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93-601: Hti ( Burmese : ထီး ; MLCTS : hti: , IPA: [tʰí] ; Mon : ဍိုၚ် [daŋ] ; Shan : ထီး [tʰi˦] ), a Burmese language word meaning umbrella , is the name of the finial ornament that tops almost all Burmese pagodas . The chatra umbrella or parasol is an auspicious symbol in Buddhism and Hinduism. In pre-colonial Burma, the hti was an indicator of social status and used exclusively by those who were granted express permission to do so. The royal white umbrella or hti phyu taw ( ထီးဖြူတော် )

186-560: A pitch-register language like Shanghainese . There are four contrastive tones in Burmese. In the following table, the tones are shown marked on the vowel /a/ as an example. For example, the following words are distinguished from each other only on the basis of tone: In syllables ending with /ɰ̃/ , the checked tone is excluded: In spoken Burmese, some linguists classify two real tones (there are four nominal tones transcribed in written Burmese), "high" (applied to words that terminate with

279-620: A subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family . The Burmese alphabet is ultimately descended from a Brahmic script , either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabets. Burmese belongs to the Southern Burmish branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages , of which Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non- Sinitic languages. Burmese

372-591: A 76 carat (15 g) diamond. The gold seen on the stupa is made of genuine gold plates, covering the brick structure and attached by traditional rivets. People all over the country, as well as successive monarchs, starting from Queen Shin Saw Pu , have donated gold to the pagoda to maintain it. There are four entrances, each leading up a flight of steps to the platform on Singuttara Hill . A pair of giant leogryphs guards each entrance. The eastern and southern approaches have vendors selling books, good luck charms, images of

465-415: A golden mystery upheaved itself on the horizon, a beautiful winking wonder that blazed in the sun, of a shape that was neither Muslim dome nor Hindu temple-spire. It stood upon a green knoll, and below it were lines of warehouses, sheds, and mills. Under what new god, thought I, are we irrepressible English sitting now? 'There's the old Shway Dagon' (pronounced Dagone), said my companion. 'Confound it!' But it

558-543: A lesser extent, Burmese has also imported words from Sanskrit (religion), Hindi (food, administration, and shipping), and Chinese (games and food). Burmese has also imported a handful of words from other European languages such as Portuguese . Here is a sample of loan words found in Burmese: Since the end of British rule, the Burmese government has attempted to limit usage of Western loans (especially from English) by coining new words ( neologisms ). For instance, for

651-659: A monk]", Lower Burmese speakers use [sʰʊ́ɰ̃] instead of [sʰwáɰ̃] , which is the pronunciation used in Upper Burma. The standard dialect is represented by the Yangon dialect because of the modern city's media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese. The most noticeable feature of the Mandalay dialect is its use of the first person pronoun ကျွန်တော် , kya.nau [tɕənɔ̀] by both men and women, whereas in Yangon,

744-480: A prayer and a wish called a Blessing Ritual. At the base of the post behind the image is a guardian angel, and underneath the image is the animal representing that particular day. The plinth of the stupa is octagonal and also surrounded by eight small shrines (one for each planetary post). It is customary to circumnavigate Buddhist stupas in a clockwise direction. Many devotees perform a blessing ritual by pouring water at their planetary post. The pilgrim, on his way up

837-466: A stop or check, high-rising pitch) and "ordinary" (unchecked and non-glottal words, with falling or lower pitch), with those tones encompassing a variety of pitches. The "ordinary" tone consists of a range of pitches. Linguist L. F. Taylor concluded that "conversational rhythm and euphonic intonation possess importance" not found in related tonal languages and that "its tonal system is now in an advanced state of decay." The syllable structure of Burmese

930-618: Is mutual intelligibility among Burmese dialects, as they share a common set of tones, consonant clusters, and written script. However, several Burmese dialects differ substantially from standard Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, and rhymes. Spoken Burmese is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers, particularly those living in the Irrawaddy valley, all of whom use variants of Standard Burmese. The standard dialect of Burmese (the Mandalay - Yangon dialect continuum ) comes from

1023-668: Is C(G)V((V)C), which is to say the onset consists of a consonant optionally followed by a glide , and the rime consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong with a consonant. The only consonants that can stand in the coda are /ʔ/ and /ɰ̃/ . Some representative words are: Shwedagon Pagoda The Shwedagon Pagoda ( Burmese : ရွှေတိဂုံဘုရား ; MLCTS : shwe ti. gon bhu. ra: , IPA: [ʃwèdəɡòʊɰ̃ pʰəjá] ; Mon : ကျာ်ဒဂုၚ် ), officially named Shwedagon Zedi Daw ( Burmese : ရွှေတိဂုံစေတီတော် , [ʃwèdəɡòʊɰ̃ zèdìdɔ̀] , lit.   ' Golden Dagon Pagoda ' ), and also known as

