Update: 2020-10-07 06:26 PM -0400
con02.htm
by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA), and staff of Tun Institute of Learning (TIL).
Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone.
Prepared for students and staff of TIL Research Station, Yangon,
MYANMAR
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English consonants
Manner of articulation
Place of articulation -- POA
Table of English consonants
Burmese-Myanmar consonants
Names of the Myanmar consonants
"Killed" Consonants
Conjuncts or consonant clusters
Coda
{hsoän:þût} : difference between syllables and moras
Onset -
{sa.tæÑ}
Nuclear-vowel -
{nyu-ka.li-þa.ra.}
Coda -
{hsoän:þût}
UKT notes
Note the presence of w in English consonants. It is double-u - not
double-v . Why? The British colonial government had spelled their customs
house in Rangoon as CVSTOM HOVSE .
• phoneme
• semivowel
• sonant
• surd
• tenuis consonant
Before we go into the English consonants, let's say something about articulation -- the act or manner of producing a speech sound especially a consonant. First we make a distinction between the manner of articulation and the place of articulation (POA).
UKT: Being a Burmese, born in Burma in the 1930s, and educated in Burma, I am "writing-biased" instead of "speaking biased". In other words, whenever I think of a language -- Burmese, English, French, and others -- I think from the way the language is written rather than how it is spoken. And therefore, whenever I think of "consonants" and "vowels", I tend to think in terms of the letters of the alphabet or aksharas. With this in mind, when I think of articulation, I have to remind myself that the "consonants" are those in the spoken language, and therefore the glyphs representing these consonants would include "letters" not included in the English-Latin script such as /θ/ and /ʧ/ of the IPA.
The following is based on: Online Phonetics Course, Department of Linguistics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. http://www.unil.ch/ling/english/phonetique/table-eng.html | http://www.unil.ch/ling/english/index.html
The manner of articulation is defined by a number of factors:
• whether there is vibration of the vocal cords: voiced (vd) vs. voiceless (vl)
-- or sonant vs.
surd;
• whether there is obstruction of the air stream at any point above the glottis
(consonant vs. vowel);
• whether the air stream passes through the nasal cavity
{nha-twín:} in addition to the oral
cavity
(nasal vs. oral);
• whether the air stream passes through the middle of the oral cavity or along
the sides (non-lateral vs. lateral).
The place of articulation is the point where the air stream is
obstructed. In general, the place of articulation is simply that point on the
palate where the tongue is placed to block the stream of air.
The place of articulation can be any of the following:
• the lips (labials and bilabials),
{nhoat-hkûm:}
• the teeth (dentals),
{þwa:} "teeth"
• the lips and teeth (labio-dentals -- here the tongue
{lhya} is not directly involved),
• the alveolar ridge (that part of the gums behind the upper front teeth --
alveolar articulations),
• the hard palate,
{a-hkaún ma}
- (given its large size, one can distinguish between
palato-alveolars, palatals and palato-velars),
• the soft palate,
{a-hkaún pyau.}
- (or velum -- velar articulations),
• the uvula (uvulars),
{lhya-hkín}
• the pharynx (pharyngeals), - part of throat
{læÑ-hkyaú:} "throat"
• the glottis (glottals).
The tongue
{lhya} plays a very important role in
pronunciation and the sound produced depends on
where in the mouth the tip of the tongue is
touching (or not touching), and how the tongue
is shaped.
There is no standard way to write the 26 English alphabets in a tabular form. When we were going to school a table of convenience is presented as:
a b c d e f g
h i j k l m n
o p q r s t u
v w x y z
Bur-Myan learners are used to seeing the Akshara table of consonants in a matrix form of rows x columns of (5x5) + (1x5)+(1x3):
k kh g gh ng
s hs z zh ny
t ht d dh n
t ht d dh n
p hp b bh my r l w th
h l a
Because of their familiarity with the matrix form of presentation, Bur-Myan learners think the English table is also in matrix form. It is not. More over the English table is a mix-up of vowels and consonants. It tells us next to nothing about how the consonants are related to articulation.
