Burmese alphabet

For the script in general, see Mon–Burmese script.

Burmese မြန်မာအက္ခရာ
Script type	Abugida
Time period	c. 984 or 1035–present
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Burmese, Rakhine, Pali and Sanskrit
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Brahmi script Kadamba or Pallava script Pyu or Old Mon Mon–Burmese script Burmese
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mymr (350), ​Myanmar (Burmese)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Myanmar
Unicode range	U+1000–U+104F

The Burmese alphabet (Burmese: မြန်မာအက္ခရာ, MLCTS: mranma akkha.ya, pronounced [mjəmà ʔɛʔkʰəjà]) is an abugida used for writing Burmese, based on the Mon–Burmese script. It is ultimately adapted from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The Burmese alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit. In recent decades, other, related alphabets, such as Shan and modern Mon, have been restructured according to the standard of the Burmese alphabet (see Mon–Burmese script). Burmese orthography is deep, with an indirect spelling-sound correspondence between graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds), due to its long and conservative written history and voicing rules.

Burmese is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability and to avoid grammatical complications. There are several systems of transliteration into the Latin alphabet; for this article, the MLC Transcription System is used.

History

Further information: Mon–Burmese script

History

A Pali manuscript of the Buddhist text Mahaniddesa showing three different styles of the Burmese alphabet, (top) medium square, (centre) round and (bottom) outline round in red lacquer from the inside of one of the gilded covers

The Burmese alphabet was derived from the Pyu script, the Old Mon script, or directly from a South Indian script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet. 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. Burmese calligraphy originally followed a square format, as petroglyphs were a primary writing medium in Old Burmese.

The medial diacritic 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⟩. Similarly, until the Innwa period, ya pin was also combined with ya yit to form ⟨◌ျြ⟩. During the early Bagan period, the rhyme /ɛ́/, now represented with the diacritic ⟨◌ဲ⟩ was represented with ⟨◌ါယ်⟩.

The transition to Middle Burmese in the 16th century included phonological changes (e.g., mergers of sound pairs that were distinct in Old Burmese) that were accompanied by changes in the underlying orthography. The high tone marker ⟨း⟩ was introduced in the 16th century (the high tone was previously indicated with ဟ်). Moreover, ⟨အ်⟩, which disappeared by the 16th century, was subscripted to represent the creaky tone (it is now indicated with ⟨◌့⟩). The diacritic combination ⟨◌ိုဝ်⟩ disappeared in the mid-1750s, having been replaced with the ⟨◌ို⟩ combination, introduced in 1638. The rounded cursive format of Burmese took hold from the 17th century when popular writing led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known as parabaiks. A stylus would rip these leaves when making straight lines.

The standard tone markings found in modern Burmese can be traced to the 19th century. During this time, ⟨◌ော်⟩ replaced ⟨ဝ်⟩ to indicate the rhyme /ɔ̀/. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because of ambiguities that arose over transcribing sounds that had been merged. British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers.

In August 1963, the socialist Union Revolutionary Government established the Literary and Translation Commission (the immediate precursor of the Myanmar Language Commission) to standardize Burmese spelling, diction, composition, and terminology. The latest spelling authority, named the Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan (မြန်မာ စာလုံးပေါင်း သတ်ပုံ ကျမ်း), was compiled in 1978 by the commission.

Alphabet

Arrangement

As with other Brahmic scripts, the Burmese alphabet is traditionally arranged into groups called wet (ဝဂ်, from Pali vagga), each consisting of five letters for stop consonants based on articulation. Within each group:

• the first letter is tenuis and unaspirated (သိထိလ, from Pali sithila),
• the second is the aspirated homologue (ဓနိတ, from Pali dhanita,
• the third and fourth are the voiced homologues (လဟု, from Pali lahu), and
• the fifth is the nasal homologue (နိဂ္ဂဟိတ, from Pali niggahita).