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1116-630: Is called the seinhpudaw ( စိန်ဖူးတော် ; lit. "esteemed diamond bud"). Hti have been found on pagodas constructed by all four of the pagoda building ethnic groups of Myanmar: the Mon , the Bamar (Burmans), the Rakhine (Arakanese) and the Shan . The hti is considered the most important part of the pagoda. A special ceremony being held for the placing of the hti on the pagoda is called hti tin pwe ( ထီးတင်ပွဲ ). The hti

1209-462: Is placed on the top of a pagoda and hung with a multitude of bells. The hti of prominent pagodas are often made entirely of gold or silver. The bells are used to attract the attention of good spirits in Tāvatiṃsa and other abodes of the devas of Mount Meru . The htis of the temples of Bagan and Mrauk U, the two archeological treasure troves of Myanmar, are all made of stone, while the htis of

1302-442: Is pronounced [mõ̀ũndã́ĩ] . The vowels of Burmese are: The monophthongs /e/ , /o/ , /ə/ , /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ occur only in open syllables (those without a syllable coda ); the diphthongs /ei/ , /ou/ , /ai/ and /au/ occur only in closed syllables (those with a syllable coda). /ə/ only occurs in a minor syllable , and is the only vowel that is permitted in a minor syllable (see below). The close vowels /i/ and /u/ and

1395-469: Is renowned for its colorful cotton umbrellas, which are dubbed "Pathein umbrellas" or "Pathein parasols" (ပုသိမ်ထီး), which are traditionally made in home workshops. The hti can be said as the main distinctive feature of Burmese pagodas, as they are more prominent than their Sri Lankan counterparts, while the Laotian and Thai pagodas do not have any. The tip of the hti , which is studded with precious stones,

1488-416: Is set with over 5,500 diamonds, 2,300 rubies, sapphires and other gems, and 4,000 golden bells. The older hti , donated by the penultimate King of Burma, Mindon Min , can be seen at a temple inside the middle platform ( အလယ်ပစ္စယ or ရင်ပြင်တော် ) of the pagoda's compound. Said hti at Shwedagon is a gilt iron-work umbrella, on each of whose many rings hangs multitudes of gold and silver jewelled bells. It

1581-408: Is split in two ( a.m. and p.m. ). They are marked by animals that represent the day — garuda for Sunday, tiger for Monday, lion for Tuesday, tusked elephant for Wednesday morning, tuskless elephant for Wednesday afternoon, mouse for Thursday, guinea pig for Friday and nāga for Saturday. Each planetary post has a Buddha image and devotees offer flowers and prayer flags and pour water on the image with

1674-580: Is the value of the four native final nasals: ⟨မ်⟩ /m/ , ⟨န်⟩ /n/ , ⟨ဉ်⟩ /ɲ/ , ⟨င်⟩ /ŋ/ , as well as the retroflex ⟨ဏ⟩ /ɳ/ (used in Pali loans) and nasalisation mark anusvara demonstrated here above ka (က → ကံ) which most often stands in for a homorganic nasal word medially as in တံခါး tankhá 'door', and တံတား tantá 'bridge', or else replaces final -m ⟨မ်⟩ in both Pali and native vocabulary, especially after

1767-635: Is the word "moon", which can be လ la̰ (native Tibeto-Burman), စန္ဒာ/စန်း [sàndà]/[sã́] (derivatives of Pali canda 'moon'), or သော်တာ [t̪ɔ̀ dà] (Sanskrit). The consonants of Burmese are as follows: According to Jenny & San San Hnin Tun (2016 :15), contrary to their use of symbols θ and ð, consonants of သ are dental stops ( /t̪, d̪/ ), rather than fricatives ( /θ, ð/ ) or affricates. These phonemes, alongside /sʰ/ , are prone to merger with /t, d, s/ . An alveolar /ɹ/ can occur as an alternate of /j/ in some loanwords. The final nasal /ɰ̃/

1860-486: The [ ɹ ] sound, which has become [ j ] in standard Burmese. Moreover, Arakanese features a variety of vowel differences, including the merger of the ဧ [e] and ဣ [i] vowels. Hence, a word like "blood" သွေး is pronounced [θw é ] in standard Burmese and [θw í ] in Arakanese. The Burmese language's early forms include Old Burmese and Middle Burmese . Old Burmese dates from

1953-569: The /l/ medial, which is otherwise only found in Old Burmese inscriptions. They also often reduce the intensity of the glottal stop . Beik has 250,000 speakers while Tavoyan has 400,000. The grammatical constructs of Burmese dialects in Southern Myanmar show greater Mon influence than Standard Burmese. The most pronounced feature of the Arakanese language of Rakhine State is its retention of

