The sounds of letters
a. Vowels - ch03-1.htm
b. Consonants - ch03-2 (still to be completed)
ch03-old.htm
by U Kyaw Tun (UKT), Tun Institute of Learning,
http://www.tuninst.net
From Burmese Grammar and Grammatical Analysis
by A. W. Lonsdale, Education Department, Burma, British Burma Press, Rangoon,
1899. Copied by UKT and staff of TIL . Start: 2008 Aug.
indx-E4MS.htm |
Top
BG1899-1-indx
Contents of this page
The sounds of letters
a. Vowels - ch03-1.htm
b. Consonants - ch03-2 (still to be completed)
UKT: Young children like to see many different things for themselves. As a child I like to open my mouth wide and see the inside. No matter how I tried I always came to a limit - the limit posed on by my cheeks. If only one were to cut the cheeks a bit -- I hope you hadn't done it on yourself or on your baby sister -- you will see the uvula hanging down from the velum.
-- note the author's Pali transcriptions: á is used in place of ā , e.g., Páli for Pāli .
I am showing Lonsdale's transcriptions within Alt0171-Al0187: «...», e.g. «á»
(without slanting the character within)
• diphthong
• grapheme
• phoneme
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH)
-- note the author's Pali
transcriptions: á is used in place of ā , e.g., Páli for Pāli .
I am showing Lonsdale's transcriptions within Alt0171-Al0187: «...», e.g. «á»
(without slanting the character within)
• palatopharyngeal arch - mouth cavity
Contents of this page
Contd from p011
----- old material 
UKT 201121: The Alphabet-Letter system of Sound-to-Script representation does not follow phonetic rules, and thus Eng-Latin as well as other Euopean languages are non-phonetic. And therefore English words in English-Latin are pronounced haphazardly. To show how English words are pronounced, artificial scripts have been invented amongst which the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA is the most successful. However, Myanmar and all other scripts descended from the Asoka script, which is now called the Brahmi, are phonetic scripts. And thus, a Bur-Myan word can be pronounced as it is spelled, and you will be understood. However, since there are different dialects and regional idiolects in Myanmarpré, your pronunciation may appear "non-Burmese" to the man-on-the-street in cities like Yangon and Mandalay. Yours will probably be dubbed the Arakanese or Rakhine dialect - the dialect spoken on the west coast of Myanmarpré. Few in Myanmarpré knows that in addition to the Rakhine state where the Rakhine dialect is spoken, there are other places in country such as the Yaw region where Burmese is still spoken in its older form.
UKT: Remember the the bracket convention: <...> English words; {...} Burmese words; [...] or /.../ IPA transcription. Lonsdale does not use any convention. Remember also that IPA is font specific, and thus [a] and [ɑ] are different, however Romabama is not font-specific and Myanmars should pronounce the words according to the way Burmese is generally spoken.
The Vowels are:
The transcription given above are Lonsdale's. Differentiate them from Romabama which are shown within {...}. In the following, Lonsdale is describing the vowels in terms of the position of the tongue body with respect to the mouth cavity.
Thus an "open vowel" such as [a] {a} is a vowel produced with the tongue in its lowest position, and the air stream is passi1g through the most open space. A "close vowel such as [i] {i} is produced with the tongue in its highest position, and the air stream is passing through a narrow region (between the tongue and the roof of the mouth).
A "front vowel" such as [i] {i} is produced with the middle of the tongue body towards the front of the mouth, and a "back vowel" such as [ɑ] {au} is produced with the tongue body towards the back of the mouth.
A "round vowel" such as [u] is produced with the lips in a rounded shape, and an "unrounded vowel" such as [i] is produced with the lips in the spread shape.
The pronunciation of a vowel in a syllable without a coda consonant is different from the pronunciation of the same vowel in a syllable with a coda consonant. We use the description "free vowel" (lax vowel) and "checked vowel" (tense vowel) to differentiate the two pronunciations.
