Burmese

=Myanmar (Burma)=

"Burma is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world." -[|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] (p 3)

Myanmar, or Burma, is a country in Southeast Asia of 261,000 square miles (comparable to the size of Texas) which is surrounded by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, and Thailand. It is not surprising then that Myanmar shares linguistic features with both Chinese and Thai languages. Myanmar's seven states are divided ethnically into Arakhan (Rakhine), Chin, Kachin, Karen (Kayin), Karenni (Kayah), Mon, and Shan. The country has three seasons; the dry season from March to June, the rainy season, or monsoon season, from July to October and the cool season from November to February. Myanmar's northern, eastern and western borders host mountains with valuable teak forests while it's center lands contain fertile rice valleys, and its southern borders form the coastlines of the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal.

In 1989, the military government of Burma announced that they wanted to use Myanmar for the country and its national people, and Bamar for the majority ethnic and linguistic group instead of "Burma and "Burmese." Many nations and expatriates still use the older forms while Myanmar and Bamar are considered correct by the country today.

People and Culture of Myanmar (Burma)
While the country is diverse, many divide the people of Myanmar into two very general groups: those who live in the valleys, participate in wet-rice farming and are largely both Buddhist and literate (mostly Burmans, Mon, Rakhine (Arakanese), and Shan), and those who live in the hills, participate in dry-rice farming and are largely "spirit worshippers" non-literate (mostly Chin, Kachin, Karen and Wa). [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] Despite these group divisions, all groups tend to share cultural aspects. For example, throughout the country, the main staple food item is rice. Meals typically consist of rice, curry and condiments. Three meals are typical, although festivities such as a wedding will call for more dishes and greater variety of entrees. Many such similarities unite the culture in this country.

Myanmar families are typically extended families and children tend to live with their parents even once married, due to traditions and economic pressures. Males and elders have greatest authority in Myanmar families, and while females have many societal rights (such as equality in a divorce and equal rights to educations), females are restricted from participating in some religions. Both men and women wear a //longyi// (/lon-jee/), which is an ankle-length skirt, to provide more comfort in hot weather. Women wear a blouse and men wear a shirt, and a sarong tied around the waist holds the skirt in place. Women also wear //thanakha//, a makeup worn one each cheack in a non-blended circle, which is both considered attractive and protection against sunburn. In urban areas, the //longyi// and //thanaka// have lost popularity //Young girl wearing Thanakha// as people have begun wearing skirts, jeans and jackets.



//Traditional Myanmar (Burmese) Outfits for Men and Women//



Myanmar is 90 percent Theravada Buddhist, meaning a belief in "karma—the idea that good and bad events can be attributed to actions committed in the past— and in reincarnation, therebirth of the soul in another body." Additionally, monks are highly respected and honored. Other beliefs include animistic beliefs, such as the worship of "spirits called nats, who are believed to dwell in trees." [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] (pg 9) //Buddhist Monk//

Traditions are very important to the Myanmar. For example, medicine functions along with traditional healing (dealing with the four element of fire, water, earth and air that balance a person), and ideas of magic. Other widespread traditions include extreme respect of elders, to the point of the young not pointing their feet at an elder, and rites of passage concerning birth, when 100 days after requires a feasting day and ceremony to name the child, novitation; a ceremony only for boys of age ten in which a boy may become a novice monk, and his family offers food, spices, books and other gifts (traditionally girls had an ear-piercing ceremony at the same age, but this is less common now), marriage, where the well off are married by a well known couple and offer a feast and the more modest weddings offer a feast to monks, and death, where is offered to monks on the day of death, the day of the funeral, and seven days after death (death is not mourned, but seen as another stage in the life cycle; the family carries out charitable acts for a better next-life of the deceased). //Novitation of young boys becoming monks//

//Novitation ceremonyof a young girl//



//Yodaya thachingyi//, or Thai classical music, is very popular throught Myanmar. The music, on a very different system than western scales, is "slower and heavier" than western inspired music and includes instruments like the gong circle, drum circle, wind instruments, bamboo clappers, and cymbals. Dances are formal, planned occasions which resemble theatrical performances.

Typical arts include carving, lacquerware, tapestry, gold and silver work, stone carving, wood carving, ivory carving, umbrella making, hand-woven silk and cotton textiles, and glazed pottery. These arts are often sought after such as the //kalaga//,wall hangings of wool and other fine materials depicting such scenes as the zodiac, traditional dance scenes or Buddhist legends. Ancient arts, such as temples as well as paintings within the temples, exhibit influences largely from India and China, which were then adapted to suit local beliefs. For example, a single temple in the city of Pagan displays various faiths (such as Theravadin Buddhism, Mahayanist Buddhism, Hindu, and Tantric beliefs) alongside each other.

