TIL

The Human Voice

hv1.htm

by Joe K. Tun (aka U Kyaw Tun), M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR.

• This work uses Arial Unicode MS font only
• The brackets used:
   <...> regular English
   {...} Romabama
   [...] IPA transcriptions, narrow
   /.../ IPA transcriptions, broad

  indx-RBM4M |Top
HV-indx

Contents of this page
Preface
Parts we can readily see - hv1.htm
Alpha and Beta - hv2.htm
Parts in the interior of the mouth - hv3.htm
Modal voice - hv4.htm
Wave nature of sound - hv5.htm
How sound is produced and heard -  hv6.htm
Voice quality - hv7.htm
References

UKT notes
• IPA • Rober Boyle - the Skeptical Chemist • Romabama (Reverse Romabama) • Spanish Ñ • tenuis consonant {pa.}
• The author, U Kyaw Tun .

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Preface

Time doesn't stand still. So is my understanding of the world, and this little work would have to be updated from time to time. Two books by Peter Ladefoged have come into my hands lately, and I will have to go over them and incorporate what I would be learning into this book, and then it will be revised again. The books I have acquired are:

1. Vowels and Consonants, 2nd. ed., by Peter Ladefoged, 2005
2. Phonetic Data Analysis: an introduction to Fieldwork and Instrumental techniques, by Peter Ladefoged, 2007

Contents of this page

Reference

My first two sources on Phonetics
Rather advanced in age, and after retirement from our regular work, I with my beloved wife Thanthan Tun by my side  ventured into a new field of study: Phonetics. We were both university chemistry teachers, and our knowledge of Phonetics was nil. Surfing the internet I came across the following two sources to which I will be indebted forever. Though my wife did not take much of an active role, she was a great help especially with my Burmese pronunciation, and helped to listened to the sound files and commented on my observations.
• Online Phonetics Course (UNIL), Department of Linguistics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
(This source was downloaded in 2000 or a few years later, and instead of the original links, you can still get to them from: http://www.unil.ch/ling/page30184_fr.html -- UKT: 070823)
• Properties of Consonants and Vowels, Kevin Russell, Linguistics Department, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 5V5, CANADA http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/notes.htm 071217

• American Heritage Talking Dictionary (AHTD)
   -- CD or online.

• Daniel Jones, English Pronouncing Dictionary, 16 ed (DJPD16),
   Cambridge University Press 2003.

• Official Myanmar Dictionaries -- the following three:
   • Myanmar Orthography (MOrtho)
      by (MLC) Myanmar Language Commission (MLC), Ministry of Education, 1986, pp 292
      Editor U Tun Tint.
   • Myanmar English Dictionary (MEDict)
      by Myanmar Language Commission, Ministry of Education, 1993, pp 635
      MEDict gives a pronunciation guide in non-PA script which I have marked /[...]/ to differentiate from Romabama /{...}/
   • (MMDict) (Travelling Pocket Myanmar Dictionary)
     Burmese-Myanmar to Burmese-Myanmar) by MLC (Myanmar-sar Commission Directorate, Ministry of Education), 1999, pp 401.

• Pali Dictionary Compendium (UMgGyi) in Burmese-Myanmar (non-official name used by TIL)
{pa-Li. a.Bi.Daan-hkyoap} by {lèý-ti-paN~ði.ta.} U Maung Gyi, Rangoon, 1966 (1327BE), pp524

• A Dictionary of Pali Language (Childers), R.C. Childers, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co, London, 1909, 5th impr: 1974
  -- Devanagari characters

• Pali-Latin (Shin Narada) in English
An Elementary Pali Course by Narada Thera, http://www.vipassana.info/pali_contents.htm

• Pali-Myanmar Grammar (Pali-Myan-Gramm) (non-official name used by TIL)
{pa-Li. thad~da}, publications by Eastern Languages Department, University of Distance Education, Module {a.ra. 101 ka.}, by Daw Ohn Myint, 2001.

• Universal Burmese-English-Pali Dictionary (UHS-Dict) - U Hoke Sein, First edition, 1980, pp1064 .

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UKT notes

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The acronym IPA can mean:
1. International Phonetic Alphabet, or
2. International Phonetic Association.

