TIL

Romabama

Burmese Written Language in Roman Script

RBM-rule4to_.htm

U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.), Deep River, Ontario, Canada. Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR .

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Letters of Latin alphabet used
Romabama Rule 4 - Silent e
Romabama Rule 5 - Killed consonants
Romabama Rule 6 - {king:si:} vowel-sign
Romabama Rule 7 - Fossilized killed consonants
Romabama Rule 8 - Non-alphabetic characters
Romabama Rule 9 - Extension of Myanmar akshara row 2 to accommodate medials

UKT notes
 

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Letters of Latin Alphabet used, contd.

Romabama Rule 04 - Silent e

• e without diacritic (the silent e or the "magic e")  will be used occasionally for sounds of vowels followed by "killed" consonants. This is equivalent to split vowels in both
¤ Bangla-Bengali ো (U09CB) and ৌ (U09CC), and
¤ Burmese-Myanmar {au:} and {au}.
However, as the use of split vowels is not done in IPA, the use of split vowels is to be avoided in Romabama.
e.g. {kate} (preferred {kait})
e.g. {kane} (preferred {kain})
• however, an <e> forming part of the peak vowel is not to be confused with the silent e.
- {keik} -- the <e> present here is part of the peak vowel-digraph <ei>. It is a monophthong.
- {keing} -- the <e> present here is part of the peak vowel-digraph <ei>.
   (Contrast with {king}. Remember {ng} stands for IPA [ ŋ ] and that <g> is not to be pronounce.
   The absence of a letter standing for the sound of  [ ŋ ] is one of un-surmountable problems of transliteration. )
- {kauk} -- here <au> is the peak vowel-digraph. It is not a diphthong: it is a monophthongal digraph.

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Romabama Rule 05 - Killed consonants
- For specialized "killed" consonants
• {kyiñ}
• {kyæÑ}
• {kèý}

We find more problems with r2c5 rimes in the following:
There are theoretically 6 families involving r2c5 syllables. Only some are realised in practice, however, I have given the tentatively chosen rimes:
1.   --  {ñiñ}
2. /|njin. njin njin:|/ (MEDict 155) -- {ñìñ}
3. /|njin. njin njin:|/ (MEDict 158) -- {ñiñ}
4. -- {ñæÑ}
5.   -- {ñàÑ}
6. /|nji. nji nji:|/ (MEDict 158) -- {ÑæÑ}
The rational for choosing the above is: though Romabama is meant only to show the Burmese-Myanmar spelling, it should -- if possible -- show the pronunciation. And, therefore the peak vowel is chosen arbitrarily, and it and the following consonant (together the rime) is meant to show the pronunciation.

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

{king:si:} /|kin: si:|/ - n. ortho. miniature symbol of devowelized nga superscripted on the following letter.
 -- MEDict016

Compare the way in which the two words {hsing-kan:} and {thïn~kan:} are written. The first is written horizontally, but the second is written with the {king:si:} (literally: "centipede-ridden") sign . There are two cues in Romabama 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: There is an {a.þût} that is not exactly a {king:si:}, yet the consonant under it, is not a conjoined (horizontal conjunct) akshara as in {þa.kri:}: the glyph is . Such an {a.þût} is found in {kywan-noap.} (MEDict049) and {yauk-kya:} (MEDict384). 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:}, but without a ~ in between. I have simply hyphenated the two {na.} in {kywan-noap.}, and two {ka.} in {yauk-kya:}. I have asked my good friend U Tun Tint for an explanation. He has not responded yet! (UKT 070804)

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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:}

The derivation of {rwÉ} is illustrating. In the Pagan period (11th century to the 13th) and a few centuries after, the vowel
{tis-hkaung:nging-ya.thut} had existed, but it has given way to {þa.wé-hto: wa.hswè:}. The changes have been
{kuèý} --> {kwé}
{hsuèý} --> {hswé}
{ruèý} --> {rwé}

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Romabama Rule 08 - non-alphabetic characters
- ASCII characters that are not considered to be part of the Latin alphabet will be used.

• {poad-hprat} (instead of 'comma') - /
• {poad-ma.} (instead of 'period' or 'full-stop') - //
• 'period' or 'full-stop' and 'colon' are used for pitch-registers (formerly called "tones"). They are equated to IPA suprasegmentals.
e.g. {a.} [ă] ; {a} [a] ; {a:} [aː]
• 'hyphen' for separating syllables in the same word
• "middle dot" (Alt0183) will be used occasionally to show that {a.} is to be pronounced as /ə/,
e.g. {a·ni}.
• ~ (tilde) will be used occasionally to show a ligature of two akshara-consonants
• parentheses ( ) will be used by Romabama since it has been adopted as part of Burmese-Myanmar.

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Romabama Rule 09 - Extension of Myanmar akshara row 2 to accommodate medials
- Though Burmese-Myanmar (and Pali-Myanmar) akshara matrix is strictly for base consonants, Romabama has to admit the medial consonants {kya.}, {hkya.} and {gya.} into row 2, to bring it in line with Pali-Latin akshara matrix.

Romabama gives only broad transcriptions.
("It's common to distinguish between two kinds of transcription, based on how many details the transcribers decide to ignore:
• Narrow transcription: marked as [...], captures as many aspects of a specific pronunciation as possible and ignores as few details as possible. Using the diacritics provided in the IPA, it is possible to make very subtle distinctions between sounds.
• Broad transcription (or phonemic transcription): marked as /.../, ignores as many details as possible, capturing only enough aspects of a pronunciation to show how that word differs from other words in the language.  ...  one of the unspoken principles of broad transcription is that, when you're given a choice between two symbols and when all other considerations are equal (sometimes even when they aren't), you'll pick the one that's easier to type." -- University of Manitoba, Linguistics Dept. http://www.umanitoba.ca/linguistics/index.shtml). Entries in DJPD16 are broad transcriptions.

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UKT notes

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End of TIL file