//A Myanmar dance troupe//

//Lacquerware Plate//

Education is government mandated for all in public schools for four years of primary and middle school and three years of high school, although recently private schools have begun to open up for the wealthy. Arts, sciences, economics, accountancy and social studies are the focus of the curriculum. Due in large part to the many monasteries and the importance of being educated in Buddhist tradition, most people are literate. Until the 19th century, literature was written in verse (one such example being the stone slabs found in the [|Kuthodaw Pagoda], a spectacular gift donated to Buddha by a king seeking merit for the next life, around 1050 AD), and only around the 1920s was verse introduced. Today, many genres are found, and all types of publications are censored by the government.

//(A slab of the Kuthodaw Pagoda)//

Cultural Practices Necessary to Understand
• "Treat older people, Buddhist monks, and Buddhist images and objects with respect. For example, one would not normally place household objects above a Buddha image in a home." • "Don’t tower over people senior to yourself: Lower your head a little if you have to pass close in front of them." • "Don’t point your feet toward a senior person. The feet are regarded as the least noble part of the body, and it is disrespectful to point them toward someone deserving your respect." • "Don’t touch people on the head, which is considered the spiritually highest part of the body." • "Use both hands to give something to, and receive something from, an older person." • "Try not to show anger with Burmese even in the most frustrating situations. Losing one’s temper is a sign of bad manners and poor upbringing, and such behavior is not easily forgiven. • "Understand that the up-front behavior that Americans take as honest communication is not regarded similarly by the Burmese. Burmese tend toward discretion with others, at least until friendships are formed." - Burmese has been referred to as a "language with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English," [|Language Difficulty Rankings] (p 24)

=Language=

There are many languages spoken throughout the country of [|Myanmar]. However, Spoken Bamar (Burmese) is fairly similar throughout the country. There is an argued dialect of Rangoon and Mandalay, with small differences such as varying sentence intonation and some different vocabularies. The accepted dialects of Myanmar are Rakhine (Arakanese) and Tavoyan, which is found on the coasts, as well as Danu, Intha, and Yaw, which is mainly found in the mountainous regions. The main difference from Burmese is the vowel use and consonant use as well as some vocabularies.

The Myanmar language is part of the [|Sino-Tibetan] family of languages, as part of the Tibeto-Burman branch specifically. "Sino" refers to the Sinitic, or Chinese, branch of languages and "Tibetan" refers to the "Tibeto-Burman" branch of language. Therefore, Myanmar (Burmese) shares characteristics of both Chinese, mainly the Yi and Chin of southern China, and with Thai as well. All these languages are monosyllabic, agglutinative, tonal languages. That is, the Myanmar alphabet is syllabic (monosyllabic), instead of alphabetic as in English, and words are made up of sequences of syllables (agglutinative), and syllables have different tones to indicate such information as tense (tonal). ‍‍‍‍‍‍There are a number of different ethnic groups that make up the users of Burmese. The three most common are Karen, Karenni, and Chin. Karenni, also known as Red Karen, is spoken by a people from a formerly independent region in southern Burma. Both the Karen and Karenni speak dialects of the Karen languages. The Chin people are from western Burma. Their native language is Hakha, a language shared by other small groups in nearby India and Bangladesh.‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Although these languages are similar, they still count as seperate dialects.

"Kayen" is where the term Karen comes from. The name of the people who speak similar dialects in Eastern Burma. Their are many, many different dialects of Burmese and Karen, and their origins and forms can create a confusing map of dialect regions like the one below. A fairly complete list of the names and regions of different dialects of Burmesecan be found by using the following [|link]. It is important to note, as the author of the previous link does, that it is difficult to distinguish different ethnic groups based upon language, and perhaps that it would be easier to consider factors like economic status and political ties.

‍‍‍‍‍‍‍The language itself has a writing system that is quite different from that of romance languages. It is based off of a writing system that originated in India that is called Brahmi. Made up of 33 characters, the Burmese alphabet lacks some of the consonant sounds that are present in English like th,sh, and wh. ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍ Map taken from here

Gruber, J. (2011). Perceptual Cues to Lexical Tones in Burmese. Gergetown University. Retrieved from []

__Written Language__

The written script of Bamar (Burmese) is very circular, due to the traditional use of palm leaves as paper (angular script would have torn the leaves.) The written language has two distinct forms; colloquial writings and literary writings. If writing to a friend, a letter would be written exactly as one speaks while when one approaches a more academic subject with very different written language. These two styles have completely different grammars while most other aspects of the language is the same.

