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89-682: The Panglong Agreement ( Burmese : ပင်လုံစာချုပ် [pɪ̀ɰ̃ lòʊɰ̃ sà dʑoʊʔ] ) was reached in Panglong, Southern Shan State , between the Burmese government under Aung San and the Shan , Kachin , and Chin peoples on 12 February 1947. The agreement accepted "full autonomy in internal administration for the Frontier Areas" in principle and envisioned the creation of a Kachin State by

178-565: 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

267-645: 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

356-550: 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

445-674: 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,

534-466: 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

623-706: A unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centered around the Sule Pagoda , which is reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda – Myanmar's most sacred and famous Buddhist pagoda. Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure , especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia , such as Jakarta , Bangkok or Hanoi . Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring

712-628: 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

801-403: 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: Yangon Yangon , formerly romanized as Rangoon , is the capital of

890-549: Is UTC/GMT +6:30 hours. 23 meters above sea level. Due to its location on the Irrawaddy Delta, intertidal flat ecosystems occur adjacent to the city. Yangon has a tropical monsoon climate (Am) under the Köppen climate classification system. The city features a lengthy wet season from May through October where a substantial amount of rainfall is received; and a dry season from November through April, where little rainfall

979-839: Is a member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21 . Yangon is Burma's main domestic and international hub for air, rail, and ground transportation. Yangon International Airport , located 12 miles (19 km) from the center, is the country's main gateway for domestic and international air travel. The airport has three terminals, known as T1, T2 and T3 which is also known as Domestic. It has direct flights to major cities in Asia, such as Tokyo , Shanghai , Seoul , Singapore , Hong Kong , Kuala Lumpur , Kolkata , and Dubai . Although domestic airlines offer service to about forty domestic locations, most flights are to tourist destinations such as Bagan , Mandalay , Heho and Ngapali , and to

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1068-562: Is a proposed rapid transit system, due to begin construction in 2022 and be complete by 2027. Yangon has a 4,456-kilometre (2,769 mi) road network of all types (tar, concrete and dirt) in March 2011. Many of the roads are in poor condition and not wide enough to accommodate an increasing number of cars. The vast majority of Yangon residents cannot afford a car and rely on an extensive network of buses to get around. Over 300 public and private bus lines operate about 6,300 crowded buses around

1157-710: Is administered by the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC). YCDC also coordinates urban planning . The city is made up of 33 townships and is part of Yangon Region . Yangon Region is divided into four districts, which overlap with the city's jurisdiction. The current mayor of Yangon is Maung Maung Soe . Each township is administered by a Township Development Committee, alongside local leaders who make decisions regarding city beautification and infrastructure. Myo-thit (lit. "New Towns", or satellite towns ) are not within such jurisdictions. List of Yangon City Townships by District: Yangon

1246-730: Is due to rule that no building should be more than 75% the height above sea level of Shwedagon Pagoda , which rises about 160 metres (520 ft). For instance, in 2015, a luxury housing project was cancelled due to its proximity to Shwedagon Pagoda. Critics of the project claimed that the project could cause structural damage to the pagoda. Aside from a few high-rise hotels and office towers, most high-rise buildings (usually 10 stories and up) are "condos" scattered across prosperous neighborhoods north of downtown such as Bahan , Dagon , Kamayut and Mayangon . Older satellite towns such as Thaketa , North Okkalapa , and South Okkalapa are lined mostly with one to two-story detached houses with access to

1335-518: Is heavily used by the local populace, selling about 150,000 tickets daily. The popularity of the commuter line has jumped since the government reduced petrol subsidies in August 2007. In 2017 the government of Japan provided more than US$ 200 million in finance to assist with a range of works including developing and maintaining the Yangon circular railway line, purchasing new carriages and upgrading signalling. The Yangon Urban Mass Rapid Transit

1424-516: Is highly expensive for most of its citizens. As the government allows only a few thousand cars to be imported each year in a country with over 50 million people, car prices in Yangon (and in Burma) are among the highest in the world. In July 2008, the two most popular cars in Yangon, 1986/87 Nissan Sunny Super Saloon and 1988 Toyota Corolla SE Limited, cost the equivalent of about US$ 20,000 and US$ 29,000 respectively. A sports utility vehicle, imported for

1513-414: Is illegal to drive trishaws , bicycles, and motorcycles. Since February 2010, pick-up truck bus lines have been forbidden to run in six townships of central Yangon, namely Latha , Lanmadaw , Pabedan , Kyauktada , Botahtaung and Pazundaung Townships . In May 2003, a ban on using car horns was implemented in six townships of Downtown Yangon to reduce noise pollution . In April 2004, the car horn ban

