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Bahasa ini berkaitan erat dan mirip dengan [[Bahasa Manado|bahasa Melayu Manado]] dan [[bahasa Melayu Gorap|Melayu Gorap]], sehingga mereka dikelompokkan sebagai 'bahasa-bahasa Manadoik'. Namun, yang membedakannya ialah bahwa bahasa ini menggunakan kata ''{{lang|max|tara}}'' atau ''{{lang|max|tarada}}'' untuk mengatakan 'tidak'.
== Classification ==
Burmese belongs to the [[Burmish languages|Southern Burmish]] branch of the [[Sino-Tibetan languages]], of which Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non-[[Sinitic languages|Sinitic]] languages.{{sfn|Bradley|1993|p=147}} Burmese was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after [[Classical Chinese]], [[Pyu language (Sino-Tibetan)|Pyu]], [[Old Tibetan]] and [[Tangut language|Tangut]].{{sfn|Bradley|1993|p=147}}
=== Dialects ===
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:
* [[Tanintharyi Region]]: [[Myeik dialect|Merguese]] (Myeik, Beik), [[Tavoyan dialects|Tavoyan]] (Dawei), and [[Palaw]]
* [[Magway Region]]: [[Yaw dialect|Yaw]]
* [[Shan State]]: [[Intha-Danu language|Intha]], [[Taungyo]], and [[Danu language|Danu]]
[[Arakanese language|Arakanese]] in [[Rakhine State]] and [[Marma people|Marma]] in [[Bangladesh]] are also sometimes considered dialects of Burmese and sometimes as separate languages.
Despite vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there 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.
==== Irrawaddy River valley ====
Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers,{{sfn|Barron|Okell|Yin|VanBik|2007|pp=16-17}} particularly those living in the Irrawaddy valley, all of whom use variants of Standard Burmese. The [[standard language|standard dialect]] of Burmese (the [[Mandalay]]-[[Yangon]] [[dialect continuum]]) comes from the Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from [[Upper Burma]] (e.g., Mandalay dialect), called ''anya tha'' ({{lang|my|အညာသား}}) and speakers from [[Lower Burma]] (e.g., Yangon dialect), called ''auk tha'' ({{lang|my|အောက်သား}}), largely occur in vocabulary choice, not in pronunciation. Minor lexical and pronunciation differences exist throughout the Irrawaddy River valley.{{sfn|Allott|1983}} For instance, for the term {{lang|my|ဆွမ်း}}, "food offering [to a monk]", Lower Burmese speakers use {{IPA-my|sʰʊ́ɰ̃|}} instead of {{IPA-my|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 {{lang|my|ကျွန်တော်}}, ''kya.nau'' {{IPA-my|tɕənɔ̀|}} by both men and women, whereas in Yangon, the said pronoun is used only by male speakers while {{lang|my|ကျွန်မ}}, ''kya.ma.'' {{IPA-my|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.{{sfn|Jenny|2013}} In Lower Burmese varieties, 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.{{sfn|Jenny|2013}} This usage is hardly used in Upper Burmese varieties, and is considered a sub-standard construct.{{sfn|Jenny|2013}}
==== Outside the Irrawaddy basin ====
{{Main|Arakanese language|Tavoyan dialects|Intha dialect|Yaw dialect|Myeik dialect}}
More distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of the country. These varieties include the [[Yaw dialect|Yaw]], Palaw, [[Myeik dialect|Myeik]] (Merguese), [[Tavoyan dialects|Tavoyan]] and [[Intha-Danu language|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:<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016 |title=Myanmar |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/country/MM/languages |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161010180533/http://www.ethnologue.com/country/MM/languages |archive-date=2016-10-10 |website=Ethnologue: Languages of the World}}</ref>
{{static row numbers}}
{| class="wikitable sortable static-row-numbers static-row-header-text"
! Dialects
! Burmese
! [[Intha-Danu language|Danu]]
! [[Intha-Danu language|Intha]]
! [[Arakanese language|Rakhine]]
![[Tavoyan dialects|Taungyo]]
|-
! Burmese
| 100%
| 93%
| 95%
| 91%
| 89%
|-
! [[Intha-Danu language|Danu]]
| 93%
| 100%
| 93%
| 85-94%
| 91%
|-
! [[Intha-Danu language|Intha]]
| 95%
| 93%
| 100%
| 90%
| 89%
|-
! [[Arakanese language|Rakhine]]
| 91%
| 85-94%
| 90%
| 100%
| 84-92%
|-
! [[Tavoyan dialects|Taungyo]]
| 89%
| N/A
| 89%
| 84-92%
| 100%
|-
! Marma
| N/A
| N/A
| N/A
| 85%
| N/A
|}
Dialects in [[Tanintharyi Region]], including Palaw, Merguese, and Tavoyan, are especially conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved the {{IPA|/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<ref>Bradley, D. 2007a. East and Southeast Asia. In C. Moseley (ed.), Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages , pp. 349–424. London: Routledge.</ref> while Tavoyan has 400,000. The grammatical constructs of Burmese dialects in Southern Myanmar show greater Mon influence than Standard Burmese.{{sfn|Jenny|2013}}
The most pronounced feature of the [[Arakanese language]] of [[Rakhine State]] is its retention of the {{IPAblink|ɹ}} sound, which has become {{IPAblink|j}} in standard Burmese. Moreover, Arakanese features a variety of vowel differences, including the merger of the {{lang|my|ဧ}} {{IPA|[e]}} and {{lang|my|ဣ}} {{IPA|[i]}} vowels. Hence, a word like "blood" {{lang|my|သွေး}} is pronounced {{IPA-my|θw'''é'''|}} in standard Burmese and {{IPA-my|θw'''í'''|}} in Arakanese.
