has the sound /ka/ because
has the inherent vowel /a/. Characters such as
are known as aksharas
{akhkara} and are the basic characters of an abugida which is also known as
alpha-syllabary intro.htm
by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR.
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indx-Pdict
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Ever since I came to know how to type in English (over 60 years ago), my life-long desire has been to come up with a transcription of Burmese in Latin (English) alphabet. However, because of the changing nature of the English vowels, transcription of Burmese is almost impossible at the present, and I have decided to start with a transliteration of Burmese-Myanmar akshara into Burmese-Latin (English) alphabet.
The reader would notice that I am using two different words for what is generally regarded as the same. Though I am a chemist, I soon learned while studying linguistics, that it is very important to differentiate between the spoken language (technically: language) and the written language (technically: script). Few realised that English, French and Spanish are languages and they all use the basic Latin script with some special characters (diacritics) for each language, e.g. è and é for French and ñ for Spanish. Similarly we must realised that Hindi and Sanskrit are languages and both are written in Devanagari script; and Burmese, Karen, Mon and Shan are languages and they are all written in Myanmar script. Pali is a language and is written in many scripts: Devanagari, Latin (English), Myanmar, Sinhala-script, Thai-script, etc.
One difficulty in transliteration is the rarely recognised fact that English
is written in an
alphabet where the consonantal characters have no sound, whereas Myanmar
(and all scripts derived from Brahmi) is written in an
abugida where
the characters have sounds of their own. Thus, the English letter k has
no sound. It can come to have a sound only when a vowel such as a is
present. In English ka has the sound /ka/, because of the vowel a.
In Myanmar
has the sound /ka/ because
has the inherent vowel /a/. Characters such as
are known as aksharas
{akhkara} and are the basic characters of an abugida which is also known as
alpha-syllabary
Before I can tackle the Myanmar script, I felt I would go through M-Pali (Pali in Myanmar script), because E-Pali (Pali in English-Latin script) is well established, and there are already dictionaries on Pali in M-Pali and E-Pali.
I am basing this work on A Pali Myanmar English Dictionary of the Noble Words of the Lord Buddha, by U Myat Kyaw and U San Lwin, Yangon, Myanmar, 2002.
theravada
{hte-ra.wa-da.}
UKT explanation: The human-brain may be likened to a computer (computing
machine). Input data are received by the mouth (tongue), the nose, the eyes, the
ears and the skin (the five-sense doors or kāya-dvāra
).
The data-processing takes place in the brain which is the hard-ware. The various
soft-ware programs are the "ideas" and "concepts" which have been installed and
which are being updated all the time. The out-puts are of three kinds: physical
action (performed mostly by hands), vocal action (performed by mouth), and
mental action (performed by the mind). Output can also result from processing of
data already in the brain. In order to completely control the outputs, the
person would have to control all the five sense-doors plus the mental activity
occurring in the brain or mind.
UKT apology: I must admit that I know next to nothing of Buddhism relating to
abhi-dhammā
. The following is what I understand of the mental processes
described in it. Please note that as my understanding of the subject deepens, my
views would change, and what reading below should be taken only at its face
value and should be considered as likely to be changed.
The mental processes can be likened to what is happening in a computer. First, we should be clear that what is happening in a human is taking place in the brain and not in the heart. The heart is not the organ of consciousness. It is a very simple machine responsible for blood circulation throughout the human body.
However, the brain is the central processing unit (CPU) and is the
"hardware". Therefore the word kāya
is the brain and not the whole human body. The keyboard and the mouse of the
computer are where the input into the computer occurs. They are similar to the
sense-doors or kāya-dwāra
.
In other words kāya-dwāra are the input terminals. As you press a key,
say the key A, an electrical signal is sent to the CPU, and the CPU turns its
attention to the incoming signal. The CPU can do that, because a soft-ware with
instructions, telling the various computing units how to process the signal has
been installed. The signal "A" is first turned into binary-units, and it is
these that should be likened to kāya-dwāra-vīthi
. Therefore, I hesitate to translate vīthi
as "consciousness". At best it should be termed "proto-consciousness".
