မူ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *mow (“to work, move, do, make”), whence also အမှု (a.hmu., “case; deed”); see the latter for more (STEDT).

inh

to pursue some course of action, act, make, set (one's mind) to, etc.


က

သူက ဒီလို ပြောခဲ့တယ်

indicates the subject of the sentence, a topic marker, a nominative marker


င

Nga, the fifth letter of the Burmese alphabet


စ

Ca, the 6th letter of the Burmese alphabet.


ဆ

Cha, the 7th letter of the Burmese alphabet.


ထ

Tha, the 18th letter of the Burmese alphabet.


ပ

particle suffixed to a verb as an emphasis


ဖ

Pha, the 23rd letter of the Burmese alphabet


ဘ

Bha, the 25th letter of the Burmese alphabet.


မ

Ma, the 26th letter of the Burmese alphabet


ခင်ဗျား

Contraction of သခင်ဘုရား (sa.hkangbhu.ra:, “master lord”).

contraction

နင်

addressed to someone younger than the speaker

used by females when addressing another female of same age


ရှင်

Contraction of အသျှင် (a.hsyang, “lord”).

အရှင် အရှင်#Burmese

(same as အရှင် (a.hrang)) master, lord, noble, powerful person, owner, proprietor


သူ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *su ~ s-lu (“who; indefinite pronoun; remote third-person pronoun”) (STEDT). Cognate with Tibetan སུ (su, “who”), as well as လူ (lu, “person”).

inh

he or she (gender-neutral third person pronoun)


လာ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ləʔ (“to come”).


စား

och-l

足 (OC *ʔsoɡs, *ʔsoɡ, “to satisfy; abundant”)


ရေး

Inherited from Old Burmese ရိယ်း (riy), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *b-rəj (“to draw, mark; boundary”). Cognates include Tibetan འབྲི ('bri), Khumi Chin tärüte, Old Chinese 理 (OC *rɯʔ, “to cut jade, put in order, manage”) (STEDT).

och-l

particle suffixed to verb or noun to denote a state, action or skill


သွား

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ɢʷra (“to go”). Cognate with Old Chinese 于 (OC *ɢʷa, “to proceed, go”) (STEDT). The "fornicate" sense is a semantic loan from Pali gacchati.
MED groups the "go" and "tooth" senses together, when they should be separated. It is unclear which sense the "be sharp" sense is related to.

particle suffixed to a verb to denote an increasing tendency or to convey a sense of certainty


ပါ

to be with, be together with, hold, be present, be in


ပါ

ကျွန်တော်က ဆရာပါ။

(used with indicatives) particle used to indicate politeness


နဲ့

nai. (romanization)
နှင့် (alternative formal literary)

သူနဲ့ သူမ

ပြတိုက်နဲ့ စာကြည့်တိုက်

(colloquial) and (connects two nouns or pronouns)


လား

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese *la² (“question particle”), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *la-y (“idem”). Compare perhaps Old Chinese 與 (OC *la, *laʔ, *las), 歟 (OC *la, *laʔ, *las, “idem”) (STEDT).

inh

ဒီအိမ်လား

Interrogative particle used with a noun to form a yes/no question.


ဘူး

Compare with Chinese 不 (bù, “not”) and Mon ပုဟ်.

not (used after the verb, which is preceded by the particle မ (ma.))


ဦး

→ Shan: ဢူး (ʼúu)

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tV-pu (“head”) (STEDT).

ဦး သန့်

(honorific) form of address for older men, roughly the average age of one's uncle; sir

particle suffixed to a verb or adjective to denote something offered first (as to a monk in deference); first (in season); first (sale of the day)

particle suffixed to verbs to denote a prerequisite, definite or imperative condition


လေး

word used as an ending in lyric poems, etc. for euphonic effect


ကိုး

emphatic particle suffixed to words (same as ကို (kui))


နေ

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese *ʔnəj¹/³, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ku-ni(k) (“sun; day”). Cognate with Old Chinese 日 (OC *njiɡ), Tibetan ཉི་མ (nyi ma).

a unisex given name from Proto-Sino-Tibetan or Sino-Tibetan


ရုံ

just, only (particle suffixed to a verb to convey the sense of being limited in degree or extent)


ရ

Ra, the 28th letter of the Burmese alphabet.


လ

La, the 29th letter of the Burmese alphabet.


သ

Sa, the 31st letter of the Burmese alphabet.