In order to overcome this drawback the International Phonetics
Association (IPA) classifies the consonants into groups such as stops
(or plosives), affricates, fricatives, nasals, and
approximants (including laterals). Each group is subdivided when applicable
into bilabial, labiodental, dental, alveolar,
post-alveolar, palatal, velar and glottal.
Note: whenever the affix post- or pre- appear, you must know how the contents of rows are counted. In the IPA presentation, the contents are counted from left to right. Thus, post-alveolar means, it comes after alveolar when counted from left-to-right.
The inset larger table of English Consonants is from DJPD16 page x. The layout of the symbols follows the principle that, where there are two consonants in a cell which differ only in voicing (vl or vd), they are placed side by side with the voiceless (vl) one to the left, and voiced (vd) on the right. There is no mention of the tenuis voiceless or simply tenuis .
When there is only one symbol in a cell, it is placed in the centre. The smaller table is derived from larger table to show how English has used Affricates ʧ and ʤ in place of Bur-Myan
{sa.}/
{c} and
{za}/
{z}, and how RBM (Romabama) has to make room for Nya-major
{Ña.}/
{Ña.} and Nya-minor
{ña.}/
{ñ} by moving j
from Palatal (or Post-alveolar) to Velar. {ya.}/
{ý}
However Bur-Myan start counting from k which is Velar in IPA. That means we are counting from right-to-left, and post-alveolar becomes pre-alveolar. The Bur-Myan way of counting follows the course the voice air-stream must take as it comes out of the glottis. It proceeds from k to p, i.e., from right-to-left.
Please make a note that DJPD16 has included some symbols (such as /c/, /q/), which are not present in the English consonant table. The approximant /j/ is the equivalent of the common English-Latin letter <y> which has the Bur-Myan
Now, a word about English [s]. You'll come across people who say the way you produce your [s] is
the right way or the wrong way. Now, which is the right way and
which is the wrong way? I've come across:
-
http://courses.washington.edu/sop/FacilTechniques_s_z.pdf 201006
" [s] Up or [s] Down? Some people produce [s] and [z] with the tongue tip
up behind the upper front teeth, others say them with the tongue tip down behind
the lower front teeth. Neither one is the "right way". ... "
Now, let's look at /s/ in English <spy>, <sty>, <sky>.
They are not
Palatal-stops,
{sa.}/
{c}, we are used to in Bur-Myan. The English /s/ is the Dental-fricative (or dental-alveolar-postalveolar
fricative)
{Sa}/
{S}, which we don't have. In its turn English does not have the Palatal-stops
that we have.
See -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_stop 201006
"In phonetics and phonology, a palatal stop is a type of consonantal
sound, made with the body of the tongue in contact with the hard palate (hence
palatal), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop
consonant). Note that a stop consonant made with the tip of the tongue
curled back against the palate is called a retroflex stop .
Palatal stops are less common than velar stops or alveolar stops and do not
occur in English. However, they are somewhat similar to the English postalveolar
affricates
[tʃ] and
[dʒ], as in chat and jet, and occur in various European
languages, such as Hungarian, Icelandic, and Irish. The
term "palatal stop" is sometimes used imprecisely to refer to postalveolar
affricates, which themselves come in numerous varieties, or to other
acoustically-similar sounds, such as palatalized velar stops. "
British English (RP - Received Pronunciation) is less rhotic than American (GA -
General American), and in order to distinguish the two English-Latin r is
written in two-ways: /ɹ/ (U0279) in RP, and /r/ in GA. Similarly, but not quite,
we have
{ya.} and
{ra.} which are pronounced the same without rhoticity in the main dialect of Bur-Myan of the
Irrawaddy and Sittang-valleys, however
{ra.} is rhotic in Rakhine dialect and Pal-Myan.
Though by tradition the transcription for Bur-Myan
{ka.} and
{ga.}
are English-Latin <k> and <g>, English k sounds more like
{hka.}. The problem is with English which does not have tenuis-voiceless
consonants. They have only ordinary voiceless and voiced-consonants.
English speakers cannot even "hear" the difference between tenuis-voiceless
[kʰ] and ordinary voiceless [k]. The English speakers think [kʰ] and
[k]
are just allophones of Alphabet-Letter k /k/.
