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110-508: Ne Win ( Burmese : နေဝင်း ; IPA: [nè wɪ́ɰ̃] ; 24 May 1911 – 5 December 2002), born Shu Maung ( Burmese : ရှူမောင် ; IPA: [/ʃù màʊ̃̀/] ), was a Burmese army general and politician who served as Prime Minister of Burma from 1958 to 1960 and 1962 to 1974, and also President of Burma from 1962 to 1981. Ne Win was Burma's military dictator during the Socialist Burma period of 1962 to 1988. Ne Win founded

220-565: A pitch-register language like Shanghainese . There are four contrastive tones in Burmese. In the following table, the tones are shown marked on the vowel /a/ as an example. For example, the following words are distinguished from each other only on the basis of tone: In syllables ending with /ɰ̃/ , the checked tone is excluded: In spoken Burmese, some linguists classify two real tones (there are four nominal tones transcribed in written Burmese), "high" (applied to words that terminate with

330-645: A subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family . The Burmese alphabet is ultimately descended from a Brahmic script , either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabets. Burmese belongs to the Southern Burmish branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages , of which Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non- Sinitic languages. Burmese

440-734: A bloody military coup by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Thousands of deaths have been attributed to the military during this uprising, while authorities in Myanmar put the figure at around 350 people killed. At the height of the Four Eights Uprising against the BSPP, Ne Win resigned as party chairman on 23 July 1988. In a truculent farewell speech to the BSPP Party Congress, he warned that if

550-590: A doctor. In 1931 he was expelled from the university after he failed an exam. Ne Win eventually became " Thakin Shu Maung", or a member of the nationalist organisation Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association). Other members of the group included Aung San and U Nu . In 1941 Ne Win, as a member of the Ba Sein-Tun Ok (Socialist) faction of the Dobama, was one of thirty young men chosen for military training by

660-525: A few aspects, including the year students enter elementary school and the age individuals can purchase alcohol or cigarettes or join mandatory military service. The traditional Japanese system of age reckoning, or kazoedoshi ( 数え年 , lit. "counted years"), which incremented one's age on New Year's Day , was rendered obsolete by law in 1902 when Japan officially adopted the modern age system, known in Japanese as man nenrei ( 満年齢 ). However,

770-566: A hastily arranged funeral, so that only thirty people attended the funeral. Ne Win's daughter Sandar Win was temporarily released from house arrest to attend his funeral and cremation. She later dispersed her father's ashes into the Hlaing River . Ne Win's grandson Aye Ne Win and Kyaw Ne Win were released in 2013. Ne Win was married six times: Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with

880-550: A lesser extent, Burmese has also imported words from Sanskrit (religion), Hindi (food, administration, and shipping), and Chinese (games and food). Burmese has also imported a handful of words from other European languages such as Portuguese . Here is a sample of loan words found in Burmese: Since the end of British rule, the Burmese government has attempted to limit usage of Western loans (especially from English) by coining new words ( neologisms ). For instance, for

990-473: A medical check up". All universities were closed for more than two years until September 1964. In 1988, 26 years later, Ne Win denied involvement in the dynamiting of the Student Union building, stating that his deputy Brigadier Aung Gyi – who by that time had fallen out with Ne Win and been dismissed – had given the order and that he had to take responsibility as a " revolutionary leader " by giving

1100-504: A mixed system, with very widespread use of traditional ages sometimes accommodated by the government. On the mainland, despite calculating age solely by birthdays for all official purposes, Standard Mandarin continues to exclusively use the word suì for talking about years of age; Japanese similarly uses its equivalent, sai . Korean age reckoning began by using the Chinese system but changed to calculating ages using January 1st as

1210-674: A monk]", Lower Burmese speakers use [sʰʊ́ɰ̃] instead of [sʰwáɰ̃] , which is the pronunciation used in Upper Burma. The standard dialect is represented by the Yangon dialect because of the modern city's media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese. The most noticeable feature of the Mandalay dialect is its use of the first person pronoun ကျွန်တော် , kya.nau [tɕənɔ̀] by both men and women, whereas in Yangon,

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1320-461: A nationwide uprising against BSPP rule in what is now known as the ' Four Eights Uprising '. The 8888 uprising was started by students in Yangon (Rangoon) on 8 August 1988. Student protests spread throughout the country . Hundreds of thousands of monks , children, university students, housewives, doctors and common people protested against the government. The uprising ended on 18 September after

1430-481: A person's fan tai sui 反太歲/反太岁, which occurs after every twelve-year zodiac cycle. Thus, for a child born in June of the year 2000, a year of the dragon, the first fan tai sui year would occur in the next dragon year, which would begin on Lunar new year in the year 2012, when the child turns 13 sui . By modern reckoning, the child would be 11 years old at the beginning of the year and turn 12 years old in June. Therefore,

1540-466: A stop or check, high-rising pitch) and "ordinary" (unchecked and non-glottal words, with falling or lower pitch), with those tones encompassing a variety of pitches. The "ordinary" tone consists of a range of pitches. Linguist L. F. Taylor concluded that "conversational rhythm and euphonic intonation possess importance" not found in related tonal languages and that "its tonal system is now in an advanced state of decay." The syllable structure of Burmese

