Burmese CATCH OR BE CAUGHT
Burmese, a Sino-tibetan language of the Tibeto-burman group, is spoken by about 32 million people as their first language, and by up to 15 million more as a second language. It is the national language of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, where it is the main language of education, communication, media and administration, as well as interethnic communication.
Burmese has a recorded history going back to the 11th century, when it began to replace Mon as the literary language of the Bagan kingdom. Burmese literature has flourished since then, resulting in a large body of classical and modern texts, the latter covering all genres. Burmese occurs in two varieties, literary (or formal) and spoken (or colloquial), which diverge in terms of lexicon and grammatical markers.
The formal language is influenced by the Pali grammatical tradition through translations of Buddhist texts, making more consistent use of grammatical words. Colloquial Burmese is divided into a number of local dialects or variants, which exhibit differences in pronunciation, lexicon and sentence structure. These differences can often be seen as a result of intense contact with neighbouring languages, such as Mon in the case of southern Burmese. Burmese has a number of words and constructions that are not easily translated into other languages. One example is the verb mí, which means, ‘catch or be caught, be affected by something’. In combination with another verb, mí means ‘do something without intention, without knowing that one was not supposed to do it, or without knowing the consequences’. It is commonly used to deny one’s responsibility for what one has done.
Burmese, a Sino-tibetan language of the TibetoBurman group, is spoken by about 32 million people as their first language, and by up to 15 million more as a second language. It is the national language of Myanmar
WRITTEN SCRIPT Traditional Burmese script, written on palm leaves, is rounded in appearance; straight strokes would have ripped the leaves. Burmese script is written from left to right and requires no spacing in between characters. However, contemporary writing contains spaces after every clause in order to improve readability.