Burmese alphabet

Burmese
Type	Abugida
Languages	Burmese
Time period	c. 1058–present
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Brāhmī Pallava Mon Burmese
ISO 15924	Mymr, 350
Direction	Left-to-right
Unicode alias	Myanmar
Unicode range	U+1000–U+109F
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

The Burmese script (Burmese: မြန်မာအက္ခရာ; MLCTS: mranma akkha.ra; IPA: [mjəmà ʔɛʔkʰəjà]) is an abugida in the Brahmic family used for writing Burmese. Furthermore, various other scripts share some aspect and letters of the Burmese script, though they should not be considered strictly Burmese, including Mon, Shan, S'gaw Karen, Eastern and Western Pwo Karen and Geba Karen languages, Rumai Palaung, Kayah (all of which are included in the latest Unicode standard). The Burmese script is also used as a script for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit. The characters are rounded in appearance because the traditional palm leaves used for writing on with a stylus would have been ripped by straight lines.^[1] It is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability.

The Burmese script was adapted from the Old Mon script, which also gave rise to related scripts like the Northern Tai Tham script (Lanna). The earliest evidence of Burmese script is dated to 1058.^[2] Burmese orthography originally followed a square format but the cursive format took hold from the 17th century when popular writing led to the wider use of palm leaves and folded paper known as parabaiks.^[1] The script has undergone considerable modifications to suit the evolving phonology of the Burmese language. The Burmese script has been altered from language to language, including Shan and Pwo Karen. One major difference is the existence of explicit tone markers in the Shan and Karen scripts, which do not exist in the Burmese script, since Burmese diacritics include implicit tones joined to the sound change.

The Burmese script may be transliterated into the Latin alphabet with the MLC Transcription System.

Alphabet

Arrangement

As with other Brahmi scripts, the Burmese alphabet is arranged into different groupings of 5 letters called wek (ဝဂ်, from Pali vagga) based on articulation. Within each group, the first letter is an unaspirated consonant, the second is the aspirated consonant version, the third and fourth are equivalent voiced consonant versions, and the fifth is a nasal consonant. This is true of the first 25 letters in the Burmese alphabet, which are called grouped together as wek byi (ဝဂ်ဗျည်း, from Pali vagga byañjana). The remaining eight letters (ယ ရ လ ဝ သ ဟ ဠ အ) are grouped together as a wek (အဝဂ်, lit. "without group"), as they are not arranged in any particular pattern.

Letters

A syllable onset is the consonant or consonant cluster that appears before the vowel of a syllable. The Burmese script 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, vowels are indicated in Burmese script by diacritics, which are placed above, below or beside the consonant character. A consonant letter with no vowel diacritic has the inherent vowel [a̰] (often reduced to [ə] when another syllable follows in the same word).

The following table provides the letter, the syllable onset in IPA, and the way the letter is referred to in Burmese, which may be either a descriptive name or just the sound of the letter, arranged in the traditional alphabet:

