Jack Murnighan

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What I've learned learning Burmese...

March 23, 2015 by Jack Murnighan

Having spent the last 10 days doing intensive Burmese classes, I’ve found a few linguistic curiosities:

  • You ask if someone is married here by querying, “Do you have a house prison?”
  • The word for “son” and “meat” are identical: “Flesh of my flesh…”
  • The word for VD is just an extension of the word for bachelor (phonetically: ka-la-dha-yuh-ga vs. ka-la-dha).   Ouch.
  • The word “nga:” is virtually unpronounceable. Sadly, it means both “five” and “fish,” and it seems that every sentence here somehow contains either “five” or “fish.” 
  • 5 p.m, for example, is an incredible tongue-twister: nya nei nga: na yi.  While saying those five syllables, you effectively open and close your mouth enough to have chewed a Lifesaver. 
  • As I mentioned on Facebook,  there are at least 43 vowel- and 17 consonant-sounds they have here that we don’t have in English. Oh, I’m not daunted; not I!
  • Depending on what gender you, the speaker, are, you say the word “you” differently. Wait…? What…?
  • We learn everything in phonetic script, but, depending on the context, the phonetic k, t, and p can be pronounced g, d, and b.   Can’t we change that in the book???
  • I’m in perpetual danger of misstating “rice” and “daughter.” Somehow I imagine that “I will take the daughter to go” would not be so well received.
  • Once I’m brave, I’ll try to learn the alphabet, of which only the consonants are depicted above. Lord save me. 
March 23, 2015 /Jack Murnighan
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