1650-823: A strictly neutralist policy during the Cold War , participating in the Non-Aligned Movement and keeping his distance from both the United States and the Soviet Union . On the other hand, his relations with Mao Zedong and the People's Republic of China were initially excellent, but were temporarily broken between 1967 and 1971, due to Mao's covert support for the Communist insurgency within Burma and

1760-594: A year to their age on their birthdays but on New Year's Day (in the case of Taiwan, on the Lunisolar Chinese calendar New Year and not the Gregorian one as in Korea). Koreans who use the traditional system refer to their age in units called sal ( 살 ), using Korean numerals in ordinal form. Thus, a person is one sal ( han sal [ 한 살 ]) during the first calendar year of life, and ten sal during

1870-628: Is mutual intelligibility among Burmese dialects, as they share a common set of tones, consonant clusters, and written script. However, several Burmese dialects differ substantially from standard Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, and rhymes. Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers, particularly those living in the Irrawaddy valley, all of whom use variants of Standard Burmese. The standard dialect of Burmese (the Mandalay - Yangon dialect continuum ) comes from

1980-465: Is C(G)V((V)C), which is to say the onset consists of a consonant optionally followed by a glide , and the rime consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong with a consonant. The only consonants that can stand in the coda are /ʔ/ and /ɰ̃/ . Some representative words are: East Asian age reckoning Traditional East Asian age reckoning covers a group of related methods for reckoning human ages practiced in

2090-526: Is basically (Korean age – 1), or when a person's Korean age is 20. Calls to remove the system intensified in early 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic , as inconsistent use of the two age systems created conflicts in the eligibility criteria for COVID-19 vaccines and a vaccine passport rule; some residents were being deemed ineligible for vaccination, but at the same time subject to a proof of vaccination requirement for certain establishments. In April 2022,

2200-442: Is pronounced [mõ̀ũndã́ĩ] . The vowels of Burmese are: The monophthongs /e/ , /o/ , /ə/ , /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ occur only in open syllables (those without a syllable coda ); the diphthongs /ei/ , /ou/ , /ai/ and /au/ occur only in closed syllables (those with a syllable coda). /ə/ only occurs in a minor syllable , and is the only vowel that is permitted in a minor syllable (see below). The close vowels /i/ and /u/ and

2310-470: Is the birthday by the Gregorian calendar. In the past, most people used the Lunar calendar ( eumnyeok saeng-il ) to tell their birthdays rather than the Gregorian calendar ( yangnyeok saeng-il ), but nowadays Koreans, especially young generations, tend to use yangnyeok saeng-il for telling their birth dates. For official government uses, documents, and legal procedures, the international system

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2420-584: Is the value of the four native final nasals: ⟨မ်⟩ /m/ , ⟨န်⟩ /n/ , ⟨ဉ်⟩ /ɲ/ , ⟨င်⟩ /ŋ/ , as well as the retroflex ⟨ဏ⟩ /ɳ/ (used in Pali loans) and nasalisation mark anusvara demonstrated here above ka (က → ကံ) which most often stands in for a homorganic nasal word medially as in တံခါး tankhá 'door', and တံတား tantá 'bridge', or else replaces final -m ⟨မ်⟩ in both Pali and native vocabulary, especially after

2530-638: Is the word "moon", which can be လ la̰ (native Tibeto-Burman), စန္ဒာ/စန်း [sàndà]/[sã́] (derivatives of Pali canda 'moon'), or သော်တာ [t̪ɔ̀ dà] (Sanskrit). The consonants of Burmese are as follows: According to Jenny & San San Hnin Tun (2016 :15), contrary to their use of symbols θ and ð, consonants of သ are dental stops ( /t̪, d̪/ ), rather than fricatives ( /θ, ð/ ) or affricates. These phonemes, alongside /sʰ/ , are prone to merger with /t, d, s/ . An alveolar /ɹ/ can occur as an alternate of /j/ in some loanwords. The final nasal /ɰ̃/

2640-514: Is unclear. On 5 December 1974 , students turned the funeral of former UN Secretary General U Thant into a demonstration, snatching the coffin on display at the Kyaikkasan Race Course and erecting a makeshift mausoleum on the grounds of the former Student Union building in protest against the government for not honouring their famous countryman with a state funeral. The military stormed the campus on 11 December, killing some of

2750-460: Is used. Regulations regarding age limits on beginning school, as well as the age of consent , are all based on this system ( man-nai ). The age qualifier for tobacco and alcohol use is actually similar to, but distinct from the East Asian reckoning system. A person is allowed tobacco and alcohol if it is after January 1 of the year one turns 19 (post-birth age). This is the "year age", which

2860-491: The [ ɹ ] sound, which has become [ j ] in standard Burmese. Moreover, Arakanese features a variety of vowel differences, including the merger of the ဧ [e] and ဣ [i] vowels. Hence, a word like "blood" သွေး is pronounced [θw é ] in standard Burmese and [θw í ] in Arakanese. The Burmese language's early forms include Old Burmese and Middle Burmese . Old Burmese dates from

2970-588: The /l/ medial, which is otherwise only found in Old Burmese inscriptions. They also often reduce the intensity of the glottal stop . Beik has 250,000 speakers while Tavoyan has 400,000. The grammatical constructs of Burmese dialects in Southern Myanmar show greater Mon influence than Standard Burmese. The most pronounced feature of the Arakanese language of Rakhine State is its retention of