Group name	Grouped consonants
	Unaspirated (သိထိလ)		Aspirated (ဓနိတ)		Voiced (လဟု)				Nasal (နိဂ္ဂဟိတ)
Gutturals (ကဏ္ဍဇ) ကဝဂ်	က	/k/	ခ	/kʰ/	ဂ	/ɡ/	ဃ	/ɡ/	င	/ŋ/
	ကကြီး [ka̰ dʑí]		ခခွေး [kʰa̰ ɡwé]		ဂငယ် [ɡa̰ ŋɛ̀]		ဃကြီး [ɡa̰ dʑí]		င [ŋa̰]
Palatals (တာလုဇ) စဝဂ်	စ	/s/	ဆ	/sʰ/	ဇ	/z/	ဈ	/z/	ည	/ɲ/
	စလုံး [sa̰ lóuɴ]		ဆလိမ် [sʰa̰ lèiɴ]		ဇခွဲ [za̰ ɡwɛ́]		ဈမျဉ်းဆွဲ [za̰ mjɪ̀ɴ zwɛ́]		ညကြီး [ɲa̰ dʑí]
Alveolars (မုဒ္ဒဇ) ဋဝဂ်	ဋ	/t/	ဌ	/tʰ/	ဍ	/d/	ဎ	/d/	ဏ	/n/
	ဋသန်လျင်းချိတ် [ta̰ təlɪ́ɴ dʑeiʔ]		ဌဝမ်းဘဲ [tʰa̰ wʊ́ɴ bɛ́]		ဍရင်ကောက် [da̰ jɪ̀ɴ ɡauʔ]		ဎရေမှုတ် [da̰ jè m̥ouʔ]		ဏကြီး [na̰ dʑí]
Dentals (ဒန္တဇ) တဝဂ်	တ	/t/	ထ	/tʰ/	ဒ	/d/	ဓ	/d/	န	/n/
	တဝမ်းပူ [ta̰ wʊ́ɴ bù]		ထဆင်ထူး [tʰa̰ sʰɪ̀ɴ dú]		ဒထွေး [da̰ dwé]		ဓအောက်ခြိုက် [da̰ ʔauʔ tɕʰaiʔ]		နငယ် [na̰ ŋɛ̀]
Labials (ဩဌဇ) ပဝဂ်	ပ	/p/	ဖ	/pʰ/	ဗ	/b/	ဘ	/b/	မ	/m/
	ပစောက် ([pa̰ zauʔ])		ဖဦးထုပ် ([pʰa̰ ʔóuʔ tʰouʔ])		ဗထက်ခြိုက်‌ ([ba̰ lɛʔ tɕʰaiʔ])		ဘကုန်း ([ba̰ ɡóuɴ])		မ [ma̰]
Miscellaneous consonants
Without group (အဝဂ်)	ယ	/j/	ရ	/j/	လ	/l/	ဝ	/w/	သ	/θ/
	ယပက်လက် [ja̰ pɛʔ lɛʔ]		ရကောက်‌ [ja̰ ɡauʔ]		လငယ် [la̰ ŋɛ̀]		ဝ‌ [wa̰]		သ‌ [θa̰]
			ဟ	/h/	ဠ	/l/	အ	/ʔ/
			ဟ‌ [ha̰]		ဠကြီး [la̰ dʑí]		အ [ʔa̰]

• ဃ (j), ဈ (jh), ဋ (ṭ), ဌ (ṭh), ဍ (ḍ), ဎ (ḍh), ဏ (ṇ), ဓ (d), and ဠ (ḷ) are primarily used in words of Pāli origin.
• ၐ (ś) and ၑ (ṣ) are exclusively used in Sanskrit words, as they have merged to သ in Pali.
• ည has an alternate form ဉ, used with the vowel diacritic ာ as a syllable onset and alone as a final.
• With regard to pronunciation, the corresponding letters of the dentals and alveolars are phonetically equivalent.
• ရ is often pronounced Burmese pronunciation: [/ɹ/] in words of Pali or foreign origin.
• အ is nominally treated as a consonant in the Burmese alphabet; it represents an initial glottal stop in syllables with no other consonant.

Consonant letters may be modified by one or more medial diacritics (three at most), indicating an additional consonant before the vowel. These diacritics are:

• Ya pin (ယပင့်) - Written ျ (MLCTS -y-, indicating /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant)
• Ya yit (ရရစ်) - Written ြ (MLCTS -r-, indicating /j/ medial or palatalization of a velar consonant)
• Wa hswe (ဝဆွဲ) - Written ွ (MLCTS -w-, usually indicating /w/ medial)
• Ha hto (ဟထိုး) - ှ (MLCTS h-, indicating that a sonorant consonant is voiceless)

A few Burmese dialects use an extra diacritic to indicate the /l/ medial, which has merged to /y/ in standard Burmese:

• La hswe (လဆွဲ) - Written ္လ (MLCTS -l, indicating /l/ medial

All the possible diacritic combinations are listed below:

Diacritics for medial consonants, shown on မ [m]