1602-623: Is known for its leafy avenues and fin-de-siècle architecture. The former British colonial capital has the highest number of colonial period buildings in south-east Asia. Downtown Yangon is still mainly made up of decaying colonial buildings. The former High Court , the former Secretariat buildings , the former St. Paul's English High School and the Strand Hotel are excellent examples of the bygone era. Most downtown buildings from this era are four-story mix-use (residential and commercial) buildings with 14-foot (4.3 m) ceilings, allowing for

1691-442: 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

1780-425: Is seen. It is primarily due to the heavy rainfall received during the rainy season that makes Yangon fall under the tropical monsoon climate category. During the course of year 1961 to 1990s, average temperatures show little variance, with average highs ranging from 29 to 36 °C (84 to 97 °F) and average lows ranging from 18 to 25 °C (64 to 77 °F). Yangon is prone to tropical cyclones every time of

1869-493: Is the eight-story apartment building . (In Yangon parlance, a building with no elevators (lifts) is called an apartment building and one with elevators is called a condominium . Condos which have to invest in a local power generator to ensure 24-hour electricity for the elevators are beyond the reach of most Yangonites.) Found throughout the city, eight-story apartment buildings provide inexpensive housing for many Yangonites. The apartments are usually eight stories high (including

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1958-584: 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

2047-638: 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/

2136-491: 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

2225-588: 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

2314-473: 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

2403-618: 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

2492-621: The Indian Rebellion of 1857 , the British sent Bahadur Shah II , the last Mughal emperor, to Yangon to live in exile. Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings and traditional wooden architecture, was known as "the garden city of the East." By the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London. Before World War II , about 55% of Yangon's population of 500,000

2581-723: 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

2670-534: 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

2759-614: 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

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2848-581: The Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar . Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the administrative functions to the purpose-built capital city of Naypyidaw in north central Myanmar. With over five million people, Yangon is Myanmar's most populous city and its most important commercial centre. Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia, and has

2937-661: The 100-foot (30 m) Lanmadaw Road is followed by 30-foot (9.1 m)-wide 17th and 18th streets then the medium 50-foot (15 m) Sint-Oh-Dan Road, the 30-foot 19th and 20th streets, followed by another 100-foot (30 m) wide Latha Road, followed again by the two numbered small roads 21st and 22nd streets, and so on. The roads running parallel west to east were the Strand Road, Merchant Road, Maha Bandula (née Dalhousie) Road, Anawrahta (Fraser) Road, and Bogyoke Aung San (Montgomerie) Road. The largest and best maintained parks in Yangon are located around Shwedagon Pagoda . To

3026-413: 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

3115-457: 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

3204-422: The 1980s. Today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres (230 sq mi). During Ne Win 's isolationist rule (1962–88), Yangon's infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance and did not keep up with its increasing population. In the 1990s, the military government's more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to

3293-410: 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

3382-471: 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

3471-557: 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

3560-688: 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

3649-469: 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

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3738-653: The Constituent Assembly. It continued the financial relations established between the Shan states and the Burmese federal government, and envisioned similar arrangements for the Kachin Hills and the Chin Hills . The anniversary of this agreement is celebrated annually as Union Day . Aung Zan Wai , Pe Khin , Bo Hmu Aung , Sir Maung Gyi , Dr. Sein Mya Maung , Myoma U Than Kywe were among

3827-497: 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

3916-479: 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

4005-491: 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

4094-540: The capital Naypyidaw . Yangon Central Railway Station is the main terminus of Myanmar Railways ' 5,403-kilometre (3,357 mi) rail network whose reach covers Upper Myanmar ( Naypyidaw , Mandalay , Shwebo ), upcountry ( Myitkyina ), Shan hills ( Taunggyi , Lashio ) and the Taninthayi coast ( Mawlamyine , Dawei ). Yangon Circular Railway operates a 45.9-kilometre (28.5 mi) 39-station commuter rail network that connects Yangon's satellite towns. The system

4183-492: The capital of all British-ruled Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangon's increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake (Kandawgyi) and Inya Lake . The British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University . After

4272-668: The city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure. The name Yangon ( ရန်ကုန် ) is derived from the combination of the Burmese words yan ( ရန် ) and koun ( ကုန် ), which mean 'enemies' and 'run out of', respectively. This word combination can be translated as 'End of Strife'. The name is pronounced / ˌ j æ ŋ ˈ ɡ ɒ n / yang- GON in British English and / ˌ j ɑː n ˈ ɡ oʊ n / yahn- GOHN in American English. The former romanization, Rangoon ,