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2046-518: The Burmese alphabet began employing cursive-style circular letters typically used in palm-leaf manuscripts , as opposed to the traditional square block-form letters used in earlier periods. The orthographic conventions used in written Burmese today can largely be traced back to Middle Burmese. Modern Burmese emerged in the mid-18th century. By this time, male literacy in Burma stood at nearly 50%, which enabled

2139-602: The English language in the colonial educational system, especially in higher education. In the 1930s, the Burmese language saw a linguistic revival, precipitated by the establishment of an independent University of Rangoon in 1920 and the inception of a Burmese language major at the university by Pe Maung Tin , modeled on Anglo Saxon language studies at the University of Oxford. Student protests in December of that year, triggered by

2232-615: The Great Dagon Pagoda and the Golden Pagoda , is a gilded stupa located in Yangon , Myanmar. The Shwedagon is the most sacred Buddhist pagoda in Myanmar, as it is believed to contain relics of the four previous Buddhas of the present kalpa . These relics include the staff of Kakusandha , the water filter of Koṇāgamana , a piece of the robe of Kassapa , and eight strands of hair from

2325-669: The Mon people , who until recently formed the majority in Lower Burma . Most Mon loanwords are so well assimilated that they are not distinguished as loanwords, as Burmese and Mon were used interchangeably for several centuries in pre-colonial Burma. Mon loans are often related to flora, fauna, administration, textiles, foods, boats, crafts, architecture, and music. As a natural consequence of British rule in Burma , English has been another major source of vocabulary, especially with regard to technology, measurements, and modern institutions. English loanwords tend to take one of three forms: To

2418-522: The Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan ( မြန်မာ စာလုံးပေါင်း သတ်ပုံ ကျမ်း ), was compiled in 1978 by the commission. Burmese is a diglossic language with two distinguishable registers (or diglossic varieties ): The literary form of Burmese retains archaic and conservative grammatical structures and modifiers (including affixes and pronouns) no longer used in the colloquial form. Literary Burmese, which has not changed significantly since

2511-605: The Pyu language . These indirect borrowings can be traced back to orthographic idiosyncrasies in these loanwords, such as the Burmese word "to worship", which is spelt ပူဇော် ( pūjo ) instead of ပူဇာ ( pūjā ), as would be expected by the original Pali orthography. The transition to Middle Burmese occurred in the 16th century. The transition to Middle Burmese included phonological changes (e.g. mergers of sound pairs that were distinct in Old Burmese) as well as accompanying changes in

2604-413: The 11th to the 16th century ( Pagan to Ava dynasties); Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century ( Toungoo to early Konbaung dynasties); modern Burmese from the mid-18th century to the present. Word order , grammatical structure, and vocabulary have remained markedly stable well into Modern Burmese, with the exception of lexical content (e.g., function words ). The earliest attested form of

2697-457: The 13th century, is the register of Burmese taught in schools. In most cases, the corresponding affixes in the literary and spoken forms are totally unrelated to each other. Examples of this phenomenon include the following lexical terms: Historically the literary register was preferred for written Burmese on the grounds that "the spoken style lacks gravity, authority, dignity". In the mid-1960s, some Burmese writers spearheaded efforts to abandon

2790-636: The 1824 war and was again used as a fort in 1852. When he heard of the fortification and sacking of the shrine, he sent a letter of appeal directly to the British India Office in London stopping the desecration. He then obtained compensation from the British Commissioner of Burma Mr. Phayre and began the renovations of the Pagoda in 1855 with public support and donations. He became the founding trustee of

2883-410: The 19th century, in addition to concomitant economic and political instability in Upper Burma (e.g., increased tax burdens from the Burmese crown, British rice production incentives, etc.) also accelerated the migration of Burmese speakers from Upper Burma into Lower Burma. British rule in Burma eroded the strategic and economic importance of the Burmese language; Burmese was effectively subordinated to

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2976-567: The British Army from looting of the treasures; he eventually restored the Pagoda to its former glory and status with the financial help from the British rulers. This extract is from the book “A Twentieth Century Burmese Matriarch” written by his great-great-great grand daughter Khin Thida. After retirement he moved back to Rangoon area still in Burmese hands but very soon destined for the next annexation. He

3069-471: The British in the lead-up to the independence of Burma in 1948. The 1948 Constitution of Burma prescribed Burmese as the official language of the newly independent nation. The Burma Translation Society and Rangoon University's Department of Translation and Publication were established in 1947 and 1948, respectively, with the joint goal of modernizing the Burmese language in order to replace English across all disciplines. Anti-colonial sentiment throughout