Base	Letter	IPA	MLCTS	Remarks
ျ ya pin	မျ	[mj]	my	Generally only used on bilabial and velar consonants (က ခ ဂ ဃ င ပ ဖ ဗ မ လ သ). Palatalizes velar consonants: ကျ (ky), ချ (hky), ဂျ (gy) are pronounced [tɕ], [tɕʰ], [dʑ].
	မျှ	[m̥j]	hmy	သျှ (hsy) and လျှ (hly) are pronounced [ʃ].
	မျွ	[mw]	myw
	မျွှ	[m̥w]	hmyw
ြ ya yit	မြ	[mj]	mr	Generally only used on bilabial and velar consonants (က ခ ဂ ဃ င ပ ဖ ဗ မ). (but in Pali and Sanskrit loanwords, can be used for other consonants as well e.g. ဣန္ဒြေ ) Palatalizes velar consonants: ကြ (kr), ခြ (hkr), ဂြ (gr), ငြ (ngr) are pronounced [tɕ], [tɕʰ], [dʑ], [ɲ].
	မြှ	[m̥j]	hmr
	မြွ	[mw]	mrw
	မြွှ	[m̥w]	hmrw
ွ wa hswe	မွ	[mw]	mw
	မွှ	[m̥w]	hmw
ှ ha hto	မှ	[m̥]	hm	Used only in ငှ (hng) [ŋ̊], ညှ/ဉှ (hny) [ɲ̥], နှ (hn) [n̥], မှ (hm) [m̥], လှ (hl) [ɬ], ဝှ (hw) [ʍ]. ယှ (hy) and ရှ (hr) are pronounced [ʃ].

Syllable rhymes

Syllable rhymes (i.e. vowels and any consonants that may follow them within the same syllable) are indicated in Burmese by a combination of diacritic marks and consonant letters marked with the virama character ် which suppresses the inherent vowel of the consonant letter. This mark is called Asat in Burmese (Burmese: အသတ်; MLCTS: a.sat, [ʔa̰θaʔ]), which means nonexistence (see Sat (Sanskrit)).

