New Words       

pyàw-deh.  ပြောတယ်  to say, speak   

pyàw-daq-teh.  ပြောတတ်တယ်  to know how to speak   

săgà  စကား  word, words, language   

Ìn-găleiq săgà  အင်္ဂလိပ်စကား  English language   

Băma săgà or Myan-ma săgà  ဗမာစကား or မြန်မာစကား  Burmese language   

Băma-lo or Myanma- lo  ဗမာလို or မြန်မာလို  In Burmese   

  Sentences     

S1  Ìn-găleiq săgà pyàw-daq-thălà?  အင်္ဂလိပ်စကား ပြောတတ်သလား။  Can you speak English? 

S2  Măpyàw-daq-pa-bù.  မေပြာတတ်ပါဘူး။  No I can't 

  Variants     

  Ìn-găleiq-lo pyàw-daq- thălà?  အင်္ဂလိပ်လို ပြောတတ်သလား။  Can you speak (in) English? 

      Mătaq-pa-bù is a shortened variant for Măpyàw-daq-pa-bù.     

Notes 

“You” and “I”. Burmese leaves out words for “You” and “I” when it is clear who you are referring to. See the note at Lesson 1.3. 

“Burmese”. The Burmese for “Burmese” has two forms: Băma, which is more colloquial (and the form which gave the world the word “Burma”), and Myan-ma, which is more formal. Typically, you find M ya n -m a in formal writing and announcements, and you use Băma in conversation and personal correspondence. Examples: 

  Băma săgà   ဗမာစကား   Burmese 

  = Myan-ma săgà  = မြန်မာစကား   (“Burmese language”) 

  Băma pye   ဗမာပြည်   Burma 

  = Myan-ma pye   = မြန်မာပြည်   (“Burmese country”) 

  Băma ămyò- thămì   ဗမာအမျိုးသမီး   Burmese lady 

  = Myanma ămyò-thămì   မြန်မာအမျိုးသမီး   Burmese woman 

In 1989 the government decreed that these two forms were to be given different meanings. Myan-ma was to be used for referring to anything involving the whole country, or all its ethnic groups (Shan, Karen, Kachin etc), and Băma was to be used for the Burmese ethnic group only. At the same time it was decreed that English and other languages should mark the distinction by replacing “Burma” with “Myanmar”, and “Burmese” with “Myanmar” or “Bamar” as appropriate. Although Burmese is the language of the ethnic “Bamar”, and not the mother tongue of the other races, it is officially called “Myanmar” on the grounds that it is the national language of “the Union of Myanmar”. Some foreign writers have adopted the changes, and others continue to use the old terms, either to flaunt their opposition to the government, or because they believe their readers are not yet familiar with the new names.