3162-455: The Buddha, candles, gold leaf, incense sticks , prayer flags, streamers, miniature umbrellas and flowers. It is customary to circumnavigate Buddhist stupas in a clockwise direction. In accordance with this principle, one may begin at the eastern directional shrine, which houses a statue of Kakusandha , the first Buddha of the present kalpa . Next, at the southern directional shrine, is a statue of

3255-552: The Buddhist clergy (monks) from the laity ( householders ), especially when speaking to or about bhikkhus (monks). The following are examples of varying vocabulary used for Buddhist clergy and for laity: Burmese primarily has a monosyllabic received Sino-Tibetan vocabulary. Nonetheless, many words, especially loanwords from Indo-European languages like English, are polysyllabic, and others, from Mon, an Austroasiatic language, are sesquisyllabic . Burmese loanwords are overwhelmingly in

3348-656: The Burmese language into Lower Burma also coincided with the emergence of Modern Burmese. As late as the mid-1700s, Mon , an Austroasiatic language, was the principal language of Lower Burma, employed by the Mon people who inhabited the region. Lower Burma's shift from Mon to Burmese was accelerated by the Burmese-speaking Konbaung Dynasty 's victory over the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757. By 1830, an estimated 90% of

3441-462: The Burmese language is called Old Burmese , dating to the 11th and 12th century stone inscriptions of Pagan . The earliest evidence of the Burmese alphabet is dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984. Owing to the linguistic prestige of Old Pyu in the Pagan Kingdom era, Old Burmese borrowed a substantial corpus of vocabulary from Pali via

3534-490: The Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from Upper Burma (e.g., Mandalay dialect), called anya tha ( အညာသား ) and speakers from Lower Burma (e.g., Yangon dialect), called auk tha ( အောက်သား ), largely occur in vocabulary choice, not in pronunciation. Minor lexical and pronunciation differences exist throughout the Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term ဆွမ်း , "food offering [to

3627-476: The OB vowel *u e.g. ငံ ngam 'salty', သုံး thóum ('three; use'), and ဆုံး sóum 'end'. It does not, however, apply to ⟨ည်⟩ which is never realised as a nasal, but rather as an open front vowel [iː] [eː] or [ɛː] . The final nasal is usually realised as nasalisation of the vowel. It may also allophonically appear as a homorganic nasal before stops. For example, in /mòʊɰ̃dáɪɰ̃/ ('storm'), which

3720-511: The Shwedagon Pagoda Inscriptions from the reign of King Dhammazedi of Hanthawaddy (r. 1471–1492), shows a list of repairs of the pagoda going back to 1436. In particular, Queen Shin Saw Pu (r. 1454–1471) raised its height to 40 m (130 ft), and gilded the new structure. By the beginning of the 16th century, Shwedagon Pagoda had become the most famous Buddhist pilgrimage site in Burma. A series of earthquakes during

3813-594: The Shwedagon Pagoda Trust and he was awarded the title of KSM by the British Raj for his public service. He died at the age of 95, bequeathing his prestige and high repute to his large family and descendants. In 1920, students from Burma's only university met at a pavilion on the southwest corner of the Shwedagon pagoda and planned a protest strike against the new University Act which they believed would only benefit

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3906-519: The Shwedagon Pagoda and used it as a fortress until they left two years later. There was pillaging and vandalism , and one officer's excuse for digging a tunnel into the depths of the stupa was to find out if it could be used as a gunpowder magazine. The Maha Gandha (lit. great sweet sound) Bell, a 23-ton bronze bell cast in 1779 and donated by King Singu and popularly known as the Singu Min Bell ,

3999-400: The Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon . On Monday, 30,000 people led by 15,000 monks marched from Shwedagon Pagoda and past the offices of Aung San Suu Kyi 's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Comedian Zarganar and star Kyaw Thu brought food and water to the monks. On Saturday, monks marched to greet Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest . On Sunday, about 150 nuns joined

4092-653: The Shwedagon Pagoda. His men took the 300-ton Great Bell of Dhammazedi , donated in 1485 by the Mon King Dhammazedi. De Brito's intention was to melt the bell down to make cannons, but it fell into the Bago River when he was carrying it across. To this date, it has not been recovered. Two centuries later, the British landed on May 11, 1824, during the First Anglo-Burmese War . They immediately seized and occupied

4185-525: The Tounghoo-Mandalay line is open, pilgrims are flocking down by the thousand to see it. It lost its big gold top—'thing that they call a 'htee—in an earthquake: that's why it's all hidden by bamboo-work for a third of its height. You should see it when it's all uncovered. They're regilding it now.' In 1608 the Portuguese adventurer Filipe de Brito e Nicote , known as Nga Zinka to the Burmese, plundered