Not all the consonants given by IPA are found in English, and so it is very helpful to show them together.

From: AHTD

International Phonetic Alphabet
n. Abbr. IPA I.P.A. 1. A phonetic alphabet and diacritic modifiers sponsored by the International Phonetic Association to provide a uniform and universally understood system for transcribing the speech sounds of all languages. -- AHTD

From: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Association download 071106

International Phonetic Association (IPA)
(L'Association Phonétique Internationale (API)) is an organization that promotes the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. The IPA’s major contribution to the academic community is the International Phonetic Alphabet -- a notational standard for the phonetic representation of all languages. The acronym IPA is used to refer to both the Association and the Alphabet. The Association also publishes the Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

From: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Passy download 071106

Paul Édouard Passy (1859-1940) was a French linguist, founder of the International Phonetic Association in 1886. He took part to the elaboration of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

UKT: Please note that Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is updated all the time. At one time (I can't remember when), it listed under International Phonetic Association: "Formed in 1886 by a group of British and French language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy."
   Updating involves changes to the textual content, and redirecting the online links. After realizing this, I started to the date when I downloaded the article.

From: Edward J. Vajda, Western Washington Univ. http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test2materials/phonetics.htm
vajda@cc.wwu.edu  download 071106 (Caveat: The following is UKT's edited version of the original . )

All systems of writing in use today represent the sounds of language. This connection can be viewed in two ways.
1. From sound to writing - orthography. Every written language has a system of rules for how to spell the spoken word. These rules are called the orthography, the writing rules of the language.
2. From writing to sound - orthoepy. Every written language has a system of rules for pronouncing correctly what is written. These rules are called orthoepy, or pronouncing rules.

Some writing systems, such as Spanish and Georgian, come close to achieving a one-to-one correspondence between sound and written symbol. This is not the case with English where there is no correspondence in words such as <rough, ghost, night>, and <gh>. The correspondence between sound and letter in English frequently involves meaning as well as sound.  Often, one must know the meaning of an English word to pronounce or write it correctly:  meet/meat; through/threw.  IPA, with the ideal goal of one-to-one correspondence, is meant to be a unified writing system of many different writing systems. (UKT: In these pages for TIL, we write with the "English alphabet" -- rather, English-Latin; we transcribe with the IPA. The IPA transcription are within square brackets [...], and when there is a special need, we write the English alphabet within <...>.)

Notice that an unmodified "English alphabet" could not be used to transcribe the many non-English sounds that occur in other languages. Using English letters to convey words of other languages is awkward and has in the past resulted in gross distortions of the pronunciation of foreign words: Peking, Ceylon, Cherokee.

We need an IPA to transcribe other languages, because there are more sounds (approximately 34 different sounds) in English than there are letters (26 different letters) in the English alphabet. Moreover, not every speaker of English pronounces the same word in the same way.

And the problem with English orthography and orthoepy cannot be solved simply by basic education. Even most highly educated people would need to be warned how to pronounce such toponyms as Puyallup, Sequim, Spokane. Or last names such as Vajda. A phonetic alphabet is necessary for dictionaries and guides to help English speakers pronounce their own language.

Notice that, like the system of scientific names, the IPA also uses Latin as a base, adding extra symbols or diacritic marks for various modifications of the basic sounds. Although it looks like English or Latin, the IPA is not truly biased in favor of English or of any other language. The phonetic transcription of English words may also differ radically from conventional English spelling:   cf. the transcription of "thigh," "phrase." 

NOTE: Before the IPA gained wide acceptance, American linguists employed a somewhat different set of symbols to transcribe English. Also note that some of the IPA symbols are not yet accepted by all linguists.

