Additional Characters
The following additional characters outside 33 Byi3 behave almost like the main 33 Byi3 and can be combined with Vowel Shift Symbols and tone Change Symbols. The difference between those characters and the main 33 Byi3 is that they cannot be combined with Consonant Modification Symbols (ya1 pin1, ya1 yit, wa1 hsweare3, and ha1 hto3).
| Symbol | Character Name | Audio |
|---|---|---|
| ဉ | Nya1 ga1-lay3 | Nya1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> similar to ည |
| ဋ္ဌ | Hta1 | Hta1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> similar to ဌ with hidden ဋ on top. |
| ဿ | Tha1 Ji3 | Tha1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| ဧ | Et-kha1-ya2 Ay3 | Ay2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> or Ay3 as in Adam & Eve အေဒင် နှင့် ဧဝ |
| ဥ | U1 | U1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| ဩ | Et-kha1-ya2 Au3 | Au3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| ဣ | E1 | E1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
Character ဉ | Nya1 ga1-lay3 is officially shown next to the character ည | Nya1 and is given the same 10th position in the list of 33 Byi3.
There are just a handful of Burmese words using ဉ. The frequency of the usage mostly comes from the single word
ဉာဏ် | nyan2
which means intelligence. Note how the bottom part of ဉ gets stretched in the above word. The word can also be part of the male Burmese name such as
ဦးဉာဏ်ထွန်း | U3 Nyan2 Htoon3
ဥ and ဉ should not be mixed up when typing in unicode standard format.
ကံ ၊ ဉာဏ် ၊ ဝီရိယ | kun2, nyan2, wa1-ri1-ya1
refer to combination of "outcome of previous deeds", intellect, and hardwork, which determine the fate of the person.
ဉာဏ်နီဉာဏ်နက် | nyan2-ni2 nyan2-net
can be directly translated as red and black mind. It means cunning, wicked, and deceptive mind.
Character ဧ | Et-kha1-ya2 Ay3 can be combined with other characters. E.g.,
ဧည့်သည် | eare1 dtheare2
means "visitor". It can also be a stand-alone character as in
ဧရာဝတီမြစ် | ay2-ya2-wa1-de2 myit
Ayeyarwaddy River, which the British gave the spelling Irrawaddy River.
Character Et-kha1-ya2 U1 can also be stand-alone as in
ဥ | u1 - egg,
or combine with other tone change symbols to become
ဦး | U3
to address the title Mr.
Character ဩ | Au3 can be a stand-alone character such as in
အံ့ဩ | un1 au3 - be amazed.
It can be combined with other symbols to sound
ဩော် | au2.
This whole combination is a single keystroke word in unicode fonts and should be typed as such.
Character ဿ | Tha1 ji3 is less common. Examples:
- ဝိပဿနာ | we1-pup-tha1-na2 - Vipassana Meditation.
- ယုဒဿန် | Yu1 Dut Thun2 - Surname "Judson".
- ပြဿနာ | pyut-tha1-na2 - problem.
As shown in SIMPLIFIED DOUBLE-STACKED WORDS section above, ဿ acts as if double-stacked သ္သ | tha1. ပြဿနာ is equivalent to ပြသ္သနာ, and read as ပြသ် + သ + နာ.
The least common words in Burmese written language are probably those with Pali
ဣ | E1
which looks somewhat like a double-stacked word with က on top and smaller ကု at the bottom.
For example,
ဣန္ဒြေ | ain2-da1-ray2 - modesty.
In Burmese female name Ain2-dra2, အိ is used in place of ဣ:
ain2-dra2 | အိန္ဒြာ.
Example: သျှားထွဋ် အိန္ဒြာ | sha3 htoot ain2-dra2, Sharr Htut Eaindra (female), Miss Myanmar 2014 who participated in the 2015 Miss Universe contest.
Likewise အိန္ဒိယ | ain2-de1-ya1 for India is now used for ဣန္ဒိယ mentioned in some older Buddhist literatures.
Here is an another difficult word:
ဣဿာမစ္ဆရိယ | ate-tha2-myit-hsa1-ri1-ya1 - jealousy.
It has Pali roots ဣဿာ and မစ္ဆရိယ. The first word is jealousy or envy. Although Myanmar-English dictionary by the Myanmar Language Commission defines the second part as envy, it actually means stingy as in ဝန်တို | woon2 toh2. It is "envy" in a sense one does not want to give due credit to someone one is jealous of.