4278-491: The adoption of neologisms. An example is the word "university", formerly ယူနီဗာစတီ [jùnìbàsətì] , from English university , now တက္ကသိုလ် [tɛʔkət̪ò] , a Pali-derived neologism recently created by the Burmese government and derived from the Pali spelling of Taxila ( တက္ကသီလ Takkasīla ), an ancient university town in modern-day Pakistan. Some words in Burmese may have many synonyms, each having certain usages, such as formal, literary, colloquial, and poetic. One example

4371-407: The base are terraces that only monks and other males can access. Next is the bell-shaped part of the stupa. Above that is the turban , then the inverted almsbowl, inverted and upright lotus petals, the banana bud and then the umbrella crown . The crown is tipped with 5,448 diamonds and 2,317 rubies. Immediately before the diamond bud is a flag-shaped vane. The very top—the diamond bud—is tipped with

4464-469: The bliss of his newly attained buddhahood as he sat under a rājāyatana tree, accepted their offering of rice cake and honey and taught them some of the dharma in return. In so doing, they became the first lay disciples to take refuge in the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha also gave eight strands of his hair to the merchants and gave them instructions on how to construct a stupa in which to enshrine these hair relics . The merchants presented

4557-460: The city's skyline. Legend holds that the Shwedagon Pagoda was constructed more than 2,500 years ago — while the Buddha was still alive — which would make it the oldest Buddhist stupa in the world. According to the Buddhavaṃsa , two merchants from Ukkalājanapada named Tapussa and Bhallika were passing through Bodh Gaya when they encountered the Buddha. The Buddha, who was at that time enjoying

4650-525: The close portions of the diphthongs are somewhat mid-centralized ( [ɪ, ʊ] ) in closed syllables, i.e. before /ɰ̃/ and /ʔ/ . Thus နှစ် /n̥iʔ/ ('two') is phonetically [n̥ɪʔ] and ကြောင် /tɕàũ/ ('cat') is phonetically [tɕàʊ̃] . Burmese is a tonal language , which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not only pitch , but also phonation , intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality. However, some linguists consider Burmese

4743-593: The country. These varieties include the Yaw , Palaw, Myeik (Merguese), Tavoyan and Intha dialects . Despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects. Below is a summary of lexical similarity between major Burmese dialects: Dialects in Tanintharyi Region , including Palaw, Merguese, and Tavoyan, are especially conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved

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4836-622: The crown prince eight golden ones, distinguished statesmen and military generals several golden ones, and the other royal personages had numbers corresponding to achievements or the king's regard to them. The royal white elephants ( hsinphyudaw , ဆင်ဖြူတော် ) were also granted six umbrellas, 2 white and 4 golden. The Shwepon Nidan , a treatise on palace matters, describes 11 types of royal umbrellas and corresponding spirit maidens ( nat thami , နတ်သ္မီး ) who guarded them: The Irrawaddy delta town of Pathein (formerly Bassein) in Lower Myanmar

4929-516: The day security authorities used tear gas, warning shots and force to break up a peaceful demonstration by scores of monks gathered around the Shwedagon Pagoda. The web site reports that protesting "monks were beaten and bundled into waiting army trucks," adding about 50 monks were arrested and taken to undisclosed locations. In addition, the opposition said "soldiers with assault rifles have sealed off sacred Buddhist monasteries ... as well as other flashpoints of anti-government protests." It reports that

5022-647: The early post-independence era led to a reactionary switch from English to Burmese as the national medium of education, a process that was accelerated by the Burmese Way to Socialism . In August 1963, the socialist Union Revolutionary Government established the Literary and Translation Commission (the immediate precursor of the Myanmar Language Commission ) to standardize Burmese spelling, diction, composition, and terminology. The latest spelling authority, named

5115-521: The eight strands of hair to King Okkalapa of Dagon , who enshrined the strands along with some relics of the three preceding Buddhas ( Kakusandha , Koṇāgamana , and Kassapa ) in a stupa on the Singuttara Hill in present-day Myanmar. The first mention of the pagoda in the royal chronicles dates only to 1362/63 CE (724 ME ) when King Binnya U of Martaban–Hanthawaddy raised the pagoda to 18 m (59 ft). Contemporary inscriptional evidence,

5208-538: The elite and perpetuate colonial rule. This place is now commemorated by a memorial. The result of the ensuing University Boycott was the establishment of "national schools" financed and run by the Burmese people; this day has been commemorated as the Burmese National Day since. During the second university students strike in history of 1936, the terraces of the Shwedagon were again where the student strikers camped out. In 1938, oilfield workers on strike hiked all