See allophones -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allophone 201005
"In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible
spoken sounds, or phones, or signs used to pronounce a single
phoneme in a particular language.
[1] For example, in
English,
[t]
(as in stop
[stɒp]) and the
aspirated* form
[tʰ]
(as in top
[ˈtʰɒp]) are allophones for the phoneme
/t/, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some
languages such as
Thai
and Hindi." UKT comment 201005: Poor Wikipedia ! It doesn't know anything about
Bur-Myan.
*UKT 201007: Whenever I come across the word "aspiration", I came to think of "dropping the H in Cockney accent". "Henry Higgins" becomes " 'enry 'iggins ". Because Cockneys in England are looked down at one time, I think (my opinion) the native English teachers from England, did not even bother to differentiate [t] and [tʰ]. They bunched them as just allophones of Alphabet-Letter t . Yet this differentiation is important in Bur-Myan.
See also - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney 201007
"... As with many accents of the United Kingdom, cockney is non-rhotic. ... H-dropping: Sivertsen considers that [h] is to some extent a stylistic marker of emphasis in cockney. [55] [56] ... The cockney accent has long been looked down upon and thought of as inferior by many. For example, in 1909 the Conference on the Teaching of English in London Elementary Schools issued by the London County Council, stating that "the Cockney mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any person in the capital city of the Empire". [88] ... The term Estuary English has been used to describe London pronunciations that are slightly closer to RP than cockney. ... "
The same is found for Alphabet-Letter <k>, <t> and <p> which sound more like
{hka.},
{hta.} and
{hpa.}. English-Latin does not have letters to represent sounds intermediate
between the <k> and <g> (in between <t> and <d>, and in between <p> and <b>).
English-Latin speakers have difficulty to pronounce and "hear" such sounds, and
tend to dismiss them as the aspirated forms of <k>, <t> and <p>, and write them
<h> as digraphs: <kh> /kʰ/, <ht> /tʰ/
and <ph> /pʰ/.
UKT 201007: Whenever you across " <ht> /tʰ/ " in my work, do not think in terms of Skt-Dev and Hindi-Dev. My <ht> is r4c2
{þa.} स . This confusion has made me adopt the Old English "thorn"-letter {þa.} . Remember Skt-Dev is a Sibilant language, whereas Bur-Myan is a Thibilant language. Eng-Lat falls in between with the words <thin> /θɪn/ (DJPD16-535), and <thorn> /θɔːn/ (DJPD16-535).
See - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sibilant#%22Thibilant%22
UKT comment: Thibilant languages are quite rare
The problem becomes worse with /ʧ/, which sounds like <ch> in
<church>. It is more correct to represent /ʧ/ as
{kya.} rather than
{hkya.}. Now,
{hkya.} is a conjunct which breaks down under a virama
{a·þût}. What we need is a basic consonant which is stable under
{a·þût} to represent the phone /ʧ/ or k (/k/
and /kʰ/ - note the use of [...] in IPA), which in
Bur-Myan is r2c1 in the Bur-Myan akshara-matrix. Romabama has to invent a new
grapheme:
{cha.}
(1 eye-blnk) and
{cha} (2 blnk).
I've mentioned above the mix-up of Devanagari <th> and Myanmar <ht> which
has made me change my transcription of
{þa.} from the usual way of transcribing it . Now let's see the problem of
allophones of the Alphabet-Letter t in rows #3 and #4. Row #3 is
Retroflex, and row #4 is Dental. Yet they are pronounced the same by layman in
Myanmarpré. If we are careful we can pronounce them differently by curling up
the tongue while pronouncing the row#3 aksharas.
See: An Acoustic Account of the Allophonic Realization of /T/ by Amber
King and Ettien Koffi , 2012, in TIL HD-PDF and SD-PDF libraries :
-
AKingEKoffi-AcousticAllophonT<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô>
"This paper is a laboratory phonology account of the different pronunciations of
the phoneme /t/. Laboratory phonology is a relatively new analytical tool that
is being used to validate and verify claims made by phonologists about the
pronunciation of sounds. It is customary for phonologists to predict on the
basis of auditory impressions and intuition alone that allophones exist for such
and such phonemes. An allophone is defined as different realizations of the same
phoneme based on the environments in which it occurs. For instance, it has been
proposed that the phoneme /t/ has anywhere from four to eight allophones in
General American English (GAE). "
UKT
200929:
I must admit that I am very weak in Official Burmese which in MLC parlance is Myanmar Thudda
. First, I object strongly to this misuse of the word Myanmar .