From: Source Material on Pagan, and its location at Sydney University,
http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/~hudson/pagan_bibliog.htm
Aung-Thwin, Michael. 1998 Myth and history in the
historiography of early Burma : paradigms, primary sources, and prejudices
Fisher Research 959.102 12 This is the university's summary from the catalogue:
"After a careful re-reading of primary sources written in Old Burmese, author
Michael A. Aung-Thwin set about tracing the history of five key events that took
place during the Kingdom of Pagan in order to disentangle that history from
myth. He found that four of the five events, which have been considered the most
important in the history of early Burma, are actually inventions of
late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial historians caught in their own
intellectual and political world. A fifth is a genuine indigenous Burmese myth,
but it too has been embellished by modern historians. Aung-Thwin concludes that
these five key events, which have been taught as Burmese history for the past
hundred years, actually have no basis in history."
Aung-Thwin, Michael. 1985 Pagan : The Origins Of
Modern Burma Fisher Research 959.102 6 Professor of Asian Studies at the
University of Hawaii, he is the leading modern scholar of Pagan.
I am of the opinion that Bama (written in Myanmar
script) and
Māgadhī
{ma-ga.hdi} were
both monosyllabic languages -- at least, Māgadhī was, before coming under the
influence of Sanskrit. Pāḷi
, which to me is Sanskritised-Magadi, would have many
things in common with European languages. An example is
liaison illustrated in mahoga
(or mahā ogha
) -- a great flood -- PTS p164.
Liaison, in Linguistics, is the case of two syllables (or words) joining together to form one word. See liaison in Daniel Jones Pronouncing Dictionary. The following is from AHDT: "Linguistics Pronunciation of the usually silent final consonant of a word when followed by a word beginning with a vowel, especially in French. [French from Old French from Latin ligātiō ligātiōn -- from ligātus, past participle of ligāreto bind; See ligate]" . Since Pali syllables are of CV or CVÇ (where Ç is the killed consonant) type, liaison is to be expected with words beginning with vowels.
We do not find liaison in Bama written in Myanmar-script. In fact, I came across liaison only when I studied French. However, liaison is to be expected in spoken Bama which to me is a very lax language. Many of my Canadian friends (please note that Canada is partly French) who after hearing me speak Bama (or Burmese) remark that it is very much like French.
Maintaining euphony (agreeable or harmonious sound) in French
http://french.about.com/cs/pronunciation/a/euphony.htmIn French, there are certain rules about maintaining euphony; that is, agreeable or harmonious sound. French is a very musical language because it tends to flow from one word to the next with no hiatus (pause). In situations where euphony doesn't happen naturally, French requires that sounds be added or words changed.
As a general rule, French does not like to have a word that ends in a vowel sound followed by a word that begins with a vowel sound. The pause created between two vowel sounds, called a hiatus, is undesirable in French, so the following techniques are used to avoid it [brackets indicate pronunciation]:
1.Contractions
Contractions avoid the hiatus by dropping the vowel at the end of the first word.
For example: le ami [leu a mee] becomes l'ami [la mee]2.Liaisons
Liaisons transfer the normally silent sound at the end of the first word onto the beginning of the second word.
For example: vous avez is pronounced [vu za vay] instead of [vu a vay]3. T inversion
When inversion results in a verb ending in a vowel + il or elle, a T is added between the two words to avoid hiatus.
For example: a-il [a eel] becomes a-t-il [a teel]4. Special adjective forms
Nine adjectives have special forms used in front of words that begin with a vowel.
For example: ce homme [seu uhm] becomes cet homme [seh tuhm]5. L'on
Putting l' in front of on avoids the hiatus. L'on may also be used to avoid saying qu'on (sounds like con).
For example: si on [see o(n)] becomes si l'on [see lo(n)]In addition to the hiatus-avoiding techniques above, there is an additional way in which French increases euphony: enchaînement.
Enchaînement is the transfer of the sound at the end of one word onto the word that follows, such as in the phrase belle âme. The L sound at the end of belle would be pronounced even if the next word began with a consonant, which is what distinguishes enchaînement from liaison. Thus, enchaînement does not avoid hiatus the way liaison does, because there is no hiatus after a word that ends in a consonant sound. However, what enchaînement does is make the two words flow together, so that when you say belle âme, it sounds like [beh lahm] instead of [bel ahm]. Enchaînement thus increases the musicality of the phrase.
Though we do not find liaison in Bama written in Myanmar-script, it is to be expected in spoken Bama. The following is probably such a case.
One word coined by the Myanmar bus conductors (on buses plying
between central Yangon and Kemmendine) that had intrigued me for a long time was
"whitall" formed from two English words "white" and "hall". Since Bama syllables
end in vowels, the bus conductors, in pronouncing the word "white", have to
soften the end t. And, since the h in "hall" is a semivowel, the two words
"white" and "hall" are joined together to form "whitall".