3080-624: The Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) and overthrew the democratic Union Parliament of U Nu in the 1962 Burmese coup d'état , establishing Burma as a one-party socialist state under the Burmese Way to Socialism ideology. Ne Win was Burma's de facto leader as chairman of the BSPP , serving in various official titles as part of his military government, and was known by his supporters as U Ne Win . His rule

3190-475: The Burmese alphabet began employing cursive-style circular letters typically used in palm-leaf manuscripts , as opposed to the traditional square block-form letters used in earlier periods. The orthographic conventions used in written Burmese today can largely be traced back to Middle Burmese. Modern Burmese emerged in the mid-18th century. By this time, male literacy in Burma stood at nearly 50%, which enabled

3300-560: The East Asian cultural sphere , where age is the number of calendar years in which a person has been alive; it starts at 1 at birth and increases at each New Year . Ages calculated this way are always 1 or 2 years greater than ages that start with 0 at birth and increase at each birthday . Historical records from China , Japan , Korea , and Vietnam have usually been based on these methods, whose specific details have varied over time and by place. The South Korean government switched to

3410-618: The English language in the colonial educational system, especially in higher education. In the 1930s, the Burmese language saw a linguistic revival, precipitated by the establishment of an independent University of Rangoon in 1920 and the inception of a Burmese language major at the university by Pe Maung Tin , modeled on Anglo Saxon language studies at the University of Oxford. Student protests in December of that year, triggered by

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3520-961: The Japanese occupation of Burma worked to alienate the nationalists as well as the population at large. Toward the end of the Second World War , on 27 March 1945 the Burma National Army (BNA, successor to the BIA) turned against the Japanese following the British re-invasion of Burma. Ne Win, as one of the BNA Commanders, was quick to establish links with the British – attending the Kandy conference in Ceylon and taking charge of

3630-723: The Mon people , who until recently formed the majority in Lower Burma . Most Mon loanwords are so well assimilated that they are not distinguished as loanwords, as Burmese and Mon were used interchangeably for several centuries in pre-colonial Burma. Mon loans are often related to flora, fauna, administration, textiles, foods, boats, crafts, architecture, and music. As a natural consequence of British rule in Burma , English has been another major source of vocabulary, especially with regard to technology, measurements, and modern institutions. English loanwords tend to take one of three forms: To

3740-534: The Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan ( မြန်မာ စာလုံးပေါင်း သတ်ပုံ ကျမ်း ), was compiled in 1978 by the commission. Burmese is a diglossic language with two distinguishable registers (or diglossic varieties ): The literary form of Burmese retains archaic and conservative grammatical structures and modifiers (including affixes and pronouns) no longer used in the colloquial form. Literary Burmese, which has not changed significantly since

3850-614: The Pyu language . These indirect borrowings can be traced back to orthographic idiosyncrasies in these loanwords, such as the Burmese word "to worship", which is spelt ပူဇော် ( pūjo ) instead of ပူဇာ ( pūjā ), as would be expected by the original Pali orthography. The transition to Middle Burmese occurred in the 16th century. The transition to Middle Burmese included phonological changes (e.g. mergers of sound pairs that were distinct in Old Burmese) as well as accompanying changes in

3960-669: The anti-Communist operations in the Pyinmana area as commander of the 4th Burma Rifles after the Red Flag Communists and the Communist Party of Burma went underground to fight against the government in October 1946 and on 28 March 1948 respectively. Burma obtained independence on 4 January 1948, and for the first 14 years it had a parliamentary and democratic government mainly under Prime Minister U Nu , but

4070-476: The army into rebellion . Ne Win immediately adopted a policy of creating Socialist militia battalions called 'Sitwundan' under his personal command with the approval of U Nu . On 31 January 1949, Ne Win was appointed Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces ( Tatmadaw ) and given total control of the army, replacing General Smith Dun , an ethnic Karen . He rebuilt and restructured the armed forces along

4180-417: The currency . In 1985, he issued a decree that 25, 35, and 75 kyat notes would cease to be legal tender, alleging that they were subject to hoarding by black-marketeers and were also used to finance the various insurgencies. Though limited compensation was offered, this wiped out people's savings overnight. At least one insurgency, that of the ethnic Kayan , was triggered by this act. In 1987, reportedly on

4290-573: The non-citizen Chinese , from owning land, sending remittances , getting business licenses and practicing medicine . Such policies led to the beginnings of a major exodus of Burmese Chinese to other countries – some 100,000 Chinese left Burma. Since Ne Win made Burmese the medium of instruction, many Chinese-language schools had to be closed. When the Chinese embassy in Rangoon distributed Mao 's red books in Burma, many Chinese went out on

4400-546: The party and thus remained the ultimate political authority in the land until his resignation in 1988. Ne Win's government nationalized the economy and pursued a policy of autarky , which involved the economic isolation of Burma from the world. The ubiquitous black market and rampant smuggling supplied the needs of the people, while the central government slid slowly into bankruptcy . Autarky also involved expelling foreigners and restricting visits by foreigners to three days, and after 1972, one week. The Burmanization of

