TIL
Update: 20120808
Introduction to Romabama
- a transcription-transliteration system
for BEPS (Burmese-English-Pali-Sanskrit) languages:
Rule 03v
intro-RBM03v-.htm by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.), Daw Khin Wutyi, B.Sc., and staff of TIL Computing and Language Centre, Yangon, Myanmar. Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone.
At one time, I was learning French. I came across a cartoon: "Au commencement était le verb." God was teaching his angles from many lands to sing in one voice -- all He got was a worm from Adam's head!
Contents of this page
Letters of Latin alphabet usedRomabama Rule 01 - ASCII characters
Romabama Rule 02 - Differentiation of capital and small letters
Romabama Rule 03v - Extended Latin alphabet and Digraphs: for vowels
Romabama Rule 03c - Extended Latin alphabet and Digraphs: for consonants
Romabama Rule 04 - Silent e and <e> as part of digraph <ei>
Romabama Rule 05 - Killed consonants
Romabama Rule 06 -
Romabama Rule 07 - Fossilized killed consonants
Romabama Rule 08 - Non-alphabetic characters
Essentially ~ (tilde) is used to show the

Romabama Rule 09 - Extension of Myanmar akshara row 2 to accommodate medials
Romabama Rule 10 - Extension of Myanmar akshara vowels to accommodate Sanskrit vowels
Extended Latin alphabet and Digraphs: for vowels
Letter-a A: note the difference between alphabet (& letter), and abugida (& akshara)
Letter-e E
Letter-i I
Letter-o O
Letter-Ri : aka vocalic R - not a consonant but a true vowel
Letter-u U
UKT notes
• Representing the killed-{Ña.}
• Thawun-Athawun vowel pairs
• Two-three tone problem
• Vowel length :
• {weik-hkya.}-{mauk-hkya.} problem
Romabama Rule 03v
Extended Latin alphabet and Digraphs: for vowels
Diacritics and other suitable signs are introduced. Diacritics in Romabama are chosen in a way so that even if a diacritic is lost, the effect would be minimal. As for digraphs, I try not to use them, unless it is absolutely necessary.letter: a , A
• å (Alt0229) (Latin small letter A with ring above) for central vowel Schwa.The central vowel Schwa is not usually represented in written scripts, yet it is needed for teaching Bur-Myan to those who can read and write English. It is represented in IPA as /ə/ without roticity in British accents, and /ɚ/ with roticity in American accent. Schwa /ə/ is realized in Bur-Myan in words like• ä (Alt0228) (Latin small letter A with diaeresis or 'double-dot'), nasal sounds with{a.ni} 'colour red'. For teaching Bur-Myan to foreigners, I use {å} to write
{å.ni}.
• aa (digraph of Latin small letter A){a.þän} - voice, sound, noise - MED2010-599
{a.häin-þa.ka.} -
- UHS-PMD0153
{thoän:} - numeral three
The vowels in English, Pali, and Sanskrit (EPS) are either short or long.• æ (Alt0230) in combination with Ñ (Alt0209) to denote
See my note on Two-three tone problem.
Leaving aside Burmese, with its three pitch-registers, Romabama has to tackle the problem of checking these vowels with coda consonants. Burmese does not allow checking long vowels, but in both Pali- and Sanskrit derived words, the long vowels are checked and Romabama must be able to handle them.
There are only three long vowels,{aa} «ā»,
{ii} «ī»,
{uu} «ū». Among them
{aa} «ā», is more commonly met in Pali-derived words. The most logical representation of the vowel are the digraphs. However, digraphs are usually mistaken for diphthongs as in English <bouy> and <oil> which most Bur-Myan are unable to pronounce.
I am speaking from personal experience as a student in the US in the late 1950s: I was pronouncing <boy> as "boin" and <oil> as "wine". I thank my good American classmates at the Institute of Paper Chemistry, Appleton, Wisconsin, for painstakingly correcting my pronunciation.
Bur-Myan pronounce the diphthongs as monophthongs. Because of the difficulties due to ethnicity of the speaker, I had tried to find single letters for representing the checked vowels, an instance being á (Alt0225) for long vowel «ā». My search was long and difficult, and for the sake of economy of diacritics, I have stopped using á (Alt0225). Now I have no choice but to use digraphs which will be pronounced as monophthongs.
For argument sake, I will call the process of checking as{re:hkya. a·þût}. We have two glyphs for it:
/
. The coda consonant, the consonant under {a.þût}, seems to influence the change in peak vowel, and we have to consider the consonants separately as:
plosive-stops:Why there are two glyphs is due to the way Bur-Myan is written. See my note on
{Daat-hsi} - petrol, gasoline -- MED2010-218
under consideration:{Da-at} . IPA uses triangular double dots /ː/.
nasals:
{yìñ} - n. vehicle; craft - MED2010-386
under consideration:{ya-iñ}
approximants:
{a.Daip~pÈý} - meaning, sense - MED2010-565
under consideration:{a.Daip~pa-èý}
UKT note to HTML editor: the file names are unsatisfactory for both&
. At present they are:
<Bur-vehicle.GIF> & <a1ddaip-peiy2.GIF>.
Remember the IUPAC naming system of organic compounds in chemistry. In chemistry we have the generic name, and the trivial name. The generic name is the same as Romabama spelling, e.g. <a1ddaip-peiy2.GIF>. The trivial name for <Bur-vehicle.GIF> is needed. At present, I feel I am cheating myself.
{ré:hkya.} problem or more accurately
/
{weik-hkya.}-{mauk-hkya.} problem.