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), based on articulation:

• The first group of letters, called ka wet (ကဝဂ်), are velars (ကဏ္ဍဇ, from Pali kaṇḍaja),
• the second group of letters, called sa wet (စဝဂ်) are palatals (တာလုဇ, from Pali tāluja),
• the third group of letters, called ta wet (ဋဝဂ်) are alveolars (မုဒ္ဓဇ, from Pali muddhaja),
• the fourth group of letters, called ta wet (တဝဂ်) are classified as dentals (ဒန္တဇ, from Pali dantaja) but pronounced as alveolars, and
• the fifth group of letters, called pa wet (ပဝဂ်) are labials (ဩဋ္ဌဇ, from Pali oṭṭhaja)

The remaining eight letters ⟨ယ⟩, ⟨ရ⟩, ⟨လ⟩, ⟨ဝ⟩, ⟨သ⟩, ⟨ဟ⟩, ⟨ဠ⟩, ⟨အ⟩ are grouped together as a-wek (အဝဂ်, Pali avagga, lit. 'without group'), as they are not arranged according to phonemic principles.

Consonant letters

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, each consonant has an inherent vowel /a̰/ (often reduced to /ə/), while other vowels are indicated in by diacritics, which are placed above, below, before or after the consonant character.

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

Letter	MLC	IPA	Name	Name (IPA)	Notes
က	k	/k/	ကကြီး	[ka̰ dʑí]
ခ	hk	/kʰ/	ခကွေး	[kʰa̰ ɡwé]
ဂ	g	/ɡ/	ဂငယ်	[ɡa̰ ŋɛ̀]
ဃ	gh	/ɡ/	ဃကြီး	[ɡa̰ dʑí]
င	ng	/ŋ/	င	[ŋa̰]
စ	c	/s/	စလုံး	[sa̰ lóʊɰ̃]
ဆ	hc	/sʰ/	ဆလိမ်	[sʰa̰ lèɪɰ̃]
ဇ	j	/z/	ဇကွဲ	[za̰ ɡwɛ́]
ဈ	jh	/z/	ဈမျဉ်းဆွဲ	[za̰ mjɪ̀ɰ̃ zwɛ́]
ည	ny	/ɲ/	ညကြီး	[ɲa̰ dʑí]
ဋ	t	/t/	ဋသန်လျင်းချိတ်	[ta̰ təlɪ́ɰ̃ dʑeɪʔ]
ဌ	ht	/tʰ/	ဌဝမ်းဘဲ	[tʰa̰ wʊ́ɰ̃ bɛ́]
ဍ	d	/d/	ဍရင်ကောက်	[da̰ jɪ̀ɰ̃ ɡaʊʔ]
ဎ	dh	/d/	ဎရေမှုတ်	[da̰ jè m̥oʊʔ]
ဏ	n	/n/	ဏကြီး	[na̰ dʑí]
တ	t	/t/	တဝမ်းပူ	[ta̰ wʊ́ɰ̃ bù]
ထ	ht	/tʰ/	ထဆင်ထူး	[tʰa̰ sʰɪ̀ɰ̃ dú]
ဒ	d	/d/	ဒထွေး	[da̰ dwé]
ဓ	dh	/d/	ဓအောက်ခြိုက်	[da̰ ʔaʊʔ tɕʰaɪʔ]
န	n	/n/	နငယ်	[na̰ ŋɛ̀]
ပ	p	/p/	ပစောက်	[pa̰ zaʊʔ]
ဖ	hp	/pʰ/	ဖဦးထုပ်	[pʰa̰ ʔóʊʔ tʰoʊʔ]
ဗ	b	/b/	ဗထက်ခြိုက်	[ba̰ tɛʔ tɕʰaɪʔ]
ဘ	bh	/b/	ဘကုန်း	[ba̰ ɡóʊɰ̃]
မ	m	/m/	မ	[ma̰]
ယ	y	/j/	ယပက်လက်	[ja̰ pɛʔ lɛʔ]
ရ	r	/j/	ရကောက်‌	[ja̰ ɡaʊʔ]
လ	l	/l/	လငယ်	[la̰ ŋɛ̀]
ဝ	w	/w/	ဝ‌	[wa̰]
သ	s	/θ/	သ‌	[θa̰]
ဟ	h	/h/	ဟ‌	[ha̰]
ဠ	l	/l/	ဠကြီး	[la̰ dʑí]
အ	a	/ʔ/	အ	[ʔa̰]

