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84-508: Sri Ksetra ( Śrī Kṣetra , Burmese : သရေခေတ္တရာ ပြည် , Burmese pronunciation: [θəjè kʰɪʔtəjà pjì] ; Sanskrit : श्री क्षेत्र, lit. 'Field of Fortune' or 'Field of Glory'), located along the Irrawaddy River at present-day Hmawza, was once a prominent Pyu settlement . The Pyu occupied several sites across Upper Myanmar , with Sri Ksetra recorded as the largest, the city wall enclosing an area of 1,477 hectares, although

168-565: 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

252-562: 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

336-638: A host of finds now on display in the Sri Ksetra Museum and the National Museum of Myanmar (Yangon) . In addition to early terracotta plaques and stone reliefs, the 'great silver reliquary' was found at Khin Ba. The reliquary, inscribed in Pyu and Pali , was accompanied by a series of golden leaves carrying a Buddhist text of the sixth century. It is generally regarded as the oldest surviving example of

420-550: 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

504-674: 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,

588-694: A paper named "History of Buddhism in Burma A.D. 1000–1300" from University of London , School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Dr. Than Tun became a lecturer in University of Rangoon’s Department of History and Political Science in 1959. In 1965, he was promoted to the Professor and Head of Department in History at University of Mandalay . Professor Than Tun left Mandalay in 1982 for University of Kyoto ’s Center for South East Asian Studies where he

672-426: A recent survey found it enclosed 1,857 hectares within its monumental brick walls, with an extramural area of a similar size, being the largest Southeast Asian city before Angkor times. Issues surrounding the dating of this site has meant the majority of material is dated between the seventh and ninth centuries AD, however recent scholarship suggests Pyu culture at Sri Ksetra was active centuries before this. Sri Ksetra

756-543: A stele discovered at Sri Ksetra suggests a first century AD date, which would make it the earliest Pyu artwork, however, this is contested among scholars. Further scholarship has also demonstrated that the art of the Pyu draws from a range of influences, from both Indian and Southeast Asian cultures. The artistic remains uncovered at Sri Ksetra are primarily Buddhist. However, the existence of sculpture and fragments depicting Hindu deities, most often Vishnu, suggests that Vaishnavism

840-466: 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

924-476: A ‘Pyu’ style, has not yet been established. Dating Pyu art at Sri Ksetra is difficult. Studies conducted at Sri Ksetra have used a variety of methods including radio carbon dating, stylistic analysis and palaeographic studies to determine dates; however, much of the dating is still contested among scholars. A palaeographic study of a gold leaf manuscript containing Pali , recovered from the Khin Ba mound, suggests

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1008-446: 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: Than Tun Than Tun ( Burmese : သန်းထွန်း , pronounced [θáɰ̃ tʰʊ́ɰ̃] ; 6 April 1923 – 30 November 2005)

1092-442: Is a table of translated Pyu funerary inscriptions found on four stone burial urns, excavated outside the city walls of Sri Ksetra from what is believed to be a royal burial site. First translated by O. Blagden in 1917, these inscriptions give insights into Pyu kingship and possible dating of Sri Ksetra. Current inscriptional evidence indicate two distinct dynastic names, Wikyama (Vikrama) and Warman (Varman). The first dynasty, called

1176-510: Is located north of the ramparts of Sri Ksetra near the village of Koneyoe (at 18°50'3"N 95°18'7"E). It is reported in the Myanmar chronicles to have been built by king Duttabaung to house relics of the Buddha. The structure is built of brick and lime mortar on four terraces. Having the conical shape characteristic of stūpas in early relief sculpture from Sri Ksetra, it is one of the first stūpas of

1260-421: Is more than just a clarification of Burmese history by a Burmese native—it places the country's history and culture into the wider context of world history, thus contributing greatly to the further development of the worldwide study of Burmese history. Professor Than Tun was also known as a fearlessly outspoken critic of successive military juntas of Burma, and, for not toeing to the official line when it comes to

1344-442: 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

1428-442: Is the site for much of the Pyu artistic legacy. The arrival of Buddhism into the Pyu cities saw the increased artistic production, with very little surviving from the earlier period of occupation. The vast arraying of surviving material indicates a rich visual culture that was endorsed by the Pyu at Sri Ksetra. The Chinese pilgrims Hsuan-tsang in 648 and I-tsing in 675 mentioned the name of Sri Ksetra as “Shh-li-cha‟- t‟o-lo” and that it