• Æ (Alt0198) in combination with Ñ (Alt0209) to denote spellings involving vowel-letter{kyæÑ-hsûn} - cartridge, shell - MED2010-034).
- I have always thought that the spelling is{kyæÑ-hsän}
An unforeseen benefit of using Romabama is to make a person like me to be careful about the way he spells!
See my note on Representing the "killed" {Ña.}
• AI (cap a + cap i) to represent vowel-letter{ÆÑ.þæÑ} - guest - MED2010-625
The pronunciation of the name{AIþ~þa.ra.mu-li} (Bur-Myan) and इसरमूल (Skt-Dev)
(Aristolochia indica Nagathain vol. 4, p.061) is always a problem because the vowel used is the vowel letter{I} (Pal-Myan) or इ (Skt-Dev). To arrive at a pronunciation we have to include in our delibrations the pronunciations of the three Bur-Myan pitch-registers:
{i.} (creak),
{i} (modal), &
{i:} (emphatic). Pal-Myan
{I} is taken to be equivalent to
{i.} (creak).
If we were to expand{AIþ~þa.ra.mu-li} to show the pronunciation, we would get
{aiþ-þa.ra.mu-li}. Based on this reasoning on pronunciation, I am spelling
as {AIþ~þa.mu-li} in Romabama. The name of the plant was spelled {Ith~tha.mu-li} in Myanmar Medicinal Plants DB.
letter: e , E
The usual Eng-Latin definitions of diacritics do not apply in Romabama. For example, é (Alt0201) is given as the 'Latin small letter E with acute accent' and è (Alt0232) as the 'Latin small letter E with grave accent. In Romabama they simply stand for mid-front vowels, é [IPA: e ] being more 'close' than è [IPA: ɛ ]. See my note on Thawun-Athawun vowel pairs.
• É (Alt0201) for vowel-letter
The usual vowel quadrilateral is a stylized representation of the vowel space. The vowel space resembles an ellipse with two sharp points. Note the positions of the most contrastive vowels in all languages, the /i/ and /ɑ/ : they are at the sharp points. In English, the vowel /a/ is not prominent, and what we think are the{a.} /a/ sounds are actually
{au:} /ɑ/ sounds. e.g.
<father> /'fɑː.ð|əʳ/ (US) /-ð|ɚ/ - DJPD16-199There are two Athawun pairs, one in front mid-vowels and the other in back mid-vowels. Since their positions in the vowel space is well separated there is no problem of identifying the front mid-vowel pair in Bur-Myan and its corresponding pair in Skt-Dev:
{É} ए «e» & ? {È} ऐ «ai». Please note that I am giving the IAST transliteration in «...». But there is an un-resolvable problem with the back mid-vowel pair. In Skt-Dev, it is: ओ «o» & औ «au». What is this pair in Bur-Myan? From the Bur-Myan pronunciation, this pair is definitely
{o} &
{AU:}. But U Tun Tint (MLC) would not accept the Romabama transcription of
{o}.
Transformations below are given by U Tun Tint (MLC)
• é (Alt0233) for{É-ka.} - acre -- MED2010-613
{nhÉIk} derived from
{nheik}
{rwÉ} derived from
{ruèý} pronounced as /
/ {rwé.}
Transform![]()
cf. Bur-Myan pitch-registers:{rwé.} (creak),
{rwé} (modal),
{rwé:) (emphatic)
{iÉ} derived from
{É.} pronounced as
{ i.}
cf. Bur-Myan pitch-registers:{ i.} (creak),
{i} (modal),
{i:} (emphatic)
{LÉ-kaung:} derived from
{læÑ-kaung:}
First syllable pronounced as{læÑ:}
rhyming with{præÑ} as in
{mrûn-ma-præÑ} 'the country of Myanmar'.
cf. Bur-Myan pitch-registers:
{præÑ.} (creak),
{præÑ} (modal),
{præÑ:} (emphatic)
I was intrigued by the way the British administrators had spelled the name of a city in central Myanmar on the eastern bank of the Irrawaddy as <Prome> until I realized that the British had based their orthography on the Bur-Myan,{præÑ}. Just put in parts <Pr-o-me>: <Pr> is {pra.}; <o> is {au:}; <me> is {mæÑ}. The local pronunciation is {pré}. -- UKT120804
• È (Alt0200){é:hkyam:} - peaceful - MED2010-614
We have met• è: (Alt0232) for{é} =
{É}. But for
{è:}, there is no vowel letter. If there were one it would be È.
{è:maung:} - n. 1. lance adorned with a long tassel used by the royal cavalry.
2. gong used in ancient times to alert soldiers at night. - MED2010-615
letter: i I
• ï (Alt0239) and ~ (Tilde) to represent• ì (Alt0236) for denotingThe term
{king:si:} literally means 'ridden by a centipede' and stands for a rime ending in killed
{nga.}
{ng.} [IPA /ŋ/] . The consonant r1c5
{nga.} is quite distinct in Asoka script (now dubbed Brahmi). Yet in Devanagari, the glyph appears to be made up from r3c3 ड + a dot --> ङ . Also, there seems to be no syllables with ङ as the onset. It is present only in the coda as a killed consonant, ङ् , which is the same as
{ng.}.
In A. A. Macdonell's A Practical Sanskrit Dictionary words involving ङ् are given as conjuncts.
The present trend is to give in linear form as गङ्गा gangā [ gáṅ-gâ ] . To bring out the special character of{king:si:}, Romabama uses {ïn~} , where the <n> is not for
{na.} /n/, but for
{nga.} /ŋ/ .
{ïn~ga.laip} - n. English - MED2010-622