Referee U Saw Tun pointed out to me that this is a case of sandhi
{than~Di} .
sandhi
sandhi -- liaison, euphonic junction
sara-sandhi -- vowel liaison
vyañjana-sandhi -- vowel-consonant liaison
niggahīta-sandhi -- liaison with niggahīta
-- www.tipitaka.net/pali/pgt/
In a publication from
(Distance-teaching University), Ministry of Education (Higher Education
Directorate), Myanmar (publication date: October 1999), the Myanmar "akshara"
{akhkara} is given as a table of "killed" consonants. However, since, the
characters have their inherent vowels killed, they are technically not akshara
but letters of the alphabet like those of Roman. The following is my
reproduction of the said table.
| The front-cover of the publication in which Myanmar script is given as an alphabet. |
Myanmar alphabet |
|
 |
 |
sanskrit
{thin°th-ka-reik}, or
{thak-ka.ta.}
Though Myanmar Buddhism is of Pali origin, astrology in Myanmar is heavily under the influence of Sanskrit. Buddhism does not encourage astrology, whereas Hinduism (the religion of the Sanskrit speakers) does. That many of the Myanmar words connected with astrology were of Sanskrit origin is my own hypothesis (yet to be proven) and is the result of my study of Hindu astrology: my specialty being ashtaka varga or the "strengths of eight planets" . The following are some of the facts on which I have formed my opinion.
1. The Myanmar name for the planet Venus is
{thauk~kra groh~}, where
{groh~} is the "planet". Since, Myanmar word
{thauk~kra} in Pali is sukka
{thoak~ka.} and in Sanskrit (Vedic) śukra 
{thu.kra.}, it is possible that the Myanmar word was derived from Sanskrit. See
PTS p715. This fact was pointed out to me by referees
U Saw Tun and
U Tun Tint.
2. The Myanmar name for the group of stars or nakshatra Pleiades is
{krat~ti.ka}. Since this word in Pali is kattikā
{kat~ti.ka} and in Sanskrit kṛttikrā (I cannot think of anyway to
represent this in Myanmar akshara), the origin of the
{ra.ris} was most likely Sanskrit. See PTS p183 for Pali and Sanskrit spellings.
3. The English-Pali spelling for
{hkat~ti.ya.} is khattiya, whereas in English-Sanskrit it is kṣatriya
. The Sanskrit word is almost impossible for Myanmars to pronounce, whereas they
have no difficulty pronouncing the Pali spelling. I have picked up this word as
an illustration because it was into this class that Gautama Buddha was born.
UKT: Since the spelling Gautama {gau-ta-ma} given by AHTD is the closest to Myanmar, I have used it in this work. However there are other spellings: Gotama, etc.
It is appropriate at this point to emphasise that many Myanmar traditions and
practices were of Hindu origin and therefore the words connected with such
practices were more likely to be derived from Sanskrit than from Pali. One such
traditional practice is the "Festival of Crow-Unawake"
{kyi: ma.no: pwè:} which is actually the festival of Pleiades or
{krat~ti.ka nak~hkat}. The occasion is the positioning of the (full) Moon in
Pleiades which itself is in the Constellation Taurus (when the Sun is the
Constellation Scorpio in exact opposition to the Moon). The lunar month of this
period is the Myanmar month of Tasaungmon
{tan~hsaung-moan:} which coincides with the solar month October-November. It is
the end of the rainy season and the weather is usually very fine -- neither too
hot nor too cold, and the night-sky is usually very clear. It is mentioned in Vin III 262 that a thief, kattikā coraka
{kat~ti.ka sau-ra.ka.} attacked the bhikkhus -- PTS p183. And therefore, this
festival is also known in Myanmar as the Festival of the Thief. On the Full Moon
Day of Tansaungmon, young men of the village would "steal" for fun usually
letting the owners know where they would find their possessions. One practice is
to remove the name-plate from the residence of a well-known (but not well-like)
person and putting it on the door of a public wash-room. Of course, full-time
thieves would join them and keep the stolen goods to themselves. Therefore this
festival is frowned upon the police.
The texts of Myanmar Buddhism were of Pali origin. However, there are texts derived from Sanskrit. Therefore, it is deemed proper to record the Buddhist Sanskrit spellings -- whenever available -- in this work. The abbreviation used is BSk.
• See Ghora-manta -- the Myanmar-Hindu God
This is still an incomplete work, which I will have to stop for the time being.
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