Vowel letters

Burmese also has seven letters to indicate independent vowels; these are primarily used when spelling words of Pali or Sanskrit etymology:

Letter	MLC	IPA	Equivalent
ဣ	i.	/ʔḭ/	အိ
ဤ	i	/ʔì/	အီ
ဥ	u.	/ʔṵ/	အု
ဦ	u	/ʔù/	အူ
ဧ	e	/ʔè/	အေ
ဩ	au:	/ʔɔ́/	အော
ဪ	au	/ʔɔ̀/	အော်

Consonant stacking

Burmese uses consonant stacking, whereby specific two-letter combinations can be written one atop the other, or stacked — the first consonant letter is written normally (i.e., not super- or subscripted), while the second is stacked underneath the first one. Consonant stacking has an implied virama ⟨◌်⟩, thus suppressing the inherent vowel of the first letter. For instance, 'world' ⟨ကမ္ဘာ⟩ is read ⟨ကမ်ဘာ⟩ (kambha), not ⟨ကမဘာ⟩ kamabha).

Stacked consonants are largely confined to loan words from Indic languages like Pali, Sanskrit, and occasionally English. For instance, the Burmese word for 'self' (via Pali atta) is spelt ⟨အတ္တ⟩, not ⟨အတ်တ⟩, although both are pronounced identically. Stacked consonants are generally not found in native Burmese words, except as informal abbreviations. For example, the 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 as ⟨လ္ဘက်⟩.

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 groups of letters (called wet or ဝဂ်). Consonants not found in the rows beginning with ⟨က⟩ ⟨စ⟩ ⟨ဋ⟩ ⟨တ⟩ or ⟨ပ⟩ can only be doubled — that is, stacked with themselves. The combination of -ss- is written ⟨ဿ⟩, instead of ⟨သ္သ⟩.

Group	Possible combinations	MLC	Example
Ka wet	က္က, က္ခ, ဂ္ဂ, ဂ္ဃ	kk, kkh, gg, ggh	dukkha. (ဒုက္ခ), 'suffering'
Sa wet	စ္စ, စ္ဆ, ဇ္ဇ, ဇ္ဈ, ဉ္စ, ဉ္ဆ, ဉ္ဇ, ဉ္ဈ	cc, cch, jj, jjh, nyc, nych, nyj, nyjh	wijja (ဝိဇ္ဇာ), 'knowledge'
Ta wet	ဋ္ဋ, ဋ္ဌ, ဍ္ဍ, ဍ္ဎ, ဏ္ဋ, ဏ္ဍ, ဏ္ဌ	tt, tth, dd, ddh, nt, nd	kanda. (ကဏ္ဍ), 'section'
Ta wet	တ္တ, တ္ထ, ဒ္ဒ, ဒ္ဓ, န္တ, န္ထ, န္ဒ, န္ဓ, န္န	tt, tth, dd, ddh, nt, nth, nd, ndh, nn	sadda (သဒ္ဒါ), 'vowel'
Pa wet	ပ္ပ, ပ္ဖ, ဗ္ဗ, ဗ္ဘ, မ္ပ, မ္ဗ, မ္ဘ, မ္မ	pp, pph, bb, bbh, mp, mb, mbh, mm	kambha (ကမ္ဘာ), 'world'
A-wet	ဿ, လ္လ, ဠ္ဠ	ss, ll, ll	pissa (ပိဿာ), 'viss'

Stroke order

Stroke order and direction of Burmese consonants

Burmese letters are written with a specific stroke order. The letter forms are based on circles. Typically, one circle should be done with one stroke, and all circles are written clockwise. Exceptions are mostly letters with an opening on top. The circle of these letters is written with two strokes coming from opposite directions.