== History ==
The Burmese language's early forms include [[Old Burmese]] and [[Middle Burmese]]. Old Burmese dates from the 11th to the 16th century ([[Pagan Kingdom|Pagan]] to [[Ava Kingdom|Ava]] dynasties); Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century ([[Taungoo Dynasty|Toungoo]] to early [[Konbaung Dynasty|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 word]]s).{{sfn|Herbert|Milner|1989|p=5}}{{sfn|Wheatley|2013}}
=== Old Burmese ===
{{Main|Old Burmese}}
{{further|Nanzhao Kingdom}}
[[File:Myazedi-Inscription-Burmese.JPG|thumb|upright|The [[Myazedi inscription]], dated to AD 1113, is the oldest surviving stone inscription of the Burmese language.]]
The earliest attested form of the Burmese language is called [[Old Burmese]], dating to the 11th and 12th century stone inscriptions of [[Bagan|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.{{sfn|Aung-Thwin|2005|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}}
Owing to the linguistic prestige of Old Pyu in the [[Pagan Kingdom]] era, Old Burmese borrowed a substantial corpus of vocabulary from Pali via the [[Pyu language (Burma)|Pyu language]].{{sfn|Jenny|2013}} These indirect borrowings can be traced back to orthographic idiosyncrasies in these loanwords, such as the Burmese word "to worship", which is spelt ပူဇော် ({{IAST|pūjo}}) instead of ပူဇာ ({{IAST|pūjā}}), as would be expected by the original Pali orthography.{{sfn|Jenny|2013}}
=== Middle Burmese ===
{{Main|Middle Burmese}}
The transition to [[Middle Burmese]] occurred in the 16th century.{{sfn|Herbert|Milner|1989|p=5}} The transition to Middle Burmese included phonological changes (e.g. mergers of [[Minimal pair|sound pairs]] that were distinct in Old Burmese) as well as accompanying changes in the underlying [[orthography]].{{sfn|Herbert|Milner|1989|p=5}}
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.{{sfn|Lieberman|2018|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}} During this period, the [[Burmese alphabet]] began employing cursive-style circular letters typically used in [[palm-leaf manuscript]]s, as opposed to the traditional square block-form letters used in earlier periods.{{sfn|Lieberman|2018|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}} The orthographic conventions used in written Burmese today can largely be traced back to Middle Burmese.
=== Modern Burmese ===
Modern Burmese emerged in the mid-18th century. By this time, male literacy in Burma stood at nearly 50%, which enabled the wide circulation of legal texts, [[Burmese chronicles|royal chronicles]], and religious texts.{{sfn|Lieberman|2018|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}} 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, 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%).{{sfn|Lieberman|2003|p=189}}
The expansion of the Burmese language into [[Lower Myanmar|Lower Burma]] also coincided with the emergence of Modern Burmese. As late as the mid-1700s, [[Mon language|Mon]], an [[Austroasiatic languages|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 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.{{sfn|Lieberman|2003|pp=202-206}}{{sfn|Lieberman|2018|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}} 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 the region.{{sfn|Lieberman|2018|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}}{{sfn|Lieberman|2003|pp=202-206}}
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.{{sfn|Herbert|Milner|1989}} British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers.
Britain's gradual annexation of Burma throughout 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.{{sfn|Adas|2011|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8Czd7xXIf3MC&pg=PA67 67–77]}} [[British rule in Burma]] eroded the strategic and economic importance of the Burmese language; Burmese was effectively subordinated to the [[English language]] in the colonial educational system, especially in higher education.{{sfn|Allott|1983}}
In the 1930s, the Burmese language saw a linguistic revival, precipitated by the establishment of an independent [[University of Yangon|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.{{sfn|Allott|1983}} Student protests in December of that year, triggered by the introduction of English into [[University Entrance Examination|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.{{sfn|Allott|1983}} 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 the British in the lead-up to the independence of Burma in 1948.{{sfn|Allott|1983}}
The 1948 [[Constitution of Myanmar|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.{{sfn|Allott|1983}} Anti-colonial sentiment throughout 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]].{{sfn|Allott|1983}} In August 1963, the socialist [[Union Revolutionary Council|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 the ''Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan'' ({{lang|my|မြန်မာ စာလုံးပေါင်း သတ်ပုံ ကျမ်း}}), was compiled in 1978 by the commission.{{sfn|Herbert|Milner|1989}}
== Registers ==
Burmese is a diglossic language with two distinguishable [[Register (sociolinguistics)|registers]] (or [[Diglossia|diglossic varieties]]):{{sfn|Bradley|2010|p=99}}
# Literary High (H) form{{sfn|Bradley|1995|p=140}} ({{lang|my|မြန်မာစာ}} ''mranma ca''): the high variety (formal and written), used in literature (formal writing), newspapers, radio broadcasts, and formal speeches
# Spoken Low (L) form{{sfn|Bradley|1995|p=140}} ({{lang|my|မြန်မာစကား}} ''mranma ca.ka:''): the low variety (informal and spoken), used in daily conversation, television, comics and literature (informal writing)
The literary form of Burmese retains archaic and conservative grammatical structures and modif
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