5301-496: The following centuries caused damage. The worst damage was caused by a 1768 earthquake that brought down the top of the stupa, but King Hsinbyushin in 1775 raised it to its current height of 99 m (325 ft) (without counting the height of the hti (crown umbrella)). A new hti was donated by King Mindon in 1871, nearly two decades after the annexation of Lower Burma by the British. A moderate earthquake in October 1970 left

5394-598: The form of nouns . Historically, Pali , the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism , had a profound influence on Burmese vocabulary. Burmese has readily adopted words of Pali origin; this may be due to phonotactic similarities between the two languages, alongside the fact that the script used for Burmese can be used to reproduce Pali spellings with complete accuracy. Pali loanwords are often related to religion, government, arts, and science. Burmese loanwords from Pali primarily take four forms: Burmese has also adapted numerous words from Mon, traditionally spoken by

5487-404: The head of Gautama . Built on the 51-metre (167 ft) high Singuttara Hill , the 112 m (367 ft) tall pagoda stood 170 m (560 ft) above sea level, and dominates the Yangon skyline . Yangon 's zoning regulations, which cap the maximum height of buildings to 127 metres (417 feet) above sea level (75% of the pagoda's sea level height), ensure the Shwedagon's prominence in

5580-515: The introduction of English into matriculation examinations , fueled growing demand for Burmese to become the medium of education in British Burma; a short-lived but symbolic parallel system of "national schools" that taught in Burmese, was subsequently launched. The role and prominence of the Burmese language in public life and institutions was championed by Burmese nationalists, intertwined with their demands for greater autonomy and independence from

5673-515: The literary form, asserting that the spoken vernacular form ought to be used. Some Burmese linguists such as Minn Latt , a Czech academic, proposed moving away from the high form of Burmese altogether. Although the literary form is heavily used in written and official contexts (literary and scholarly works, radio news broadcasts, and novels), the recent trend has been to accommodate the spoken form in informal written contexts. Nowadays, television news broadcasts, comics, and commercial publications use

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5766-586: The marchers. On September 25, 2007, 2,000 monks and supporters defied threats from Myanmar's junta. They marched to Yangon streets at Shwedagon Pagoda amid army trucks and the warning of Brigadier-General Myint Maung not to violate Buddhist " rules and regulations ." On September 26, 2007, clashes between security forces and thousands of protesters led by Buddhist monks in Myanmar have left at least five protesters dead by Myanmar security forces, according to opposition reports, in an anticipated crackdown. Earlier in

5859-563: The names of the planets are borrowed from Hindu astrology, but the Burmese Rahu and Ketu are different from the Hindu Rahu and Ketu. The Burmese consider them to be distinct and separate planets, whereas Hindu astrology considers them to be either the Dragon's Head and Tails, or Ascending and Descending Nodes. To the Burmese, Ketu is the king of all planets. As in many other languages, the Burmese name

5952-532: The northwest of the pagoda platform. The Second Anglo-Burmese War saw the British re-occupation of the Shwedagon in April 1852, only this time the stupa was to remain under their military control for 77 years, until 1929, although the people were given access to the Paya. During the British occupation and fortification of the Pagoda, Lord Maung Htaw Lay , the most prominent Mon-Burmese in British Burma, successfully prevented

6045-434: The pagoda openly flouted the tradition. U Dhammaloka publicly confronted a police officer over wearing shoes at the pagoda in 1902. It was not until 1919 that the British authorities finally issued a regulation prohibiting footwear in the precincts of the pagoda. However, they put in an exception that employees of the government on official business were allowed footwear. The regulation and its exception clause moved to stir up

6138-484: The pagoda. The "shoe question" on the pagoda has always been a sensitive issue to the Burmese people since colonial times. The Burmese people had always removed shoes at all Buddhist pagodas. Hiram Cox, the British envoy to the Burmese Court, in 1796, observed the tradition by not visiting the pagoda rather than take off his shoes. However, after the annexation of lower Burma, European visitors as well as troops posted at

6231-466: The pagodas there and elsewhere around Myanmar are made of metal (usually iron or steel), coated with gold. The hti is then decorated with golden or gold-plated brass and bronze bells ( ခေါင်းလောင်း ), and at jewelry donated by devotees. The hti of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon is about one and a half stories tall and contains about half a ton of gold. The hti belongs to the magaik form, and

6324-443: The people and played a role in the beginnings of the nationalist movement. Today, no footwear or socks are allowed on the pagoda. In January 1946, General Aung San addressed a mass meeting at the stupa, demanding "independence now" from the British with a thinly veiled threat of a general strike and uprising. Forty-two years later, on August 26, 1988, his daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi addressed another mass meeting of 500,000 people at