The ten following letters are exceptions to the clockwise rule: ⟨ပ⟩, ⟨ဖ⟩, ⟨ဗ⟩, ⟨မ⟩, ⟨ယ⟩, ⟨လ⟩, ⟨ဟ⟩, ⟨ဃ⟩, ⟨ဎ⟩, ⟨ဏ⟩. Some versions of stroke order may be slightly different.

The Burmese stroke order can be learned from ⟨ပထမတန်း မြန်မာဖတ်စာ ၂၀၁၇-၂၀၁၈⟩ (Burmese Grade 1, 2017-2018), a textbook published by the Burmese Ministry of Education. The book is available under the LearnBig project of UNESCO. Other resources include the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University and an online learning resource published by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan.

Diacritics

Burmese employs numerous combinations of diacritics to mark medial consonants, vowels and tones.

Medial diacritics

Burmese has 5 medial diacritics. Consonant letters may be modified by up to three medial diacritics at a time, to indicate additional consonants before the vowel. These diacritics are:

Diacritic	Name	MLC	Usage
ျ	ya pin (ယပင့်)	-y-	Indicates /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant (/c/, /cʱ/, /ɟ/, /ɲ/)
ြ	ya yit (ရရစ်)	-r-	Indicates /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant (/c/, /cʱ/, /ɟ/, /ɲ/)
ွ	wa hswe (ဝဆွဲ)	-w-	Indicates /w/ medial in open syllables or, variously, /ʊ̀/ or /wà/ in closed syllables. In open syllables it may also be combined with the vowel marks ⟨ ေ⟩ ⟨ ဲ⟩ ⟨ာ⟩ ⟨ါ⟩ ⟨ယ်⟩ and the tone markers to add a medial /w/ between the initial and vowel. Rarely found in the combinations ⟨◌ွိုင်⟩ and ⟨◌ွိုက်⟩ to transcribe the /ɔɪ/ vowel of English.
ှ	ha hto (ဟထိုး)	h-	Indicates that a sonorant consonant is voiceless
္လ	la hswe (လဆွဲ)	-l-	Indicates /l/ medial in a few conservative Burmese dialects, now obsolete in standard Burmese

All of the possible medial diacritic combinations are listed below, using with ⟨မ⟩ [m] as a sample letter:

Diacritic	Letter	IPA	MLC	Notes
ျ	မျ	[mj]	my
	မျှ	[m̥j]	hmy
	မျွ	[mw]	myw
	မျွှ	[m̥w]	hmyw
ြ	မြ	[mj]	mr
	မြှ	[m̥j]	hmr
	မြွ	[mw]	mrw
	မြွှ	[m̥w]	hmrw
ွ	မွ	[mw]	mw
	မွှ	[m̥w]	hmw
ှ	မှ	[m̥]	hm

Tone and vowel diacritics

Burmese has several vowel diacritics that also indicate an inherent tone:

Diacritic	Name(s)	MLC	Usage
◌့	အောက်မြစ်	.	Creates creaky tone. Only used with nasal finals or vowels which inherently indicate a low or high tone.
◌း	ဝစ္စပေါက်, ဝိသဇ္ဇနီ, ရှေ့ကပေါက်, ရှေ့ဆီး	:	Visarga; creates high tone. Can follow a nasal final marked with virama, or a vowel which inherently implies creaky tone or low tone.
◌ာ or ါ	ရေးချ, မောက်ချ, ဝိုက်ချ	-	When used alone, it indicates /à/. Generically referred to as ရေးချ}} /jéːtʃʰa̰/ this diacritic takes two distinct forms. By default it is written ⟨◌ာ⟩ which is called ⟨ဝိုက်ချ⟩ /waɪʔtʃʰa̰/ for specificity, but to avoid ambiguity when following the consonants ⟨ခ ဂ င ဒ ပ ဝ⟩, it is written tall as ⟨◌ါ⟩ and called ⟨မောက်ချ⟩ /maʊʔtʃʰa̰/. Although typically not permissible in closed syllables, solitary ⟨◌ာ⟩ or ⟨◌ါ⟩ can be found in some words of Pali origin such as ⟨ဓာတ်⟩ (essence, element) or ⟨မာန်⟩ (pride).
◌ေ	သဝေထိုး	-	Indicates /è/. Generally only permissible in open syllables, but occasionally found in closed syllables in loan words such as ⟨မေတ္တာ⟩ (metta)
◌ော ◌ေါ	–	aw:	A combination of ⟨◌ေ⟩ and ⟨◌ာ⟩ or ⟨◌ါ⟩. Indicates /ɔ́/ in open syllables or /àʊ/ before ⟨က⟩ or ⟨င⟩. The low-tone variant of this vowel in open syllables is written ⟨◌ော်⟩ or ⟨◌ေါ်⟩.
◌ေါ်	သဝေထိုးရေးချရှေ့ထိုး	aw	used to denote ⟨◌ော်⟩ in some letters to avoid confusion for ⟨က, တ, ဘ, ဟ, အ⟩.
◌ဲ	နောက်ပစ်	e:	Indicates /ɛ́/. Only found in open syllables.
◌ု	တစ်ချောင်းငင်	u.	When used alone, indicates /ṵ/ in open syllables or /ɔ̀ʊ/ in closed syllables.
◌ူ	နှစ်ချောင်းငင်	u	Indicates /ù/. Only found in open syllables.
◌ိ	လုံးကြီးတင်	i.	Indicates /ḭ/ in open syllables, or /èɪ/ in closed syllables.
◌ီ	လုံးကြီးတင်ဆံခတ်	i	Indicates /ì/. Only found in open syllables.
◌ို	–	ui	Indicates /ò/ in open syllables, or /aɪ/ before ⟨က⟩ or ⟨င⟩. A combination of the ⟨◌ိ⟩ i and ⟨◌ု⟩ u vowel diacritics.

Final diacritics

Burmese finals are indicated by the following diacritics:

Diacritic	Name(s)	MLC	Usage
◌်	အသတ်, တံခွန် ရှေ့ထိုး	-	Virama; this mark is called asat in Burmese (Burmese: အသတ်; MLCTS: a.sat, [ʔa̰θaʔ]), which means "nonexistence" (see Sat (Sanskrit)). Deletes the inherent vowel, thereby making a syllable final consonant, most often with ⟨က င စ ည (ဉ) ဏ တ န ပ မ⟩ and occasionally other consonants in loan words. It is also used as a marginal tone marker, creating low-tone variants of the two inherently high-tone vowel symbols: ⟨ယ်⟩ which is the low tone variant /ɛ̀/ of ⟨ယ⟩ (by default /ɛ́/), and ⟨◌ော်⟩ and ⟨◌ေါ်⟩ both of which are the low tone variants /ɔ̀/ of ⟨◌ော⟩ and ⟨◌ေါ⟩ (by default {{IPA|/ɔ́/). In this context the ⟨◌်⟩ symbol is called ⟨ရှေ့ထိုး⟩ /ʃḛtʰó/.
◌င်	ကင်းစီး	ng	Superscripted miniature version of ⟨င်⟩; phonetic equivalent nasalized ⟨င်⟩ ([ìɰ̃]) final. Found mainly in Pali and Sanskrit loans (e.g. "Tuesday," spelled အင်္ဂါ and not အင်ဂါ).
◌ံ	သေးသေးတင်	-	Anusvara, within multisyllabic words it functions as a homorganic nasal. Word finally it functions like a final -m, changing the vowel and implying a low tone by default, although it may be combined with tone markers to create high or creaky tone syllables. It is most commonly used alone or combined with the vowel ို; however, it may also be combined with ⟨◌ွ⟩ or ⟨◌ိ⟩. Combined to form ⟨ ုံ့⟩ ⟨◌ုံ⟩ ⟨ ုံ့း⟩, which changes the rhyme to /o̰ʊɰ̃ òʊɰ̃ óʊɰ̃/ respectively.
◌ၖ			used exclusively for Sanskrit r̥
◌ၗ			used exclusively for Sanskrit r̥̄

Orthography

Sampling of various Burmese script styles

Burmese has a deep orthography, with a one-to-many relationship between phonemes and graphemes. While the pronunciation can be deduced for the majority of words, many Burmese words have spellings with irregular pronunciations, especially words of Indic and foreign etymology. Several phonemic changes, including vowel weakening and voicing of consonants (e.g., in compound words) is not transcribed. An example is the words 'to link' ([tɕʰeɪʔ]) and 'hook' ([dʑeɪʔ]), both of which are spelt ⟨ချိတ်⟩.

