Burmese

[This document is for discussion, and should not yet be used as a reference.  It closely follows pages 40-42 of the ALA-LC Romanization Tables, with annotations and typographic corrections by Doug Cooper, January 2006.]

1. Consonants

Vernacular	Romanization	Vernacular	Romanization
က	ka	ထ	tha
ခ	kha	ဒ	da
ဂ	ga	ဓ	da
ဃ	gha	န	na
င	ṅa	ပ	pa
စ	ca	ဖ	pha
ဆ	cha	ဗ	ba
ဇ	ja	ဘ	bha
ဈ	jha	မ	ma
ည	ñña	ယ	ya
ဉ	ña	ရ	ra
ဋ	ṭa	လ	la
ဌ	ṭha	ဝ	va
ဍ	ḍa	သ	sa
ဎ	ḍha	ဟ	ha
ဏ	ṇa	ဠ	ḷa
တ	ta	အ	ʼa

2. Vowels (see note 3.1)

ာ, ါ	-ā
ိ	-i
ီ	-ī
ု	-u
ူ	-ū
ေ	-e
ဲ	-ai
ော, ေါ	-o
ော်, ေါ်	-oʻ
ို	-ui
ဣ	i
ဤ	ī
ဥ	u
ဦ	ū
ဧ	e
ဩ	o
ဪ	oʻ

3. Medials

ျ	-y
ွ	-v
ြ	-r
ှ	-h

Medials are written in the order: y or r - v - h; for example:

မျှ	myha
ကြွ	krva
လွှ	lvha
မြွှင်း	mrvhaṅ'ʺ

3.1. Some symbols in the Burmese script are attached above, below, or beside a consonant. Where such symbols are listed in this table, the symbol "◌" is used to represent the consonant.

3.2. Absence of a vowel in the script is represented by a in romanization, with the following exceptions:

(a) when a different vowel is indicated by its appropriate symbol (see 2. Vowels);
(b) when the absence of any vowel is indicated by the symbol ် (see 5. Final symbols).

4. Conjunct consonants
Romanize an upper consonant before a lower one:

တက္ကသိုလ်	takkasuil'
တိရိစ္ဆာန်	tiracchān'
ကမ္ဘာ	kambhā

Note that the following consonants have modified forms when conjunct:

်	ṅ-
ဏ္ဍ	-ṇḍ
ဏ္ဌ	-ṇṭh
ဉ္ဈ	-ñjh
ဇ္ဈ	-jjh
ဿ	-ss
ဎ္ဍ	-ḍḍh
ဋ္ဌ	-ṭṭh

5. Final Symbols

်	-ʻ
ံ	-ṃ

6. Tone Marks

့	-ʹ	modifier letter prime (697)
◌း	-ʺ	modifer letter double prime (698)

Examples:

ပို့	puiʹ
ပိုး	puiʺ

7. Punctuation

-၊	, (comma)
-။	. (period)

8. Numerals

၀ (0) , ၁ (1), ၂ (2), ၃ (3), ၄ (4), ၅ (5), ၆ (6), ၇ (7), ၈ (8), ၉ (9)

9. Abbreviations

၏	e*
၌	n*
၍	r*
၎	l*

u104E/4174 - customary form 5.၄ l* - The LC glyph (with straight descender, here approximated with digit 4) not usually seen.

10. Word Division
For Burmese words, leave a space after each syllable.
     For loanwords, use the same word division as in the original language.  Apply the same practice to loanwords with modified forms in Burmese.

ကော်မီတီ	ko'mītī (English)
ဥပုသ်	upus' (modified Pali)
ပန်းကန်	pan'ʺkan' (Mon)
ကော်ပြန့်	ko'pran'ʹ (Chinese)

11. Capitalization
Capitalize words according to the rules that apply to English.
For personal names composed of Burmese elements, or of elements treated as Burmese, capitalize the initial letter of each syllable.

မောင်မောင်စိုးတင့်	Moṅ ' Moṅ ' Cuiʺ Taṅ 'ʹ
စောစိုင်မောင်	Co Cuiṅ' Moṅ '
ချန်ရီစိန်	Khyan' Rī Cin'

Note the following names with non-Burmese elements:

ကဲနက်ဘစိန်	Kainak' Bha Cin'
မြသီတာ	Mra Sītā
ပဒေသရာဇာ	Padesarājā

12. Examples

မဟာသမိုင်းတောင်ကြီးညွန့်ပေါင်း	Mahā samuiṅ'ʺ to' krīʺ ññvan'ʹ poṅ'ʺ
ယောအတွင်းဝန်ဦးဖိုးလှိုင်	Yo 'A tvaṅ'ʺ van' Ūʺ Phuiʺ Lhuiṅ'
ဒုဋ္ဌဂါမဏိမင်းကြီးဝတ္ထု	Duṭṭhagāmaṇi maṅ'ʺ krīʺ vatthu

Special Characters and Character Modifiers used in Romanization

(See the MARC 21 Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, and Exchange Media / CHARACTER SETS: Part 3 / Code Tables / January 2000, updated September 2004)

http://www.loc.gov/marc/specifications/specchartables.html

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/codetables/45.html  (Extended Latin)

http://www.atla.com/tsig/LatinCharacters/Latin%20Characters%20in%20Unicode%20and%20MARC-8.pdf  (full set of examples)

Special Characters

Character	-*
LC-ALA Name / USMARC hex code	asterisk / 42
Unicode Name / hex code / decimal code	asterisk  /  U+002A  /  42

Character         -ʻ

LC-ALA Name            ayn

USMARC hex code     B0

Unicode Name MODIFIER LETTER TURNED COMMA

Unicode hex code / decimal    02BB / 699

Character         -ʼ

LC-ALA Name            alif

USMARC hex code     AE

Unicode Name MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE

Unicode hex code / decimal    02BA / 698

Character         -˝

LC-ALA Name            hard sign (double prime)

USMARC hex code     B7

Unicode Name COMBINING CARON

Unicode hex code / decimal    030C / 780

Character         -ʹ

LC-ALA Name            soft sign (prime)

USMARC hex code     A7

Unicode Name COMBINING LEFT HALF RING BELOW

Unicode hex code / decimal    031C / 796

Character Modifiers

Character         -̃

LC-ALA Name            tilde

USMARC hex code     E4

Unicode Name COMBINING LEFT HALF RING BELOW

Unicode hex code / decimal    0303 / 771

Character                    -̄

LC-ALA Name            macron

USMARC hex code     E5

Unicode Name COMBINING MACRON

Unicode hex code / decimal    0304 / 772

Character         -̇

LC-ALA Name            dot above

USMARC hex code     E7

Unicode Name COMBINING DOT ABOVE

Unicode hex code / decimal    00307 / 775

Character         -̣

LC-ALA Name            dot below

USMARC hex code     F2

Unicode Name COMBINING DOT BELOW

Unicode hex code / decimal    0303 / 803