Syllable rhymes of Burmese, using the letter က [k] as a basis

Symbol	IPA	MLCTS	Remarks
က	[ka̰], [kə]	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 [-ɴ]) as its rhyme. In practice, the bare consonant letter alone is the most common way of spelling syllables whose rhyme is [ə].
ကာ	[kà]	ka	Takes the alternative form ါ (called ဝိုက်ချ) with certain consonants, e.g. ဂါ (called ဝိုက်ချ) ga [ɡà].[* 1]
ကား	[ká]	ka:	Takes the alternative form ါး with certain consonants, e.g. ဂါး (called ဝိုက်ချ) ga: [ɡá].[* 1]
ကက်	[kɛʔ]	kak
ကင်	[kɪ̀ɴ]	kang
ကင့်	[kɪ̰ɴ]	kang.
ကင်း	[kɪ́ɴ]	kang:
ကစ်	[kɪʔ]	kac
ကည်	[kì], [kè], [kɛ̀]	kany
ကဉ်	[kɪ̀ɴ]
ကည့်	[kḭ], [kḛ], [kɛ̰]	kany.
ကဉ့်	[kɪ̰ɴ]
ကည်း	[kí], [ké], [kɛ́]	kany:
ကဉ်း	[kɪ́ɴ]
ကတ်	[kaʔ]	kat
ကန်	[kàɴ]	kan
ကန့်	[ka̰ɴ]	kan.
ကန်း	[káɴ]	kan:
ကပ်	[kaʔ]	kap
ကမ်	[kàɴ]	kam
ကမ့်	[ka̰ɴ]	kam.
ကမ်း	[káɴ]	kam:
ကယ်	[kɛ̀]	kai
ကံ	[kàɴ]	kam
ကံ့	[ka̰ɴ]	kam.
ကံး	[káɴ]	kam:
ကိ	[kḭ]	ki.	As an open vowel, [ʔḭ] is represented by ဣ.
ကိတ်	[keiʔ]	kit
ကိန်	[kèiɴ]	kin
ကိန့်	[kḛiɴ]	kin.
ကိန်း	[kéiɴ]	kin:
ကိပ်	[keiʔ]	kip
ကိမ်	[kèiɴ]	kim
ကိမ့်	[kḛiɴ]	kim.
ကိမ်း	[kéiɴ]	kim:
ကိံ	[kèiɴ]	kim
ကိံ့	[kḛiɴ]	kim.
ကိံး	[kéiɴ]	kim:
ကီ	[kì]	ki	As an open vowel, [ʔì] is represented by ဤ.
ကီး	[kí]	ki:
ကု	[kṵ]	ku.	As an open vowel, [ʔṵ] is represented by ဥ.
ကုတ်	[kouʔ]	kut
ကုန်	[kòuɴ]	kun
ကုန့်	[ko̰uɴ]	kun.
ကုန်း	[kóuɴ]	kun:
ကုပ်	[kouʔ]	kup
ကုမ်	[kòuɴ]	kum
ကုမ့်	[ko̰uɴ]	kum.
ကုမ်း	[kóuɴ]	kum:
ကုံ	[kòuɴ]	kum
ကုံ့	[ko̰ɴ]	kum.
ကုံး	[kóuɴ]	kum:
ကူ	[kù]	ku	As an open vowel, [ʔù] is represented by ဦ.
ကူး	[kú]	ku:	As an open vowel, [ʔú] is represented by ဦး.
ကေ	[kè]	ke	As an open vowel, [ʔè] is represented by ဧ.
ကေ့	[kḛ]	ke.
ကေး	[ké]	ke:	As an open vowel, [ʔé] is represented by ဧး.
ကဲ	[kɛ́]	kai:
ကဲ့	[kɛ̰]	kai.
ကော	[kɔ́]	kau:	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ (called ဝိုက်ချ) gau: [ɡɔ́].[* 1] As an open vowel, [ʔɔ́] is represented by ဩ.
ကောက်	[kauʔ]	kauk	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါက် (called ဝိုက်ချ) gauk [ɡauʔ].[* 1]
ကောင်	[kàuɴ]	kaung	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင် (called ဝိုက်ချ) gaung [ɡàuɴ].[* 1]
ကောင့်	[ka̰uɴ]	kaung.	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင့် (called ဝိုက်ချ) gaung. [ɡa̰uɴ].[* 1]
ကောင်း	[káuɴ]	kaung:	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါင်း (called ဝိုက်ချ) gaung: [ɡáuɴ].[* 1]
ကော့	[kɔ̰]	kau.	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ့ (called ဝိုက်ချ) gau. [ɡɔ̰].[* 1]
ကော်	[kɔ̀]	kau	Takes an alternative long form with certain consonants, e.g. ဂေါ် (called ဝိုက်ချ) gau [ɡɔ̀].[* 1] As an open vowel, [ʔɔ̀] is represented by ဪ.
ကို	[kò]	kui
ကိုက်	[kaiʔ]	kuik
ကိုင်	[kàiɴ]	kuing
ကိုင့်	[ka̰iɴ]	kuing.
ကိုင်း	[káiɴ]	kuing:
ကို့	[ko̰]	kui.
ကိုး	[kó]	kui:
ကွတ်	[kʊʔ]	kwat
ကွန်	[kʊ̀ɴ]	kwan
ကွန့်	[kʊ̰ɴ]	kwan.
ကွန်း	[kʊ́ɴ]	kwan:
ကွပ်	[kʊʔ]	kwap
ကွမ်	[kʊ̀ɴ]	kwam
ကွမ့်	[kʊ̰ɴ]	kwam.
ကွမ်း	[kʊ́ɴ]	kwam:

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} The consonant letters that take the long form ါ are ခ, ဂ, င, ဒ, ပ, and ဝ.

