The Burma-Myanmar debate will eventually be settled linguistically by the Burmese users’ overwhelming usage of one as the preferred standard for the country and its people.
There is, however, a political answer to this linguistic dilemma. Choosing what some see as the name of the ethnic majority to represent the entire country will remain controversial as long as the ethnic minorities feel inadequately represented. The solution, therefore, rests with fostering trust, equality, and camaraderie among all ethnic groups within the country’s border, regardless of their regional, culture, and religious differences. That, I humbly submit, is a surefire way to end the Burma-Myanmar debate.
On Burmese Pronunciation
Learn and imitate the singsong melody of the phrases to be able to pronounce the Burmese tones. For example, the tonal structure of Nay kaungg laa or “How are you?” is long-high-high, thus the second and third words (kaungg laa) should be pronounced in a tone higher than the initial word (nay). And the phrase Loh jin dae or “I want …” is long-long-long, thus all three words should be fairly even in pitch.
There is a growing list of free YouTube Burmese tutorials featuring native speakers’ pronunciations for you to emulate. My own clips are available at http://tinyurl.com/kwong-burmese-lessons; you can find others at http://www.facebook.com/burmeselesson.
TONES: Every vowel in Burmese can potentially be pronounced three ways:
• The short tone is voiced with a short, abrupt end, as if someone has interrupted you midway during a word. The effect is similar to English words like “bet”, “cut”, or “boot”.
• The long tone is voiced with a sustained vowel that lingers, similar to the vowel sounds in English words like (the month of) “May” or (a soda) “can”.
• The high tone is voiced as if you’re raising your voice in excitement or hollering to get someone’s attention. English speakers usually pronounce words like “blue”, “blame”, or “star” in such a fashion.
The tones are important to distinguish between words like စ sa “to begin”, စာ sa “letter” or “literature”, and စား sa “to eat”, which would usually be rendered simply as sa.
• To signal a short tone in this book, we use the basic form sa, or with a t to round up the sound. In such instances, do not pronounce the t, but use it to shorten the vowel sound.
• A long tone is rendered as sah or paw. For instance, paw “to appear”.
• To indicate a high tone, we double the vowel, so sa becomes saa. An e might be added to the vowel to artificially raise the tone, as in for poe “insect”, or the end-letter may be doubled instead, as in sainn “green” (color).
Note: If I can achieve phonetic clarity by a simpler means, I employ it instead. For instance, “gourd” should be rendered as Buu thee but writing Boo thee is much more effective in conveying its actual sound. If a well-recognized English word already exists for a Burmese item, then that supercedes the romanization rules.
These artificial rules above help prevent the readers from making embarrassing mistakes, like mispronouncing phaa “frog” (high tone) as phah “prostitute” (long tone); or hsih “cooking oil” (long tone) as hsii “urine” (high tone). But keep in mind that the romanized pronunciations are merely approximations. To learn the proper pronunciation, you should spend some time conversing with a native speaker.
CONSONANTS: Many Burmese consonants map quite well to the standard English sounds, such as the English m, n, s and g. Some Burmese consonants simply do not have English equivalents. Here are the most challenging ones:
• Ng is the sound that appears in the middle of words like “singer” or in the end of words like “drinking”. But it doesn’t usually appear as an initial sound in English.
• Ny is identical to the Spanish Ñ from El Niño (Nin-yo) or the Italian N in Signore.
• Hs is nearly identical to the English s, but pronounced with a sharper sibilant, and is called the aspirated s. The distinction between s and hs may not always be clear when speaking to someone, so use the context to decipher which consonant it is.
• When the letters m, l and n are spelled as မွ, လွ, or ႏွ, they are pronounced with the H-sound preceding the consonant, as hm, hl, hn, and so on. (The Burmese name for this little (--ွ) diacritic mark means “Ha-inserted”.) Pronounce them just like “Hmmm!” but remember to round it out with the l or n sound based on the second letter.
• Ky should sound heavier than the ch from chalk, but not as heavy as the g from “George”. Pronounce the ch-sound without releasing too much air between your teeth and you’ll be close to the actual Burmese pronunciation.
GUIDE TO CONSONANTS OR INITIAL SOUNDS
| Sounds like | Example | Meaning | |
| b | band, book, bone | bah thah | faith, religion |
| by | beautiful, rebuke | byee | consonant letter |
| ch | church, choose | chit | to love |
| d | dance, do, door | dah | this |
| g | go, game, gun | gih ta | music |
| h | he, home, hunt | hah tha | comedy |
| j | jim or jam | joh | planet |
| k | skate, skull or sky | ku | to heal |
| kh | kill, key or Kansas | khaa | bitter |
| ky | chalk or chosenbut with less air escaping between the teeth | kyaungg | school |
| l | line, lone or lump | la | moon |
| hl | voiced with a breathy h preceding the l (round “hmm” out with l instead) | hla | beautiful |
| m | moon, more or morning | moe | rain |
| hm | voiced with a breathy h preceding the m (round “hmm” out with m instead) | hmaa | wrong |
| my | music | myint | high, tall |
| n | name, number or normal | nay | sun |
| hn | voiced with a breathy h preceding the n (round “hmm” out with n instead) | hna-lonne | heart |
| ng | singer | ngaa | fish |
| ny | Spanish ñ from el niño pronounced nin-yo | nya | night |
| p | spawn, spool or Spain | paan | flower |
| ph | pawn, pool or pain, with a puff
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