The term Myanmar is the adjectival form of the political unit
known as Myanmarpré
{mrûn-ma-præÑ}. Many indigenous peoples live in the political unit and they are
all
See Official Burmese-Myanmar in Myanmar Thudda, volumes 1 to 5 (in Burmese),
Text-book Committee, Basic Education, Ministry of Education, Myanmar, ca. 1986.
These
have been reprinted in one volume :
available in PDF format on the web.
-
https://whiteboylearningburmese.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/bg-mlc-1-1.pdf
200929 ,
See downloaded files in TIL PDF
libraries: HD-PDF-B and SD-PDF-B (link chk 200929)
1. bg-mlc-1-1. 2.
bg-mlc-1-2. 3.
bg-mlc-1-3. 4.
bg-mlc-1-4.
5. bg-mlc-2-5.
6. bg-mlc-2-6.
1.
bkp1. ---2. bkp2.
--- 3.
bkp3.---
4. bkp4.
-- -5.
bkp5.
--- -6.
bkp6.
Ink-on-paper book available in TIL Research Library
in 3 volumes, 17 sections. I've looked through the above grammar and have
construct tables on individual medials beginning with
{ya.pín.}, to analyze the
medials more closely. Any mistakes made are mine.
UKT 201005: If I were to take a formal study of Myanmar Thudda , I'm sure I will get a Failing Grade!.
Among the consonants, the plosives or stops (oral plosives, oral stops) are the most easily understood. In the following table, I have arranged the most prominent group of Burmese-Myanmar consonants which I have termed the "triads" for comparison to the IPA chart 2005 from Wikipedia. For the same group, the characters in columns c1 are voiceless, c2 described as "aspirated", and c3 voiced. Though the c2 characters sounded to be the "aspirated" c1s to the Western phoneticians, I hold that they are not so. Their pronunciations are very distinct to Burmese ears and can be described as between those of c1s and c3s. They are phonemes in their own rights. For comparison, I have given the Hindi-Devanagari akshara-characters.
Please note the different brackets used in the following tables:
Burmese-Myanmar - {...}
English-Latin or Pali-Latin - <...>
IPA - /.../
MLC - /|...|/
Bilabial plosives
| c1 | c2 | c3 | c4 | |
| Bur-Myan |
{pa.} |
{hpa.} |
{ba.} |
{Ba.} |
| MLC | /|pa.|/ | /|hpa.|/ | /|ba.|/ | /|ba.|/ |
| Engl-Latin | <p> | - | <b> | - |
| Pali-Latin | <p> | <ph> | <b> | <bh> |
| प | फ | ब | भ |
MLC transcripts from MEDict 248, 298, 311, 319
Alveolar plosives
Under alveolar plosives, I am giving two sets of consonants. The first, r3 of Bur-Myan aksharas, are regularly described as cerebrals. They are generally used for writing Pali-Myan. The second, or r4, are described as dentals. The reason why I am grouping both under the alveolars is because of the pronunciation. See /t d/ in Table of English consonants. Also, note the transcripts given by MLC.
| c1 | c2 | c3 | c4 | |
| Bur-Myan |
{Ta.} |
{HTa.} |
{ða.} |
{Ða.} |
| MLC | /|ta.|/ | /|hta.|/ | /|da.|/ | /|da.|/ |
| Engl-Latin | <t> | - | <d> | - |
| Pali-Latin | <ṭ> | <ṭh> | <ḍ> | <ḍh> |
| ट | ठ | ड | ढ |
MLC transcripts from MEDict 160, 160, 160, 160
| c1 | c2 | c3 | c4 | |
| Bur-Myan |
{ta.} |
{hta.} |
{da.} |
 {Da.} |
| MLC | /|ta.|/ | /|hta.|/ | /|da.|/ | /|da.|/ |
| Engl-Latin | <t> | - | <d> | - |
| Pali-Latin | <t> | <th> | <d> | <dh> |
| त | थ | द | ध |
MLC transcripts from MEDict 161, 193, 208, 216
You will notice that there are 4 characters having the same sound (at least to the Myanmar ear) in the above tables: r3c3
Velar plosives
Velars are described by older linguist, particularly of the East, as gutterals because they are articulated at the back of the mouth.