Limitations of the IPA:   Aside from the temporary, logistic problems of getting everyone to use the IPA, there is another more intrinsic limitation inherent to IPA or any other universal writing system. At the present time it is true that all sounds which contrast to reflect differences in meaning in any known language are represented in the IPA. It is also true that new symbols can easily be added to accommodate the discoveries of new sounds. However, the permanent, intrinsic problem with the IPA is that real sounds are infinitely variable. Sound spectrograms show that a single sound varies slightly each time it is pronounced.  Thus, the IPA could only capture a part of each individuals unique accent, or way of speaking (called an idiolect)

The differences within a language are not meaningful, but when comparing sounds across languages, the minute differences become more important. What seems to be the same sound in different languages may actually vary in minute degrees. (cf. the degrees of aspiration in the sound "t" in English, German, Georgian, Mongolian; or the degree or type of glottalization in the sound "t" in Georgian, Navajo or even in English hatbox.. Even [m] differs in English and Russian in slight ways that the IPA does not distinguish. Thus, the IPA would not be able to transcribe all the phonetic detail of, say, a Russian accent in English.

The IPA ignores minute differences between sounds if those differences never contrast with one another in any single language. The IPA symbols, therefore, are generalizations. The sounds of speech, however, are more complicated. 

Thus, when comparing nearly identical sounds from language to language one must be aware that the IPA is only accurate up to a point. To get a complete picture of native pronunciation, one must fill in the tiny phonetic details left out by the IPA. There is no real solution for this problem. Because of this, the IPA remains an imperfect and incomplete alphabet, despite the fact that it is the closest thing to an ideal alphabet we will probably ever have.

Even if linguists devised a complete set of transcriptions symbols -- perhaps based on sound spectograph readings rather than on the Latin alphabet -- the phonetician's task would still be incomplete. This is because languages change over time, and new symbols would have to be devised as sounds changed. All human languages change over time -- some quickly, others more slowly. Language is changing even now: your grandparents said [hw]; now most of you say [w]. The reasons for such changes are not always clear: language mixing (French borrowings caused the sounds v and z to become initial consonants; f into Slavic from Greek after 988). Languages isolated from contact with other languages tend to change more slowly, but change they do. Not all language change can by any means be traced to the interaction with different languages ([hw] to [w], for instance) [sk] became sh in Engl. from 5-6 cent AD. Words borrowed during that time, such as Latin <disk>, become <dish>. After 600 AD the rule stopped working, the new [sh] remained, but new words coming into the language retained sk. Large number of Danish borrowings occurred circa 700AD: sky, skull, ski. The Danish intrusion resulted in some interesting doublets: ship/skipper, shirt/skirt, (meanings change over time also).

UKT: E.J. Vajda's article does not mention the abugida system of writing, where the letters are known as akshara. The hall-mark of the akshara systems, such as the Burmese language written in Myanmar script (Burmese-Myanmar), is their antiquity (some more than 2000 years ago -- the time of Emperor Asoka of India) and their phonemic basis, which makes them retain their pronunciation and the root meaning over time. Some, Sanskrit (one of the ancient languages written in akshara script) scholars when even to the extent of claiming that the akshara is unchanging and everlasting.
   "The word akshara means literally “immutable” or "imperishable." This designation is most appropriate, since grammatically syllables are stable parts that make up words. In the case of the mantric om, this monosyllable came to represent the ultimate One, which is eternally unchanging (akshara, acala). The term akshara is used as a synonym for om in many scriptures, including the Bhagavad-Gîtâ (10.25), which has Krishna say, “Of utterances I am the single syllable.” -- http://www.traditionalyogastudies.com/articles_scholarly_om.html download 071106
   In Burmese-Myanmar, we have the saying that "What is written is correct, but what is pronounced is just sound". In other words, we are encouraged to pronounce words as they are written, probably to show that we are educated.

Go back IPA-note-b

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Robert Boyle - the Skeptical Chemist

Boyle , Robert . 1627-1691 1. Irish-born British physicist and chemist whose precise definitions of chemical elements and reactions began the separation of chemistry from alchemy. In 1662 he formulated Boyle's law. -- AHTD

UKT: You should note that Myanmar was and still is a magical land -- the land of the Magi. The Chinese used to fear it and according to one Chinese writers of the 7th century (I still have to check the date), commented that the land had many "astrologers". Of course, Astrology and modern Astronomy are related. Any Burmese-Myanmar astrologer of note would know something of the related science of Alchemy. As a young college student when I started learning Chemistry in 1950, I already had my earful of Astrology and Alchemy. That also included some rudiments of the knowledge of the Runes.

