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The Burmese abugida (Burmese: မ္ရန္မာစာ) is a script in the Brahmic family used in Myanmar for writing Burmese, Mon, Shan and Kayin (Karen). The characters are rounded in appearance, because the traditional palm leaves used for writing would have been ripped by straight lines. Like English, it is written from left to right. There are no spaces between words, although informal writing often contains spaces after each clause.
The script, originally adapted from the Mon script, has undergone considerable modifications to suit the phonology of Burmese, and to fit its word order of subject-object-verb. The script is altered from language to language (e.g. Shan, Mon, etc.)
Alphabet
There are 33 consonants က (ka. ) to အ (a. ) and 23 unique sounds. Consonants are separated into groups of 5, with the exception of the last three letters. The first two letters of each group, except for the ya-group are the aspirated and unaspirated sounds. Six letters are designated for Pāli. The last letter in the alphabet, အ (a. ), although recognized as a consonant, is actually a vowel. Since the a is the only lettered vowel, when used with diacritics, is used to create other vowels. Like other members of the Brahmic family, the sounds of these are modified by diacritics put above, below or beside the character.
The following names are transliterated in contemporary Burmese.
| Letter | Name | IPA | Pāli | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| က | ka-gyi | k | k | Often used as final (က္; -k, but read as a glottal stop) |
| ခ | hka-gwei | kʰ | kh | |
| ဂ | ga-ngè | g | g | |
| ဃ | ga-gyi | g | gh | |
| င | nga | ŋ | ṅ | Often used as final (င္; -in, and read nasalised) |
| စ | sa-lon | s | c | Often used as a final (စ္; -t, but read as a glottal stop) |
| ဆ | sa-lein | sʰ | ch | |
| ဇ | za-gwè | z | j | |
| ဈ | za-myin-zwè | z | jh | |
| ည | nya | ɲ | ñ | Often used as a final (ည္; -h) |
| ဋ | ta-ta-lin-gyeik | t | ṭ | Used primarily for Pāli (Burmese uses တ as an alternative) |
| ဌ | hta-wun-bè | tʰ | ṭh | Used primarily for Pāli (Burmese uses ထ as an alternative) |
| ဍ | da-yin-gauk | d | ḍ | Used primarily for Pāli (Burmese uses ဒ as an alternative) |
| ဎ | da-yeh-hmouk | d | ḍh | Used primarily for Pāli (Burmese uses ဓ as an alternative) |
| ဏ | na-gyi | n | ṇ | Used primarily for Pāli (Burmese uses န as an alternative) |
| တ | ta-win-bu | t | t | Often used as a final (တ္; -t, but read as a glottal stop) |
| ထ | hta-sin-du | tʰ | th | |
| ဒ | da-dwei | d | d | |
| Rakhine dialect and in certain contexts of modern Burmese. | ||||
| လ | la | l | l | Often used as a final (လ္; -l, but silent) |
| ဝ | wa | w | v | |
| သ | tha | θ | s | |
| ဟ | ha | h | h | |
| ဠ | la-gyi | l | ḷ | Used primarily for Pāli (Burmese uses လ as an alternative) |
| အ | a | ʔ | a | Used with diacritics to form other vowels |
Diacritics
There are several diactric marks that alter the vowel sound of a character. Two diacritics are used exlusively for Pali.
| Diacritic | Name | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| ◌ာ | yay cha | creates low tone |
| ◌ိ (ဣ) | lon gyi tin | creates an i sound at creaky tone ( e.g. English seat) |
| ◌ီ (ဤ) | lon gy itin san ka | creates an i sound at low tone |
| ◌ု (ဥ) | ta chaung ngin | creates a u sound at creaky tone (e.g. English truce) |
| ◌ူ (ဦ) | hna chaung ngin | creates a u sound at low tone |
| ေ◌ (ဧ) | thwei-to | creates an ei sound at high tone (e.g. English cane) |
| ◌ဲ (ဩ) | creates an è sound at high tone (e.g. English pet) | |
| ◌္ | thak | modifies the sound quality of a letter and varies with letters (usually creates a consanant final) |
| ◌း | shay ga pauk | creates high tone, but cannot be used alone |
| ◌ံ | Anunaasika, creates nasalised -n final | |
| ◌့ | auk ga myit | Anusvara, creates short tone |
| ◌ၙ | used exclusively for Pali | |
| ◌ၘ | used exclusively for Pali | |
One or more of these accents can be added to a consonant to change its sound. In addition, other modifiying symbols are used to differentiate tone and sound, but are not considered diacritics.
Ligatures
Specific consanants (a final and the following consonant), when placed next to one another, may be stacked, with the final placed underneath the consonant. They are considered ligatures, and are typically used to abbreviate, but are not necessary and are primarily used to denote Pali or Sanskrit origin.Digits
A decimal numbering system is used, and numbers are written in the same order as Hindu-Arabic numerals.
