Burmese numerals

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Burmese numerals (Burmese: မြန်မာ ကိန်းဂဏန်းများ, Burmese pronunciation: [mjàɰ̃mà kéiɰ̃ ɡa̰náɰ̃ mjá]) are a set of numerals traditionally used in the Burmese language, although Arabic numerals are also used. Burmese numerals follow the Hindu–Arabic numeral system commonly used in the rest of the world.

Main numbers

Burmese numerals in various script styles (from the equivalent of zero to nine)

Zero to nine

¹ Burmese for zero comes from Sanskrit śūnya.
² Can be abbreviated to IPA: [kʰʊ̀ɰ̃] in list contexts, such as telephone numbers.

Spoken Burmese has innate pronunciation rules that govern numbers when they are combined with another word, be it a numerical place (e.g. tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.) or a measure word.^[1]

• For one, two, and seven (all of which end in the rhyme [-ɪʔ]), when combined, shift to an open vowel, namely the schwa ([ə])
• For three, four, five, and nine which all have the long tone (similar to the first tone in Mandarin Chinese), when combined, the word immediately following it, given that it begins with a consonant, shifts to a voiced consonant (e.g., ၄၀, "40" is pronounced [lé zɛ̀], not [lé sʰɛ̀]). Other suffixes such as ထောင် ([tʰàʊɰ̃]; thousand), သောင်း ([θáʊɰ̃]; ten thousand), သိန်း ([θéɪɰ̃]; hundred thousand), and သန်း ([θáɰ̃]; million) all shift to ([dàʊɰ̃]; thousand), ([ðáʊɰ̃]; ten thousand), ([ðéɪɰ̃]; hundred thousand), and [ðáɰ̃]; million), respectively.
• For six and eight, no pronunciation shift occurs.

These pronunciation shifts are exclusively confined to spoken Burmese and are not spelt any differently.

Ten to a million

¹ Shifts to voiced consonant following three, four, five, and nine.

² Athinche (အသင်္ချေ) sometimes could mean "too large to be counted".

Ten to nineteen are almost always expressed without including တစ် (one).

Another pronunciation rule shifts numerical place name (the tens, hundreds and thousands place) from the low tone to the creaky tone.^[1]

• Number places from 10 (တစ်ဆယ်) up to 10⁷ (ကုဋေ) has increment of 10¹. Beyond those Number places, larger number places have increment of 10⁷. 10¹⁴ (ကောဋိ) up to 10¹⁴⁰ (အသင်္ချေ) has increment of 10⁷.
• There are totally 27 major number places in Burmese numerals from 1×10⁰ to 10¹⁴⁰
• Numbers in the tens place: shift from ဆယ် ([sʰɛ̀], low tone) to ဆယ့် ([sʰɛ̰], creaky tone), except in numbers divisible by ten (10, 20, 30, etc.) In typical speech, the shift goes farther to ([sʰɛʔ] or [zɛʔ]).
• Numbers in the hundreds place: shift from ရာ ([jà], low tone) to ရာ့ ([ja̰], creaky tone), except for numbers divisible by 100.
• Numbers in the thousands place: shift from ထောင် ([tʰàʊɰ̃], low tone) to ထောင့် ([tʰa̰ʊɰ̃], creaky tone), except for numbers divisible by 1000.

Hence, a number like 301 is pronounced [θóʊɰ̃ ja̰ tɪʔ] (သုံးရာ့တစ်), while 300 is pronounced [θóʊɰ̃ jà] (သုံးရာ).

The digits of a number are expressed in order of decreasing digits place. For example, 1,234,567 is expressed as follows (where the highlighted portions represent numbers whose tone has shifted from low → creaky:

¹ When combined with the numeral place, the pronunciations for 1 and 2 shift from a checked tone (glottal stop) to an open vowel ([ə]).

Round number rule

When a number is used as an adjective, the standard word order is: number + measure word (e.g. ၅ ခွက် for "5 cups"). However, for round numbers (numbers ending in zeroes), the word order is flipped to: measure word + number (e.g. ပုလင်း ၂၀, not ၂၀ ပုလင်း, for "20 bottles").^[2] The exception to this rule is the number 10, which follows the standard word order.^[1]

Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers, from first to tenth, are Burmese pronunciations of their Pali equivalents.^[1] They are prefixed to the noun. Beyond that, cardinal numbers can be raised to the ordinal by suffixing the particle မြောက် ([mjaʊʔ], lit. "to raise") to the number in the following order: number + measure word + မြောက်.

Decimal and fractional numbers

Colloquially, decimal numbers are formed by saying ဒသမ ([daʔθəma̰], Pali for 'tenth') where the decimal separator is located. For example, 10.1 is ဆယ် ဒသမ တစ် ([sʰè da̰ (daʔ) θəma̰ tɪʔ]).

Half (1/2) is expressed primarily by တစ်ဝက် ([təwɛʔ]), although ထက်ဝက်, အခွဲ and အခြမ်း are also used. Quarter (1/4) is expressed with အစိတ် ([ʔəseɪʔ]) or တစ်စိတ်.

Other fractional numbers are verbally expressed as follows: denominator + ပုံ ([pòʊɰ̃]) + numerator + ပုံ. ပုံ literally translates as "portion." For example, 3/4 would be expressed as လေးပုံသုံးပုံ, literally "of four portions, three portions.

Alternate numbers

Other numbers, not of Tibeto-Burman origin, are also found in the Burmese language, usually from Pali or Sanskrit.^[3] They are exceedingly rare in modern usage.

See also

• Burmese language
• Burmese numerical classifiers
• Indian numbering system
• Indian numerals

References

External links

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