• í (Alt0237) for denoting{yìñ} - n. vehicle; craft - MED2010-386

{hkít} - n. 1. extent; domain 2. age; period; era; times - MED2010-064
- sounds like /kʰɪt/ - UKT100615
letter: o O
• ô (Alt0244) (Latin small letter O with circumflex) - alternate form for
One of the principle objections MLC U Tun Tint has made against Romabama is the choice of <o> for• OA (digraph) for use in place of. He points out that <o> is the accepted MLC transcription for
{au:}. If we are accept the MLC transcription, I would have to call my friend "Kou Tun Tint" instead of the more natural "Ko Tun Tint".
To remove such objections from U Tun Tint and MLC, we may use:{ô} (081012) . And now my friend is "Kô Tun Tint" which is not a bad as "Kou Tun Tint". My objection to the use of "Kou" is because of the English 'double U' written as <w>.



• OÄN (trigraph) (Alt0196) for exclusive use{OAc~sa} - n. property; possession - MED2010-625

- a very important syllable in Skt-Myan (Sanskrit-Myanmar).
letter: Ri ऋ
Also known as the vocalic-R is not a consonant. It is the highly rhotic form of vowel /i/, and should have been termed rhotic-i .

The first, the so-called vocalic-L is no longer important in Skt-Dev. Because of its highly lateral sound, it should have been called lateral-i . It has both short- and long-varieties: ऌ - short, & ॡ - long. It is supposed to be important in Vedic, but almost absent in Classical Sanskrit. Because Bur-Myan has the most laterals among BEPS languages, I am inclined to say Burmese might be directly related to Vedic. -- UKT120805
I was quite baffled until I came across A Practical Sanskrit Introductory by Charles Wikner http://sanskritdocuments.org/learning_tutorial_wikner/index.html 110528
[skt-dev-vowels.gif] (right) -->
[vow-all3.gif] (below)

Note the Skt-Dev words «dīgha» & «pluta». They indicates the vowel lengths. See my note on vowel length
The second pair, the rhotic-i , is very important in Classical Sanskrit. It,

¤




¤


letter: u U
• û (Alt0251)The English <u> has 2 sounds, /ʌ/ and /ʊ/, exemplified in <but> /bʌt/ (DJPD16-075) and <put> /pʊt/ (DJPD16-436. To differentiate them in Romabama, I am using the forms of u as, <û> for /ʌ/ and <u> for /ʊ/. Thus,
{bût}
{pwut} / {put}
UKT notes
Representing the "killed" {Ña.} in Romabama
-- by UKT 120731Representing
According to DJPD16-009, "Pronouncing the letters AE", "The vowel digraph æ is a fairly low-frequency spelling. ... When not followed by <r>, the pronunciation is usually one of /i ː/, /ɪ/ or /e/, the latter being most common in American-English pronunciation..." This makes me conclude that its pronunciation would be close to Burmese-Myanmar {i}. Thus, Romabama will transcribe:
Go back represent-killed-nya-kri-note-b
Thawun-Athawun vowel pairs
-- UKT 120801Many Bur-Myan speakers, and even those who possess university degrees in Burmese language have never heard of these words, Thawun