| c1 | c2 | c3 | c4 | |
| Bur-Myan |
{ka.} |
{hka.} |
{ga.} |
{Ga.} |
| MLC | /|ka.|/ | /|kha.|/ | /|ga.|/ | /|ga.|/ |
| Engl-Latin | <k> | - | <g> | - |
| Pali-Latin | <k> | <kh> | <g> | <gh> |
| क | ख | ग | घ |
MLC transcripts from MEDict 001, 051, 083, 090
Alveolar fricatives
This group, Bur-Myan r2, is described as palatals by Pali-Latin
scholars. It is also where a difference between the Bur-Myan and Hindi-Dev is
found. Though there is the orthographical correspondence, there is a great
difference in pronunciations. It is the source of discrepancy between the Pali-Myan
and the Pali-Latin (International Pali). It is regrettable that many
Myanmar Pali-scholars are of opinion that the Pali-Latin pronunciations to be
closer to the original Pali-sounds of Gautama Buddha and King Asoka, than to the Pali-Myan
sounds. Since there are no actual sound recordings, they and we could be both
right and wrong. The "manner of sound production that had been described (very
meticulously) for the production of sounds" which the opposing scholars have
taken to be the evidence, are those of the Brahmins in the employ of the rulers
who were classed as the
{hkût~ti.ya.}. Those who think that the International Pali sounds to be more
authentic fail to note that the peoples just south of the Himalayas spoke
similar languages long before the Indo-Europeans (Indo-Aryans) or the Brahmin
Poannars came into India. We hold that the Bur-Myan pronunciations are bound to be
close to those of the Buddha and Asoka.
| c1 | c2 | c3 | c4 | |
| Bur-Myan |
{sa.} |
{hsa.} |
{za.} |
{Za.} |
| MLC | /|sa.|/ | /|hsa.|/ | /|za.|/ | /|za.|/ |
| Engl-Latin | <s> | <z> | ||
| Pali-Latin | <c> | <ch> | <j> | <jh> |
|
|
च | छ | ज | झ |
MLC transcripts from MEDict 100, 129, 148, 154
Note: the above table shows the orthographical correspondence between Bur-Myan and Hindi-Dev. The r2c1 Bur-Myan
It is noteworthy that English does not have Tenuis-voiceless c1's. What they have are the ordinary voiceless c2's which are described as "creaky voiced" by the some English phoneticians, and as "aspirated" by others. Note that all the c1's in the above table are pronounced at the front part of the mouth and the c3's at the back of the mouth. The c2's are pronounced somewhere in the middle.
| c1 | c2 | c3 | c4 | |
| Bur-Myan |
{kya.} |
{hkya.} |
{gya.} |
- |
| MLC | /|kja.|/ | /|cha.|/ | /|gja.|/ | - |
| Engl-Latin | - | <ch> | <j> | - |
| Pali-Latin | <c> | <ch> | <j> | - |
|
|
च | छ | ज | झ |
MLC transcripts from MEDict 026, 066, 088, --
It should be noted that r1c4 {Ga.} cannot take on any medial-formers.
• English-Latin <ch> as in <church> /ʧɜːʧ/ (US) /ʧɝːʧ/; and, <j> as in <judge> /ʤʌʤ/.
• Win XP character map names for Devanagari letters are: Ca, Cha, Ja, and Jha.
In the section on British English consonants in DJPD16 p. xi, it is stated that "When /l/,/j/, /w/ or /r/ immediately follow /p , t , k/, they are devoiced and are pronounced as fricatives."