Diacritics and symbols

Symbol	Burmese name	Notes
်	အသတ်, တံခွန်	Virama; Combined to form ော်, which changes inherent vowel to /ɔ̰ ɔ̀ ɔ́/ respectively Creates a consonant final when used with က င စ ည (ဉ) ဏ တ န ပ မ ယ ဝ​
င်္	ကင်းစီး	Superscripted miniature version of င်; phonetic equivalent of nasalized င် ([ìɴ]) final. Found mainly in Pali and Sanskrit loans (e.g. "Tuesday," spelt အင်္ဂါ and not အင်ဂါ)
့	အောက်မြစ်	Anusvara, creates creaky tone, but only used with a consonant final (open vowels have an inherent creaky tone)
ာ	ရေးချ, မောက်ချ, ဝိုက်ချ	Creates low tone; called ဝိုက်ချ if used with ခ ဂ င ဒ ပ ဝ Combined to form ​​ော့ ော် ော, which changes inherent vowel to /ɔ̰ ɔ̀ ɔ́/ respectively
◌း	ဝစ္စပေါက်, ရှေ့ကပေါက်, ရှေ့ဆီး	Visarga; creates high tone, but cannot be used alone
ေ	သဝေထိုး	Changes inherent vowel to /e/ Combined to form ​​ော့ ော် ော, which changes inherent vowel to /ɔ̰ ɔ̀ ɔ́/ respectively
ဲ	နောက်ပစ်	Changes inherent vowel to /ɛ/ and creates high tone
ု	တစ်ချောင်းငင်	Changes inherent vowel to /u/ and creates creaky tone Combined to form ို, which changes inherent vowel to /o/
ူ	နှစ်ချောင်းငင်	Changes inherent vowel to /u/
ိ	လုံးကြီးတင်	Changes inherent vowel to /i/ and creates creaky tone Combined to form ို, which changes inherent vowel to /o/
ီ	လုံးကြီးတင်ဆန်ခတ်	Changes inherent vowel to /i/
ွဲ	အဆွဲအငင်	Changes inherent vowel to /ɛ/ and adds /-w-/ medial
ံ	သေးသေးတင်	Anunaasika, creates nasalised /-n/ final Combined to form ုံ့ ုံ ုံး, which changes rhyme to /o̰uɴ òuɴ óuɴ/
ၙ		used exclusively for Pali and Sanskrit
ၘ		used exclusively for Pali and Sanskrit
ါ		"tall a", used to denote "ာ" in some letters to avoid confusion with က, တ, ဘ, ဟ.[3]
ေါ်		used to denote "ော်" in some letters to avoid confusion for က, တ, ဘ, ဟ.[3]

One or more of these accents can be added to a consonant to change its sound. In addition, other modifying symbols are used to differentiate tone and sound, but are not considered diacritics.

History

La hswe (လဆွဲ) 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.^[4][5] Similarly, until the Innwa period, ya pin was also combined with ya yit.^[5] From the early Bagan period to the 19th century, ဝ် was used instead of ော် for the rhyme /ɔ̀/.^[5] Early Burmese writing also used ဟ်, not the high tone marker း, which came into being in the 16th century.^[5] Moreover, အ်, which disappeared by the 16th century, was subscripted to represent creaky tone (now indicated with ့).^[5] During the early Bagan period, the rhyme /ɛ́/ (now represented with the diacritic ဲ) was represented with ါယ်).^[5] The diacritic combination ိုဝ် disappeared in the mid 1750s (typically designated as Middle Burmese), having been replaced with the ို combination, introduced in 1638.^[5] The standard tone markings found in modern Burmese can be traced to the 19th century.

Stacked consonants

Specific consonants (a final and the following consonant), when placed next to one another, may be stacked, provided that they are of the same consonant group (a row of 5 letters in the traditional arrangement of the Burmese alphabet, called ဝဂ် in Burmese), with the final placed underneath the consonant, instead of the use of a virama (). They are considered ligatures or stacked consonants, but are not found in native Burmese words, except for the purpose of abbreviation. For example, the Burmese word for "daughter" (သမီး) is sometimes abbreviated as သ္မီး, even though the stacked consonants don't belong to the same group. Similarly, "tea" (လက်ဖက်) is commonly abbreviated လ္ဘက်.

Instead, stacked consonants are primarily confined to polysyllabic borrowings from languages like Pali, Sanskrit and occasionally English. For instance, the Burmese word for "paper" (a Pali loan word), is spelt စက္ကူ, not စက်ကူ, although both have equivalent pronunciations.