ဟ

Ha, the 32nd letter of the Burmese alphabet.


အ

A, the 33th and last letter of the Burmese alphabet

first in the set of twelve vowels traditionally taught in the learning of the Burmese language


အ

Borrowed from Pali a- (“not, un-, a-”), from Sanskrit अ- (a-, “idem”).

particle prefixed to Pali and Sanscrit words and their derivatives beginning with consonants to denote negation (in words beginning with vowels the particle အန (a.na.) performs this function)


သမီး

sa.mi: (romanization)
သ္မီး (alternative)

particle suffixed to a noun to denote a kindred relation not founded on blood


သန်း

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman *s(y)ar (“louse”). Cognate with Akha [script needed] (shɛ́-mɔ̀, “idem”) (STEDT).

tree from the bark of which a dye is obtained; Terminalia oliveri


သန်း

particle suffixed to a verb to convey a sense of going or lying across (equivalent in usage to adverbs, 'across', 'athwart')


မင်း

particle suffixed to some adjectives to denote a sense of being extreme


ကြီး

Inherited from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *b-gryas (“old”). Compare Old Chinese 耆 (OC *ɡri, “old”) (STEDT).

inh+

particle suffixed to words as an emphasis

particle suffixed to some replicated verbs or adjectives to form adverbs


များ

Inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m(r/y)a (“many, much”). Cognate with Tibetan བྲ་ (bra, “to have in plenty, aboud”) (STEDT).

cog

particle suffixed to nouns or verbs for emphasis


သေး

စောပါသေးတယ်

မပြန်ချင်သေးပါဘူ

particle suffixed to a verb for emphasis: yet, still, so far


နည်း

Traditionally considered (by Judson, MED, etc.) to be borrowed from Pali naya (“leading”); in this latter case, the word would be a doublet of နယ (na.ya.).
However, in light of a potential cognate in Lai [script needed] (niŋ, “way, method, custom”), which has similar phonetics and semantics, but which traditionally has had little to no contact with Indic civilization, the Pali derivation becomes less likely, as the words may stem from a Proto-Tibeto-Burman *niŋ (“way, method, custom”) (STEDT).

inh

(archaic) particle suffixed to a noun to denote similarity: like, in the same manner as


သား

particle suffixed to a verb or adjective to convey the sense of being definite or explicit


ခေါင်း

particle used in counting skeins of yarn and the like


ခြေ

Inherited from Old Burmese ခြိယ် (khriy), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *krəj (“foot, footstool”).

inh

particle suffixed to nouns to denote a collection of things or persons


တို့

Inherited from Old Burmese အတိဝ် (atiw). Luce gives Old Chinese 余 (OC *la, “I”), 曹 (OC *zluː, “group; people of the same kind”) as cognates. Alternatively analyzed as an apocopic form of ကျုပ်တို့ (kyuptui.) and ငါတို့ (ngatui.).

apocopic form

ကျုပ်တို့,ငါတို့

particle suffixed to some verbs for emphasis or euphony


ရယ်

particle suffixed to a noun to denote inclusion: and

particle suffixed to a noun for emphasis


တတ်

och-l

達 (OC *tʰaːd, *daːd, “to thoroughly understand, reach”)


တတ်

particle suffixed to a verb indicating the acquiring of some knowledge, skill, capability, qualification, etc.

particle suffixed to a verb denoting some trait or tendency


တတ်

verbal particle used as sentence final marker, in composition


ဆုံး

cog

Tibetan རྫོགས (rdzogs, “to be at an end”)


ရပ်

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kV-r(j)əp. Cognate with Cantonese 立 (laap⁶), Dzongkha ཞབས (zhabs, “leg, foot”), Jingpho tsap (“stand”), Nuosu ꉆ (hxit, “stand, stand up”), Lisu ꓦꓰꓼ (h̃è̱, “stand, stand up, stand straight”).

numerical classifier used in itemisation and expressing things in terms of a man's height


လှည့်

particle suffixed to verbs to denote persuasion


ကျ

Derived from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *(k/g)la-k/y/t (“to fall”). Cognate with Mizo tla ~ tlâk (“to fall”) and Old Chinese 下 (OC *ɡraːʔ, *ɡraːs, “lower; under; to go down”). Doublet of ချ (hkya.) (STEDT).


