Language/Burmese/Grammar/Plurals

Burmese Grammar - Plurals

Hi Burmese learners! 😊
In this lesson, we will be discussing the plural forms in the Burmese language. Plurals are a crucial aspect of any language. Making sure you can correctly form plurals is essential for communicating correctly and effectively.

After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Adjectives, Pronouns, Describing People and Things & Nouns.

Introduction

Before we dive into plurals, let's do a quick review of Burmese basics. - Burmese is the official language of Myanmar. - It uses a script called "Burmese Script" which is derived from the Brahmic script. - Burmese is an agglutinative language, which means that it uses suffixes and prefixes to indicate tense, number, and other grammatical information.

If you need help improving your Burmese language skills, you can use the Polyglot Club website to find native speakers and ask them any questions! We also have resources on Grammar and other language topics.

Forming Plurals

In Burmese, the most common way to form plurals is to add the suffix "-တယ်" (ta yai) to the end of a noun. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ပန်း (pan)	/pàɴ/	Flower
ပန်းတယ် (pan tai)	/pàɴdɛ̀/	Flowers

Another way to form plurals is to repeat the noun twice. This is commonly used for nouns representing people or animals. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ဆရာ (say ya)	/səjà/	Monk
ဆရာဆရာ (say ya say ya)	/səjàsəjà/	Monks

Sometimes, adding the suffix "-န်" (n) to the end of the noun is enough to mark it as plural. This is typically used for nouns that are already borrowed from other languages. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ဘယ် (be)	/pʰɛ̀/	Car
ဘယ်န် (ben)	/pʰɛ̀n/	Cars

Lastly, some nouns have irregular plurals that do not follow any specific rule. These must be memorized individually, but with frequent exposure to the language, their plurals can become second nature. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
အယောက် (ya auk)	/ʔɛ́ɪɪ́ɴɡò/	Child
အယောက်များ (ya auk mya)	/ʔɛ́ɪɪ́ɴɡòmjá/	Children

Plurals with Quantifiers

When paired with a quantifier, Burmese plurals behave differently than in English. In Burmese, the noun is singular when the number is one. When the number is two or more, the noun takes a plural form.

For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ကလေး (ka lei)	/kəlɛ́/	Person
တစ်ယောက်ကလေး (tay ya ka lei)	/tèjɛ́kəlɛ́/	One person
နှစ်ယောက်ကလေး (hnay ya ka lei)	/ɲ̊ḭɛ́kəlɛ́/	Two people
သန်းတစ်ယောက်ကလေး (than tay ya ka lei)	/θã̰ tèjɛ́kəlɛ́/	Three people

Pluralizing Pronouns

In Burmese, personal pronouns can be pluralized by adding the suffix "-တယ်" (ta yai) to the end instead of changing the pronoun. For example:

Burmese	Pronunciation	English
ငါ (nga)	/ŋà/	I/me
ငါတယ် (nga tai)	/ŋàdɛ̀/	We/us
သူ (thu)	/θù/	He/she/it
သူတယ် (thu tai)	/θùdɛ̀/	They/them

Conversation Example

Here is an example of plurals in a conversational setting:

• Person 1: ဒီဘယ်အရှင်မြင်ရလွန်းနဲ့။ (di be a hsaing myin ywan na) (How many cars do you have?)
• Person 2: တစ်လုံးဘယ် (tay lone be) (One car)
• Person 1: လုံးတစ်ကြိမ် ဆိုတဲ့မိန်းဘယ်လောက်ကို (lone tay kray mu si to mei ba lei kauk) (Which flower do you like out of all these flowers?)
• Person 2: တစ်လေသောလျှော့ချင်တဲ့ပန်းတယ် (tay lei thau hlyo chintare pan tai) (I like the most beautiful of all these flowers.)

Summary

In nutshell, forming plurals in Burmese involves suffixes, repetition, and context. It's important to learn these plural forms so as to communicate effectively in the language.

If you would like to learn more about the Burmese language or culture, you can visit the following wikipedia pages:

Sources

• Burmese Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
• A post-suppositional account of associative plurals in Burmese

Remember, practice makes perfect! 😊

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➡ Feel free to edit this wiki page if you think it can be improved. 😎

Other Lessons

• Negation
• Nouns
• Gender
• How to Use Be
• Adjectives
• Pronouns
• Future Tense
• Give your Opinion
• Conditional Mood