4510-503: The sword with sword and spear with spear speech. Ne Win oversaw a number of reforms after taking power. The administration instituted a system including elements of nationalism , Marxism , and Buddhism , though Ne Win lacked interest in either ideology or religion – terming this the Burmese Way to Socialism . He founded the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), which in 1964 was formally declared to be

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4620-445: The "disturbances" continued the "army would have to be called and I would like to declare from here that if the army shoots it has no tradition of shooting into the air. It would shoot straight to hit." The Tatmadaw troops shot, killed and maimed hundreds if not up to 3,000 or more demonstrators in various places throughout Burma from the period of 8 to 12 August 1988 and again on 18 September 1988, proving that Ne Win's farewell speech

4730-413: The 11th to the 16th century ( Pagan to Ava dynasties); Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century ( Toungoo to early Konbaung dynasties); modern Burmese from the mid-18th century to the present. Word order , grammatical structure, and vocabulary have remained markedly stable well into Modern Burmese, with the exception of lexical content (e.g., function words ). The earliest attested form of

4840-465: The 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac , which—like the stars—change each Chinese New Year . In this system, one's age is not a calculation of the number of calendar years ( 年 , nián ) since birth but a count of the number of these Jovian stars ( simplified Chinese : 岁 ; traditional Chinese : 歲 ; pinyin : suì ) whose influence one has lived through. By the Song dynasty , this system—and

4950-457: The 13th century, is the register of Burmese taught in schools. In most cases, the corresponding affixes in the literary and spoken forms are totally unrelated to each other. Examples of this phenomenon include the following lexical terms: Historically the literary register was preferred for written Burmese on the grounds that "the spoken style lacks gravity, authority, dignity". In the mid-1960s, some Burmese writers spearheaded efforts to abandon

5060-410: The 19th century, in addition to concomitant economic and political instability in Upper Burma (e.g., increased tax burdens from the Burmese crown, British rice production incentives, etc.) also accelerated the migration of Burmese speakers from Upper Burma into Lower Burma. British rule in Burma eroded the strategic and economic importance of the Burmese language; Burmese was effectively subordinated to

5170-625: The BNA in 1945 now that Aung San was dead and the Communists expelled from the AFPFL. Following independence there were uprisings in the army and among ethnic minority groups . In late 1948, after a confrontation between army rivals, Ne Win was appointed second in command of the army and his rival Bo Zeya, a communist commander and fellow member of the Thirty Comrades , took a portion of

5280-471: The British in the lead-up to the independence of Burma in 1948. The 1948 Constitution of Burma prescribed Burmese as the official language of the newly independent nation. The Burma Translation Society and Rangoon University's Department of Translation and Publication were established in 1947 and 1948, respectively, with the joint goal of modernizing the Burmese language in order to replace English across all disciplines. Anti-colonial sentiment throughout

5390-557: The Buddhist clergy (monks) from the laity ( householders ), especially when speaking to or about bhikkhus (monks). The following are examples of varying vocabulary used for Buddhist clergy and for laity: Burmese primarily has a monosyllabic received Sino-Tibetan vocabulary. Nonetheless, many words, especially loanwords from Indo-European languages like English, are polysyllabic, and others, from Mon, an Austroasiatic language, are sesquisyllabic . Burmese loanwords are overwhelmingly in

5500-419: The Burmese economy further still. Ne Win was well known for his penchant for yadaya (traditional Burmese rituals performed in order to ward off misfortune). When his soothsayer warned him that there might be a bloodbath, he would stand in front of a mirror and trample on meat to simulate the blood, then shoot his reflection to avert the possibility of an assassination attempt . Ne Win resigned as chairman of

5610-688: The Burmese language into Lower Burma also coincided with the emergence of Modern Burmese. As late as the mid-1700s, Mon , an Austroasiatic language, was the principal language of Lower Burma, employed by the Mon people who inhabited the region. Lower Burma's shift from Mon to Burmese was accelerated by the Burmese-speaking Konbaung Dynasty 's victory over the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757. By 1830, an estimated 90% of

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5720-469: The Burmese language is called Old Burmese , dating to the 11th and 12th century stone inscriptions of Pagan . The earliest evidence of the Burmese alphabet is dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984. Owing to the linguistic prestige of Old Pyu in the Pagan Kingdom era, Old Burmese borrowed a substantial corpus of vocabulary from Pali via

5830-514: The Burmese language newspapers that were allowed to carry a paid obituary stated the age of 'U Ne Win' to be '93 years'. According to Burmese custom, a person's age is their age upon their next birthday. Since Ne Win turned 92 in July 2002, when he died in December 2002 he was considered to be 93 years old. Most Western news agencies, based on the May 1911 birth date, reported that Ne Win was 91 years old, but

5940-517: The Burmese version of his book Burma and General Ne Win , also published in English, that Ne Win was born on 14 May 1911. However, in a book written in Burmese titled The Thirty Comrades , the author Kyaw Nyein gave Ne Win's date of birth as 10 July 1910. While May 24, 1911, is widely cited as Ne Win's birthdate in many scholarly works and biographical references, the discrepancies among sources warrant acknowledgment. These conflicting accounts highlight

6050-454: The East Asian age reckoning in a variety of social contexts and the term sui ( 歲 ) less ambiguously refers to ones age according to this system. While birthdays are increasingly celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar, the traditional age reckoning is retained (e.g. Su Beng 's centennial was celebrated to honor his November 5, 1918 birth in the Gregorian calendar in 2017, not 2018 ). Furthermore, Taiwanese, like South Koreans, do not add

