch or low pitch tone.
    • Example: Low /kʰà/ "shake"
    • High /kʰá/ "be bitter"
    • Creaky /kʰa̰/ "fee"
    • Checked /kʰaʔ/ "draw off"
  • The least marked high vowels take the creaky tone (a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together, as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact) the mid vowels take the level tone and the low vowels take the heavy tone.
  • The rules in English are much different and confuse learners.

• The Burmese language is pronounced by the placement of the tongue and this can be an issue when learning English:
  • Ex: “k” is used in the English language one way, the letter can be translated to mean something by the way it’s pronounced.
• Regional varieties that could pose a problem to Burmese English language learners:
  • Ex: people in New England pronounce the English language much different from someone in Texas. Learners may get confused with the different accents.
• Letter issues:
  • Ex: few Burmese people can pronounce the letter “r” and in their language substitute the letter “y” instead.

Burmese Keyboard

Sources

http://www.ritell.org/Resources/Documents/language%20project/Burmese1.pdf