Burmese numerals

Burmese numerals (, ) are a set of numerals traditionally used in the <span lang="my" dir="ltr">Burmese language</span>, although Arabic numerals are also used. Burmese numerals follow the Hindu–Arabic numeral system commonly used in the rest of the world.

Main numbers

Zero to ten

The Burmese numerals from 1 to 10 are all etymologically traced back to the Proto-Sino-Tibetan language, with shared cognates in related languages like Tibetan and Chinese.

¹ Burmese for zero comes from Sanskrit śūnya.<br/> ² Can be abbreviated to in list contexts, such as telephone numbers.

Spoken Burmese has innate pronunciation rules that govern numbers when they are combined with another word, be it a numerical place (e.g. tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.) or a measure word.

• For one, two, and seven (all of which end in the rhyme ), when combined, shift to an open vowel, namely the schwa ()
• For three, four, five, and nine which all have the long tone (similar to the first tone in Mandarin Chinese), when combined, the word immediately following it, given that it begins with a consonant, shifts to a voiced consonant (e.g., , "40" is pronounced , not ). Other suffixes such as (; thousand), (; ten thousand), (; hundred thousand), and (; million) all shift to (; thousand), (; ten thousand), (; hundred thousand), and ; million), respectively.
• For six and eight, no pronunciation shift occurs.

These pronunciation shifts are exclusively confined to spoken Burmese and are not spelt any differently.

Ten to a million

While the Burmese numbers from 'hundred' to 'ten thousand' are etymologically traced back to the Proto-Sino-Tibetan language, the numbers for 'hundred thousand' may be an areal word. The numbers beyond 'million' are derived from Pali.

¹ Shifts to voiced consonant following three, four, five, and nine.

² Athinche () sometimes could mean "too large to be counted".

Ten to nineteen are almost always expressed without including (one).

Another pronunciation rule shifts numerical place name (the tens, hundreds and thousands place) from the low tone to the creaky tone.

• Number places from 10 () up to 10⁷ () has increment of 10¹. Beyond those Number places, larger number places have increment of 10⁷. 10¹⁴ () up to 10¹⁴⁰ () has increment of 10⁷.
• There are totally 27 major number places in Burmese numerals from 1×10⁰ to 10¹⁴⁰
• Numbers in the tens place: shift from (, low tone) to (, creaky tone), except in numbers divisible by ten (10, 20, 30, etc.) In typical speech, the shift goes farther to ( or ).
• Numbers in the hundreds place: shift from (, low tone) to (, creaky tone), except for numbers divisible by 100.
• Numbers in the thousands place: shift from (, low tone) to (, creaky tone), except for numbers divisible by 1000.

Hence, a number like 301 is pronounced (), while 300 is pronounced ().

The digits of a number are expressed in order of decreasing digits place. For example, 1,234,567 is expressed as follows (where the highlighted portions represent numbers whose tone has shifted from low → creaky:

¹ When combined with the numeral place, the pronunciations for 1 and 2 shift from a checked tone (glottal stop) to an open vowel ().

Round number rule

When a number is used as an adjective, the standard word order is number + measure word:

In spoken Burmese, for round numbers (numbers ending in zeroes), the word order is flipped to measure word + number:

The exception to this rule is the number 10, which follows the standard word order.

Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers, from first to tenth, are Burmese pronunciations of their Pali equivalents. They are prefixed to the noun. Beyond that, cardinal numbers can be raised to the ordinal by suffixing the particle (, ) to the number in the following order: number + measure word + .

Decimal and fractional numbers

Colloquially, decimal numbers are formed by saying (, Pali for 'tenth') where the decimal separator is located:

Half (1/2) is expressed primarily by (), although , and are also used. Quarter (1/4) is expressed with () or . Other fractional numbers are verbally expressed as follows: denominator + () + numerator + ():

Alternate numbers

Other numbers, not of Tibeto-Burman origin, are also found in the Burmese language, usually from Pali or Sanskrit. They are exceedingly rare in modern usage.

Abbreviations

To indicate prices of merchandise, a circle is placed above the final zero of the price and a slash is added to indicate currency:

'2,500': ၂၅၀၀ိ/ = $၂၅၀၀

See also

• Burmese language
• Burmese numerical classifiers
• Indian numbering system
• Indian numerals

References

External links