Burmese alphabet
| Burmese မြန်မာအက္ခရာ | |
|---|---|
| Script type | |
Period | c. 984 or 1035–present |
| Direction | Left-to-right |
| Languages | Burmese, Rakhine, Pali and Sanskrit |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | Egyptian
|
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Mymr (350), Myanmar (Burmese) |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Myanmar |
Unicode range | U+1000–U+104F |
| Brahmic scripts |
|---|
| The Brahmi script and its descendants |
The Burmese alphabet (Burmese: မြန်မာအက္ခရာ, MLCTS: mranma akkhara, pronounced [mjəmà ʔɛʔkʰəjà]) is an abugida used for writing Burmese, based on the Mon–Burmese script. It is ultimately adapted from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The Burmese alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit. In recent decades, other, related alphabets, such as Shan and modern Mon, have been restructured according to the standard of the Burmese alphabet (see Mon–Burmese script). Burmese orthography is deep, with an indirect spelling-sound correspondence between graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds), due to its long and conservative written history and voicing rules.
Burmese is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability and to avoid grammatical complications. There are several systems of transliteration into the Latin alphabet; for this article, the MLC Transcription System is used.
The rounded and even circular shapes dominating the script are thought to be due to the historical writing material, palm leaves, drawing straight lines on which can tear the surface.[3]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
mat-2005-167-178-197-200was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Diringer, David (1948). Alphabet a key to the history of mankind. p. 411.
- ^ The Unicode Consortium (2011). Allen, Julie D. (ed.). The Unicode Standard. Version 6.0 – Core Specification (PDF). Mountain View, CA: Unicode Consortium. p. 354. ISBN 978-1-936213-01-6.
It is said that the rounder forms were developed to permit writing on palm leaves without tearing the writing surface of the leaf.