6417-636: The population in Lower Burma self-identified as Burmese-speaking Bamars; huge swaths of former Mon-speaking territory, from the Irrawaddy Delta to upriver in the north, spanning Bassein (now Pathein) and Rangoon (now Yangon) to Tharrawaddy, Toungoo, Prome (now Pyay), and Henzada (now Hinthada), were now Burmese-speaking. The language shift has been ascribed to a combination of population displacement, intermarriage, and voluntary changes in self-identification among increasingly Mon–Burmese bilingual populations in

6510-425: The region. Standardized tone marking in written Burmese was not achieved until the 18th century. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because of ambiguities that arose over transcribing sounds that had been merged. British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers. Britain's gradual annexation of Burma throughout

6603-506: The said pronoun is used only by male speakers while ကျွန်မ , kya.ma. [tɕəma̰] is used by female speakers. Moreover, with regard to kinship terminology , Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family, whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not. The Mon language has also influenced subtle grammatical differences between the varieties of Burmese spoken in Lower and Upper Burma. In Lower Burmese varieties,

6696-597: The second Buddha, Koṇāgamana . Next, at the western directional shrine , is that of the third Buddha, Kassapa . Finally, at the northern directional shrine, is that of the fourth Buddha, Gautama . Though most Burmese are Theravada Buddhists, many also follow practices which originated in Hindu astrology . The Burmese astrology recognizes the seven planets of astrology — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and in addition, two other planets, Rahu and Ketu . All

6789-427: The seven days of their week after the seven planets, but Burmese astrology recognizes an eight-day week, with Wednesday being divided into two days: until 6:00   p.m. it is Wednesday, but from 6:00   p.m. until midnight it is Rahu's day. It is important for Burmese Buddhists to know on which day of the week they were born, as this determines their planetary post . There are eight planetary posts, as Wednesday

6882-503: The shaft of the hti out of alignment; extensive repairs were needed to rectify the problem. The Shwedagon Pagoda Festival, which is the largest pagoda festival in the country, begins during the new moon of the month of Tabaung in the traditional Burmese calendar and continues until the full moon. The pagoda is on the Yangon City Heritage List . The stupa 's plinth is made of bricks covered with gold plates. Above

6975-764: The spoken form or a combination of the spoken and simpler, less ornate formal forms. The following sample sentence reveals that differences between literary and spoken Burmese mostly occur in affixes: Burmese has politeness levels and honorifics that take the speaker's status and age in relation to the audience into account. The suffix ပါ pa is frequently used after a verb to express politeness. Moreover, Burmese pronouns relay varying degrees of deference or respect. In many instances, polite speech (e.g., addressing teachers, officials, or elders) employs feudal-era third person pronouns or kinship terms in lieu of first- and second-person pronouns. Furthermore, with regard to vocabulary choice, spoken Burmese clearly distinguishes

7068-628: The steps of the pagoda, buys flowers, candles, coloured flags and streamers. These are to be placed at the stupa in a symbolic act of giving , an important aspect of Buddhist teaching. There are donation boxes located in various places around the pagoda to receive voluntary offerings which may be given to the pagoda for general purposes. In December 2017, foreigners were charged a Ks. 10,000/- (approx. US$ 7) entrance fee. Rudyard Kipling described his 1889 visit to Shwedagon Pagoda ten years later in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel Then,

7161-485: The stupa, demanding democracy from the military regime and calling the 8888 Uprising the second struggle for independence. In September 2007, during nationwide demonstrations against the military regime and its recently enacted price increases, protesting monks were denied access to the pagoda for several days before the government finally relented and permitted them in. On September 24, 2007, 20,000 bhikkhus and thilashins (the largest protest in 20 years) marched at

7254-528: The surface. There has been much confusion over this bell and the 42-ton Tharrawaddy Min Bell donated in 1841 by Tharrawaddy Min along with 20 kg of gold plating; this massive ornate bell hangs in its pavilion in the northeast corner of the stupa. A different but less plausible version of the account of the Singu Min Bell was given by Lt. J.E. Alexander in 1827. This bell can be seen hung in another pavilion in

7347-427: The top, and handles of gold adorned with pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, corals and with spangles. The umbrella used by the king when riding an elephant or travelling by carriage was called a yin hti . The number of umbrellas in one's possession was also an indication of social status, as they were showcased during public processions and put up in prominent places at home. The king was allotted nine white umbrellas,

7440-448: The traditional homeland of Burmese speakers. The 1891 Census of India , conducted five years after the annexation of the entire Konbaung Kingdom , found that the former kingdom had an "unusually high male literacy" rate of 62.5% for Upper Burmans aged 25 and above. For all of British Burma , the literacy rate was 49% for men and 5.5% for women (by contrast, British India more broadly had a male literacy rate of 8.44%). The expansion of