1512-584: 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

1596-638: 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/

1680-491: 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

1764-588: 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

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1848-475: 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

1932-559: 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

2016-652: 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 is mutual intelligibility among Burmese dialects, as they share

2100-723: 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

2184-534: 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

2268-532: The Pagan Dynasty . Sri Ksetra is a large city site with ruins of many structures, palaces and stūpas. The most prominent feature of the city is the circular plan, marked by a semi-circle of ramparts on the north, south and western sides. Outside the ramparts there was a moat, marked by a succession of tanks in the dry season. At several points in the ramparts, there are prominent gates, and around these gates are shrines and important remains. The Payama stūpa

2352-566: 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

2436-575: The Sakya clan of the Buddha . The brothers had been born blind, and ordered to be executed at birth by their own father Thado Maha Yaza for their blindness. Their mother, Keinnayi Dewi , however, had raised them in secret until 482 BC when the father discovered their existence, and ordered them killed once again. Their mother put the blind princes on a raft by their mother down the Irrawaddy river before

2520-753: 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 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

2604-413: 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

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2688-457: 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

2772-410: 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

2856-526: 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

2940-557: 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

3024-688: 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

3108-469: 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

3192-539: The Departments of History and Archeology. In 2000 Fukuoka Asian Culture prize Committee awarded Professor Than Tun the highest worldwide academic award, a Literate of the 11th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes in the Academic Prize Category. Professor Than Tun was a leading figure in the field of history and as the most prominent scholar of pre-modern history. Among his many significant publications,

3276-497: 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

3360-452: The Kanyan. But the victors soon broke into three rival groups, and a second round of war ensued. Taking advantage of the confusion, a fourth group, the Mon of Lower Burma drove all indigenous groups out of Sri Ksetra. One of the refugee groups led by Thamoddarit , nephew of the last king of Sri Ksetra, wandered on for a dozen years. In 107 AD, Thamoddarit founded the city of Pagan (Bagan) and

3444-479: 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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3528-617: The Old Bagan with unnecessary, garish and over-the-top ‘re-innovations’ of its ancient temples, the construction of a motorway among the ruins and the erection of an observation tower for the benefits of dollar yielding tourists. Often irreverent towards the country’s military leadership, he once commented in an interview with The Irrawaddy in 2003 on the generals’ obsession with white elephants as bringers of good fortune: They are animals, whether they are white or black. On 30 November 2005, Than Tun died unexpectedly while traveling to

3612-518: The Payahtaung temple proper, a square building of brick similar in style to some of the buildings in Bagan and dating to the circa tenth century, (b) a modern temple to the east, (c) a ruined brick stūpa, (d) the foundations of a small ruined structure and (e) an octagonal brick building that contained a massive stone urn inscribed in the Pyu language giving what appears to be a memorial record of

3696-560: The Pyu as one of the earliest urbanised people in Southeast Asia. During two excavation seasons, January to February 2015 and December 2015 to February 2016, led by Janice Stargardt in Yahanda mound at Sri Ksetra, early sherds stamped with Buddhist motifs were found, later dated c. 340 +/- 30 CE and Pyu culture cremation burials around 270 +/- 30 CE. Sri Ksetra is the largest Pyu site discovered thus far (Beikthano and Sri Ksetra are

3780-669: The Pyu kings. The urn, discovered in March, 1993, is now in the National Museum of Myanmar (Yangon) . The Khin Ba mound is located inside the ramparts, on the south side of the city, not far from the Tharawaddy gate and Mathe Gyagone stūpa. Located at 18°47'37"N 95°18'0"E, Khin Ba is the site of an ancient stūpa and one of the most important early archaeological sites in Sri Ksetra and Myanmar. First excavated in 1926–27, it has yielded

3864-474: The Pāli language. Since the early twentieth century, excavations at this Pyu site have uncovered a significant amount of Pyu art, in contrast to the minimal finds at Beikthano and Halin. The objects recovered from Sri Ksetra can be dated between the fourth and the ninth centuries AD; however, difficulty in dating Pyu art has meant that most artistic remains are broadly dated within this period. An art historical study of

3948-684: The Sri Ksetra dynasty was established in 444 BC by King Duttabaung (ဒွတ္တပေါင်), however no archaeological evidence has been from this early date. According to Hmannan Yazawin , the royal chronicle of the Konbaung Dynasty , the Kingdom of Sri Ksetra was founded by two brothers named Maha Thanbawa and Sula Thanbawa in 484 BC. The brothers were scions of the Tagaung Kingdom located in Upper Burma, and ultimately descended from kings Abhiyaza and Dazayaza , both of whom belonged to

