History

The Burmese alphabet was derived from the Pyu script, the Old Mon script, or directly from a South Indian script,^[3] either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet.^[1] The earliest evidence of the Burmese alphabet is dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984.^[1] Burmese calligraphy 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.^[4] A stylus would rip these leaves when making straight lines.^[4] The alphabet has undergone considerable modification to suit the evolving phonology of the Burmese language.

Arrangement

As with other Brahmic scripts, the Burmese alphabet is arranged into groups of five letters for stop consonants called wek (ဝဂ်, from Pali vagga) based on articulation. Within each group, the first letter is tenuis ("plain"), the second is the aspirated homologue, the third and fourth are the voiced homologues and the fifth is the nasal homologue. This is true of the first twenty-five letters in the Burmese alphabet, which are called grouped together as wek byi (ဝဂ်ဗျည်း, from Pali vagga byañjana). The remaining eight letters (⟨ယ⟩, ⟨ရ⟩, ⟨လ⟩, ⟨ဝ⟩, ⟨သ⟩, ⟨ဟ⟩, ⟨ဠ⟩, ⟨အ⟩) are grouped together as a wek (အဝဂ်, lit. 'without group'), as they are not arranged in any particular pattern.

Letters

A letter is a consonant or consonant cluster that occurs before the vowel of a syllable. The Burmese alphabet has 33 letters to indicate the initial consonant of a syllable and four diacritics to indicate additional consonants in the onset. Like other abugidas, including the other members of the Brahmic family, vowels are indicated in Burmese alphabet by diacritics, which are placed above, below, before or after the consonant character. A consonant character with no vowel diacritic has the inherent vowel [a̰] (often reduced to [ə] when another syllable follows in the same word).

The following table provides the letter, the syllable onset in IPA and the way the letter is referred to in Burmese, which may be either a descriptive name or just the sound of the letter, arranged in the traditional order:

• ဃ (gh), ဈ (jh), ဋ (ṭ), ဌ (ṭh), ဍ (ḍ), ဎ (ḍh), ဏ (ṇ), ဓ (dh), ဘ (bh), and ဠ (ḷ) are primarily used in words of Pali origin.
• ၐ (ś) and ၑ (ṣ) are exclusively used in Sanskrit words, as they have merged to သ in Pali.
• ည has an alternate form ဉ, used with the vowel diacritic ာ as a syllable onset and alone as a final.
• With regard to pronunciation, the corresponding letters of the dentals and alveolars are phonetically equivalent.
• In formal speech, ရ is often pronounced [ɹ] in words of Pali or foreign origin.
• အ is nominally treated as a consonant in the Burmese alphabet; it represents an initial glottal stop in syllables with no other consonant.
• The letter န (n) uses a different form when there is a diacritic under it like in နု (nu.)

Consonant letters may be modified by one or more medial diacritics (three at most), indicating an additional consonant before the vowel. These diacritics are:

• Ya pin (ယပင့်) – Written ျ (MLCTS -y-, indicating /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant (/c/, /cʱ/, /ɟ/, /ɲ/))
• Ya yit (ရရစ်) – Written ြ (MLCTS -r-, indicating /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant)
• Wa hswe (ဝဆွဲ) – Written ွ (MLCTS -w-, usually indicating /w/ medial)
• Ha hto (ဟထိုး) – ှ (MLCTS h-, indicating that a sonorant consonant is voiceless)

A few Burmese dialects use an extra diacritic to indicate the /l/ medial, which has merged to /j/ in standard Burmese:

• La hswe (လဆွဲ) – Written ္လ (MLCTS -l, indicating /l/ medial

All the possible diacritic combinations are listed below:

History

La hswe (လဆွဲ) was used in old Burmese from the Bagan to Innwa periods (12th century – 16th century), and could be combined with other diacritics (ya pin, ha hto and wa hswe) to form ္လျ ္လွ ္လှ.^[10][11] Similarly, until the Innwa period, ya pin was also combined with ya yit to form ျြ. From the early Bagan period to the 19th century, ဝ် was used instead of ော် for the rhyme /ɔ̀/ Early Burmese writing also used ဟ်, not the high tone marker း, which came into being in the 16th century. Moreover, အ်, which disappeared by the 16th century, was subscripted to represent creaky tone (now indicated with ့). During the early Bagan period, the rhyme /ɛ́/ (now represented with the diacritic ဲ) was represented with ါယ်). The diacritic combination ိုဝ် disappeared in the mid-1750s (typically designated as Middle Burmese), having been replaced with the ို combination, introduced in 1638. The standard tone markings found in modern Burmese can be traced to the 19th century.^[11]

Stacked consonants

Certain sequences of consonants are written one atop the other, or stacked. A pair of stacked consonants indicates that no vowel is pronounced between them.

For example, the word ကမ္ဘာ (kambha), which means "world", contains the stacked consonant မ္ဘ (m-bh). The first consonant is မ (m) and the second consonant is ဘ (bh). No vowel is pronounced between m and bh.

When stacked, the first consonant is written normally (i.e., not super- or subscripted). It has an implied virama ် and is the final of the preceding syllable. In the case of ကမ္ဘာ, an implied virama is applied to the first consonant (မ်), which is the final of the preceding syllable က, producing ကမ် (kam).

The second consonant is subscripted beneath the first consonant and is the onset of the following syllable. In the case of ကမ္ဘာ, ဘ is the second consonant and is the onset of ာ (the following syllable), producing ဘာ (bha).

The equivalent form of ကမ္ဘာ is thus read *ကမ်ဘာ (kambha). If the မ (m) and ဘ (bh) were not stacked (i.e., ကမဘာ), the pronunciation would be different as the inherent vowel "a" would apply to the မ (i.e., *ကမဘာ kamabha).

Stacked consonants are always homorganic (pronounced in the same place in the mouth), which is indicated by the traditional arrangement of the Burmese alphabet into the seven five-letter rows of letters (called ဝဂ်). Consonants not found in the rows beginning with က, စ, ဋ, တ, or ပ can only be doubled – that is, stacked with themselves.

Stacked consonants are largely confined to loan words from languages like Pali, Sanskrit, and occasionally English. For instance, the Burmese word for "self" (via Pali atta) is spelt အတ္တ, not *အတ်တ, although both would be read the same.

Stacked consonants are generally not found in native Burmese words, with a major exception being abbreviations. For example, the Burmese word သမီး "daughter" is sometimes abbreviated to သ္မီး, even though the stacked consonants do not belong to the same row in the ဝဂ် and a vowel is pronounced between. Similarly, လက်ဖက် "tea" is commonly abbreviated to လ္ဘက်. Also, ss is written ဿ, not သ္သ.