Wow! Look at the date of publication - just some years after the British had taken over the whole Burmese Empire and made it into a mere appendix in their British Empire. An appendix, because they had pushed it under their British-India Empire with Queen Victoria as the Empress - a mere queen of Britain, and Burma a mere nothing under the Viceroy in India - a mere lord in Britain!
The Burmese national pride had been doubly hurt -- never had the Burmese been under the Indians! I vow to my Burmese and Mon ancestors that I will bring their beloved Myanmar akshara to the attention of the whole world! And my sincere thanks to A. W. Lonsdale, an Englishman, who wrote in the Preface of his book:
• The Burmese language is constructed on scientific principles, and there is no reason why its grammar should not be dealt with also from a scientific standpoint. But it may be safely said that Burmese grammar as a science has not received that attention it deserves.Lonsdale also wrote:
• With regard to the grammatical treatises by native writers, it is no exaggeration to say that there is not one which can be properly called a Burmese grammar. These writers, not content with merely borrowing the grammatical nomenclature of the Pali language, also attempted to assimilate the grammatical principles of the uninflected Burmese to those of the inflected Pali; so that they produced, not Burmese grammars, but modified Pali grammars in Burmese dress. The servile veneration in which they held Pali, the language they had adopted as the classic, is, no doubt, directly responsible for the composition of such works. In their endeavour to conform strictly to Pali methods, they often introduced unnecessary terms and misapplied them, ignoring those grammatical points in Burmese for which they could find no parallel in Pali. How futile their attempts were may be judged by the numerous difficulties and anomalies they created, from some of which even now teachers of the language have not quite extricated themselves - take, for instance, the case-inflexions.On vowels, Lonsdale wrote in Part 1, Orthoepy and Orthography, Chapter 1, Sec 09, he wrote as follows.
Although Lonsdale gives his transcriptions in italics, I have taken them out and have given Romabama in their places:
The vowels are:There have been more additions, and for BEPS, I have listed them below as 14. If we are to add the emphatics, we get more. For Skt-Dev, we still have to add more.
{a.},
{aa},
{I.},
{I},
{U.},
{U},
{É},
{è:},
{AU:},
{au}* [10 vowels]
Pali grammarians reckon only eight vowels, three of which are
short, called{raþ~þa. þa.ra.}, viz.
{a.} ,
{I.} , and
{U.}; the rest are
long, called{di-Ga. þa.ra.}, viz.
{aa},
{I},
{U},
{É} and
{AU:}.
The vowels{è:} and
{au} are distinctly Burmese and not to be found in Pali, although there are letters in Sanskrit nearly corresponding to them in sound. They may be accounted long.
[* UKT: my correction.]
I must now make an observation: vowel-letters are probably derived from Pali and Sanskrit, which have only 2 "tones" -- the short & the long. Vowel-signs+