I knew that Alchemy is a very expensive study to follow because of the cost of a very special kind of charcoal used to melt metals at high temperature.

With this background knowledge, I took Chemistry, and from the time I came across the very book the "Skeptical Chemist", Robert Boyle has been one of my heroes. Ever since a child, I was quite skeptical never being satisfied unless I had considered the nature of things, either by observation or experimentation. I remember at the age of 4 or 5, standing on the sea shore, looking at wave patterns formed in the sand and at the waves coming in, had come to the conclusion that there must be "particles" in water similar to "particles" of the sand. Imagine when I discussed it with my classmates. And when I told my elders, even my father who was a very knowledgeable person, failed to grasped what I was saying. I know my father would have understood, if only I could have described to him fully -- but alas, my childhood vocabulary was limited.

Go back R-Boyle-note-b

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Romabama

Romabama transliteration is being improved continually. And the last date of improvement should should be noted. The following is of 080118. I am starting to apply Romabama for back transliteration (more properly transcription) of English-Latin to English-Myanmar. These rules will be known as Reverse Romabama Rules.

Romabama Rule 01 - ASCII characters
Romabama is designed for writing e-mails  without using any special fonts. Thus only ASCII characters are used.

Burmese-Myanmar consonant-akshara characters are always arranged according to phonemic principles in a matrix of 7 rows x 5 columns. Broadly speaking, they are grouped into 3 groups: the classifiables {wag}, the nasals, and the non-classifiables {a.wag}. I have coloured the classifiables blue, the nasals red, and the non-classifiables green. The classification follows that of Brahmi, the script of Emperor Asoka (273BC-232BC). Please note that phonology has been known in the East thousands of years before the appearance of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Among the {wag}-aksharas, the columns are made up of:
c1 - tenuis; c2 - voiceless; c3 - voiced; c4 - voiced-pharyngealised; c5 - nasal

UKT: See tenuis in my notes.

One of the most interesting "nasal sound" is represented by the character is r2c5 {Ña.} of Burmese and {ña.} of Pali. In Romabama it is represented by Spanish Ñ.

Another character of row 2 that had been troubling me is r1c1 {sa.} until I came to accept that a consonant behaves in one way in the onset and differently in the coda. As an onset-consonant r1c1 is a dental-alveolar fricative with the IPA [s] sound, but as a coda-consonant (where it's inherent vowel has been killed), it behaves as a palatal stop -- the IPA [c]. If I am giving a transcription, I would not have to face this problem. I could just get away, as MLC (Myanmar Language Commission) has done by saying that the coda-consonant is a glottal stop.

Burmese-Myanmar {tha.} is NOT English letter <s> with the sound [s]. It is the old English letter 'thorn' [þ] (Alt0254) with the sound of IPA  /θ/ (U03B8).

Vowel characters (usually described as "vowel letters" as opposed to "vowel signs"):
{a.}  {a}  {I.}  {I}  {U.}  {U}  {É}  {è:}  {AU:}  {AU}  {än}  {a:} 

Burmese-Myanmar vowel-akshara characters (the "vowel letters") are arranged in a single line, starting from {a.} /a/ the lower-left corner of the vowel quadrilateral (represented by the English "short a") and moves in a clock-wise manner through {I.} /i/ and {U.} /u/ to {AU:} /ɑ/ at the lower-right corner. Please note that the vowel quadrilateral represents the position of the tongue in pronouncing the vowels. The so-called English "short a" is the most important vowel in the Asoka akshara system and is common in all its descendants including the Burmese-Myanmar.

Incidentally, the "English short a" is not a common vowel in the English pronunciation of the English syllables. I have come to this conclusion in going through DJPD16. English uses the vowel /ɑ/ mostly in syllables which to Burmese-Myanmar ears sound like /a/. Thus, <father> is pronounced as /fɑː.ðəʳ/ (DJPD16-199). This same word is pronounced by most English-speaking Myanmar with /a/ instead of /ɑ/.