ပေး

Inherited from Old Burmese ပိယ်ဟ် (piyh), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *Pi(k) (“to give”) or Proto-Sino-Tibetan *pîʔ (“to give”). Cognate with Tibetan སྦྱིན (sbyin, “to give, to bestow”) and Old Chinese 畀 (OC *pids, “to give”) (STEDT).

cog

particle suffixed to a verb to denote that whatever that is being done is for somebody else


ပစ်

to throw (cause an object to move rapidly through the air), toss away, fling, hurtle


ပစ်

particle affixed to a verb conveying the sense of doing something with abandon


ချည်

particle suffixed to a pair of verbs to denote reciprocating action


ရက်

particle placed after verbs to denote a lack of consideration


ရေ

word used as a suffix to the name of the person hailed


လေ

သူတို့မှာ မရှိဘူးလေ

Used to soften an indicative sentence: you see, you know?, remember?, after all


အို

word expressing surprise, pity, disapprobation, etc.: oh


ကောင်း

particle following a verb denoting probability or suitability


လုံး

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-lu(ŋ/m) (“heart; round”). Cognate with Drung tvleum (“round”), Jingpho lum (“round”) and Tibetan ཟླུམ (zlum, “round; spherical”).


လုံး

particle suffixed to some nouns to denote: all, entire, whole

particle suffixed to a noun to denote an entity

particle suffixed to some verbs to form verbal nouns and convey the sense of being contrived or hollow


နှင့်

(literary) postpositional marker suffixed to a noun to indicate the instrumental case: with


နှင့်

(literary) (particle suffixed to a verb and used with မ (ma., “not”) to form a negative imperative)


နှင့်

(same as ဟု (hu.), ဟူ၍ (hurwe)) particle suffixed to a noun to denote an appellation, or a verb to indicate reported speech: that


လျှင်

particle occurring between numerical nouns to delineate their relationship


လို့

Uncertain, although it can be tentatively compared to Old Burmese ရုယ် (ruy), the ancient form of ရွေ့ (rwe., “to move; and, while, because”). Also note similarity with Old Chinese 由 (OC *lɯw, “from, by, due to, reason”).

particle used in conjunction with interrogatives or to denote immediacy


မြို့

ထိုမြို့ ထိုမြို့#Burmese

(archaic) particle suffixed to a pronoun denoting "other than", mainly used in ထိုမြို့ (htui-mrui.)


ထူး

→ Shan: ထူး (thúu, “special”)

particle suffixed to a noun or pronoun to denote singularity


ပြီး

Inherited from Proto-Lolo-Burmese *N-bri¹/² (“full, complete”) (STEDT). Cognate with Lahu bi (“full”); outside of Lolo-Burmese, compare Old Chinese 罷 (OC *breːlʔ, *bral, *bralʔ, “to cease, finish, complete”).


ပြီး

word to indicate the completion of an act, etc.


စိမ့်

my-particle

စိမ့် • (cim.)

particle suffixed to verbs to denote fulfillment of some purpose


ပေါ့

wanting in saltiness or sweetness, light or mild in taste, weak in flavor


ဝယ်

postpositional marker suffixed to a noun to indicate either temporal or locative case: by, at, in


လဲ

Ceiba pentandra
Ceiba pentandra#Translingual


ကား

(pronunciation gá) wedge-shaped fish trap made of bamboo used in shallow coastal waters


ကား

သုံးဘီးကားပနမပငငမမကမပ႔ထ့္ဘထဘနကနအ့္ပ႔္ပ့မပ္မလတတ

denotes other motor vehicles besides cars


ကား

particle suffixed to verbs or nouns for emphasis


စာ

my-noun

စာ • (ca) (classifier ရွက် or လုံး or ပုဒ်)

ca (romanization)
ရွက် (classifier)
လုံး (classifier)
ပုဒ် (classifier)

Probably from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tsa ~ za (though this is not mentioned by STEDT). Cognate with သား (sa:, “son, child”), စာ (ca, “to sympathise with; to be considerate to; to have consideration for”). Compare Old Chinese 子 (OC *ʔslɯʔ, “child”), 字 (OC *zlɯs, “to bear; to give birth; to breed; to love; Chinese character”); see the latter for more.
Another theory by Luce compares the word to 寫 (OC *sjaːʔ, “to carry, write, copy”).

och-l

ဗမာစာ/မြန်မာစာ

အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ


စာ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *dzaʔ (“to eat”). See also စား (ca:, “to eat”) (STEDT).

