Burmese by Ear/Essential Myanmar

10.4. Introducing yourself 3.

1. lesson

New Words

meiq-s’we မိတ်ဆွေ friend (also used for “you”)

Sentences

S2 Meiq-s’we-gàw? - nan-meh beh-lo k’aw-dhǎlèh? မိတ်ဆွေကော - နာမည် ဘယ်လို ခေါ်သလဲ။ How about you: what is your name?

S1 Cǎnáw nan-meh-gá Ko Ze-yá-ba. ကျနော့် နာမည်က ကိုဇေယျပါ။ My name is Ko Zeyya (man speaking)

or Cǎmá nan-meh-gá Ma Ma È-ba. ကျမ နာမည်က မာမာအေးပါ။ My name is Ma Ma Aye (woman speaking)

Notes

Meiq-s’we “friend”. Burmese uses a range of words for “you” and “your”. The most frequent are (a) kin terms, such as Ù-lè “uncle”, Daw-daw “aunt”, etc (for more see 7.1 and 7.2); (b) a title such as S’ǎya-má “teacher”, Than-ǎmaq-cì “Ambassador”; (c) the person’s name (if you know it), normally with a prefix (see 10.1); or, as a fallback, the word used above: Meiq-s’we “friend”.

Meiq-s’we-gàw “How about you?” The suffix -kàw/-gàw carries a meaning like “how about …?” and has the effect of repeating a previous question about a new topic; e.g.

S1 Ne-kaùn-deh-naw? နေကောင်းတယ်နော်။ You’re well, I hope?

S2 Houq-kéh. Ne-kaùn-ba-deh. ဟုတ်ကဲ့။ နေကောင်းပါတယ်။ Yes, I am.

S1 George-gàw? George-ကော။ How about George? (understand: is he well too?)

Among friends and family people often use kin terms for “I” - the words for “Father”, “Sister” etc. Children and young women often use their names; e.g. a girl named Má Sàn Sàn might say

Sàn Sàn-lèh caiq-pa-deh. စမ်းစမ်းလဲ ကြိုက်ပါတယ်။ I like it too. Literally: “San San likes it too.”

This is the second gender-specific pair of words you’ve met: men always say cǎnaw and k’in-bya, and women always say cǎmá and shin (for the polite tags see Lesson 2.7).

cǎnáw nan-meh “my name (male speaker)”. Most possessives in Burmese simply precede the noun possessed without change; e.g.

Bo-jouq + daq-poun = Bo-jouq daq-poun

General + photograph = The General’s photograph

Ù Hlà + ouq-t’ouq = Ù Hlà ouq-t’ouq

U Hla + hat = U Hla’s hat

Cǎmá + nan-meh = Cǎmá nan-meh

I + name = My name

However, if the first noun (the possessor) ends in a low tone syllable, that syllable is given a creaky tone to mark possession:

S’ǎya + daq-poun = S’ǎyá daq-poun

Teacher + photograph = Teacher’s photograph

Ko Tin + ouq-t’ouq = Ko Tín ouq-t’ouq

Ko Tin + hat = Ko Tin’s hat

Cǎnaw + nan-meh = Cǎnáw nan-meh

I + name = My name

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Burmese By Ear/Essential Myanmar Introduction to the Burmese Language John Okell

10.4. Introducing yourself 3.

1. lesson