I have been emphasizing all along that Myanmar is based on phonemic principles. Romabama is a method of transliteration of Burmese-Myanmar to English-Latin and also for transliteration-transcription of English into Burmese. For the later process, we are in urgent need of a character that would serve as the neutral vowel (or schwa) in Romabama. Obviously, it must be similar to <a> because the inherent vowel is said to be similar to "English short a". And, for writing email, it must be an ASCII character. The only letter that we have found is â Alt0226 (small letter A with circumflex). The circumflex accent marks a long vowel in the orthography or transliteration of several languages. See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumflex_accent download 070908. We have three vowel registers (or tones) in Burmese, {a. a a:}. Since â is not checked as in {a.} and grave and long as in {a:}, {â} can serve to stand for schwa /ə/. e.g. {âni} meaning the colour "red". However, in the case of {âni}, the danger is the reader might pronounce it as /{ân|i}/ instead of /{â|ni}/, and so, as long as Romabama is meant to be a "transliteration", {â} should not be used. -- UKT 071111

Though I haven't done before (071024 -- the approximate date when I first went into "Voice Quality"), I must now emphasize that Burmese-Myanmar syllables all end in vowel sounds, even in syllables of the type CVÇ (where Ç is a "killed" akshara). Because of this, we need to classify the vowels into free vowels and checked vowels, noting that checked vowels are all followed by consonants.

The free vowels (and "checked" vowels followed by killed nasals) have three tones (or registers) mentioned above. {a.} is what the Western phoneticians call a "creaky tone" and is present only in some languages of the world. It can be represented by IPA [ă], and in Romabama with {â}. {a} the normal or the most natural tone is described as "modal' and is represented by [a]. {a:} is considered to be made up of two voice segments, [a] and [ː] . Note that I have used  suprasegmentals in [ă] and [ː]. The schwa in Burmese-Myanmar is a "breathy tone". (I would like to see inputs from my peers).

Romabama Rule 02 - English-Latin alphabet
The 26 letters of the English-Latin alphabet are expanded to 52 letters by differentiating between the 26 small letter and 26 capital letters. Capital letters are used to represent individual aksharas in Romabama. They are not used at the beginning of sentences, or proper nouns.
   It is not commonly recognized that English-Latin uses digraphs to represent certain sounds, e.g., <ng> in <sing>, <th> in <thin>, <ch> in <church>. In these digraphs, each letter has lost its original sound. This would be similar to the formation of NaCl (a chemical compound) from Na and Cl (chemical elements). The properties of NaCl is entirely different from those of Na or Cl. Similarly the sound of <ng> is entirely different from that of <n> or <g>.
   Another problem of English is the presence of allophones in sounds of letters of <p> <t> and <k>. These "allophones" are recognized as different in Burmese and are represented by their respective akshara. The English <p> in <pin> sounds more like {hpa.}. When <p> follows an <s> as in <spin>, it sounds like {pa.}. Romabama uses "digraphs" such as {hp} to represent "aspirated" sounds of the c2 aksharas.
   The problem of allophones becomes acute in representing the "killed" c2 consonants (i.e. akshara under virama). Virama in Sanskrit means "vowel killer", a sign used to "kill" the inherent vowel of the akshara. The killed aksharas are found in the coda of syllables of the type CVÇ. In Myanmar calligraphy, the symbol for "killing" {a.that} is a "flag" {tän-hkwan} on top of the akshara. Placing a "flag" on the digraph is not possible in Romabama, and we just note that VÇ is the rime, where Ç is a killed consonant. To overcome this problem, the digraph is replaced by a capital letter, e.g. "killed {hk}" is replaced by {K}. In the word for "the gateway to a pagoda (MEDict349)", the killed {hka.} is represented by {Ka.}. Romabama transliteration {moaK} seems better than {moahk}. See Rule 03 for the use of other capital letters of the extended Latin alphabet.

Note: English-Latin <u> is one of the most troublesome to Myanmars, because <but> and <put> are pronounced in different ways. Because of this, Romabama avoids the use of <u>, as far as possible. Incidentally, if we are transcript <but> and <put> into Burmese, or Romabama, we would write: {bat} and {pwat} -- note the presence of <w> in {pwat} to show lip-rounding.