In Burmese-Myanmar /p/ , /t/ , /k/ can be followed by:
• /j/
(corresponding to English <y>) -- forming the medial
{ya.ping.}
• /r/ -- forming the medial
{ra.'ris}
• /l/ -- forming the medial
{la.hswè:}
-- no longer used in modern Bur-Myan, except in Tavoy
(according to U Tun Tint)
• /w/ -- forming the medial
{wa.hswè:}
Note: Conjoined characters formed from two
{la.} are in use. Whether they are to be classed as medials (which have pronunciations of their own) is for me not to decide. However, since they do not occur in the onset, they are not really medials.
{mail~la}
/|mein la|/ - n. 1. sombre colour; dusky colour -- MEDict359
No strict comparison can be made between the English <l> /l/
and its closest Burmese [la.]
because of the absence of the 'LL' sound in
English: a sound that is found in Welsh as a voiceless lateral fricative / ɬ/
(U026C). See Non-English sounds in DJPD16. That sound is present in Burmese-Myanmar as a conjunct
{la. ha.hto:}. It is realised as {lha.}
or as [Hla] in Burmese-Myanmar names.
Many Bur-Myan syllables are of the form CVÇ (consonant-vowel-killed-consonant). The
killed-consonant
(Ç) (i.e. the akshara whose inherent vowel
{mwé-hkän þa.ra.} has been killed) in the coda together
with the vowel preceding it, is the 'rhyme'. In Bur-Myan the vowel killer is known as
{a·þût} (Sanskrit: virama). Of the five keyboard English vowels available
<a, e, i, o, u> the most suitable to represent the inherent vowel seems to
be the English 'short' /a/ -- of course, there are bound to be exceptions.
See Pronouncing the letter A in DJPD16.
The names of Bur-Myan consonants are given in the table below. Those of Mon-Myan consonants are different from Bur-Myan. The English vowel <a> has been included to give an English pronunciation.
Myanmar akshara is used for writing both the Burmese, Mon and Pali words. The traditional names of Bur-Myan aksharas are as follows. I've also given the hilarious translation of the Bur-Myan akshara names, to help you to remember the shape:
{wag}-aksharas (classifiables)
r1c1:
{k} --
{ka.kri:} "Ka-major"
r1c2:{hka.kwé:} "curled up Kha"
r1c3:{ga.gnè} "Ga-minor"
r1c4:{Ga.kri:} "Ga-major"
r1c5:{gna.}/
{ng} --
{gnaa.} "personal possessive pronoun"
r2c1:
{sa.loan:} "spherical Sa"
r2c2:{hsa.laim} "twisted Hsa"
r2c3:{za.kwè:} "split Za"
r2c4:{Za.myiñ:hswè:} "drawn-out Za"
r2c5:{Ña.kri:} "Nya-major}
{ña.lé:} "Nya-minor"
r3c1:
{T} --
{Ta.þûn-lyín:hkyeit} "Ta resembling an iron hook"
r3c2:{Hta.wûm:Bè:} "Hta resembling a duck"
r3c3:{ða.} --
{ða.rín-kauk} "Da forward-chest"
r3c4:{Ða.} --
{Ða.ré-mhoat} "Da resembling a cup"
r3c5:{Na.}/
{N} --
{Na.kri:} "Na-major"
r4c1:
{t} --
{ta.wûm:pu} "pot-bellied Ta"
r4c2:{hta.hsín-tu} "Ta with similar circles"
r4c3:{da.htwé:} "youngest Da"
r4c4:{Da.auk-hkreín.} "Da with dented bottom"
r4c5:{na.}/
{n} --
{na.ngèý} "Na-minor"
r5c1:
{p} --
{pa.sauk} "Pa with a crevice"
r5c2:{hpa.U:htoap} "Hpa with a cap"
r5c3:{ba.htak-hkreín.} "Ba with a top-dent"
r5c4:{Ba.koan:} "Ba bending down under a burden - Father"
r5c5:{ma.}/
{m} -- {ma.} "Female - Mother"
- imprecise rime (nuclear-vowel + coda)r6c1:
{ya.pak-lak} "Ya on its back"
r6c2:{ra.kauk} "crooked Ya"
r6c3:
r6c4:{wa.} --
c6c5:r7c2:
{ha.} --
r7c3:{La.} --
{La.kri:} "La-major"
r7c4:{a.}/
{ } --
You will notice that there are 4 characters having the same sound
(at least to the Myanmar ear) in the above list: r3c3
, r3c4
, r4c3
and r4c4
.