Gender is assigned to the language by affixing a symbol for male and a seperate symbol for female. The male sign is used with "irrational beings" mostly and one or two instances with "rational beings". The feminine symbol is used for both "irrational and rational beings" ( Wright, 1877, p.9). Some examples of these nouns are dog, buffalo, cat, rat. There are also many exceptions to the rule, for example nouns such as nephew, son uncle, brother-in-law (Wright, 1877, p.10-11).

[|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile]
 * For example:**
 * **English ** || //from// || //because// || //but// || //plural noun marker// ||
 * **Burmese Colloquial** || gá || ló || dáw || dwe ||
 * **Burmese Literary** || hmá || ywé || mu || myà ||

Phonology
"Myanmar uses a syllabic writing system unlike English and many other western languages which use an alphabetic writing system.Almost every syllable has a meaning in Myanmar." Myanmar contains 33 consonants, about 20 vowels and vowel combinations and 4 medials.

//Consonants of the Myanmar Language//

[[image:spring-2012-tsl620/Burmese_Consonants.gif]] [[image:spring-2012-tsl620/Burmese_Vowels.gif width="486" height="350"]]
//Some of the Vowels and Vowel Diacritics of the Myanmar Language//

The first twenty-five consonants are divided up into five classes. 1st class- Gutturals 2nd class-Palatals 3rd Class-Cerebrals 4th Class-Dentals 5th Class- Labials Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books?id=yNBaLBz_zHcC&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Myanmar (Burmese) contains several sounds which the English language does not. As a tonal language pitch (high vs. low), voice quality (creaky vs. plan) and final sound (open or nazalized vowel vs. glottal stop) distinguish phonemes. **For example (these words sound almost identical to the English ear):** [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile]
 * Myanmar Word || English Meaning || Word Attributes ||
 * //te// || "to establish" || low pitch, normal voice ||
 * //té// || "to be aligned" || high pitch, creaky voice ||
 * //tè// || "to live temporarily" || high pitch, normal voice ||
 * //teq// || "to ascend" || high pitch, glottal stop ||


 * **__Tone__** || **__Duration__** || **__Pitch__** || **__Intensity__** || **__Phonation__** || **__Syll. Type__** ||
 * High || Long || High rise or fall || Moderate || Breathy or plain || CV or CVN ||
 * Low || Long, moderate || Low level || Low || Plain, modal || CV or CVN ||
 * Creaky || Short || High, short fall || High || Creaky, weak, glottal closure || CV or CVN ||
 * Checked || Extremely short || Initial high, fall || Highest || Abrupt, complete glottal closure || CVO ||

__Lexical Tones:__ "Tone in Burmese is a complex contrast where systematic differences in intensity, duration,phonation type, and vowel quality operate alongside pitch distinctions. Prior phonetic studies, often attempting to establish whether pitch or phonation properties primarily signal the contrast, have confirmed that a distinction for each of these phonetic qualities is reliably produced by speakers (Thein Tun 1982, Javkin and Maddieson 1983, Watkins 2005, Gruber 2010). The table in (1) [recreated above] demonstrates these phonetic qualities" (Gruber, 2011,para 1). Phonetic Descriptions (Bradley 1982, Wheatley 1987, Watkins 2001) Gruber, J. (2011). Perceptual Cues to Lexical Tones in Burmese. Gergetown University. Retrieved from []

Morphology
Myanmar words are either single syllables or sequences of syllables. Words can be divided into simple words, compound words and complex words Myanmar sentences are "a sequence of syllables where each syllable is constructed from consonants, consonant combination symbols (i.e.Medials), vowel symbols related to relevant consonants and diacritic marks indicating tone level." The syllable structure of Burmese is C(G)V((V)C). The onset is created by a consonant (C) (optionally) followed by a glide (G), and the rhyme is either of a monophthong (V) alone, a monophthong with a consonant ((V)C), or a diphthong with a consonant (VVC). **For Example:**

• CV [mei] girl • CVC [me] crave • CGV [mjei] earth • CGVC [mje] eye • CVVC [maun] (term of address for young men) • CGVVC [mjaun] ditch

-Myanmar Language (p 41)

