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67-632: Ashin Wirathu ( Burmese : ဝီရသူ , Pali : Vīrasū ; born 10 July 1968 in Kyaukse , Mandalay Division , Burma ) is a Burmese Buddhist monk , and the leader of the 969 Movement in Myanmar. He has incited the persecution of Muslims in Myanmar through his speeches. Facebook banned his page on the charge of allegedly spreading religious hatred towards other communities, after repeated warnings to not post religiously inflammatory content. Wirathu

134-565: 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

201-645: 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

268-496: A "serious human rights violation" by refusing to present his views in a verbatim question and answer format. "Before I had heard [rumours] of the Arab world dominating the global media," he said, "but this time, I've seen it for myself." Wirathu openly blamed Muslims for instigating the recent violence. Wirathu claimed that Myanmar's Muslims are being financed by Middle Eastern forces, saying, "The local Muslims are crude and savage because

335-550: 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

402-614: A little towards hate [and this was] not the way Buddha taught. What the Buddha taught is that hatred is not good, because Buddha sees everyone as an equal being. The Buddha doesn't see people through religion." The Guardian explained what they see as his extremism as little more than due to ignorance, although his views do have influence in Myanmar where many businesses are "run successfully by Muslims". Burmese pro-democracy activist Maung Zarni denounced Wirathu's 969 Movement for spreading hate speech and argued that EU countries should take

469-674: 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,

536-539: A non-exhaustive list of titles used among the many schools within Japanese Buddhism. As shown above, the term 和尚 ( Oshō , etc.) can be pronounced several ways, depending on the tradition in question. Its origins are in the Sanskrit word upādhyāya originally referring to someone who conferred the precepts onto another. Hōin (法印) was originally a title bestowed upon a monk by the emperor. Shōnin (上人)

603-466: 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

670-580: A wedge between her and the military according to the Myanmar Times , "People should worship military MPs as if they are worshipping Buddha...", and further likened Suu Kyi to "a prostitute sucking up to foreign interests" at a speech in Myeik that went viral. An arrest warrant was issued for that speech in May 2019 on grounds of sedition and slander. After a year and a half of evading arrest, he surrendered to

737-628: 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

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804-439: 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: Abbot (Buddhism) In Buddhism , the abbot ( Pali : 𑀲𑀗𑁆𑀖𑀡𑀸𑀬𑀓 , romanized:  saṅghanāyaka )

871-462: Is a monk who holds the position of administrator of a monastery or large temple. The administrative duties of an abbot or abbess include overseeing the day-to-day running of the monastery. The abbot or abbess also holds spiritual responsibility for the monastics under their care, and is required to interact with the abbots or abbesses of other monasteries. Asian countries where Buddhism is still widely practiced have words in their own languages for

938-730: Is a title of respect to one who has attained a certain level of enlightenment. Goin (御院) and Inke (院家) refer to the temple proper. In the case of Pure Land Buddhism, which de-emphasizes discipline in favor of household life, the words for abbacy tend to be a reflection of the institution rather than the person in charge. In the Kansai region, Goingesan (ご院家さん), Goinsan (御院さん) and Goensan (ご縁さん) are commonly used among Shin Buddhists . Abbacy also tends to be inherited from family lineage within Pure Land traditions. Hōushu or Hossu (法主)

1005-510: Is mentioned on the cover story of Time magazine as "The Face of Buddhist Terror" on 1 July 2013. "You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog," Wirathu said, referring to Muslims. "If we are weak," he said, "our land will become Muslim." Referring to Muslim violence and domination in neighbouring nations and the example of the spread of Islam in Indonesia , Wirathu claims that his Muslim opponents labelled him

1072-442: 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

1139-508: Is still used today at Daikaku-ji of Shingon and Hongan-ji of Jōdo Shinshū . The Korean word for abbot is juji (住持/주지). The Thai term for the abbot of a temple ( wat ) is chaoawat ( Thai : เจ้าอาวาส ). The abbot of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery is known as the Khenpo . This means "the one who gives the monks vows". The abbot is both addressed as and referred to as "Khen Rinpoche". Another word used for more senior abbots

1206-495: Is the head of a Buddhist monastery or large Buddhist temple . In Buddhist nunneries, the nun who holds the equivalent position is known as the abbess ( Pali : 𑀲𑀗𑁆𑀖𑀦𑀸𑀬𑀓𑀸 , romanized:  saṅghanāyakā ). In English-speaking countries, the English word "abbot" is used instead of all the various words that exist in the languages of the countries where Buddhism is, or was historically, well established. An abbot

1273-591: Is the title used by Ekan Ikeguchi at Saifuku-ji in Kagoshima. It is also used among the Seven Head Temples of Jōdo-shū and Taiseki-ji of Nichiren Shōshū . In the Tendai tradition, the term Zasu 座主 is common. The abbot is also sometimes referred to as Yama no zasu (山の座主), meaning "Abbot of the mountain." Monzeki (門跡) was a term reserved for priests of aristocratic or imperial lineage, and

1340-584: 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

1407-638: 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/

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1474-491: 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

1541-588: 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

1608-527: 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

1675-618: 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

1742-664: The Mahamuni Buddha Temple in Mandalay on 23 February 2017 to condemn the Thai government's raid on the Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Bangkok . Ayeyarwady Region 's religious council, the region's Sangha Maha Nayaka, banned Wirathu from preaching in the region on 10 March 2017. After the ban ended, he continued his religious alertness speeches. He hinted at overthrowing Aung San Suu Kyi by trying to drive