7533-425: The underlying orthography . From the 1500s onward, Burmese kingdoms saw substantial gains in the populace's literacy rate , which manifested itself in greater participation of laymen in scribing and composing legal and historical documents, domains that were traditionally the domain of Buddhist monks, and drove the ensuing proliferation of Burmese literature , both in terms of genres and works. During this period,

7626-455: The verb ပေး ('to give') is colloquially used as a permissive causative marker, like in other Southeast Asian languages, but unlike in other Tibeto-Burman languages. This usage is hardly used in Upper Burmese varieties, and is considered a sub-standard construct. More distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of

7719-452: The violent crackdown came as about 100 monks defied a ban by venturing into a cordoned-off area around the Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar's holiest Buddhist shrine. It says that authorities ordered the crowd to disperse, but witnesses said the monks sat down and began praying, defying the military government's ban on public assembly. Security forces at the pagoda "struck out at demonstrators" and attacked "several hundred other monks and supporters,"

7812-410: The way from the oilfields of Chauk and Yenangyaung in central Burma to Rangoon to establish a strike camp at the Shwedagon Pagoda. This strike, supported by the public as well as students and came to be known as the '1300 Revolution' after the Burmese calendar year, was broken up by the police who, in their boots whereas Burmese would remove their shoes in pagoda precincts, raided the strike camps on

7905-459: The wide circulation of legal texts, royal chronicles , and religious texts. A major reason for the uniformity of the Burmese language was the near-universal presence of Buddhist monasteries (called kyaung ) in Burmese villages. These kyaung served as the foundation of the pre-colonial monastic education system, which fostered uniformity of the language throughout the Upper Irrawaddy valley,

7998-410: The word "television", Burmese publications are mandated to use the term ရုပ်မြင်သံကြား (lit. 'see picture, hear sound') in lieu of တယ်လီဗီးရှင်း , a direct English transliteration. Another example is the word "vehicle", which is officially ယာဉ် [jɪ̃̀] (derived from Pali) but ကား [ká] (from English car ) in spoken Burmese. Some previously common English loanwords have fallen out of use with

8091-561: Was a sign of sovereignty. Indeed, use of a white umbrella by any persons other than the king and his chief queen was regarded as a declaration of rebellion, punishable with immediate execution. At the death of the king, the royal white umbrellas in his possession were broken. The white umbrella was also permitted for religious usage. For instance, The Mahamuni Buddha was formerly shaded by a white umbrella. The umbrellas were embellished inside and out with pictures of sylphs and fairies in gold, thin gold plates shaped like banyan leaves fastened to

8184-401: Was again caught up in war but this time he had a great fortune of supporting religious ventures and gaining tremendous merit. His good karma and leadership abilities led him to the task of saving the great Shwedagon Pagoda from imminent destruction and sacking of its treasures by British troops in the second Anglo-Burmese War. The great Buddhist shrine had been fortified by the British troops in

8277-461: Was carried off with the intention to ship it to Kolkata . It met the same fate as the Dhammazedi Bell and fell into the river. When the British failed in their attempts to recover it, the people offered to help provided it could be restored to the stupa. The British, thinking it would be in vain, agreed, upon which divers went in to tie hundreds of bamboo poles underneath the bell and floated it to

8370-499: Was not a thing to be sworn at. It explained in the first place why we took Rangoon, and in the second why we pushed on to see what more of rich or rare the land held. Up till that sight my uninstructed eyes could not see that the land differed much in appearance from the Sunderbuns , but the golden dome said: 'This is Burma, and it will be quite unlike any land you know about.' 'It's a famous old shrine o' sorts,' said my companion, 'and now

8463-533: Was one of the five articles of coronation regalia ( မင်းမြောက်တန်ဆာ , Min Mhyauk Tanza ). Use and possession of a royal white umbrella was limited exclusively to the Burmese king and his chief queen, while the highest officials ( wun , ဝန် ) and royal princes (including the Crown Prince or Uparaja ) possessed golden umbrellas and lower-level officials possessed red umbrellas, if any. The royal white umbrella

8556-399: Was presented by King Mindon Min and placed at a cost of not less than 50,000 British pounds. It was constructed by voluntary labor, using donated money and jewels. The vane and uppermost band are richly studded with jewels from all parts of Burma. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with

8649-810: Was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after Classical Chinese , Pyu , Old Tibetan and Tangut . The majority of Burmese speakers, who live throughout the Irrawaddy River Valley, use a number of largely similar dialects, while a minority speak non-standard dialects found in the peripheral areas of the country. These dialects include: Arakanese in Rakhine State and Marma in Bangladesh are also sometimes considered dialects of Burmese and sometimes as separate languages. Despite vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there

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