6160-543: The English "years old", but is only used to refer to the first few birthdays. Cheotdol or simply dol refers to the first Gregorian-equivalent birthday, dudol refers to the second, and so on. The international system became promoted over the traditional system in North Korea possibly since around 1986. A Korean birthday celebration by the Lunar calendar is called eumnyeok saeng-il ( 음력 생일, 陰曆生日 ) and yangnyeok saeng-il ( 양력 생일, 陽曆生日 )

6270-497: The Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from Upper Burma (e.g., Mandalay dialect), called anya tha ( အညာသား ) and speakers from Lower Burma (e.g., Yangon dialect), called auk tha ( အောက်သား ), largely occur in vocabulary choice, not in pronunciation. Minor lexical and pronunciation differences exist throughout the Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term ဆွမ်း , "food offering [to

6380-620: The Japanese operative Colonel Suzuki Keiji . Their leader was Aung San and they formed the Burma Independence Army (BIA). During military training, Shu Maung chose a nom de guerre , Bo Ne Win (Commander Radiant Sun). In early 1942 the Japanese Army and the BIA entered Burma in the wake of the retreating British forces. Ne Win's role in the campaign was to organize resistance behind the British lines. The experience of

6490-466: The Lunar new year, they turned two sui , and every subsequent new year after that, they were one more sui . Thus, by traditional reckoning, sui does not exactly mean "years old". In many Chinese societies around the world, a child's horoscope is calculated at birth and is considered relevant throughout their life. The horoscope is calculated using the traditional sui (虛歲/虚岁 xusui or 毛歲/毛岁 maosui ). This becomes important, for example in calculating

6600-529: The New Year with their adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1896. In North Korea, the old system was eliminated entirely in the 1980s. In South Korea, medical and legal documents already utilised the international age system, where Korean age was still routinely used until 2023, when the government formally changed the legally recognised age system to bring it into line with international standards and resolve

6710-479: The OB vowel *u e.g. ငံ ngam 'salty', သုံး thóum ('three; use'), and ဆုံး sóum 'end'. It does not, however, apply to ⟨ည်⟩ which is never realised as a nasal, but rather as an open front vowel [iː] [eː] or [ɛː] . The final nasal is usually realised as nasalisation of the vowel. It may also allophonically appear as a homorganic nasal before stops. For example, in /mòʊɰ̃dáɪɰ̃/ ('storm'), which

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6820-587: The Thirty Comrades when he wrote the book in the mid-to late 1990s. (Ne Win was one of the Thirty Comrades who secretly went to undergo military training in the early 1940s for the purpose of fighting for independence from the British). In his book published around 1998, Kyaw Nyein lists the names of the surviving members of the Thirty Comrades whom he had interviewed, although Ne Win was not mentioned among them. Secondly, when Ne Win died on 5 December 2002,

6930-491: The adoption of neologisms. An example is the word "university", formerly ယူနီဗာစတီ [jùnìbàsətì] , from English university , now တက္ကသိုလ် [tɛʔkət̪ò] , a Pali-derived neologism recently created by the Burmese government and derived from the Pali spelling of Taxila ( တက္ကသီလ Takkasīla ), an ancient university town in modern-day Pakistan. Some words in Burmese may have many synonyms, each having certain usages, such as formal, literary, colloquial, and poetic. One example

7040-414: The challenges in determining Ne Win's exact birthdate and may stem from differences in historical documentation or cultural interpretations. Therefore, while May 24, 1911, is commonly accepted, alternative dates cannot be disregarded entirely. Kyaw Nyein's date of 1910 can be considered as the more plausible date. First, Kyaw Nyein had access to historical records and he interviewed many surviving members of

7150-525: The close portions of the diphthongs are somewhat mid-centralized ( [ɪ, ʊ] ) in closed syllables, i.e. before /ɰ̃/ and /ʔ/ . Thus နှစ် /n̥iʔ/ ('two') is phonetically [n̥ɪʔ] and ကြောင် /tɕàũ/ ('cat') is phonetically [tɕàʊ̃] . Burmese is a tonal language , which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not only pitch , but also phonation , intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality. However, some linguists consider Burmese

7260-662: The closure of universities and colleges. In June 1974, workers from more than 100 factories throughout the nation participated in a strike, to which the government reacted by shooting about 100 workers and students on 6 June 1974 at the Thamaing Textile Factory and the Sinmalaik Dock Yard in Rangoon. Since Ne Win was in Australia on an official visit at the time, responsibility for these shootings

7370-401: The confusion caused by multiple age systems. A third intermediate system has also been used by some South Korean laws. This "year age" is difference between one's birth year and the current year, equivalent to calculating ages using January 1 but starting at 0 instead of 1. In pre-modern times, sui was calculated from the time of birth. A person was one sui as soon as they were born. At

7480-433: The country was riven with political division . Even before independence , Aung San was assassinated together with six of his cabinet members on 19 July 1947; U Saw , a pre-war prime minister and political rival of Aung San , was found guilty of the crime and executed . U Nu as leader of the Socialists took charge of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League (AFPFL) formed by the Communists , Socialists and