1809-723: 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

1876-534: 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

1943-614: 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

2010-705: The "Burmese Bin Laden" after the Time article incorrectly reported he described himself in this manner. He said he "abhorred violence" and "opposes terrorism". Wirathu has expressed admiration for, and a desire to follow the example of, the English Defence League by "protecting the public." Thein Sein accused Time of slandering the Buddhist religion and harming the national reconciliation process by accusing

2077-413: 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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2144-457: 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

2211-410: 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

2278-526: 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

2345-501: 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

2412-688: 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

2479-469: 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

2546-497: 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

2613-479: 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

2680-430: The abbot of a Buddhist monastery or large temple: In Chinese Chan Buddhist monasteries, a common word for abbot is Fāngzhàng (方丈) meaning "one square zhàng (equal to ten square feet)", a reference to the size of Vimalakirti 's stone room. Another word for abbot is Zhùchí (住持), meaning "dweller" and "upholder." Monks and nuns tend to be addressed as Fǎshī (法師) meaning "Dharma teacher." In Japanese Buddhism,

2747-491: 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

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2814-518: The charge of spreading religious hatred towards other communities, after repeated warnings to not post religiously inflammatory content. Wirathu led a rally of monks in Mandalay in September 2012 to promote President Thein Sein 's controversial plan to send Burmese Rohingya Muslims to a third country. One month later, more violence broke out in Rakhine state. Wirathu claims the violence in Rakhine

2881-414: The civil rights of Muslims, and preventing them to have multiple wives, to marry Buddhist women or to have large families. In January 2015, Wirathu publicly called United Nations envoy Yanghee Lee a "bitch" and a "whore" after she publicly reacted to the legislative lobbying campaign, and invited her to "offer your arse to the kalars " (a derogatory term for Muslims). Wirathu led a prayer and protest at

2948-525: 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

3015-604: 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

3082-669: 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

3149-741: The extremists are pulling the strings, providing them with financial, military and technical power". On 21 July 2013, he was the apparent target of a bomb explosion, but he remained unscathed. Five people were slightly injured in the blast, including a novice monk. Wirathu claimed that the bombing was an attempt by Muslim extremists to silence his voice. He has called for restrictions on marriages between Buddhists and Muslims, and for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses. However, not everyone from within his own faith agrees with his teachings. Abbot Ashin Ariyawuntha Biwunsa of Mandalay's Myawaddy Sayadaw monastery denounced him, saying, "He sides

3216-598: 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

3283-702: The ideas of protection of race. This association again renamed to the Buddha Dhamma Charity Foundation in 2017 after a similar ban. Wirathu reacted to these bans by pointing that the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee was controlled by the military and took its decision "under the gun". Although Ma Ba Tha is led by a collegial committee, Wirathu is described as the outspoken leader of the Ma Ba Tha. As such, he participated in Ma Ba Tha's campaign in favor of laws limiting

3350-522: 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

3417-515: 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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3484-704: The matter seriously as Myanmar is a "major EU-aid recipient country". The 969 movement was banned by the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee in September 2013, for having drafted civil rights laws to limit the Muslim population. But shortly after, in January 2014, people formerly involved in the 969 movement established the Patriotic Association of Myanmar , known by its Burmese initials Ma Ba Tha, that carried on promoting

3551-401: The most commonly used words for the abbot of a large temple or monastery are jūji (住持), jūjishoku (住持職), or simply jūshoku (住職). Occasionally the word jishu (寺主) is used as well, derived from the Sanskrit word vihārasvāmin which referred to the supervisor of a vihāra that contained a stupa . A temple without a priest is denoted by the term mujū (無住). The following table contains

3618-546: The outspoken cleric of stoking anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar. Describing him as a "son of Buddha", the president defended Wirathu as a "noble person" committed to peace. "The article in Time Magazine can cause misunderstanding about the Buddhist religion, which has existed for millennia and is followed by the majority of Burmese citizens," Thein Sein said. In an interview with DVB, Wirathu accused Time of committing

3685-526: The police in Yangon a week before the 2020 Myanmar general election , and got arrested. In September 2021, the sedition charges against Wirathu were dismissed by the military junta , and he was subsequently released. In November 2022, he was awarded the title of Thiri Pyanchi , one of the country’s highest honors. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with

3752-649: 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

3819-425: 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

3886-510: 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,

3953-764: 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

4020-448: 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

4087-425: 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,

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4154-462: 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

4221-466: 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,

4288-410: 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

4355-516: Was born in 1968 in Myinsaing village, Kyaukse , near Mandalay . He left school at the age 14 to become a monk. In 2001, he became involved in the 969 Movement . Two years later, in 2003, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his sermons, but was released in 2012 along with many other political prisoners. Since the government reforms of 2011, he has been especially active on YouTube and other forms of social media. Facebook banned his page on

4422-839: 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

4489-549: Was the spark for the subsequent violence in Myanmar's central city of Meiktila , where a dispute in a gold shop quickly spiralled into a looting-and-arson spree. More than 14 people were killed, after monasteries, shops and houses were burned down across the city. At least two people, including a Burmese Buddhist monk, Shin Thawbita, and a Muslim man were reportedly assaulted and tortured by mobs in Meiktila on 5 March. Wirathu

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