{ña.}
/ɲa/ (palatal nasal) and
{tha.}
/θa/. Examples are: 1.
{pyiñ~ña}2.
{waiñ~ña-Na.} and its Myanmar derivative
{waiñ~ñiñ~}3.
{kath~tha.-hpa.}intro
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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There are several characters in M-Pali behaving as killed consonants even though
the virama sign is not present. They are "derived" from
{ña.}
/ɲa/ (palatal nasal) and
{tha.}
/θa/. Examples are:
1.
{pyiñ~ña}
2.
{waiñ~ña-Na.} and its Myanmar derivative
{waiñ~ñiñ~}
3.
{kath~tha.-hpa.}
Virama is known in Myanmar as
,
and is represented in Romabama with a ~. Please note that in ligatures such as
the virama is not shown.
is represented in Romabama as {k~ka.}. It is NOT an akshara since it cannot be
pronounced -- it should be called a character or a glyph. Since two
are tied together vertically, it is known as a vertical ligature (vertical
ligate). Illustration:
{ka.} + {ka} —> {ka.ka} /kaka/ -- no meaning
[ka] + virama + [ka] —> [kka] Can not be pronounce, because the inherent vowel of the first
+
{ta.} + [kka] — {tak~ka.} Can be pronounced as /tak ka/. See meaning at PTS p292
The character
-- the so-called {tha. kri:} -- is actually a horizontal ligature of two
{tha.}
similar to the vertical ligature of two {ka.}
{k~ka.}. It should be noted that a ligature such as
{k~ka.} cannot be pronounced because the inherent vowel of the first {ka.} has
been killed. However, when it is preceded by another akshara such
{ta.}, the combination becomes a "syllable" (known in E-Pali as vaṇṇa
{wuN~Na.} -- PTS p596).
{tak~ka.} being a syllable can be pronounced. That
{tha. krii} is a true ligature is proven by the fact that there are no word
which begins with a
{tha. kri:}. -- my views on
{tha. kri:} has been approved by referees
U Tun Tint and
U Saw Tun..
The character r2c5 {ña} is represented in M-Pali as
as
in the word ñāṇa
(meaning: knowledge, intelligence, insight, etc. -- PTS p287). Its equivalent in
Myanmar,
,
is loosely (and incorrectly) written as
.
This is now the standard practice in the hand-written script where
has
it foot shortened. However in typed-script this is to be avoided. When two
are combined to give a horizontal ligature (similar to the case with
{tha. kri:}), the resulting character becomes
-- known as {ña. kri:} which is found in the Myanmar word
{pyin~ña}. The difference between
and
is: there are Myanmar words (and syllables) beginning with
(showing that it can also behave as an akshara), there are no words beginning
with
{th~tha.}.
Another character quite similar to
{tha. kri:} is
. The information is provided by referee
U Tun Tint. It
is a horizontal ligature of
and
.
That is:
=
.
It is present in
. See UMK-USL p3 as part of
aṭṭhi
kalyana
(beauty of teeth) is literally "beauty of the bone". If we were to spelled it as
it is wrong. U Tun Tint provided other instances of similar ligatures.
This observation has also been approved by referees U Tun Tint and U Saw Tun.
in MyanmarThe problem with r1c5
in Myanmar, from the point of English, is two-fold. The first is due to the
absence of an equivalent consonant in English. This problem is met with not only
in transcription of Myanmar but in transcriptions of all Indic scripts. The
equivalent of the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) character /ŋ/ is present
in many English words such as <sing> /sɪŋ/ as ng. However, this consonant
is only present in the coda (ending) of the English syllable, and is never
present in the onset (beginning). Since this character is very important in
Myanmar, I am finding it very difficult to represent many Burmese words in
Romabama.
In Myanmar
{nga.} can be present both in the coda and in the onset. However, since Myanmar
syllable is of the generic form CV and CVÇ (where Ç is the killed consonant),
{nga.} is always present in the coda as a killed consonant represented by
.
Notice the "flag" above the character which shows that the inherent vowel of the
consonant has been killed. This is known in Sanskrit as virama (vowel-killer):
in Devanagari, the virama sign is below the character. In M-Pali (Pali in
Myanmar script) polysyllabic words, whenever the initial syllable has the
,
it is represented as a {kin:si:} (literally meaning "ridden by a centipede") on
top of the following character. Illustration:
The five kalyana of a woman is described in Myanmar as
{kaung: chin: nga: pra min-ga.la}. This makes kalyana synonymous with maṅgalā . See PTS p513 for mangala . Note the difference in spelling between Myanmar and E-Pali. The spelling maṅgalā is from UMK-USL p176.
In both M-Pali and Myanmar,
in
is represented as a {kin:si:}.
Notice that PTS spelling for this word is mangala, spelled with a r4c5
{na.} instead of with a r1c5 {nga.}. Because of this the M-Pali pronunciation
for
starts with /mɪŋ/ and not with /man/.
Lacking a reliable Myanmar font, and since the available Myanmar Unicode fonts are not recognized by Microsoft, I am forced to form gif characters to use on these pages. After forming them, I have to give names using only ASCII characters. This I have found to be a major task and from which there is no escape. Though there is no problem with words not involving killed consonants, I have yet to come up with a system to represent the words involving killed consonants.
I found that, from a typographical point of view, the words fall into four
groups:
1. kak-type
{kak}
2. kaka-type
{kak-ka.} involving either vertical or horizontal ligature. Examples of
horizontal type being:
{pyiñ~ña}
and
{kath~tha.-hpa.}. See
Representing
killed consonants.
3. nigahita type
{kan°} where the end consonant n° is not pronounced. Though Indian linguists
would represent this as kaṁ with a dot above m , the use of m
is confusing to the Burmese-speakers, because in pronouncing this word the lips
are not involved and there is no m "flavour" to the sound. Neither is
there an n "flavour", but the sound is very close to kan /kʌn/
rhyming with <cunning>.
4. kinsii type
{kin-ka.} . Actually this syllable is a short-hand representation of a di-syllabic
character:
{kin} +
{ka.} —>
{kin-ka.} .