Myanmar Languages

Myanmar

Spoken languages are affiliated with each ethnic group. The name Burma was derived from the colloquial name used for the language and speakers of Bam. In formal speech Myanm is preferred to Bam. When the Burmese conquered the populous southern areas, they adopted colloquial vocabulary and pronunciations. Current efforts to use ethnic Burmese over colloquial variations have resulted in numerous “official” name changes. The pronunciation of the southern city of Rangoon has now become officially Yangon. The letter “r” in ethnic Burmese has coalesced with the letter “y.” Burmese (also called Myanmarese) is the language of government, schools and television. Other languages spoken regionally include the numerous indigenous ethnic languages, Chinese and Hindi. English is widely used in business. Records were kept in Burmese, English, Chinese, and languages of the ethnic groups.

The Burmese script is a development of the Mon alphabet, and is non-roman and Indian in origin. The thirty three alphabetical characters are consonants. These are each modified by 12 or more vowel sounds in the written script. There is considerable variance between the colloquial modern spoken language used on television and the formal literary language used in published books, magazines and newspapers. This has resulted in wide variance of romanization values for modern Burmese.