I have difficulty in assigning ASCII English letters to them until I decided to include
the symbols ð (Alt0240 - similar in shape to Greek small letter Delta), and Ð (Alt0208
- similar in shape to Latin capital letter D). ð and Ð are Latin small and
capital letters ETH which resemble the English letters D in appearance.
Similarly for Mon-Myan, I have to introduce ß (alt+0223}small Latin letter sharp
S - because its similarity in shape to B - to represent to additional aksharas
in row#7:
{ßa.} and
{ßé}.
consonants under
Myanmar script, like Devanagari, an
abugida in
which a consonant character already contains a vowel (usually the
sound /a/, but in some cases as /æ/ or /ə/). The vowel is known as the
inherent vowel
{mwé-hkän þa.ra.}. The presence of
the inherent vowel /a/ in the consonant characters is the
main difference between the Burmese-Myanmar and English-Latin and
Georgian-Mkhedruli.
For instance, when you are writing Romabama
{ta.} for Bur-Myan, "ta" stands for the Eng-Lat or Geog-Mkhe /t/+/ə/
or /t/+/æ/ or /t/+/a/. But definitely NOT for /k/+/ɑ/. /k/+/ɑ/
is the sound of Bur-Myan
{kau:}. When you are writing Romabama you will have to keep this fact always in your
mind. See "Killed" consonant aksharas
UKT 200915
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_cluster 200915
"In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups /spl/ and /ts/ are consonant clusters in the word splits. "
From the point of ability to pronounce, there are two kinds of conjuncts: those that are mute (non-syllabic), and those that are pronounceable ( syllabic).
It has been noted in the section on
Devanagari consonants
(in
con01.htm)
that two consonants may be tied up. e.g. two
{ka.} consonants in a vertical ligature
{kka.}. In such a conjunct, the upper consonant is a "killed" consonant
which has lost its inherent vowel
{mwé-hkän þa.ra.}. On the other hand, the lower consonant is always a regular
akshara-consonant. Thus, in the Bur-Myan word for "university"
{tak~ka.þol}, the conjunct is
{kka.}
and it is mute. The upper is a killed consonant and can be represented as {k}.
To explain it further, we write the word for "university"
{tak~ka.þol} in the expanded form
{tak-ka.þol} (Note ~ has been changed to - to show the absence of ligature).
The first syllable is {tak} in CVÇ form. The
{ka.} in this syllable is a killed consonant and it has an
{a·þut} over it. In the short form of the word, though
{ka.} has been killed, and the virama is hidden.
Pronounceable conjuncts in Bur-Myan are called medials (those with intermediate sounds). They formed by the use of:
Though all Bur-Myan medials are
pronounceable and monosyllabic, some are difficult to pronounce resulting in a
change in pronunciation. An example is
{tya.} being changed into
{t~ya.} /tə-ya./ which is approximately right, or
{tra.} which is wrong. Now, the word for "fine arts" in Bur-Myan
is
{pûn-tya}. However, many Bur-Myan mistakenly pronounce it as
{pan-tra}.
{hsoän:þût}There a difference between syllable and mora or haku (拍) (in Japanese language of kana )
- UKT 200916
Linguists who use the Alphabet-Letter system in which the syllable has the
canonical form, CVC, has no need to know about the coda. However, those in the
East who use the Akshara-Syllable (or Abugida-Syllable) system which uses, CVÇ,
need to know about Ç - the coda. Coming across the Japanese language, and its
sisters the Chinese and Korean (CJK for short), I need to know to which
language system do these languages belong. First we have to note the existence
of a term Mora which is different from a Syllable.
See
https://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/mora.html 200922
"Moras, known as haku (拍) in
Japanese, are rhythmic units.
