The phonology of Burmese is fairly typical of a Southeast Asian language, involving phonemic tone or register, a contrast between major and minor syllables, and strict limitations on consonant clusters.
[1][2] Phonetic notes: An additional rare /ɹ/ occurs,[7] but this only appears in toponyms and personal names that have retained Sanskrit or Pali pronunciations (such as Amarapura, pronounced [əməɹa̰pùɹa̰]) and in English-derived words.
The alveolars /n tʰ t d/ and historical palatals /ɲ̊ sʰ s z/ cannot be followed by medials except in loan words, but even this is rare.
It can be realised as a geminate of a following stop, although this is purely allophonic and optional as the difference between the sequence /VʔtV/ and /VtːV/ is only in the catch, and thus barely audible.
Burmese orthography is based on Brahmic script and can perfectly transcribe words from Pali, an Indic language.
They are generally pronounced as voiced [b d z ɡ] or, when following a syllable final stop, aspirated [pʰ tʰ sʰ kʰ].
However, due to the influx of phonemic voiced stops from loan words, and owing to the extension of sandhi to voiceless aspirated stops as well – a feature which does not affect more conservative dialects – sandhi has become an important part of Burmese phonology and word building.
In brief, the following shifts can occur in MSB: Third stages and onwards only affect morphemes and not lexical words, and null is distinct from the glottal stop (/θṵɡò/ [θṵò] 'him, her' vs. /θṵ ʔó/ 'his/her pot').
Synchronically, there can be said to be a total of ten vowels in Modern Standard Burmese (MSB) open syllables: /a u̯a ɛ u̯ɛ e u̯e i ɔ o u/.
From the table it is clear that the vowels /ɛ/, /u̯ɛ/, /e/, /u̯e/, /ɔ/, and /o/ can only exist in open syllables in MSB (with some rare exceptions) as they derive from vowel+glide combinations.
The absence of */iw/ and */ow/ in reconstructions is something of a mystery, however it is possible that, by analogy with the /j/ offglide, */aw/ */iw/ */ow/ */uw/ all existed, resulting in pairs with or without the rounded on-glide: /ɔ/ /o/ /u̯ɔ/ /u̯o/ which later merged.
MSB recognises 8 finals in native vocabulary which are all distinguished from their initial forms with the c-shaped superscript diacritic asat ⟨ ် ⟩ which for ease of reading, is omitted here: the stops: ပ /p/ တ /t/ စ /c/[16] က /k/ and the nasals: မ /m/ န /n/ ည / ဉ /ɲ/[17] င /ŋ/.
Current reconstruction holds that the OB vowel-offglide sequences – which today are /ɛ/ /u̯ɛ/ /e/ /u̯e/ /ɔ/ /o/ in MSB – counted as a closed syllables and thus could not be followed by a final.
Similarly, before the -m and -n finals, vowels use the same qualities except that they are nasalised and are pronounced long by default[19] thus giving: /æ̃/ /ẽɪ/ /u̯æ̃~ʊ̃/ /ɔ̃ʊ/.
In more conservative dialects /i/ /u/ and */o/ may not break, and thus remain /ĭʔ/ /ĩ/, /ŭʔ/ /ũ/, and /ɔ̆ʔ/ /ɔ̃/, additionally */an/ may move back, not forward, leaving /ɔ̃/ and not /æ̃/, but all of these features are considered non-standard.
The change in spelling reflects this sound shift and should not be taken to indicate an OB *awk *awŋ or *ɔk *ɔŋ sequence.
Written with the compound vowel diacritic for /o/ and pronounced /ăɪʔ/ and /ãɪ/ respectively, they are currently believed to represent either loans from foreign languages or from more conservative dialects of Burmese.
It is worth noting that in Yangon MSB no vowel quality exists in both closed and open syllables, and that therefore nasalisation and the glottal stop cannot be said to be contrastive features in and of themselves.
In fact, with the exception of tone (and its inherent length, intensity, and phonation) no suprasegmental features can really be said to be phonemic.
It is used across Brahmic scripts in homorganic nasal+plosive sequences as a shorthand for the nasal (which would otherwise have to carry an asat or form a ligature with the following stop).
In Burmese it continues this function as it is found not only in loaned vocabulary but also in native words e.g. သုံး /ɾ̪óʊːɰ̃/ (or /θóʊːɰ̃/) 'three' or 'to use' which derives from proto-Sino-Tibetan *g-sum.
The consonant ⟨ယ⟩ is also seen with an asat diacritic, but this is the standard spelling for the vowel /ɛ/ with tone 2 and is not viewed in any way as a final (although, as noted above, this is an etymologically accurate rendering of /ɛ/ which originated from the *ay sequence).
In MSB orthography two spellings exist for the medial (demonstrated on the consonant က /k/), one reflecting an original /-j-/ (ကျ - ky), and one an original /-ɹ-/ (ကြ - kr) and official government romanisation still reflects this fact (Myanmar, in official romanisation is rendered mran-ma).
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.
The loss of these final glottal and fricative created the Burmese creaky and high tones respectively.
Sonorants with a ha-to (devoicing mark - see section on consonants) raise the tone of the following vowel.
Customarily, this distinction is transcribed with the letter h in romanisation and is explicitly marked on the consonant in Burmese script e.g. မ (ma 'female') vs မှ (hma 'from').
In earlier times this distinction was borne primarily on the consonant in the form of devoicing/murmuring, then later imparted a breathy quality to the vowel itself.
In some dialects, for instance those around Inle Lake, devoiced l လှ results in a voiceless lateral fricative /ɬ/, making tone raising unlikely.