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Burmese is a tonal language, which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not only pitch, but also phonation, intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality.
Burmese examples Explanation ` ငါ [ŋà] Normal phonation, medium duration, low intensity, low (often slightly rising) pitch ´ ငါး [ŋá] Sometimes slightly breathy, relatively long, high intensity, high pitch; often with a fall before a pause ˷ ငါ့ [ŋa̰]
In Burmese, differences in tone correlate with vowel phonation and so neither exists independently. There are three registers in Burmese, which have traditionally been considered three of the four "tones". (The fourth is not actually a register but is a closed syllable, and is similar to the so-called "entering tone" in Middle Chinese phonetics ...
For example, among its vowels, Burmese combines modal voice with low tone, breathy voice with falling tone, creaky voice with high tone, and glottal closure with high tone. These four registers contrast with each other, but no other combination of phonation (modal, breath, creak, closed) and tone (high, low, falling) is found.
Burmese is a tonal, pitch-register, and syllable-timed language, [7] largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with a subject–object–verb word order. Burmese is distinguished from other major Southeast Asian languages by its extensive case marking system and rich morphological inventory.
For instance, the Burmese language has phonetic tone, but each of its three tones is accompanied by a distinctive phonation (creaky, murmured or plain vowels). It could be argued either that the tone is incidental to the phonation, in which case Burmese would not be phonemically tonal, or that the phonation is incidental to the tone, in which ...
The Burmese alphabet (Burmese: မြန်မာအက္ခရာ myanma akkha.ya, pronounced [mjəmà ʔɛʔkʰəjà]) is an abugida used for writing Burmese. It is ultimately adapted from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The Burmese alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit.
Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation. It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only. It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.