Burmese orthography remains conservative, with spellings that preserve rhymes and consonants that have since merged. Due to its conservatism, Burmese spellings have been used to reconstruct earlier stages of the Burmese language and in Tibeto-Burman historical linguistics. Burmese orthography has preserved all the nasalized finals [-n, -m, -ŋ], which have merged to [-ɰ̃] in spoken Burmese. Similarly, Burmese orthography has preserved the consonantal finals [-s, -p, -t, -k], which have since been reduced to [-ʔ]. Burmese has retained a number of phonetically redundant letters primarily used to spell words of Indic origin:

Phoneme	Grapheme	MLC
/ɡ/	ဂ	g
	ဃ	gh
/z/	ဇ	j
	ဈ	jh
/t/	ဋ	t
	တ	t
/tʰ/	ဌ	ht
	ထ	ht
/d/	ဒ	d
	ဓ	dh
/n/	ဏ	n
	န	n
/b/	ဗ	b
	ဘ	bh
/j/	ယ	y
	ရ	r
/l/	လ	l
	ဠ	l
/ʔḭ/	ဣ	i.
	အိ	i.
/ʔì/	ဤ	i
	အီ	i
/ʔṵ/	ဥ	u.
	အု	u.
/ʔù/	ဦ	u
	အူ	u
/ʔè/	ဧ	e
	အေ	e
/ʔɔ́/	ဩ	au:
	အော	au:
/ʔɔ̀/	ဪ	au
	အော်	au

Since Old Burmese, Burmese has assimilated thousands of Indic words, especially from the classical languages of Pali and Sanskrit. These borrowings can be deduced from orthography, with later borrowings adopting more orthographically correct loans. Examples include words like ⟨သဘော⟩ ('disposition') and ⟨သဘာဝ⟩ ('nature'), both from Pali sabhāva.

Syllable rhymes

The following lists all the permissible syllable rhymes (i.e., vowels and any consonants that may follow them within the same syllable) and their spellings (graphemes); these rhymes are written using a combination of diacritic marks and consonant letters.

Open syllables

Syllable rhymes of Burmese, used with the letter က [k] as a sample

Phoneme	Grapheme	MLC	Remarks
[ka̰]	က	ka.	[a̰] is the inherent vowel, and is not indicated by any diacritic. In theory, virtually any written syllable that is not the final syllable of a word can be pronounced with the vowel [ə] (with no tone and no syllable-final [-ʔ] or [-ɰ̃]) as its rhyme. In practice, the bare consonant letter alone is the most common way of spelling syllables whose rhyme is [ə].
[kà]	ကာ	ka	Takes the alternative form ါ with certain consonants, e.g. ဂါ ga [ɡà].
[ká]	ကား	ka:	Takes the alternative form ါး with certain consonants, e.g. ဂါး ga: [ɡá].
[kɛ̰]	ကဲ့	kai.
	ကည့်	kany
[kɛ̀]	ကယ်	kai
	ကည်	kany.
[kɛ́]	ကဲ	kai:
	ကည်း	kany:
[kḭ]	ကိ	ki.	As an open vowel, [ʔḭ] is represented by ဣ.
	ကည့်	kany
[kì]	ကီ	ki	As an open vowel, [ʔì] is represented by ဤ.
	ကည်	kany.
[kí]	ကီး	ki:
	ကည်း	kany:
[kṵ]	ကု	ku.	As an open vowel, [ʔṵ] is represented by ဥ.
[kù]	ကူ	ku	As an open vowel, [ʔù] is represented by ဦ.
[kú]	ကူး	ku:	As an open vowel, [ʔú] is represented by ဦး.
[kḛ]	ကေ့	ke.
[kè]	ကေ	ke	As an open vowel, [ʔè] is represented by ဧ.
[ké]	ကေး	ke:	As an open vowel, [ʔé] is represented by ဧး.
[kɔ̰]	ကော့	kau.	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ့ gau. [ɡɔ̰].
[kɔ̀]	ကော်	kau	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ် gau [ɡɔ̀]. As an open vowel, [ʔɔ̀] is represented by ဪ.
[kɔ́]	ကော	kau:	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ gau: [ɡɔ́]. As an open vowel, [ʔɔ́] is represented by ဩ.
[ko̰]	ကို့	kui.
[kò]	ကို	kui
[kó]	ကိုး	kui:

Closed glottal stop syllables

Syllable rhymes of Burmese, used with the letter က [k] as a sample

Phoneme	Grapheme	MLC	Remarks
[kɛʔ]	ကက်	kak
[kɪʔ]	ကစ်	kac
[kaʔ]	ကတ်	kat
	ကပ်	kap
[kʊʔ]	ကွပ်	kwap
	ကွတ်	kwat
[keɪʔ]	ကိပ်	kip
	ကိတ်	kit
[koʊʔ]	ကုတ်	kut
	ကုပ်	kup
[kaʊʔ]	ကောက်	kauk	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါက် gauk [ɡaʊʔ].
[kaɪʔ]	ကိုက်	kuik

Closed nasalised syllables

Syllable rhymes of Burmese, used with the letter က [k] as a sample

Phoneme	Grapheme	MLC	Remarks
[kɪ̀ɰ̃]	ကင်	kang
	ကဉ်	kany
[kɪ̰ɰ̃]	ကင့်	kang.
	ကဉ့်	kany.
[kɪ́ɰ̃]	ကင်း	kang:
	ကဉ်း	kany:
[kàɰ̃]	ကန်	kan
	ကမ်	kam
	ကံ	kam
[ka̰ɰ̃]	ကန့်	kan.
	ကမ့်	kam.
	ကံ့	kam.
[káɰ̃]	ကန်း	kan:
	ကမ်း	kam:
	ကံး	kam:
[kèɪɰ̃]	ကိန်	kin
	ကိမ်	kim
	ကိံ	kim
[kḛɪɰ̃]	ကိန့်	kin.
	ကိမ့်	kim.
	ကိံ့	kim.
[kéɪɰ̃]	ကိန်း	kin:
	ကိမ်း	kim:
	ကိံး	kim:
[kòʊɰ̃]	ကုန်	kun
	ကုမ်	kum
	ကုံ	kum
[ko̰ʊɰ̃]	ကုန့်	kun.
	ကုမ့်	kum.
	ကုံ့	kum.
[kóʊɰ̃]	ကုန်း	kun:
	ကုမ်း	kum:
	ကုံး	kum:
[kàʊɰ̃]	ကောင်	kaung	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင် gaung [ɡàʊɰ̃].
[ka̰ʊɰ̃]	ကောင့်	kaung.	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင့် gaung. [ɡa̰ʊɰ̃].
[káʊɰ̃]	ကောင်း	kaung:	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင်း gaung: [ɡáʊɰ̃].
[kàɪɰ̃]	ကိုင်	kuing
[ka̰ɪɰ̃]	ကိုင့်	kuing.
[káɪɰ̃]	ကိုင်း	kuing:
[kʊ̀ɰ̃]	ကွန်	kwan
	ကွမ်	kwam
[kʊ̰ɰ̃]	ကွန့်	kwan.
	ကွမ့်	kwam.
[kʊ́ɰ̃]	ကွန်း	kwan:
	ကွမ်း	kwam:

Numerals

Main article: Burmese numerals

Burmese uses a decimal numbering system, with unique symbols for the digits from zero to nine - ၀၁၂၃၄၅၆၇၈၉ (Unicode 1040 to 1049). Numbers are written in the same order as Hindu–Arabic numerals. The number 1945 is written ⟨၁၉၄၅⟩. Separators, such as commas, are not traditionally used to group numbers.