4032-472: The Wikyama (Vikrama) Dynasty, is believed by G.H. Luce and Than Tun to have launched the Pyu calendar with the epochal date of 22 March 638, which later became the Burmese calendar, in 640 AD. Given the evidence for the dating of Sri Ksetra to earlier than the seventh century, it is likely that Pyu kings existed prior to names mentioned on the burial urns. Burmese chronicle sources, on the other hand, suggest

4116-491: 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

4200-515: The city walls at Sri Ksetra. The three principal stupas that are a feature of the Pyu landscape at Hmawza, Bawbaw gyi, Payama and Paya gyi, are also located outside the walls. In conjunction to archaeological evidence, there are a number of written records that mention the Pyu, largely found in Chinese historical accounts. The earliest mention is the fourth century AD account by Ch'ang Ch'u, with later accounts by Chinese pilgrims Xuanzang and Yijing in

4284-525: 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

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4368-604: 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

4452-669: 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

4536-434: The executioners of the king arrived. Adrift in the river, the brothers miraculously gained sight with the help of an ogress . With their newfound vision, the brothers arrived at the environs of Sri Ksetra (near present-day Pyay (Prome)), whose Pyu inhabitants had been at war with Kanyan people . Having to lost their chief to the war, the Pyu nominated the newly arrived Maha Thanbawa as chief. The "Kingdom" of Sri Ksetra

4620-413: The existing copies of royal orders from the dynasty period and subjected them to rigorous analysis. This voluminous work of 7,600 pages includes an abridged English translation, commentaries, and index, and is the most reliable collection of original historical documents. This is such an outstanding achievement that it has become known as the 'Than Tun Text'. All his academic work, including theses and books,

4704-550: The fall of Sri Ksetra in the mid-ninth century, king Anawrahta opened the stūpa and removed the relic which was re-installed at this capital in Bagan . In its place, he left behind a number of signed votive tablets. The Payahtuang complex, numbered HMA.31 according to the Department of Archaeology, is located in the centre of Sri Ksetra near the site museum (at 18°48'25"N 95°17'33"E). The complex comprises several structures: (a)

4788-598: 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

4872-422: The history of Burma. Than Tun often criticized the generals for attempting to rewrite the history of Burma according to the requirements of their propagandas, and his well-researched books on Burma, had often been banned by the authorities or sidelined by publishers for fear of punishments from the paranoid generals. Professor Than Tun was very critical of the military junta’s defacing of the ancient Burmese capital

4956-475: The influences of these neighbouring Southeast Asian cultures. The wide-ranging comparisons made in analysing Pyu art demonstrate the complexity of studying the art of this culture. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of

5040-522: 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

5124-515: 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

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5208-526: The middle Pyu period and dates between the 4th and 7th centuries. The Baw Baw Gyi Paya is an important Buddhist stūpa, located to the south of the ramparts of Sri Ksetra (at 18°47'10"N 95°17'7"E). It is a circular brick-built structure, raised on terrace to a height of approximately 46m. The shape of the stūpa is often compared to the Dhamek Stupa at Sarnath in India, with which it is likely coeval. With

5292-513: The most celebrated both at home and abroad are "History of Buddhism in Burma" and "The Medieval Myanmar History", both of which richly employ the epigraphs of the Bagan Dynasty from the 11th to the 13th centuries. These books are the fruit of hard work into which the professor put his heart and soul. Another of his publications, The Royal Orders of Burma , comprises ten volumes and took him eight years to complete. In this study, he compared

5376-420: The only Pyu sites that have been extensively excavated. Other important Pyu cities as Maingmaw and Binnaka could yield more artefacts with more extensive excavations). It occupied an area larger than that of the eleventh century Pagan or nineteenth century Mandalay . The city walls at Sri Ksetra are the largest of any Pyu settlements. Numerous ruined stupas and temples have been discovered both inside and outside

5460-649: 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

5544-425: 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

5628-505: The relic chamber of the Khin Ba mound display stylistic features also found in Sri Lanka, including broad shoulders, shortened necks, individual hair curls, and transparent robes. While cultural influences on the Pyu are evident from Indian similarities, scholarship has also demonstrated similarities with the Mon of Burma and Dvaravati of Thailand. Buddha and stupa triads, use of megaliths , and shared imagery have been cited as demonstrating