Romabama Rule 03 - Extended Latin alphabet
Since there is no reason why we should confine ourselves to the use of English-Latin letters only, diacritics and other suitable signs from Extended Latin alphabet are used in Romabama:
• â (Alt0226) character to be used in place of schwa /ə/ (to be used only for showing pronunciation /{a. â a a:}/)
• ä (Alt0228) in än for {thé:thé:ting} (MEDict500)
• à (Alt0224) for denoting {re:hkya. a.that} ending in a killed non-nasal, as in {Dàt-hsi} (<petrol, gasoline> MEDict218)
     alternate spelling {Daat-hsi}
     (Note: {à.} will also be used to denote possessive pronouns as in {ngà.}. As in above the alternate is {ngaa.})
• æÑ (Alt0230+Alt0209) to denote {Ña.kri:thut} as in {kyæÑ-hsan} (<cartridge, shell> MEDict034)
• Æ (Alt0198) in combination with Ñ (Alt0209) to denote {vowel-letter Ña.kri:that} as in {ÆÑ.thæÑ} (<guest> MEDict625)
• *AU (diagraph) for use when vowel letter AU is used in place of {au:} as in {AUT~Hta.} (<labial> MEDict626)
• Ç (Alt0199) is not included in Romabama "letters of alphabet": it stands for the "killed consonant" in CVÇ syllable.
• É (Alt0201) as in {É-ra-wa.ti mris} (Irrawaddy River),
• é (Alt0233) as in {é:hkyam:} (<peaceful> MEDict614)
• éñ (Alt0233+Alt0241) to denote {tha.wé-hto: ña.that} as in the name of King Thé-lè-kyaung of Pagan (very rare spelling)
• È (Alt0200) as in {a.Daip~pÈý} (<meaning> MEDict565)
• è (Alt0232) as in {è:maung:} (<lance> MEDict615)
   è (Alt0232) as in {a.pèý-hkän} (<outcast> MEDict572)
• ð (Alt0240) as in {ða.} r3c3 {ða.ring-kauk} akshara
     (Caution: the voiced-pronunciation of English-Latin <þ/th> is also given as /ð/)
• Ð (Alt0208) as in {Ða.} r3c4 {Ða.ré-mhoat} akshara
•  ï (Alt0239) and ~ to represent {king:si:} as in {ïn~ga.laip} (<English> MEDict622)
   * ï (Alt0239) without ~ to represent {nga.that} as in {kïng} (<to barbeque> MEDict015) (note <ng> is the digraph in <sing>);
   or, to represent {ña.that} as in {hkyïñ} (<sour> MEDict072). However, since {king} and {hkyiñ} are easier to write,
   the use <i> instead of <ï> may be preferable.
•  ì (Alt0236) for denoting {ré:hkya. a.that} ending in a killed nasal, as in {mìñ}
   - alternate spelling: {maañ}
• í (Alt0237) for denoting {tha.wé-hto: a.that} as in {hkít} (<age, era, period, time> MEDict064)
• ñ (Alt0241) as in {ñaaN.} (<intellect, wisdom> MEDict155)
   and Ñ (Alt0209) for {Ña.} (<night> MEDict156) both corresponding to <ny>;
• þ (Alt0254) (Old English letter "thorn") used for r6c5 akshara commonly transcribed as {tha.}:
  the use of digraph <th> introduces unnecessary confusion
• * OA (digraph) for use in place of {U.} for peak vowels in syllables without consonants in the onset,
   as in {OAs~sa} (<property> MEDict625)
• ù (Alt0249) for {lù.} in {lù.Baung} (<human society> MEDict431)
•  ý (Alt0253) for "killed {ya.}" {ya.thut} as in {wèý} (<to buy> MEDict484)
Note: Diacritics in Romabama are chosen in a way so that even if a diacritic is lost, the effect would be minimal.

* I am writing this note while I am in Canada, where I have to work alone without the assistance of my secretaries who are unable to accompany me to Canada because they are Myanmar citizens and getting Canadian visas for them is next to impossible. At my age (73), my memory is not reliable. Now, I am finding that I have to come up with spellings involving {U.} in words such as <property> /[ou' sa]/ (MEDict625; not listed in MOrtho). I am forced to use "digraphs" which might be mistaken for "diphthongs" (I maintain that Burmese has no diphthongs as commonly found in English). The tentative spelling I would have to use for <property> is {OAs~sa}, where {OA} is a digraph and not a diphthong. -- UKT, Canada, July 2007.