Before quantitative measurements of formants (from the measured frequencies of the sound waves) can be made, the "position" of a vowel in a specific language such as Burmese is made through personal observations by human beings trained in phonetics (phoneticians), and therefore the description is very subjective. In spite of the phonetic training, a human being is still subject to limitations imposed by the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (SWH). Therefore, when a Western phonetician insists that Burmese language has " diphthongs", his statement should be doubted. My observation is: Burmese has few and possibly no diphthongs. I think the problem had persisted from the days when linguists did not differentiate between grapheme and phoneme. (I am expecting response from my peers. -- 081020)
"A tendency to pronounce all tense mid vowels as diphthongs is one of the most noticeable accent features of English-speakers trying to speak other languages." -- Properties of Consonants and Vowels, Kevin Russell, Linguistics Department, University of Manitoba.
The problem of pronunciation of the vowels is not to be underestimated. When the problem of "short" and "long" vowels was brought to the attention of Gautama Buddha by Sanskrit speakers, the Buddha (my conclusion: Magadhi-speaker : Magadhi was a Tibeto-Burmese language) had to lay down a Viniya Rule. The incident is mentioned in the Cullavagga, V. 33. 1. The Buddha, further stated:
"Bhikkhus, you are not allowed to express the Buddha's words in Sanskrit. Those who act contrarily will be considered as having committed the offence of Dukkata
{doak~ka.Ta.}."
Anujānāmi bhikkhave sakāya niruttiyā buddhavacanaṃ pariyāpunituṃ
Pix on the right shows the four classes of society in the time of Gautama Buddha. Buddha belonged to the ruling class (shown with a long bow on the shoulder), and the Brahmin (standing next to the ruler). The Brahmins, the Sanskrit speakers, were very conscious of the pronunciation of words in reciting the religious texts.]. See the Language Problem of Primitive Buddhism by Chi Hisen-lin, Journal of the Burma Research Society, XLIII, i, June 1960. The paper is available online http://www.chibs.edu.tw/publication/LunCong/004/69_90.htm (download 070806).
{É]
has the power of <e> in <eh>, Bey [= <a> in
<mate>, <paper>]. It is represented by «e».
UKT: The pronunciation of <e> is also difficult for Burmese ESL student, who is too familiar with the pronunciations of <be> and <me>.
{è:} - The sound of this is equivalent to that of <e>
as pronounced in <there> or <held>.
It is also heard in <air>, <bear>, <care>.
It is represented by «è».
{AU:} - This has the sound of <aw>, in <awful>.
{AU} - This is pronounced, like <au> in <audacity>
with a rising inflexion of the voice. [{p010end}]
p011
19. There are two other letters which may be placed with the vowels, viz.
{ô} and
{oän}.
{ô} is the combination of the vowels
{a.},
{I.} and
{U.}
and has the sound of long <ô > as heard in <oh>,
<Leo >, <opaque>. The circle above and the line below
{a.} stand for
{I.} and
{U.}
respectively. The student will learn more about them further on.
{oän} is
a combination of the nasal
{än} and the vowel
{U.},
and has the sound of <ô > as heard in <only> with the accent
removed to the second syllable.
{ô} is a triphthong
{ti.tha.ra.},
being a blend of three vowel sounds, and
{oän} may be considered a diphthong
{dwi.tha.ra.}.
UKT: Chapter III has to be subdivided into smaller files to make the display faster. Para 20 is on the next file: ch03-2.htm .
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatopharyngeal_arch 081021
The palatopharyngeal arch (pharyngopalatine arch, posterior pillar of fauces) is larger and projects farther toward the middle line than the anterior; it runs downward, lateralward, and backward to the side of the pharynx, and is formed by the projection of the Pharyngopalatinus, covered by mucous membrane. (Wikipedia's note: This article was originally based on an entry from a public domain edition of Gray's Anatomy. As such, some of the information contained herein may be outdated. Please edit the article if this is the case, and feel free to remove this notice when it is no longer relevant.)
The inset is the faithful reproduction of a lithograph plate from Gray's Anatomy, a two-dimensional work of art, is not copyrightable in the U.S. as per Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.; the same is also true in many other countries, including Germany. Unless stated otherwise, it is from the 20th U.S. edition of Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, originally published in 1918 and therefore lapsed into the public domain. Other copies of Gray's Anatomy can be found on Bartleby and also on Yahoo!.Caption: The mouth cavity. The cheeks have been slit transversely and the tongue pulled forward.
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies worldwide.
Go back mouth-cavity-note-b
End of TIL file