Group	Possible combinations	Transcriptions	Example
Ka.	က္က, က္ခ, ဂ္ဂ, ဂ္ဃ, င်္	kk, khk, gg, ggh, and ng g respectively	dukkha (ဒုက္ခ‌), meaning "suffering"
Ca.	စ္စ, စ္ဆ, ဇ္ဇ, ဇ္ဈ, ဉ္စ, ဉ္ဆ, ဉ္ဇ, ဉ္ဈ	cc, chc, jj, jjh, nyc, nych, nyj	wijja (ဝိဇ္ဇာ), meaning "knowledge"
Ta.	ဋ္ဋ, ဋ္ဌ, ဍ္ဍ, ဍ္ဎ, ဏ္ဋ, ဏ္ဍ	tt, tht, dd, ddh, nd	kanta (ကဏ္ဍ), meaning "section"
Ta.	တ္တ, တ္ထ, ဒ္ဒ, ဒ္ဓ, န္တ, န္ထ, န္ဒ, န္ဓ, န္န	tt, tht, dd, nt, nht, nd, ndh, nn	manta. le: (မန္တလေး), Mandalay, a city in Burma
Pa.	ပ္ပ, ပ္ဖ, ဗ္ဗ, ဗ္ဘ, မ္ပ, မ္ဗ, မ္ဘ, မ္မ,	pp, php, bb, bbh, mp, mb, mbh, mm	kambha (ကမ္ဘာ), meaning "world"
-	ဿ, လ္လ, ဠ္ဠ	ss, ll, ll	pissa (ပိဿာ), meaning viss, a traditional Burmese unit of weight measurement

Digits

Main article: Burmese numerals

A decimal numbering system is used, and numbers are written in the same order as Hindu-Arabic numerals.

The numerals from zero to nine are: ၀၁၂၃၄၅၆၇၈၉ (Unicode 1040 to 1049). The number 1945 would be written as ၁၉၄၅. Separators, such as commas, are not used to group numbers.

Another set of digits from zero to nine, ႐႑႒႓႔႕႖႗႘႙, is used in the Shan language. However, the most languages that use the modified Burmese script, including Sgaw Karen, Pwo Karen and Mon all use the same digits as the Burmese language.

Punctuation

There are two primary break characters in Burmese, drawn as one or two downward strokes: ၊ (called ပုဒ်ဖြတ်​, ပုဒ်ကလေး, ပုဒ်ထီး, or တစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်) and ။ (called ပုဒ်ကြီး, ပုဒ်မ, or နှစ်ချောင်းပုဒ်), which respectively act as a comma and a full stop . Other abbreviations used in literary Burmese are:

• ၏ -- used as a full stop if the sentence immediately ends with a verb.
• ၍ -- used as a sentence connector to connect two trains of thought.
• ၌ -- locative ('at').
• ၎င်း --

Unicode

Burmese script was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0. It was extended in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2.

Blocks

The Unicode blocks for Burmese, called Myanmar, are U+1000–U+109F and U+AA60–U+AA7B. Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points:

Myanmar[1] Unicode.org 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

ႚ

ႛ

ႜ

ႝ

႞

႟

Myanmar Extended-A[1] Unicode.org chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+AA6x

ꩠ

ꩡ

ꩢ

ꩣ

ꩤ

ꩥ

ꩦ

ꩧ

ꩨ

ꩩ

ꩪ

ꩫ

ꩬ

ꩭ

ꩮ

ꩯ

U+AA7x

ꩰ

ꩱ

ꩲ

ꩳ

ꩴ

ꩵ

ꩶ

꩷

꩸

꩹

ꩺ

ꩻ

Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 6.0

Languages

For writing the basic Burmese language, only U+1000–U+104F is needed:

• the basic abugida for Burmese and other languages of Myanmar:
  • U+1000–U+1020: the 33 base consonants.
  • U+1021–U+102A: the 10 independent vowels (including 1 variant needed for Shan and 1 variant needed for Mon).
  • U+102B–U+1035: the 11 dependent vowels (diacritics combining on the right, above, below, or left of the base consonant).
  • U+1036–U+103A: the 5 diacritic signs (anusvara, tone mark, visarga, virama, visible virama).
  • U+103B–U+103E: the 4 medial consonant signs (diacritics combining on the right, around, or below).
  • U+103F: the Myanmar letter "Great Sa" (ss).
  • U+1040–U+1049: the 10 digits.
  • U+104A–U+104B: the 2 punctuation signs (section signs).
  • U+104C–U+104F: the 4 symbols (locative, completed, aforementioned, genitive).