(derogatory) particle suffixed to nouns to connote that someone is deserving of being victimized or hit by someone or something

particle suffixed to nouns to denote supportive material for a certain function

particle suffixed to nouns to denote sufficiency for a certain number or utility over a certain length of time

particle suffixed to nouns to denote a waste product


တယ်

tai (romanization)
သ (alternative)
သည် (alternative)

word expressing indignation, threat, frustration, etc.


ခင်ဗျာ

From ခင် (hkang, “given name (originally honorific)”) + an element ဗျာ (bya) of unclear interpretation and origin.


ကဲ့

alternative form of ရဲ့ (rai.), used after a syllable ending in /ʔ/


ရဲ့

postpositional marker used at the end of an affirmative sentence or in the middle of an interrogative sentence to express certainty; mostly found in certain fixed phrases


ကို

(colloquial) emphatic particle suffixed to words


မယ်

a term of endearment used when addressing young ladies


ရာ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s/k-ra (“place”); cognate with Old Chinese 所 (OC *sqʰraʔ, “place”) (STEDT).

to be suitable, proper; to deserve; to be worthy of


ရာ

word affixed to verb to denote possibility, obligation


ရှိ

Inherited from Old Burmese ဟြိ (hri), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *sri (“to exist”). Cognate with Tibetan སྲིད་པ (srid pa) and Old Chinese 體 (OC *r̥ʰiːʔ, “body, limbs; state, form”) (STEDT).


ဖူး

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ʔ-bu ~ *pu (“to be born; birth; bud; bloom”). Cognate with Jingpho pu (“to bloom, bud”), Old Chinese 阜 (OC *buʔ, “big mount; abundant”) (STEDT), as well as, per Luce, 苞 (OC *pruː, “bud; luxuriant”).


ဖူး

ဗမာပြည် ရောက်ဖူးသလား။


ပဲ

Appears to be from the same source as the "bean" sense of Etymology 1. The sense “anna” is a semantic loan from Hindi अन्न (ann).

anna (unit of currency in British India)


ပဲ

pai: (romanization)
ကပဲ (alternative)
ဘဲ (alternative)

(colloquial) indicates emphasis on the word or phrase it follows: just, only

ဒီမှာပဲ နေခဲ့။

ခင်ဗျားသူငယ်ချင်းပဲ ရေးတာလား။

သိတာပေါ့။ ကျွန်တော့် ညီတစ်ဝမ်းကွဲပဲ။

Used after any sentence element or an entire sentence to add emphasis, indeed, really


ဖြစ်

Inherited from Old Burmese ဖ္လစ် (phlac), from Proto-Lolo-Burmese *C-prik (“to be, be able”). Cognate with Akha pyeu (“to be, exist”) (STEDT).

inh

to get on with, be in love, have an affair


ပြန်

Inherited from Old Burmese ပ္လန်, Proto-Sino-Tibetan *bran (“to convalesce, recover, return”). Cognate with Old Chinese 般 (OC *praːn, *paːn, *baːn, “to rotate, go back and forth”) (STEDT).

och-l

particle suffixed to verbs indicating repetition

particle suffixed to nouns denoting one who has returned from a certain place or life, or one who has returned to his former status


ပြန်

→ Lü: ᦔᦊᦱᧃᧈ (ṗẏaan¹, “to translate”)

numerical classifier indicating number of times


တည်း

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *dan ~ daj (“single, one, whole, only”). Cognate with Old Chinese 但 (OC *daːn, *daːnʔ, *daːns, “only; but”).

och-l

單 (OC *taːn, *djan, *djanʔ, *djans, “single, alone”)


တည်း

suffix to a numerical classifier, meaning only that many; no more no less


ထား

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-ta-t (“to put, to place”). Cognate with Tibetan སྟད (stad, “to put on, to lay on”), སྟ་གོན (sta gon, “preparation, arrangement”), Old Chinese 著 (OC *taʔ, *tas, *da, *taɡ, *daɡ, “to touch”) (STEDT).

och-l

particle indicating the present continuous condition of the preceding verb


ပြီ

ရောက်ပြီလား။


ရန်

particle suffixed to verbs to form verbal nouns


အား

The "strength" sense is from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *k-ra (“strength; to win; classifier for people”). Cognate with Old Chinese 力 (OC *rɯɡ, “strength”) (STEDT). Sagart relates the "free" sense to 暇 (OC *ɡraːs, “leisure”).

