Burmese language

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Burmese

Spoken in

Myanmar , Thailand , Bangladesh , Malaysia , Singapore , Laos , United Kingdom , United States
speaker 35 million (native speakers)
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in MyanmarMyanmar Myanmar
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

my

ISO 639 -2 ( B ) bur ( T ) mya
ISO 639-3

mya

Burmese , also Burmese , is the official language in Myanmar and is spoken by around 35 million people. In addition, Burmese is used by many ethnic and linguistic minorities in Burma as a second language alongside their mother tongue . Burmese has its own script , which developed from the Indian Brahmi script .

The proper name of the language is မြန်မာစာ ( mranma ca , [mja˨ɴma˨sa˨] or [bəma˨sa˨] ) for the written language and မြန်မာစကား ( mranma ca.ka: , [mja˨ɴma˨səga˦] or [bəma ˨səga˦] ) for the spoken language.

grammar

The verbs and nouns are mostly monosyllabic and are not conjugated or declined . The verb is usually at the end of the sentence, followed by a final marker. There are a large number of loanwords from the Pali , a Middle Indian language, which are mostly polysyllabic compared to the monosyllabic Burmese words.

Phonology

The transcriptions in this section follow the International Phonetic Alphabet .

Consonants

The consonants of Burmese are as follows:

Bilabial Dental Alveolar Postalveolar
and Palatal 		Velar and
Labiovelar 		Glottal Ortless
Plosives and Affricates pʰ p b​​ ​​ tʰ t d​​ ​​ tʃʰ tʃ dʒ​​ ​​ kʰ k g​​ ​​ ​ʔ​  
nasal ​m̥ ​ m​​ ​n̥ ​ n​​ ɲ̥ ɲ​​ ŋ̊ ŋ​​   ​ɴ​
Fricatives   ​θ ​ (ð) sʰ s z​​ ​​ ​ʃ​   ​H​  
Approximants   (r) ​j​ (ʍ) w​​  
Lateral   l̥ l​​  

The approximant / ⁠ r ⁠ / and / ⁠ ʍ ⁠ / are rare, [⁠ ð ⁠] exists only as a voiced allophone of / ⁠ .theta ⁠ / .

The placeless nasal / ɴ / is pronounced as the nasalization of the preceding vowel or as a homorganic nasal sound to the following consonant , / mòuɴdáiɴ / "storm" is pronounced [ mõ̀ũndã́ĩ ].

Vowels

The Burmese vowels are:

Monophthongs Diphthongs
​i​ ​u​ egg ou
​e​ ​O​ ai ouch
​ə​
​ɛ​ ​ɔ​
​a​

The monophthongs / ⁠ e ⁠ / , / ⁠ o ⁠ / , / ⁠ ə ⁠ / and / ⁠ ɔ ⁠ / available only in open syllables (ie those without a syllable coda), the diphthongs / ei / , / ou /, / ai / and / au / only in closed syllables (those with syllable coda).

Sounds

Burmese is a tonal language , i. H. phonemic contrasts can be created by the sound of a vowel . In Burmese, these contrasts not only include pitch, but also phonation , intensity (volume), duration and vowel quality. Burmese has four contrasting tones. In the following table the tones are on the vowel / ⁠ a ⁠ / marked by way of example, the phonetic descriptions come from Wheatley (1987).

Note name Symbol
( shown on a ) 		description
Deep ​à​ Normal phonation, medium duration, low intensity, low (often slightly rising) pitch
High ​á​ Sometimes lightly mumbled , relatively long duration, high intensity, high pitch; often with a descent before a break
Creaked a̰ Tense or creaky phonation (sometimes with an unstrained crackle ), medium duration, high intensity, high (often slightly falling) pitch
Inhibited aʔ Centralized vowel quality, crackling sound at the end, short duration, high pitch (in citation form; may vary depending on the environment)

For example, the following words differ only in tone:

In on / ⁠ ɴ ⁠ / ending syllables of inhibited sound does not happen:

Syllable structure

The Burmese syllable structure is C (G) V ((V) C), where C = consonant , G = half vowel , V = vowel . The syllable approach consists of a consonant, which is optionally followed by a sliding sound, and the syllable rhyme consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant or a diphthong with a consonant. The only consonants that can be left in the syllable coda are / ⁠ ʔ ⁠ / and / ⁠ ɴ ⁠ / . Use as example words:

A syllable in / ⁠ ə ⁠ / forms the nucleus has some limitations:

  • It must be an open syllable (there must be no consonant in the coda)
  • She mustn't wear a tone
  • It only has a simple (C) approach (no semi-vowel may follow the consonant)
  • It cannot be the last syllable of the word

