Burmese Alphabet

Burmese Alphabet

The Burmese script (Burmese: မြန်မာအက္ခရာ; MLCTS: mranma akkha.ra; ) 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. 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 or from the Pyu script. The earliest evidence of Burmese script is dated to 1035, while an 18th century recast stone inscription points to 984. 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. 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.