Punctuation and other symbols

Burmese has two primary punctuation marks, each drawn as one or two downward strokes:

• ⟨၊⟩ (called ပုဒ်ဖြတ်, ပုဒ်ကလေး, ပုဒ်ထီး, or တစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်) - comma,
• ⟨။⟩ (called ပုဒ်ကြီး, ပုဒ်မ, or နှစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်) - full stop.

Literary Burmese also uses a number of abbreviated symbols:

• ⟨၏⟩ – possessive ( 's, of), also used as a full stop if the sentence immediately ends with a verb
• ⟨၍⟩ – conjunction
• ⟨၌⟩ – locative ('at')
• ⟨၎င်း⟩ – 'ditto' or 'ibid.' (typically used in columns and lists)

Unicode

Main article: Myanmar (Unicode block)

The Burmese script was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0.

The Unicode block for Myanmar is U+1000–U+109F:

Myanmar[1] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+100x

က

ခ

ဂ

ဃ

င

စ

ဆ

ဇ

ဈ

ဉ

ည

ဋ

ဌ

ဍ

ဎ

ဏ

U+101x

တ

ထ

ဒ

ဓ

န

ပ

ဖ

ဗ

ဘ

မ

ယ

ရ

လ

ဝ

သ

ဟ

U+102x

ဠ

အ

ဢ

ဣ

ဤ

ဥ

ဦ

ဧ

ဨ

ဩ

ဪ

ါ

ာ

ိ

ီ

ု

U+103x

ူ

ေ

ဲ

ဳ

ဴ

ဵ

ံ

့

း

္

်

ျ

ြ

ွ

ှ

ဿ

U+104x

၀

၁

၂

၃

၄

၅

၆

၇

၈

၉

၊

။

၌

၍

၎

၏

U+105x

ၐ

ၑ

ၒ

ၓ

ၔ

ၕ

ၖ

ၗ

ၘ

ၙ

ၚ

ၛ

ၜ

ၝ

ၞ

ၟ

U+106x

ၠ

ၡ

ၢ

ၣ

ၤ

ၥ

ၦ

ၧ

ၨ

ၩ

ၪ

ၫ

ၬ

ၭ

ၮ

ၯ

U+107x

ၰ

ၱ

ၲ

ၳ

ၴ

ၵ

ၶ

ၷ

ၸ

ၹ

ၺ

ၻ

ၼ

ၽ

ၾ

ၿ

U+108x

ႀ

ႁ

ႂ

ႃ

ႄ

ႅ

ႆ

ႇ

ႈ

ႉ

ႊ

ႋ

ႌ

ႍ

ႎ

ႏ

U+109x

႐

႑

႒

႓

႔

႕

႖

႗

႘

႙

ႚ

ႛ

ႜ

ႝ

႞

႟

Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0

See also

• Romanization of Burmese
• Mon–Burmese script
• Burmese Braille
• Burmese respelling of the English alphabet

Bibliography

• "A History of the Myanmar Alphabet" (PDF). Myanmar Language Commission. 1993. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 March 2010. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
• Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005). The Mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma (illustrated ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-2886-8.
• Harvey, G. E. (1925). History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
• Herbert, Patricia M.; Anthony Milner (1989). South-East Asia. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1267-6.
• Hosken, Martin. (2012). "Representing Myanmar in Unicode: Details and Examples" (ver. 4). Unicode Technical Note 11.
• Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7.
• Sawada, Hideo. (2013). "Some Properties of Burmese Script". Presented at the 23rd Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS23), Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

External links

• Burmese/Myanmar script and pronunciation at Omniglot
• Myanmar Unicode Character Picker Archived 9 December 2012 at archive.today
• Myanmar Unicode Implementation Public Awareness
• ALA-LC romanization system for Burmese
• BGN/PCGN romanization system for Burmese

Fonts supporting Burmese characters

• Burmese Wikipedia:Font page
• Burmese Unicode & NLP Research Centre

Font сonverters

• Legacy Font-Unicode Converter
• Zawgyi-Unicode Converter