The rest of the chart contains extensions for other languages:

Extensions for Pali and Sanskrit: U+1050–U+1051: the 2 base consonants. U+1052–U+1055: the 4 independent vowels. U+1056–U+1059: the 4 dependent vowels (diacritics combining on the right or below). Extensions for Mon: U+105A–U+105D: the 4 base consonants. U+105E–U+1060: the 3 medial consonant signs (diacritics combining below). Extensions for S’gaw Karen: U+1061: the 1 base consonant. U+1062: the 1 vowel sign (diacritic on the left). U+1063–U+1064: the 2 medial consonant signs (diacritics combining on the right). Extensions for Western Pwo Karen: U+1065–U+1066: the 2 base consonants. U+1067–U+1068: the 2 vowel signs (diacritics combining on the right). U+1069–U+106D: the 5 tone signs (diacritics combining on the right). Extensions for Eastern Pwo Karen: U+106E–U+1070: the 3 base consonants.

Extensions for Geba Karen: U+1071: the 1 vowel sign (diacritic combining above). Extensions for Kayah: U+1072–U+1074: the 3 vowel signs (diacritics combining above). Extensions for Shan: U+1075–U+1081: the 13 base consonants. U+1082: the 1 medial consonant signs (diacritic combining below). U+1083–U+1086: the 4 vowel signs (diacritic combining on the right, left or above). U+1087–U+108D: the 7 tone signs (diacritics combining on the right or below). Extensions for Rumai Palaung: U+108E: the 1 base consonant. U+108F: the 1 tone sign (diacritics combining on the right). Extensions for Shan: U+1090–U+1099: the 10 digits. U+109E–U+109D: the 2 symbols.

Websites using Unicode

Until 2005, most Burmese language websites used an image-based dynamically generated method to display Burmese characters, often in GIF or JPEG. At the end of 2005, the Burmese NLP Research Lab announced a Myanmar OpenType font named Myanmar1. This font contains not only Unicode code points and glyphs but also the OpenType Layout (OTL) logic and rules. Their research center is based in Myanmar ICT Park, Yangon. Padauk, which was produced by SIL International, is Unicode compliant. Initially, it required a Graphite engine, though now OpenType tables for Windows are in the current version of this font. Since the release of the Unicode 5.1 Standard on 4 April 2008, three Unicode 5.1 compliant fonts have been available under public license, including Myanmar3, Padauk and Parabaik.^[6]

Many Burmese font makers have created Burmese fonts including Win Innwa, CE Font, Myazedi, Zawgyi, Ponnya, Mandalay. It is important to note that these Burmese fonts are not Unicode compliant, because they use unallocated code points (including those for the Latin script) in the Burmese block to manually deal with shaping that would normally be done by the Uniscribe engine and they are not yet supported by Microsoft and other major software vendors. However, there are few Burmese language websites that have switched to Unicode rendering, with many websites continuing to use a pseudo-Unicode font called Zawgyi (which uses codepoints allocated for minority languages and does not intelligently render diacritics, such as the size of ya-yit) or the GIF/JPG display method.

See also

• Brahmic family
• Burmese language

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Victor B Lieberman (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7. 
2. ^ GE Harvey (1925). History of Burma. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.. p. 307. 
3. ^ ^{a b} ; retrieved 2010-11-17
4. ^ Herbert, Patricia; Anthony Milner and Southeast Asia Library Group (1989). South-East Asia. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 5–21. ISBN 9780824812676. 
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} "A History of the Myanmar Alphabet". Myanmar Language Commission. 1993. http://www.myanmarnlp.net.mm/doc/1994_history_of_myanmar_alphabet.pdf. Retrieved 2010-08-30. 
6. ^ Zawgyi.ORG Developer site

External links

• Burmese/Myanmar script and pronunciation at Omniglot
• Myanmar Unicode Character Picker
• Myanmar Unicode Implementation Public Awareness
• Myanmar3 keyboard layout
• myWin2.2
• ALA-LC romanization system for Burmese
• BGN/PCGN romanization system for Burmese
• Myanmar Language SIG

Fonts supporting Burmese characters

• Burmese Wikipedia:Font page
• Burmese Unicode & NLP Research Centre
• Parabaik Myanmar Unicode Project GPLed and OFLed