4361-407: The city had few human casualties, three-quarters of Yangon's industrial infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, with losses estimated at US$ 800 million. In November 2005, the military government designated Naypyidaw , 320 kilometres (199 mi) north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and moved much of the government to the newly developed city. Yangon remains the largest city and

4450-558: The city to its industrial back country. Still, much of Yangon remains without basic municipal services such as 24-hour electricity and regular garbage collection. Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government. Nevertheless, sizeable South Asian and Chinese communities still exist in Yangon. The Anglo-Burmese have effectively disappeared, having left

4539-494: The city's electricity grid. Newer satellite towns such as North Dagon and South Dagon are in a grid layout. The satellite towns—old or new—receive little or no municipal services. Downtown Yangon 's road layout follows a grid pattern, based on four types of roads: The east–west grid of central was laid out by British military engineers Fraser and Montgomerie after the Second Anglo-Burmese War . The city

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4628-514: The city's infrastructure. Some inner city residents were forcibly relocated to new satellite towns. Many colonial-period buildings were demolished to make way for high-rise hotels, office buildings, and shopping malls, leading the city government to place about 200 notable colonial-period buildings under the Yangon City Heritage List in 1996. Major building programs have resulted in six new bridges and five new highways linking

4717-422: The city, carrying over 4.4 million passengers a day. All buses and 80% of the taxis in Yangon run on compressed natural gas (CNG), following the 2005 government decree to save money on imported petroleum. Highway buses to other cities depart from Dagon Ayeyar Highway Bus Terminal for Irrawaddy delta region and Aung Mingala Highway Bus Terminal for other parts of the country. Motor transportation in Yangon

4806-525: 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

4895-527: The commercial and political hub of British Burma . After the war, the British moved the capital of British Burma from Moulmein (present-day Mawlamyine ) to Yangon. Based on the design by army engineer Lt. Alexander Fraser, the British constructed a new city on a grid plan on delta land, bounded to the east by the Pazundaung Creek and to the south and west by the Yangon River . Yangon became

4984-726: The construction of mezzanines . Despite their less-than-perfect conditions, the buildings remain highly sought after and most expensive in the city's property market. In 1996, the Yangon City Development Committee created a Yangon City Heritage List of old buildings and structures in the city that cannot be modified or torn down without approval. In 2012, the city of Yangon imposed a 50-year moratorium on demolition of buildings older than 50 years. The Yangon Heritage Trust , an NGO started by Thant Myint-U , aims to create heritage areas in Downtown, and attract investors to renovate buildings for commercial use. A latter-day hallmark of Yangon

5073-470: The country or intermarried with other Burmese groups. Yangon was the centre of major anti-government protests in 1974 , 1988 and 2007 . In particular, the 8888 Uprising resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Burmese civilians, many of them in Yangoon where hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets of the former capital city. The Saffron Revolution saw mass shootings and

5162-604: 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

5251-669: 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

5340-612: The enlarged town "Yangon". In the 1790s, the East India Company opened a factory in Yangon. The estimated population of Yangon in 1823 was about 30,000. The British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26), but returned the city to Burmese rule after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841. The British captured Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into

5429-468: The equivalent of around US$ 50,000, goes for US$ 250,000. Illegally imported unregistered cars are cheaper – typically about half the price of registered cars. Nonetheless, car usage in Yangon is on the rise, a sign of rising incomes for some, and already causes much traffic congestion in highway-less Yangon's streets. In 2011, Yangon had about 300,000 registered motor vehicles in addition to an unknown number of unregistered ones. Within Yangon city limits, it

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5518-598: 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

5607-418: The former parading ground on important national days when Yangon was the capital. A few miles north of the pagoda lies the 37-acre (15-ha) Inya Lake Park – a favourite hangout place of Yangon University students, and a well-known place of romance in Burmese popular culture. Hlawga National Park and Allied War Memorial at the outskirts of the city are popular day-trip destinations with tourists. Yangon

5696-567: The ground floor) mainly because city regulations, until February 2008, required that all buildings higher than 75 feet (23 m) or eight stories to install lifts. The code calls for elevators in buildings higher than 62 feet (19 m) or six stories, likely ushering in the era of the six-story apartment building. Although most apartment buildings were built only within the last 20 years, they look much older and rundown due to shoddy construction and lack of proper maintenance. Unlike other major Asian cities, Yangon does not have any skyscrapers. This

5785-522: 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

5874-589: The junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications and news bureaus, including, most notably, the BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and the United States.) Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa , North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya , Shwepyitha and South Dagon in