7590-411: The country's failing economy and widespread discrimination accelerated an emigration of Burmese Chinese out of Burma. Students from universities throughout Rangoon demonstrated again in June 1975 in commemoration of the previous year's Labour Strike. Student-led demonstrations also occurred in March 1976, September 1987, March and June 1988. In August and September 1988, these demonstrations turned into

7700-488: The country. These varieties include the Yaw , Palaw, Myeik (Merguese), Tavoyan and Intha dialects . Despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects. Below is a summary of lexical similarity between major Burmese dialects: Dialects in Tanintharyi Region , including Palaw, Merguese, and Tavoyan, are especially conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved

7810-474: The early post-independence era led to a reactionary switch from English to Burmese as the national medium of education, a process that was accelerated by the Burmese Way to Socialism . In August 1963, the socialist Union Revolutionary Government established the Literary and Translation Commission (the immediate precursor of the Myanmar Language Commission ) to standardize Burmese spelling, diction, composition, and terminology. The latest spelling authority, named

7920-427: The economy included the expulsion of many Chinese (along with Indians). Ne Win's government prohibited foreigners from owning land and practicing certain professions. Even foreign aid organizations were banned; the only humanitarian aid permitted was on an intergovernmental basis. Furthermore, heavy-handed political oppression caused many in the educated workforce to emigrate. Ne Win also took drastic steps regarding

8030-644: The extra importance of the sixtieth birthday produced by its combination with the sexagenary cycle —had spread throughout the Sinosphere . Japan eliminated their version of this system as part of the Meiji Reforms . The Republic of China partially modernized the system during their own reforms, which were continued by the Communists after the Chinese Civil War . Modern Taiwan now has

8140-468: The first year comes at birth and the second on the first day of the New Year, children born, for example, on December 31 are considered to become two-year-olds the very next day, New Year's Day (of the Gregorian, not the Korean calendar ). There are few online calculators which can conveniently determine Korean age for any date. Alternatively, since everyone born on the same calendar year effectively have

8250-598: The form of nouns . Historically, Pali , the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism , had a profound influence on Burmese vocabulary. Burmese has readily adopted words of Pali origin; this may be due to phonotactic similarities between the two languages, alongside the fact that the script used for Burmese can be used to reproduce Pali spellings with complete accuracy. Pali loanwords are often related to religion, government, arts, and science. Burmese loanwords from Pali primarily take four forms: Burmese has also adapted numerous words from Mon, traditionally spoken by

8360-410: The international system on June 28, 2023. Chinese age reckoning , the first of these methods, originated from the belief in ancient Chinese astrology that one's fate is bound to the stars imagined to be in opposition to the planet Jupiter at the time of one's birth. The importance of this duodecennial cycle is also essential to fengshui geomancy but only survives in popular culture as

8470-522: The introduction of English into matriculation examinations , fueled growing demand for Burmese to become the medium of education in British Burma; a short-lived but symbolic parallel system of "national schools" that taught in Burmese, was subsequently launched. The role and prominence of the Burmese language in public life and institutions was championed by Burmese nationalists, intertwined with their demands for greater autonomy and independence from

8580-450: The junta began to wane. Still under house arrest, Ne Win died on 5 December 2002 at his lakeside house in Yangon . The death remained unannounced by Burmese media or the junta. The only mention of Ne Win's death was a paid obituary notice that appeared in some of the government-controlled Burmese language newspapers. Ne Win was not given a state funeral , and his former contacts or junior colleagues were strongly discouraged from attending

8690-691: The land. These measures included the law abolishing rents on land. On 2 March 1974, he disbanded the Revolutionary Council and proclaimed the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma . He was elected president of Myanmar and shortly afterward appointed Brigadier General Sein Win as Prime Minister . On 9 November 1981, Ne Win resigned as president and was succeeded in that post by General San Yu . However, Ne Win remained leader of

8800-515: The literary form, asserting that the spoken vernacular form ought to be used. Some Burmese linguists such as Minn Latt , a Czech academic, proposed moving away from the high form of Burmese altogether. Although the literary form is heavily used in written and official contexts (literary and scholarly works, radio news broadcasts, and novels), the recent trend has been to accommodate the spoken form in informal written contexts. Nowadays, television news broadcasts, comics, and commercial publications use

8910-481: The modern way of reckoning age does not correspond to the horoscope. Using the traditional reckoning, the child in the example is 13 sui for the entirety of the fan tai sui year. East Asian age reckoning, both linguistically and in practice, follows the example of China (see § China ) as the vast majority of Taiwanese people are ethnically Chinese. Unlike the Chinese however, the Taiwanese more widely use

9020-425: The obituary put up by his family (most probably his children) stated that he was 93 years old, which most likely stems from East Asian age reckoning . Ne Win, born Shu Maung, was born into an ethnic Chinese family in a small village near Paungdale about 200 miles (320 km) north of Rangoon . He spent two years at Rangoon University beginning in 1929, and took biology as his main subject with hopes of becoming

9130-449: The only legal party. A system of state hospitals and institutions was established in Burma; medical care was free. Private hospitals were brought under public ownership . A new system of public education was introduced. A campaign to liquidate illiteracy was carried out starting in 1965. Between 1962 and 1965 important laws against landlords and usury were adopted. They aimed at protecting peasants' rights to land and property and to renting