Romabama Rule 06 - {king:si:} vowel-sign

{king:si:} /|kin: si:|/ - n. ortho. miniature symbol of devowelized nga  superscripted on the following letter. -- MEDict016
Note MEDict's "devowelized" and TIL "killed" are the same. Both mean the use of {a.that} or virama. See Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virama download 071107

Compare the way in which the two words  {hsing-kan:} <blind elephant>, and  {thïn~kan:} <monk's robe> are written. The first is written horizontally, but the second is written with the {king:si:} (literally: "centipede-ridden") sign . There are two cues to show that a {king:si:} is involved: use of umlaut over the peak vowel e.g. ï (Alt0239) and ~. The {king:si:} is actually not a conjoined sign and may be written horizontally. It is usually found in words derived from Pali and Sanskrit, e.g. Sanskrit-Myanmar {koän~ku.ma.} (n. saffron -- MEDict024) equivalent to Burmese-Myanmar {koän-ku.män}.

Caution: The problem of {a.that} that is not exactly a {king:si:}
There is an {a.that} that is not exactly a {king:si:}. Yet the consonant under it, is not a conjoined (horizontal conjunct) akshara as in {þa.kri:}. Such an {a.that} is found in {kywan-noap.} (<personal pronoun> MOrtho031) and {yauk-kya:} (<human male> MOrtho217).
   In {kywan~noap} there is only one {na.ngèý}. And in {yauk~kya:}, there is only one {ka.kri:}. For the time being, I am treating them as similar to {þa.kri:}, with a ~ in between. I have asked my good friend U Tun Tint for an explanation. He has not responded yet! (UKT 070804)

Romabama Rule 07 - Fossilized killed consonants.
(Based on personal communication with U Tun Tint, formerly of MLC)
There are 4 fossilized characters dating back to the 13 century:
  • {nhÉIk} derived from {nheik}
  • {rwÉ} derived from {ruèý} pronounced as  /{rwé.}/
  • {iÉ} derived from {é.} --> {i.}
  • {lÉ-kaung:} derived from {læÑ-kaung:}

Romabama Rule 10 - Punctuation (addition on 070914)
Traditional Burmese-Myanmar uses only {poad-hprat} (single short vertical stroke) and {poad-ma.} (single short vertical stroke). In Romabama, the following will be used:
  • {poad-hprat} [ / ]
  • {poad-ma.} [ // ]
Since, Romabama (Burmese-Latin) is based on (English-Latin), some English punctuation marks will be used.
  • Question mark [ ? ]
  • Comma [ , ]

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Rev-Romabama Rules

Rev-Romabama stands for Romabama used for reverse transliteration from English-Latin to Burmese-Myanmar. For the present (071228), I am not numbering them, but will be shown with a ® (alt0174)

® Reverse Romabama Rule #? - this is not exactly from English-Latin to English-Myanmar: it is IPA to Burmese-Myanmar
• central vowel schwa will be written as Burmese-Myanmar {a.}

® Reverse Romabama Rule #? - reverse transcription of 1-coda syllables (addition on 080208)
• /ɪ/ as in <bit> -- {bit}
• /ɛ/ as in <bet> -- {bèt}
• /æ/ as in <bat> -- {bat}
• /ʊ/ as in <put> -- {put}
• /ʌ/ as in <putt> -- {pût}

® Reverse Romabama Rule #? - reverse transliteration of 1-coda syllable (addition on 071228)
• <yacht> /jɒt/ {yau.t}

Note: Though in regular Burmese-Myanmar, the end <t> is not pronounced, in those imported from English, the end <t> must be pronounced as a "syllabic consonant". When using WinInnwa font the "dot" preceding the killed consonant may be dropped.

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Spanish Ñ

Where did the Ñ come from?
by Gerald Erichsen, http://spanish.about.com/cs/historyofspanish/f/tilde_origins.htm (download 070803)

As you could probably guess, the ñ came originally from the letter n. The ñ does not exist in Latin and is the only Spanish letter of Spanish origins.