5963-593: The late 1980s, however, the city began a rapid spread north to where Yangon International Airport now stands. But the result is a stretching tail on the city, with the downtown area well removed from its geographic centre. The city's area has steadily increased from 72.52 square kilometres (28.00 sq mi) in 1901 to 86.2 square kilometres (33.3 sq mi) in 1940 to 208.51 square kilometres (80.51 sq mi) in 1974, to 346.13 square kilometres (133.64 sq mi) in 1985, and to 598.75 square kilometres (231.18 sq mi) in 2008. Downtown Yangon

6052-515: 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

6141-519: The most important commercial, economic and cultural center of Myanmar. On 7 May 2005, a series of coordinated bombings occurred in the city of Yangon, Myanmar. Eleven people were killed in the attack, and one of the 162 people that were injured was a member of the LCMS mission team to Myanmar. In the 2020s, life in Yangon was greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and 2021 coup d'état . The city

6230-500: The negotiators of the historical Panglong Conference negotiated with Bamar leader General Aung San and other ethnic leaders in 1947. In 1973, Sai Kham Leik composed the Shan language song, "Lik Hom Mai Panglong" ( Shan : လိၵ်ႈႁူမ်ႈမၢႆပၢင်လူင် , lit.   'Panglong Agreement'), for Sai Hsai Mao , and remains a pop classic. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with

6319-649: 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

6408-425: 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

6497-510: 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,

6586-430: The south-east of the gilded stupa is the most popular recreational area in the city – Kandawgyi Lake . The 150-acre (61-ha) lake is surrounded by the 110-acre (45-ha) Kandawgyi Nature Park , and the 69.25-acre (28-ha) Yangon Zoological Gardens , which consists of a zoo, an aquarium and an amusement park. West of the pagoda towards the former Hluttaw (Parliament) complex is the 130-acre (53-ha) People's Square and Park ,

6675-764: 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

6764-585: The town from 1364 to 1392, and her grandniece, Shin Saw Pu , who later became the only female queen regnant in Burmese history . Queen Saw Pu built a palace next to the Shwedagon Pagoda in the town in 1460 and spent her semi-retired life at that palace until her death in 1471. In 1755, King Alaungpaya , the founder of the Konbaung dynasty captured Dagon, added settlements around it, and called

6853-448: 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

6942-425: 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,

7031-480: The use of crematoria in Yangoon by the Burmese government to erase evidence of their crimes against monks, unarmed protesters, journalists and students. The city's streets saw bloodshed each time as protesters were gunned down by the government, most notably during the 1988 , 2007 , and the 2021 mass protests, all of which were started in Yangon itself, signifying its importance as the cultural centre of Burma . In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit Yangon. While

7120-462: 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

7209-466: 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,

7298-410: 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

7387-534: The year. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis made landfall as a Category 4 cyclone, making it the worst cyclone on the country's record. Until the mid-1990s, Yangon remained largely constrained to its traditional peninsula setting between the Bago , Yangon, and Hlaing Rivers . People moved in, but little of the city moved out. Maps from 1944 show little development north of Inya Lake and areas that are now layered in cement and stacked with houses were then virtual backwaters. Since

7476-484: Was Indian or South Asian , and only about a third was Bamar (Burman). Karens , Chinese , Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest. After World War I , Yangon became the center of the Burmese independence movement, with leftist Rangoon University students leading the way. Three nationwide strikes against British rule in 1920, 1936, and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation (1942–45), and incurred heavy damage during World War II. The city

7565-623: Was based on the Rakhine dialect , and pronounced / r æ ŋ ˈ ɡ uː n / rang- GOON in English. Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century ( c.  1028–1043 ) by the Mon people , who inhabited Lower Burma at that time. Dagon became an important pilgrimage pagoda town, starting in the 14th century, during the Hanthawaddy Kingdom . Notable governors of Dagon included Princess Maha Dewi , who ruled

7654-505: Was later developed by the Public Works Department and Bengal Corps of Engineers. The pattern of south to north roads is as follows: one broad 100-foot (30 m) wide broad road, two narrow streets, one mid-size street, two more narrow streets, and then another 100-foot (30 m) wide broad road. This order is repeated from west to east. The narrow streets are numbered; the medium and broad roads are named. For example,

7743-669: Was retaken by the Allies in May 1945. Yangon became the capital of the Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country gained independence from British rule. Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial-era names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider

7832-839: 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

7921-526: Was the location of mass protests in response to the coup. The pandemic and protests prompted authorities to enforce numerous lockdowns and curfews . The city's economy subsequently slowed. Yangon is located in Lower Burma (Myanmar) at the convergence of the Yangon and Bago Rivers about 30 km (19 mi) away from the Gulf of Martaban at 16°48' North, 96°09' East (16.8, 96.15). Its standard time zone

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