9240-477: The outbreak of anti-Chinese riots by regime supporters; however, in March 1971 relations were fully restored and Chinese economic aid continued. Ne Win's date of birth is a subject of debate among various sources. The English-language publication Who's Who in Burma, published in 1961 by People's Literature House, Rangoon, lists Ne Win's birthdate as 14 May 1911. This date is also supported by Dr. Maung Maung in

9350-649: The population in Lower Burma self-identified as Burmese-speaking Bamars; huge swaths of former Mon-speaking territory, from the Irrawaddy Delta to upriver in the north, spanning Bassein (now Pathein) and Rangoon (now Yangon) to Tharrawaddy, Toungoo, Prome (now Pyay), and Henzada (now Hinthada), were now Burmese-speaking. The language shift has been ascribed to a combination of population displacement, intermarriage, and voluntary changes in self-identification among increasingly Mon–Burmese bilingual populations in

9460-420: The previous system was with age hierarchies, it's also predicted that it will help combat the hierarchical and ageist nature of South Korean society. For example, the new system will make sure that students in a single grade are of the same age, rendering the frequent practice of younger students referring to older ones using honorifics obsolete. Despite the conversion, the old system will still be retained for

9570-435: The recommendation of an astrologer that the number nine was auspicious , Ne Win ordered the withdrawal of several large-denomination kyat notes while issuing new denominations of 45 and 90 kyats. Both 45 and 90 are divisible by nine, and their numerals add up to nine. Again, millions of Burmese lost their life savings, and the demonetization also rendered about 75% of the entire kyat reserves completely useless. This crippled

9680-425: The region. Standardized tone marking in written Burmese was not achieved until the 18th century. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because of ambiguities that arose over transcribing sounds that had been merged. British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers. Britain's gradual annexation of Burma throughout

9790-543: The ruling Socialist Party 's political lines, but the country was still split and the government was ineffective. He was asked to serve as interim prime minister from 28 October 1958 by U Nu , when the AFPFL split into two factions and U Nu barely survived a motion of no-confidence against his government in parliament . Ne Win restored order during the period known as the "Ne Win caretaker government ". Elections were held in February 1960 and Ne Win handed back power to

9900-525: The ruling Burma Socialist Programme Party on 23 July 1988 at the height of the uprising against his regime , and roughly one year after the United Nations declared Burma a " Least Developed Country ". Sporadic protests against the government continued. Students led protests in 1965, December 1969, and December 1970. These demonstrations took place mainly on campuses located in the cities of Rangoon , Mandalay and Moulmein and were often followed by

10010-510: The said pronoun is used only by male speakers while ကျွန်မ , kya.ma. [tɕəma̰] is used by female speakers. Moreover, with regard to kinship terminology , Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family, whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not. The Mon language has also influenced subtle grammatical differences between the varieties of Burmese spoken in Lower and Upper Burma. In Lower Burmese varieties,

10120-481: The same age, it can easily be calculated by the formula: Age = (Current Year − Birth Year) + 1. In modern South Korea the traditional system is used alongside the international age system which is referred to as man nai ( 만 나이 ) in which "man" ( 만 ) means "full" or "actual", and nai ( 나이 ) meaning "age". For example, man yeol sal means "full ten years", or "ten years old" in English. The Korean word dol means "years elapsed", identical to

10230-764: The spoken form or a combination of the spoken and simpler, less ornate formal forms. The following sample sentence reveals that differences between literary and spoken Burmese mostly occur in affixes: Burmese has politeness levels and honorifics that take the speaker's status and age in relation to the audience into account. The suffix ပါ pa is frequently used after a verb to express politeness. Moreover, Burmese pronouns relay varying degrees of deference or respect. In many instances, polite speech (e.g., addressing teachers, officials, or elders) employs feudal-era third person pronouns or kinship terms in lieu of first- and second-person pronouns. Furthermore, with regard to vocabulary choice, spoken Burmese clearly distinguishes

10340-583: The streets in support of the Cultural Revolution. They were attacked by Burmese citizens , the most violent riots taking place in 1967. Beginning in 1967 and continuing throughout the 1970s, anti-Chinese riots continued to flare up, as many elements in Burma tried to spread the Cultural Revolution . Many believed they were covertly supported by the government. Similarly, Chinese shops were looted and set on fire. Public attention

10450-486: The student union building. Shortly afterward, around 8 pm local time, Ne Win addressed the nation in a five-minute radio speech which concluded with the statement: "If these disturbances were made to challenge us, I have to declare that we will fight sword with sword and spear with spear". On 13 July 1962, less than a week after the speech, Ne Win left for Austria , Switzerland and the United Kingdom "for

10560-714: The students, recovered the coffin and buried U Thant at the foot of the Shwedagon pagoda , next to the tomb of Thakin Kodaw Hmaing . In February 1963, the Enterprise Nationalization Law was passed, effectively nationalizing all major industries and prohibiting the formation of new factories. This law adversely affected many industrialists and entrepreneurs , especially those without full citizenship . The government's economic nationalization program further prohibited foreigners, including

