Burmese pronouns

Burmese pronouns (Burmese: နာမ်စား) are words in the Burmese language used to address or refer to people or things.

Subject pronouns begin sentences, though the subject is generally omitted in the imperative forms and in conversation. Grammatically speaking, subject marker particles (‹See Tfd›က ([ɡa̰] in colloquial, ‹See Tfd›သည် [θì] in formal) must be attached to the subject pronoun, although they are also generally omitted in conversation. Object pronouns must have an object marker particle (‹See Tfd›ကို [ɡò] in colloquial, ‹See Tfd›အား [á] in formal) attached immediately after the pronoun. Proper nouns are often substituted for pronouns, an example of pronoun avoidance. One's status in relation to the audience determines the pronouns used, with certain pronouns used for different audiences.

Polite pronouns are used to address elders, teachers and strangers, through the use of feudal-era third person pronouns in lieu of first and second person pronouns. In such situations, one refers to oneself in third person: ‹See Tfd›ကျွန်တော် (kya. nau [tɕənɔ̀]) for males, and ‹See Tfd›ကျွန်မ (kya. ma. [tɕəma̰]) for females, both meaning "your servant") and refer to the addressee as ‹See Tfd›မင်း (min [mɪ́ɴ]; "your highness"), ‹See Tfd›ခင်ဗျား (khang bya: [kʰəmjá]; "master lord")^[1] or ‹See Tfd›ရှင် (hrang [ʃɪ̀ɴ]; "ruler/master").^[2] So ingrained are these terms in the daily polite speech that people use them as the first and second person pronouns without giving a second thought to the root meaning of these pronouns.

When speaking to a person of the same status or of younger age, ‹See Tfd›ငါ (nga [ŋà]; "I/me") and ‹See Tfd›နင် (nang [nɪ̀ɴ]; "you") may be used, although most speakers choose to use third person pronouns, typically derived from Burmese kinship terms.^[3] For example, an older person may use ‹See Tfd›ဒေါ်လေး (dau le: [dɔ̀ lé]; "aunt") or ‹See Tfd›ဦးလေး (u: lei: [ʔú lé]; "uncle") to refer to himself, while a younger person may use either ‹See Tfd›သား (sa: [θá]; son) or ‹See Tfd›သမီး (sa.mi: [θəmí]; daughter).

Basic pronouns can be pluralized by suffixing the following particles to the pronoun: ‹See Tfd›တို့ (tui.) or colloquial ‹See Tfd›ဒို့ (dui.).

Other pronouns are reserved for speaking with Buddhist monks. When speaking to a monk, pronouns like ‹See Tfd›ဘုန်းဘုန်း bhun: bhun: (from ‹See Tfd›ဘုန်းကြီး phun: kri:, "monk"), ‹See Tfd›ဆရာတော် (chara dau [sʰəjàdɔ̀]; "royal teacher"), and ‹See Tfd›အရှင်ဘုရား (a.hrang bhu.ra:; [ʔəʃɪ̀ɴ pʰəjá]; "your lordship") are used depending on their status (‹See Tfd›ဝါ); when referring to oneself, terms like ‹See Tfd›တပည့်တော် (ta. pany. tau ; "royal disciple") or ‹See Tfd›ဒကာ (da. ka [dəɡà], "donor") are used. When speaking to a monk, the following pronouns are used:

In colloquial Burmese, possessive pronouns are contracted when the root pronoun itself is low toned. This does not occur in literary Burmese, which uses ‹See Tfd›၏ ([ḭ]) as postpositional marker for possessive case instead of ‹See Tfd›ရဲ့ ([jɛ̰]). Examples include the following:

The contraction also occurs in some low toned nouns, making them possessive nouns (e.g. ‹See Tfd›အမေ့ or ‹See Tfd›မြန်မာ့, "mother's" and "Burma's" respectively).

Demonstrative pronouns in Myanmar are same in nature with English. Demonstrative pronouns are identical with the demonstrative adjectives, but demonstrative pronouns stand alone, while demonstrative adjectives qualify a noun.

The most common demonstrative pronouns in Myanmar are ‹See Tfd›ဤ၊ သည် "this", ‹See Tfd›ထို "that", ‹See Tfd›ယင်း၊ ၎င်း "it". They are usually used for referring inanimate objects. These pronouns mostly used with noun or noun phrases. Demonstrative pronouns have the form (pronoun + noun phrase) to demonstrate the previous object. For example, ‹See Tfd›မောင်သစ်လွင်သည် ဖားကန့်မြို့တွင်မွေးဖွားခဲ့သည်။ "Mg Thit Lwin was born in Phakant Town." ‹See Tfd›ထိုမြို့ကို ကျောက်စိမ်းမြို့တော်ဟုလည်းခေါ်သည်။ "That Town is also called 'Jade Land'". In the above example sentence, the demonstrative pronoun ‹See Tfd›ထို "that" is used with the noun ‹See Tfd›မြို့ "town" to refer the ‹See Tfd›ဖားကန့်မြို့ "Phakant township".

Burmese has two alternative forms of the reflexive:

1. literary form: ‹See Tfd›မိမိ ([mḭ mḭ]), often used in conjunction with ‹See Tfd›ကိုယ် (i.e., ‹See Tfd›မိမိကိုယ် 'oneself') ^[4]
2. spoken form: ‹See Tfd›ကိုယ် ([kò]), used with direct objects and with pronouns (i.e., ‹See Tfd›သူ့ကိုယ်သူ 'himself' or ‹See Tfd›ကိုယ့်ကိုယ်ကို 'oneself') ^[4]

• Bradley, David (Spring 1993). "Pronouns in Burmese–Lolo" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 16 (1). Melbourne: La Trobe University.
• Bradley, David (1995). "Reflexives in Burmese" (PDF). Papers in Southeast Asian Linguistics No. 13: Studies in Burmese Languages (A-83). Australian National University: 139–172.
• Taw Sein Ko (1898). Elementary Handbook of the Burmese Language. Rangoon: Superintendent, Government Printing.