Grammar
• The nine parts of Myanmar language are the noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, particle, conjunction, post-positional marker and interjection. • In the written language, there are no spaces between words, and there are only sometimes spaces between sentences or clauses, usually within informal writing for convenience. • "Markers corresponding to English prepositions follow the noun. (The English phrase “from Manadalay” becomes “Mandalay from” in Burmese.)" • "The verb always comes at the end of the sentence. (Instead of “The patient drank the medicine,” the Burmese would say, “The patient the medicine drank.”)" • "All subordinate clauses precede the main clause. (The English sentence “She couldn’t come with us because she had to go to a meeting” would appear in Burmese as “She meeting go have to because, us with not come could.”)" • "Relative clauses precede the nouns that they modify. (The English clause “the clock I bought yesterday” is rendered in Burmese as “the I yesterday bought clock.”)" • "The language makes use of classifiers, special words used when items are counted that indicate the semantic class to which the item being counted belongs. (The English phrase “two pens” becomes “pen-two-rods” in Burmese.)" [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] (p 18-20) -Adjectives follow many different rules in Burmese. For example when adjectives are placed before the nouns they are connectives but when placed after the noun the connective is omitted and becomes an assertive (Wright, 1877, p.18-19). The pronunciation of adjectives is different depending on how they are used. If the adjective is being used as attributes it is pronounced soft and when it is being used as an assertive it is pronounced hard (Wright, 1877, p.20-21). Adjectives also consist of Imperfect Degree, Positive Degree, Comparative and Superlative.

=Common Transfer Errors Between Myanmar and English=

Pronunciation
"Standard English; Burmese English. ur (as in further and Burma); sounds like fahthah and Bahmah ow (as in now and brow); sounds like noun and brown ie (as in pie and lie); sounds like pine and line tu (as in tuba and tutor); sounds like chuba and chutah" [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] (p 25)

- "consonant clusters (inserting vowels into them: ski sounds like saki and plug sounds like paluk)" [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] (p 25)

Stress
"Stress is often wrongly placed by Burmese speakers of English (e.g., vegeTABLE instead of VEGetable, deveLOPment instead of deVELopment), especially in syllables ending with the sounds /t/, /k/, and /p/ (e.g., homeSICK instead of HOMEsick, PAtricia instead of PaTRIcia)." [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] (p 25)

Grammar
-" Problems with verb tenses (verbs are not conjugated the way English verbs are): Speaker might say “He had lost his job” when “He lost his job” would more accurate - Past participles used as adjectives: Speaker might say “You are boring” when “You are bored” is meant. - Comparative forms of adjectives: “I work more harder” is a common mistake - Prepositions: Speaker might say, “Please help for this” instead of “Please help me with this.” - Personal pronouns (In Burmese, they are not distinguished by masculine and feminine forms): Speakers often confuse "him" and "her" " [|Refugees of Burma Cultural Profile] (p 25)

Similarities with English
Myanmar does not put spaces in between words, word boundaries typically align with syllables. As with English, segmenting through syllables (instead of letters), is a comprehensible activity. Overall, Burmese has been referred to as a "language with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English." [|Language Difficulty Rankings] Therefore, there are very few similarities with English.

How to Address Errors
Syllabification is a useful strategy, as both English and Myanmar distinguish words segmenting syllables. Due to the lack of spaces between words and often sentences, asking students to segment words and sentences based on letters or words is incredibly difficult for students. A less frustrating activity for students would be to first segment by syllables.

Create students profiles which focus on student strengths and help you analyze the source of the error. **For Example:**

[|Analyzing Errors] (Using student profiles to determine strengths on which to focus)
=Research Process=

====[|Tip Sheets](Both Chinese and Thai are members of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, therefore the tip sheets for these two languages may be helpful in addressing transfer errors)====

Teacher Resources
=Resources= http://aclweb.org/anthology-new/I/I08/I08-7006.pdf http://www.omniglot.com/writing/burmese.htm http://www.assta.org/sst/SST-90/cache/SST-90-Chapter14-p26.pdf http://www.sil.org/silepubs/Pubs/928474541541/e-Book22_HoppleP_Structure_Burmese.pdf http://www.wiganschoolsonline.net/inclusion/emas/docs/Language%20Transfer%20Booklet.pdf http://www.wiganschoolsonline.net/inclusion/emas/docs/Language%20Transfer%20Booklet.pdf http://www.muturzikin.com/cartesasiesudest/6.htm http://www.krysstal.com/langfams_sinotibe.html http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Sino-Tibetan http://stedt.berkeley.edu/about-st hhtp://elanguage.net/journals/lsameeting/article/download/1502/1442 [] http://college.cengage.com/english/raimes/3e/12raimesi.pdf

= = //Novitation ceremonyof a young girl// ‍‍