10670-448: The tenth calendar year. Sal is used for native Korean numerals, while se (세; 歲) is used for Sino-Korean. For example, seumul-daseot sal ( 스물다섯 살 ) and i-sib-o se ( 이십오 세; 二十五 歲 ) both mean 'twenty-five-year-old'. If the international system is used ( man nai [ 만 나이 ]), then the age would be man seumul-daseot sal ( 만 스물다섯 살 ). South Koreans speaking of age in the colloquial context will almost without question be referring to

10780-448: The traditional homeland of Burmese speakers. The 1891 Census of India , conducted five years after the annexation of the entire Konbaung Kingdom , found that the former kingdom had an "unusually high male literacy" rate of 62.5% for Upper Burmans aged 25 and above. For all of British Burma , the literacy rate was 49% for men and 5.5% for women (by contrast, British India more broadly had a male literacy rate of 8.44%). The expansion of

10890-463: The traditional system was still commonly used, so in 1950 another law was established to encourage people to use the modern age system. Today the traditional system is used only by the elderly and in rural areas. Elsewhere its use is limited to traditional ceremonies, divinations, and obituaries. Japanese uses the word sai ( 歳 or 才 ) as a counter word for both the traditional and modern age system. Having been influenced by Chinese culture,

11000-583: The traditional system, unless the man qualifier is used. The 100th day after a baby was born is called baegil ( 백일 , 百 日 ) which literally means "a hundred days" in Korean, and is given a special celebration, marking the survival of what was once a period of high infant mortality . The first anniversary of birth named dol ( 돌 ) is likewise celebrated, and given even greater significance. South Koreans celebrate their birthdays, even though every South Korean gains one sal on New Year's Day. Because

11110-608: The transition committee of president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol stated that the government planned to amend the Civil Code and other relevant legislation to switch to the international age system. On 8 December 2022, the National Assembly passed a bill that prohibits the usage of traditional ages on official documents. The change went into effect on 28 June 2023. The change is expected to reduce legal disputes, complaints, and general social confusion. Due to how intertwined

11220-425: The underlying orthography . From the 1500s onward, Burmese kingdoms saw substantial gains in the populace's literacy rate , which manifested itself in greater participation of laymen in scribing and composing legal and historical documents, domains that were traditionally the domain of Buddhist monks, and drove the ensuing proliferation of Burmese literature , both in terms of genres and works. During this period,

11330-462: The verb ပေး ('to give') is colloquially used as a permissive causative marker, like in other Southeast Asian languages, but unlike in other Tibeto-Burman languages. This usage is hardly used in Upper Burmese varieties, and is considered a sub-standard construct. More distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of

11440-628: The victorious U Nu on 4 April 1960. On 2 March 1962, Ne Win again seized power in a coup d'état . He became head of state as Chairman of the Union Revolutionary Council and also Prime Minister . The coup was characterized as "bloodless" by the world's media. Declaring that " parliamentary democracy was not suitable for Burma," the new regime suspended the constitution and dissolved the legislature. Following riots at Rangoon University in July 1962, troops were sent to restore order. They fired on protesters and destroyed

11550-466: The wide circulation of legal texts, royal chronicles , and religious texts. A major reason for the uniformity of the Burmese language was the near-universal presence of Buddhist monasteries (called kyaung ) in Burmese villages. These kyaung served as the foundation of the pre-colonial monastic education system, which fostered uniformity of the language throughout the Upper Irrawaddy valley,

11660-410: The word "television", Burmese publications are mandated to use the term ရုပ်မြင်သံကြား (lit. 'see picture, hear sound') in lieu of တယ်လီဗီးရှင်း , a direct English transliteration. Another example is the word "vehicle", which is officially ယာဉ် [jɪ̃̀] (derived from Pali) but ကား [ká] (from English car ) in spoken Burmese. Some previously common English loanwords have fallen out of use with

11770-490: Was characterized by a non-aligned foreign policy, isolationism , one-party rule, economic stagnation, and superstition . Ne Win resigned in July 1988 in response to the 8888 Uprising that overthrew the Burma Socialist Programme Party, and was replaced by the military junta of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). He held minor influence in the 1990s but was eventually placed under house arrest, under which he died in 2002. In foreign affairs, Ne Win followed

11880-453: Was not an empty threat. On 18 September 1988 the military led by Senior General Saw Maung dispelled any hopes for democracy by brutally crushing the uprisings. It is widely believed that Ne Win, though in apparent retirement, orchestrated the coup from behind the scenes. For about ten years, Ne Win kept a low profile but remained a shadowy figure exercising at least some influence on the military junta . After 1998, Ne Win's influence on

11990-552: Was successfully diverted by Ne Win from the uncontrollable inflation , scarcity of consumer items and rising prices of rice. The 1982 Citizenship Law further restricted Burmese citizenship for Burmese Chinese (as it stratified citizenship into three categories: full, associate, and naturalized) and severely limited Burmese Chinese, especially those without full citizenship and those holding FRCs, from attending professional tertiary schools, including medical , engineering , agricultural and economics institutions . During this period,

12100-839: Was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after Classical Chinese , Pyu , Old Tibetan and Tangut . The majority of Burmese speakers, who live throughout the Irrawaddy River Valley, use a number of largely similar dialects, while a minority speak non-standard dialects found in the peripheral areas of the country. These dialects include: Arakanese in Rakhine State and Marma in Bangladesh are also sometimes considered dialects of Burmese and sometimes as separate languages. Despite vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there

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