The numerals from zero to nine are: ၁၂၃၄၅၆၇၈၉ (Unicode 1040 to 1049). The number 1945 would be written as ၁၉၄၅. Delimiters (such as commas) to separate numbers are not used.
Punctuation
There are two primary break characters in Burmese, drawn as one or two downward strokes (၊ or ။), which respectively act as a comma and a full stop . ၏ is used as a full stop if the sentence immediately ends with a verb. ၍ is roughly the equivalent of a comma and is used to connect two trains of thought.
Burmese in Unicode
The Unicode range for Burmese (Myanmar) is U+1000 ... U+109F.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |||
| 1000 | က | ခ | ဂ | ဃ | င | စ | ဆ | ဇ | ဈ | ဉ | ည | ဋ | ဌ | ဍ | ဎ | ဏ | |
| 1010 | တ | ထ | ဒ | ဓ | န | ပ | ဖ | ဗ | ဘ | မ | ယ | ရ | လ | ဝ | သ | ဟ | |
| 1020 | ဠ | အ | ဢ | ဣ | ဤ | ဥ | ဦ | ဧ | ဨ | ဩ | ဪ | ါ | ာ | ိ | ီ | ု | |
| 1030 | ူ | ေ | ဲ | ဳ | ဴ | ဵ | ံ | ့ | း | ္ | ် | ျ | ြ | ွ | ှ | ဿ | |
| 1040 | ၀ | ၁ | ၂ | ၃ | ၄ | ၅ | ၆ | ၇ | ၈ | ၉ | ၊ | ။ | ၌ | ၍ | ၎ | ၏ | |
| 1050 | ၐ | ၑ | ၒ | ၓ | ၔ | ၕ | ၖ | ၗ | ၘ | ၙ | ၚ | ၛ | ၜ | ၝ | ၞ | ၟ | |
| 1060 | ၠ | ၡ | ၢ | ၣ | ၤ | ၥ | ၦ | ၧ | ၨ | ၩ | ၪ | ၫ | ၬ | ၭ | ၮ | ၯ | |
| 1070 | ၰ | ၱ | ၲ | ၳ | ၴ | ၵ | ၶ | ၷ | ၸ | ၹ | ၺ | ၻ | ၼ | ၽ | ၾ | ၿ | |
| 1080 | ႀ | ႁ | ႂ | ႃ | ႄ | ႅ | ႆ | ႇ | ႈ | ႉ | ႊ | ႋ | ႌ | ႍ | ႎ | ႏ | |
| 1090 | ႐ | ႑ | ႒ | ႓ | ႔ | ႕ | ႖ | ႗ | ႘ | ႙ | ႚ | ႛ | ႜ | ႝ | ႞ | ႟ |
Websites Using Myanmar Unicode
Until 2005, most Burmese language websites used an image-based dynamically-generated method of displaying text (often in GIF or JPG). At the end of 2005, the Myanmar NLP Research Lab * announced a Myanmar Open Type font named Myanmar1. This font contains not only Unicode code points and glyphs but also the OTLs logic and rules. Their research center is based in Myanmar ICT Park, Yangon. Padauk, which was produced by SIL International, is Unicode-complaint, but requires a Graphite engine. As of yet, there are only two Unicode-complaint fonts for Burmese in existence currently.
Many font makers have created Myanmar fonts such as Win Myanmar, Win Innwa, CE Font, and Myazedi It is important to note that those Unicode Myanmar fonts are not Unicode-compliant, because they use unallocated codepoints in the Myanmar block to manually deal with shaping that would normally be done by the Uniscribe engine and are not yet supported by Microsoft and major software vendors. The Myanmar Bible Society launched a Burmese Unicode website Firefox web browser & Padauk font from ThanLwinSoft.org's [http://www.thanlwinsoft.org/" target="_blank" >* Myanmar Unicode technology.
Overseas Myanmar websites such as Burma Information Technology Team (BIT)* also started incomplete Unicode websites. Beginning in 2006, more Unicode internet websites have appeared, but browsers like Internet Explorer do not support the Burmese Unicode yet. Therefore, many big websites are still using a GIF/JPG display method.
Yangon-based Myanmar Times website and Myanmar Web Directory display Burmese text using embedded fonts via their websites, which do not requires installation. However, they fail to work on Mozilla-based browsers. Many overseas Myanmar websites are still using GIF and JPG format (e.g., Khitpyaing.org Moemaka.net [http://moemaka.net/).
Fonts supporting Burmese characters
- Wikipedia:Font
- Win Myanmar Systems
- Myanmar Unicode & NLP Research Centre
- MyMyanmar Unicode and Linguistics
See also
Abugida writing systems | Myanmar culture | Alphabetic writing systems
"Burmese alphabet"