Lonsdale continues [my editing included]:
The vowels are either similar, calledI (UKT) would have to disagree with Lonsdale with respect to{þa.wûN}, or dissimilar, called
{a.þa.wûN}; thus,
{a.} &
{a}/{aa} , and
{I.} &
{I},
{U.} &
{U} are similar;
{É} &
{AU:} in Páli, and
{É} &
{è:} , and,
{AU:} &
{au} in Burmese are dissimilar, not only to one another but to all the others.


The mis-match between the pitch-registers, and short-long vowels is nothing but the Two-three tone problem. Adding to the problem are the MLC (Myanmar Language Commission) transcriptions:{au.} (creak),
{au} (modal),
{au:} (emphatic) - using vowel signs + dummy
{a.}
{AU:} (emphatic mistaken with short),
{AU} (long) - using vowel letters
MLC transcription /o./ -I have given Skt-Dev and IAST transliteration for comparison. If you take note of the "flags" above the aksharas, you will notice that there is something wrong. I wish MLC would clarify it, and correct my mistake.MED2006-616 - creak
MLC transcription /o/ -MED2006-616 - modal
MLC transcription /o:/ -MED2006-615 - emphatic
MLC transcription /o/ -MED2006-616 - vs. ओ « o »
MLC transcription /o:/ -MED2006-615 - vs. औ « au »
In summing up, the three pairs, {a.}-{a}, {i.}-{i}, and {u.}-{u} are Thawun , and
the two pairs, {é}-{è:}, {o.}-{au} are the Athawun. You will notice that there is discrepancy between the table above and the definition for Athawun {o.}-{au}, but this discrepancy disappears when we note that the Thawun-Athawun definition does not apply to Bur-Myan, because we have:
{a.}, {a}, {a:} // {i.}, {i}, {i:} // {u.}, {u}, {u:}Go back Thawun-Athawun-note-b
{é.}, {é}, {é:} // {è.}, {è}, {è:}
{o.}, {o}, {o:} // {au.}, {au}, {au:}
The two-three tone problem
incorporation of Skt-Dev
- by UKT 090618, 120728Our task of comparing English to Burmese is not easy because English have only two "tones" for vowels the short and the long, whereas Burmese has three - the creak, the modal, and the emphatic. The one way to reconcile them is to think in terms of 5 registers:![]()
creak, short, modal, long, emphaticThe English short vowel is sometimes close to creak and sometimes to modal. Similarly the English long vowel is between modal and emphatic. For the vowel /a/, we have
{aa.}, {a}, {/ə/}, {aa}, {aa:}This problem (as far as I know) lacks a concise name, because of which I will refer to it as the two-three tone problem.
-- the short-a and the long-a are transcribed as a and ā in Pali-Latin. I am citing Pali because it can serve as the bridge between Burmese and English. Since both Burmese and English do not have dedicated graphemes to represent the central vowel, schwa /ə/, I have to use {/ə/} for the modal. The Burmese schwa is found in words like{a.ni} meaning the "color red" in which schwa is represented by {a.}. In most Burmese-Myanmar words
{a.} stands for the sound of
{aa.} of the series
{aa. aa aa:} . Note that in Romabama, for simplicity sake, this series is usually represented as
{a. a a:}.
Incorporation of Skt-Dev has introduced another "tone", represented by Skt-Dev Visarsaga . See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visarga 120728. Skt-Dev विसर्ग «visarga» 'sending forth, discharge' is the name of phone /h/ and is represented by two dots. Because of its similarity in shape it is thought that it is the same as Bur-Mya





