Official Burmese Vowels Tha1-ra1
"Vowel", by definition is a speech of sound made with the vocal tract open. In English, "A,E,I,O,U" are the vowels. In addition, in written English, the words cannot be spelled without at least one vowel in them (Exceptions: "by", "my".) Burmese vowels သရ | tha1-ra1 by definition is the same.
အဆုတ်မှ တက်လာသော လေသည် ခံတွင်းရှိ စကားသံဖြစ် အင်္ဂါအစိတ်အပိုင်းတစ်ခုခု၏ ပိတ်ဆို့တားဆီးခြင်း မခံရဘဲ ဖြောင့်ဖြောင့်ဖြူးဖြူး ထွက်သွားစဉ် ဖြစ်လာသော အသံ။
| Vowel Spelling | Symbol | Romanization with Audio |
|---|---|---|
| Character Ah1 | အ | Ah1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Ah1 + yay3 cha1 | အာ | Ah2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Standalone Character "E1" | ဣ | E1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Standalone Character "E2" | ဤ | E2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Standalone Character "U1" | ဥ | U1 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| "U1" + lone3 ji3 tin2 + hsun2 khut | ဦ | U2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Et-kha1-ya2 Ay3 | ဧ | Ay2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Character Ah1 + nout pyit | အဲ | Eeare3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Et-kha1-ya2 Au3 | ဩ | Au3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| [Single unicode character when typed.] | ဪ | Au2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Ah1 + thay3 thay3 tin2 | အံ | Un2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| Ah1 + lone3 ji3 tin2 + ta1-choun3 ngin2 | အို | O2 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
However, unlike English vowels, Burmese vowels သရ | tha1-ra1 appear to have nothing to do with the system of writing as compared to A,E,I,O,U. In addition, careful analysis will show that some of the possible vowel sounds in Burmese Language are missing, such as
အင် | In2
အိမ် | Ain2
အိုင် | Ine2
အုံ | Ome2
အွန် | Oon2
အောင် | Oun2
Further analysis shows that many of သရ | tha1-ra1 sounds are just tone differences, such as Ah1 in the first tone, Ah2 in the second tone; E1 in the first tone and E2 in the second tone; U1 in the first tone and U2 in the second tone; Au3 in the third tone, and Au2 in the second tone. In fact, there are only 8 vowel sounds with tone differences out of 12.
Moreover, tha1-ra1 သရ do not cover the eight single tone groups:
အိပ် | Ate
အက် | Et
အွတ် | Oot
အောက် | Out
အိုက် | Ike
အပ် | Ut
အုပ် | Oat
အစ် | It
Those eight distinct sounds are listed under the 150 သရ နှင့် အသတ်စဉ် | Tha1-ra1 and A-thut Sin2 .
Burmese အသတ် | A-thut refers to "c" shaped "thut" that goes on top of different characters to close the consonants into different spellings. However, spellings with different A-thut may or may not fall into different phonetic sounds. A-thut has no English equivalent, but can be considered as "vowel shift symbols". Several words formed with different A-thut are homonyms (fall into the same phonetic groups) and redundant from the English romanization standpoint.
As for the native Burmese speakers, we learned those tone differences since grade 1 သူငယ်တန်းမြန်မာဖတ်စာ, but no official attempt was made to romanize and standardize those similar to Chinese Hanyu Pinyin, and as a result, you will see all kind of variations online as well as in publications which only add to confusion and mispronunciation of words.
I, therefore, found it necessary to re-group the 14 vowel sounds with three tones and separate those from the eight single tones group in English Romanization with 1,2,3 Tone System. The system fully describes all possible Burmese vowel sounds and tones as follow:
| သရ အသံထွက်နှင့် ကွဲလွဲပုံများ | Vowel | 14 Vowels and Tones with Audio |
|---|---|---|
| အ အာ အား | a | Ah1, Ah2, Ah3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အိ အီ အီး | e,i | E1, E2, E3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အု အူ အူး | u | U1, U2, U3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အို့ အို အိုး | o | O1, O2, O3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အေ့ အေ အေး | ay | Ay1, Ay2, Ay3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အော့ အော် အော | au | Au1, Au2 Au3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အန့် အန် အန်း | un | Un1, Un2 Un3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အင့် အင် အင်း | in | In1, In2, In3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အဲ့ အယ် အဲ | eare | Eare1, Eare2, Eare3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အိန့် အိန် အိန်း | ain | Ain1, Ain2, Ain3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အုန့် အုန် အုန်း | ome | Ome1, Ome2, Ome3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အိုင့် အိုင် အိုင်း | ine | Ine1, Ine2, Ine3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အွန့် အွန် အွန်း | oon | Oon1, Oon2, Oon3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အောင့် အောင် အောင်း | oun | Oun1, Oun2 Oun3 <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| သရ အသတ်များ | Group | 8 Single Tones with Audio |
|---|---|---|
| အိတ်၊ အိပ် | c1 | Ate <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အက် | c2 | Et <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အွတ် ၊ အွပ် | c3 | Oot <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အောက် | c4 | Out <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အိုက် | c5 | Ike <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အတ် ၊ အပ် | c6 | Ut <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အုပ် | c7 | Oat <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
| အစ် | c8 | It <<MP3 AUDIO>> |
Total sounds: (14 vowels *3 tones) + 8 single tones = 50