Beginning in about the 12th century, Spanish scribes (whose job it was to copy documents by hand) used the tilde placed over letters to indicate that a letter was doubled (so that, for example, nn became ñ and aa became ã). I'm not sure why they used the tilde, except perhaps that it was quick to write, although it may be no coincidence that it is shaped vaguely like an N. The tilde was used not only with the n but with other letters as well.

The popularity of the tilde for other letters eventually waned, and by the 14th century, the ñ was the only place it was used. Its origins can be seen in a word such as año (which means "year"), as it comes from the Latin word annus with a double n. As the phonetic nature of Spanish became solidified, the ñ came to be used for its sound, not just for words with an nn. A number of Spanish words, such as señal and campaña, that are English cognates use the ñ  where English uses "gn," such as in "signal" and "campaign," respectively.

The Spanish ñ has been copied by two other languages that are spoken by minorities in Spain. It is used in Euskara, the Basque language that is unrelated to Spanish, to represent approximately the same sound as it has in Spanish. It is also used in Galician, a language similar to Portuguese. (Portuguese uses nh to represent the same sound.)

Additionally, three centuries of Spanish colonial rule in the Phillipines led to the adoption of many Spanish words in the national language, Tagalog (also known as Pilipino or Filipino). The ñ is among the letters that have been added to the traditional 20 letters of the language.

And while the ñ isn't part of the English alphabet, it frequently is used by careful writers when using adopted words such as jalapeño, piña colada or piñata and in the spelling of various personal and place names.

In Portuguese, the tilde is placed over vowels to indicate that the sound is nasalized. That use of the tilde has no apparent direct connection with the use of the tilde in Spanish.

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tenuis consonant

A tenuis consonant is a stop or affricate which is unvoiced, unaspirated, and unglottalized. That is, it has a "plain" phonation like [p, t, ts, tʃ, k], with a VOT (voice onset time) close to zero, as in Spanish p, t, ch, k, or English p, t, k after s (spy, sty, sky).
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenuis_consonant download 071001

UKT: Many Myanmars are not aware that English letter <p> transcribed as /p/ has two distinct pronunciations: [p] and [pʰ]. <p> in <pin> is pronounced as {hpa.} as in {hping} (literally meaning <anus>). Only when <p> follows an <s> as in <spin> is it pronounced as {pa.}.

The Western phoneticians hold that the sounds of {hpa.} and {pa.} are the same: allophones of phoneme /p/. Since, to us the sounds of {pa.} and {hpa.} are very different from each other, we should emphasize that they are separate phonemes. In one of his personal communications to me, Zev Handel (Assoc. Prof. of Chinese and Linguistics, Univ. of Washington, http://depts.washington.edu/asianll/) (Oct 30, 2007) wrote:
   "In English, the following three sounds all occur: [b], [p], [ph].  For example, "buy" [baj], "pie" [phaj], "spy" [spaj].  But English speakers perceive only two distinct sounds.  They hear [p] and [ph] as identical.  Substituting [ph] for [p] in "spy", resulting in [sphaj], might sound a bit odd to an English speaker but cannot make any word other than "spy".  This is why we say that in English, the two distinct sounds [p] and [ph] belong to one phoneme, /p/.  A phoneme is a phonological concept.
   "But in other languages, [p] and [ph] are perceived as distinct by the speakers, and substituting one sound for another can change which word is being said.  Thai is an example of such a language.  In that language /p/ and /ph/ are distinct phonemes.
   "In many languages, such as Japanese, dental [s] and alveolar [SH] are perceived as identical, i.e. they are one phoneme.  But in English, they are distinct phonemes: "seat" and "sheet" are significantly different.
   "So, if "register" were a purely phonetic concept, then it could be described as a purely physical phenomenon: the way that the larynx is set during production of a sound.  But as a phonological concept, it is a whole collection of sound features that, taken together, are perceived as a distinctive form of pronunciation."

And for we should describe the {wag}-aksharas as:
c1 - tenuis; c2 - voiceless; c3 - voiced; c4 - voiced-pharyngealised; c5 - nasal