[1]
The Japanese writing system of kana is based on moras, placing one kana on each
mora. These are subtly different from syllables. Japanese forms of poetry based
on "syllable counts" such as haiku (俳句),
poems with seventeen "syllables", are not really based on counts of syllables,
but on counts of moras."
The following is based on DJPD16.
The English syllable (in IPA) is generally made up of three parts: an onset, a nuclear vowel, and a coda and is of the form CVC. The nuclear vowel and the coda constitutes the rime of the syllable. The word "coda" comes from a term in music meaning "a passage at the end of a movement or composition" that brings it to a formal close [Italian from Latin "cauda" tail -- AHTD]. English allows up to four consonants to occur in the coda. In the following English words, the coda has been underlined:
<sick> /s ɪk/
<six> /s ɪks/
<sixth> /s ɪks θ/
<sixths> /sɪks θs/
The central part of a syllable is always a vowel, and if the syllable contains nothing after the vowel it is said to have no coda (zero coda). e.g.:
<bough> /ba ʊ/
<buy> /ba ɪ/
Note that in the word <bough>, <ough> constitutes a vowel and is represented phonemically by /a ʊ/. If you look at the English word <bough> by its spelling, you might think that <gh> separately forms a coda. It is not so, because the <g> is silent.
According to DJPD16, "Some languages (e.g. Japanese) have no codas in any syllables."
UKT 200916: Suspecting something is amiss, I checked online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics) 200916
"In some languages (for example, Latin and Japanese), the coda represents one mora, and in others (for example, Irish) it does not. In English, the codas of stressed syllables represent a mora (thus, the word cat is bimoraic), but for unstressed syllables it is not clear whether this is true (the second syllable of the word rabbit might be monomoraic).
In some languages, a syllable with a long vowel or diphthong in the nucleus and one or more consonants in the coda is said to be trimoraic (see pluti)."The above passage shows that syllables and moras are different.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluti 200916
"Pluti is the term for the phenomenon of overlong vowels in Sanskrit; the overlong vowels are themselves called pluta. Pluta vowels are usually noted with a numeral "3" (indicating a length of three morae), ā3, ī3, ū3, ṝ3, ḹ3, also e3 (ā3i), o3 (ā3u)."
Though no mention has been made about Bur-Myan, it might qualify to
be included because it uses the Akshara-Syllable like Skt-Dev with CVÇ
structure. The coda, Ç, is the consonant whose inherent vowel has been killed by
a virama
{a·þût}.
n. Linguistics 1. The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning, as the m of mat and the b of bat in English. [French phonème from Greek phōnēma phōnēmat-utterance, sound produced from phōnein to produce a sound from phōnē sound, voice; See bh ā- 2 in Indo-European Roots.] -- AHTD
Go back phoneme-note-b
n. Linguistics 1. A sound that has the quality of one of the high vowels, as (ē) or (o̅o̅), and that functions as a consonant before vowels, as the initial sounds of yell and well . Also Called glide . -- AHTD
Go back semivow-note-b
Linguistics adj. 1. Voiced, as a speech sound. n. 1. A voiced speech sound. 2. A syllabic consonant in Indo-European. [Latin sonāns sonant-, present participle of sonāreto sound; See swen- in Indo-European Roots.] -- AHTD
Go back sonant-note-b
surd n. 2. Linguistics A voiceless sound in speech. adj. Linguistics 1. Voiceless, as a sound. [Medieval Latin surdus ( from Latin speechless) translation of Arabic (jad _ r) 'aṣamm deaf (root), surd translation of Greek alogos speechless, surd] -- AHTD
Go back surd-note-b
- UKT 201006
Tenuis consonants are very important in Bur-Myan. It is only these
consonants that are used in the codas of syllable. In Skt-Dev and Pal-Myan,
other consonants as codas are used - but not in Bur-Myan.
See: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenuis_consonant 201006
In linguistics, a tenuis consonant is an obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized.
In other words, it has the "plain" phonation of [p, t, ts, tʃ, k] with a voice onset time close to zero (a zero-VOT consonant), as Spanish p, t, ch, k or English p, t, k after s (spy, sty, sky).
Go back tenuis-note-b
End of TIL file