Working with Gayatri Mantra of Rigveda verse RV 3.62.10, has introduced the problem of


Go back Two-three-note-b{na.:} (short-creak),
{na.} (creak),
{na} (modal),
{na:} (emphatic)
-- borrowing the 3 dot representation from Tamil «āytam» ஃ written with 3 dots.
Working back from the meaning of{na.:}, I am wondering if it is the same as Bur-Myan
{ngaa.}.
Vowel length
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_length 120803In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may have arisen from one etymologically, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most other dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in many other languages, for instance in Finnish, Fijian, Japanese, Old English [UKT: taken as a foreign language in Britain], and Vietnamese. It plays a phonetic role in the majority of dialects of English English, and is said to be phonemic in a few other dialects, such as Australian English and New Zealand English. It also plays a lesser phonetic role in Cantonese, which is exceptional among the spoken variants of Chinese.

Go back vow-length-note-b
{weik-hkya.}-{mauk-hkya.} problem
The
{ré:hkya.} problem or more accurately
/
{weik-hkya.}/{mauk-hkya.} problem
-- by UKT 110604One of the earliest problem in formulating Romabama is the way to represent the long vowel




When we were young (I am now 78), we usually preferred the


If I remember correctly, the rule for choosing which



Pix below: [CIRCLES.gif], [sa1Da1ba1wa1ing3.gif
![]()
Casting a rune is very interesting. You start out observing the Sabbath for the prescribe number of days. You must be on vegetable diet and abstain from sex (physically, verbally, & mentally). On the correct time and day, you start drawing the boundary square. Then fill in the squares one by one with the stylus touching the stratum all the time reciting the prescribe mantra.

See [swatika-indus-valley.gif]
It is generally believed that the way the akshara was based on circles was due to the fact that the original letters were written on palm leaves. This conjecture was (based on my memory) put forward by Taw Sein Kho (7 December 1864 – 29 May 1930) Burma's first recorded archaeologist. See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taw_Sein_Ko 110605
However, my conjecture (just pure conjecture) is that the Myanmar akshara was invented by the ancients - probably pre-Asoka - maybe [a very big "maybe"] - to cast the runes known in Bur-Myan as[palm-leaf-ms-India.gif]

rune 1 n. 1. a. Any of the characters in several alphabets used by ancient Germanic peoples from the 3rd to the 13th century. b. A similar character in another alphabet, sometimes believed to have magic powers. 2. A poem or an incantation of mysterious significance, especially a magic charm. [Possibly Old Norse or Old English r¿n] - AHTDShown above is the Bur-Myan rune known as the
{ing:} 2 n. cabalistic square or sign composed of mystic figures and characters in a grid. -- MED2010-623
Another meaning in Bur-Myan for the word{ing:} is 'a natural pond' whose still waters cover an unknown depth (of meanings). And if you are not careful and without a guide you are bound to get drowned!


However, the above

"Count clockwise.You may notice that the above{sa.} means 'the beginning' - you are an imperfection - a circle with an imperfection on the left. You must perfect yourself but will not succeed on the first try.
{Da.} means the stage after the first try - an imperfection on the bottom - with regards to sexual conduct. Don't despair. Try.
{ba.} means the stage after the second try - an imperfection on top. Now the imperfection is in your head - wrong ideas: attachment to material things and ideas. Try.
{wa.} means the perfection - a full circle. Now you are perfect."

MLC at the present has arbitrarily chosen a rule (which I always forget) how to choose between the




Go back weik-mauk-hkya-note-b
End of TIL file
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