5712-510: 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,

5796-584: The script could be dated to the fifth century AD, much earlier then the seventh century AD date to which it had been originally attributed. This study was important in reconsidering the date for the Khin Ba mound; however, its proposed dating has not been accepted by all scholars. An argument against dating Pyu material at Sri Ksetra earlier then the seventh century AD is also based on stylistic comparison, with scholars suggesting that while an artefact may have similar attributes to those of fifth century AD artefacts in India, fifth-century culture may have been active into

5880-561: The sea, before the Irrawaddy delta had been formed. Ships from the Indian Ocean travelled to Prome to trade with the Pyu and Chinese. Trade with India brought important cultural influences to Sri Ksetra, including the arrival of Buddhism, which was imposed on existing belief systems. There is strong evidence of a rich Buddhist culture at Sri Ksetra, along with the existence of Hindu religion. Several inscriptions discovered at Sri Ksetra possess possible royal names and dynastic titles. Below

5964-422: The seventh century AD . In the eighth century AD Tang histories mentioned the arrival at the court of an embassy from the Pyu capital in 801. While these written records assist with the dating of Sri Ksetra and demonstrate cross-cultural interactions, they are fragmented and cannot all be backed by other evidence. Sri Ksetra was an important entrepôt between China and India. It was located on the Irrawaddy, close to

6048-499: The seventh century AD, which would mean that the similarities could point to this later date. Continued research needs to be undertaken at Sri Ksetra to clarify the issues surrounding dating Pyu art. Pyu art at Sri Ksetra reveals a number of influences. The art possesses similar qualities to those of the art of Southern India (including the Gupta and post-Gupta periods), Andhra Pradesh, and Sri Lanka. Silver Buddha sculptures recovered from

6132-764: 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

6216-448: 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

6300-425: 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,

6384-462: 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

6468-466: 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,

6552-410: 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

6636-434: Was a Buddhist country. The Pyu at Sri Ksetra declined in prominence around the ninth century AD. The final mention of the Pyu is found at Pagan, with a twelfth century stone featuring inscriptions in Pyu, Mon, Burmese and Pali. Burmese legends greatly differ from the reconstruction of Pyu history by scholars. A widely held belief, based on the interpretation of the extensive interdisciplinary evidence suggests that Sri Ksetra

6720-568: Was a Research Fellow and Visiting Professor from 1982 to 1987. Later, he was a visiting professor in Northern Illinois University where he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature in 1988. From 1989 to 1990, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan . In 1990 he came back to Burma and worked as a Member of the Myanmar (Burmese) Historical Commission and Emeritus Professor in University of Yangon in

6804-657: Was an influential Burmese historian as well as an outspoken critic of the military junta of Burma . For his lifelong contributions to the development of worldwide study of Burmese history and culture, Professor Than Tun was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 2000. A native of Daunggyi village, Ngathaingchaung / Yekyi Township , Irrawaddy Division , Than Tun entered Rangoon University in 1939, and received bachelor's degrees in history and law in 1946 and 1948, respectively and an MA in history in 1950. In 1956, he received his PhD in history with

6888-433: Was founded between the fifth and seventh centuries by the Pyu people. This interpretation has been challenged by the scholars who have argued that it was occupied earlier than these dates. Radiocarbon dating tested on charcoal found at Sri Ksetra produce dates to between 50 – 200 AD, a timeframe that is significantly earlier than previously considered. This early date in the first centuries of the first millennium AD would place

6972-413: Was founded in 484 CE. ( Hmannan does not indicate the extent of the kingdom.) In all, a total of 27 kings of this dynasty are said to have reigned for 578 years. Hmannan continues that the end of the kingdom came in 94 AD due to a civil war between the Pyu and the Kanyan, two of the three main ethnic groups of the kingdom. (The Mranma (Burmans) were the third.) The Pyu initially emerged victorious over

7056-507: Was practised alongside Buddhism. Remains at Sri Ksetra suggest a thriving Buddhist culture that existed in this Pyu settlement. The variety of Buddhist material includes votive tablets, stone sculptures, bronze and other precious metal sculptures, architectural fragments, and reliquary objects, as well as other artefacts including handmade beads crafted from stone, glass, terracotta and bone; rings; and silver bowls and plates. A chronology of Pyu art, demonstrating developments and characteristics of

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