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THE ALPHABET
The modern Burmese alphabet consists of 42 letters, of which 32 are consonants and 10 vowels. As in the Indian scripts, every consonant when not combined with any other letter has the sound of the vowel a inherent in it. The vowels are written in their full form when they form distinct words or are part of a compound word. When combined with consonants, they are represented by the abbreviated form. The consonants are: 4 gutturals (ka, kha, ga, nga), 5 palatals (ca, cha, ja, jha, nya), 5 cerebrals (ta, tha, da, dha, na), used only in words of Pali origin, 5 dentals (ta, tha, da, dha, na), 5 labials (pa, pha, ba, ma), 4 liquids (ya, ra, and two forms of la), the semi-vowel wa, the sibilant sa, and the aspirate ha. The vowels are the long and short forms of a, i, u, e, and aw.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
The first Corpus of Burmese inscriptions was published by Taw Sein Ko, in six volumes, 1892-1913. Still more important is the collection published in Epigraphia Birmanica, Rangoon, 1919 onwards; especially the articles by Professor Blagden.
Ch. Duroiselle, A List of Inscriptions found in Burma, Rangoon, 1921. Pe Maung Tin and G. Luce, Inscriptions of Burma (University of Burma. Oriental Series Publications), Oxford, 1933, and London, 1939.
Journal of the Burma Research Society, Rangoon, 1911 onwards.
The Karens
The Karens are the third most numerous race in Burma, but they are not indigenous and it is not known whence and when they immigrated. It is, however, generally believed that they came from the east, and not from the west, like the other peoples of Burma. They number about one million, and are sub-divided into three main groups, speaking dialects of one and the same language, which belongs to the Sino-Siamese sub-family. All the dialects are tonic (see p. 98f.) and are believed to have the same five tones.
The Karen character is a modern adaptation of the Burmese script to the Karen tongue. It was invented by the missionary Rev. T. Wade in 1832. A somewhat similar, although unsuccessful, attempt had been made some decades earlier by Catholic missionaries. Further, according to T. De Lacouperie, it is not unlikely that in former times the Karens had an original character based on the Cham script, but there are no extant written documents of earlier times.
Taungthu and Yao
The Burmese characters are also employed for Taungthu, which is spoken by nearly 200,000 people in the south-western part of the Shan States, and south into the Thaton district of Burma.
Also the Yao use a variety of the Burmese character. For the Yao tribe see p. 146.