Examples of words / ⁠ ə ⁠ / -Silben:

history

Old Burmese and Old Burmese have been spoken in the central Irawaddy Valley since the 9th century at the latest. It spread from the northeast, where related languages ​​are or were spoken. Under King Anawrahta (ruled 1044 to 1077) in Bagan , the area of ​​distribution of the Old Burmese extended westward to Arakan , which remained an independent kingdom until the 18th century, and into the southern Irawaddy Valley. There supplanted the Pyu -Language and stood beside the Mon . Today the few remaining speakers of the Mon are also proficient in Burmese. But this was also influenced by that. The Burmese script , the vocabulary of Buddhism , politics and phonetics are taken from the Mon.

As a result of the expansion of the Burmese rulers from Bagan , Ava , Amarapura and Mandalay to the west, south and east, Burmese became the language of rulers and diplomats. In the 16th century, the language form changed to Central Burmese.

The oldest written testimony in Old Burmese is the quadrilingual Myazedi inscription in Bagan from 1112. In addition to royal inscriptions and Buddhist texts, there was soon also free literature, e.g. B. based on the Jatakas , but also secular poetry and prose. In certain periods of time, the influence of Thai literature was very great. Historical texts include the Glass Palace Chronicle ( hmanman yasazwindawgyi ) compiled from earlier sources in 1829-1832 .

Printing with Burmese letters began in 1816/17 on a printing press of the Mission Society of the American Baptist Churches after the missionary Adoniram Judson and his wife Ann Hasseltine Judson learned the language from 1812 and created a dictionary. He translated the Bible until 1834. The first newspapers from non-Christian organizations appeared in Rangoon in 1868 .

The Burmese language is now the official language of Burma and serves as the lingua franca for government, administration and the army . Primary school lessons, on the other hand, still often take place in one of the minority languages.

See also

literature

Scientific investigations

  • Denise Bernot: Esquisse d'une description phonologique du birman . In: Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris . No. 58 . Paris [u. a.], p. 164-224 .
  • Denise Bernot: Le prédicat en birman parlé . SELAF, Paris 1980, ISBN 2-85297-072-4 .
  • John Okell: A Reference Grammar of Colloquial Burmese . Oxford University Press, London [u. a.] 1969.
  • Justin Watkins (Ed.): Studies in Burmese linguistics . Pacific Linguistics, Canberra 2005, ISBN 0-85883-559-2 .
  • Julian Wheatley: Burmese . In: Bernard Comrie (Ed.): The world's major languages . Oxford University Press, New York [u. a.] 1990, ISBN 0-19-520521-9 , pp. 834-854 .

Textbooks

There are a number of books available for learning the Burmese language. Some of them also in German:

  • Uta Gärtner: Understanding Myanmar . Humboldt University, Berlin 2002 (4 volumes and 5 audio CDs, available from Humboldt University).
  • Eberhard Richter: Textbook of modern Burmese (colloquial language) . VEB Encyclopedia, Leipzig 1983.
  • Annemarie Esche , Eberhard Richter: Burmese exercise book . VEB Verlag Encyclopedia, Leipzig 1988.

In English:

  • William S. Cornyn: Spoken Burmese . Spoken Languages ​​Services Inc., Ithaca, NY 1979, ISBN 0-87950-020-4 (incl. 6 cassettes).
  • John Okell & Anna Allot: Burmese / Myanmar Dictionary of Grammatical Forms . Curzon Press, Richmond 2001, ISBN 0-7007-1530-4 .

Dictionaries

  • Miǎn-Hàn cídiǎn《缅 汉 词典》 / မြန်မာ - တရုတ် အဘိဓာန်. Beijing, Shāngwù yìnshūguǎn 商务印书馆 1990, ISBN 9787100010382 . (Largest bilingual dictionary, Burmese-Chinese, approx. 60,000 entries)
  • Myanmar Language Commission (ed.): Myanmar-English Dictionary / မြန်မာ - အင်္ဂလိပ် အဘိဓာန်. Yangon, 1993, ISBN 1-881265-47-1 . (Largest Burmese-English dictionary, approx. 25,000 entries)
  • Annemarie Esche: Burmese-German dictionary . 1st edition. VEB Verlag Encyclopedia, Leipzig 1976.
  • Annemarie and Otto Esche: Dictionary German - Myanma . 1st edition. Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-87548-609-4 (70,000 entries, 1040 pages).

Web links

Commons : Burmese language  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dalby (2004), p. 103