inh

particle suffixed to a verb to convey the sense of having the heart to be insensitive or apathetic


မှ

ငါမှငါ၊ပြောမှပြောရက်ပလေတယ်။

နိုင်မှနိုင်ပါ့မလား။

ဖြစ်မှဖြစ်ရလေခြင်း၊ကောင်းမှကောင်း

particle infixed between replicated nouns and verbs to denote emphasis


မှ

ဘာအဓိပ္ပာယ်မှ မရဘူး။


ဖို့

cog

Tibetan ཕྱོགས (phyogs, “direction; for the sake of”)


ပျော်

my-particle

ပျော် • (pyau)

The "happy" sense is from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *p(r/y)aw (“delight, happy, enjoy”). Cognate with Tibetan སྤྲོ (spro, “to delight in, wish”) (STEDT: pyaw "happy").
The "dissolve" sense is grouped with the "happy" sense by MED, though it is unclear if they are truly related, and STEDT gives no etymology for the former (pjɔ²² "dissolve").

cog

particle suffixed to certain nouns to describe a person who has an attachment for a particular place or environment


လိုက်

my-verb

လိုက် • (luik)


လှ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-hla (“soul, demon, god; beautiful”) (STEDT).

inh

particle suffixed to verbs to convey the meaning of “very, too, extremely”


လတ်

(of size, age, class, etc.) middle; medium


လတ်

verbal affix used for euphonic or emphatic purpose


ငယ်

Inherited from Old Burmese ငဲ, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m/s-ŋa-j (“small; inferior; offspring”). Compare Old Chinese 兒 (OC *ŋeː, *ŋje, “child; diminutive suffix”) (STEDT).
MED appears to consider the "mouse deer" sense etymologically equivalent to the "small" sense, due to the chevrotain's small size.


ခဲ့

particle suffixed to verbs to emphasize definitiveness of an action or condition


လည်း

(when doubled, in negative clauses) neither... nor; not only... but also


နော်

my-noun

နော် • (nau)

(honorific) a title used by S'gaw Karen women


အပ်

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tV-qəp (“needle”). Cognate with Drung wvp and Lolopo hhexr, as well as Old Chinese 針 (OC *kjum, *kjums, “needle”) (with the literature usually comparing the less-common variants 鍼 (OC *ɡam, *ɡram, *kjɯm) and 箴 (OC *kjɯm)) (STEDT).
MED groups the "put things together, proper" senses with the "needle" sense, though it is unclear whether they are etymologically related. Luce's comparison of the "proper" sense with Old Chinese 合 (OC *kuːb, *ɡuːb, “to join, fit”) is phonetically unsound.

(of face, etc.) to place or put things close together

to place an order (with a tailor or shoemaker, etc.)


အောင်

my-verb

အောင် • (aung)

→ Mon: အံၚ်

→ Shan: ဢွင်ႇ (ʼàung)

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese *ʔoŋ¹ (“win, complete”); forms outside Lolo-Burmese, like Jingpho [script needed] (ʔōŋ, “to conquer, overcome”), are probably borrowed from Burmese (STEDT). Note also similarities to Old Chinese 贏 (OC *leŋ, “to win”) (which is constructed with a uvular *ɢ by Baxter and Sagart; uvulars in Proto-Sino-Tibetan seem to be dropped in Burmese).

cog

to pass (go through any inspection or test successfully); to succeed


အောင်

my-particle

အောင် • (aung)

အတွေးအခေါ် ရင့်သန်အောင် စာ များများ ဖတ်သင့်တယ်။

a.twe:a.hkau rang.sanaung ca mya:mya: hpatsang.tai||

You have to read a lot in order for your mind to grow.

(colloquial) in order to, to (indicating purpose)


အောင်

head

အောင် • (aung)

my-proper noun

အောင် • (aung)


ပြီးပြီ

ပြီး (pri:, “to finish”) + ပြီ (pri, “yet”)

affix

ဆိုင်ကို သွားပြီးပြီ။

have already (done something), (in questions and negatives) have done something yet


တော်

my-verb

တော် • (tau)

According to STEDT:
* The "related" sense is from a Proto-Tibeto-Burman *daw (“to be related”), with Jingpho dō (“related”) as the only adduced cognate.
* The "suitable" (as well as perhaps "clever") senses are from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *taːp ~ *m-daw (“capable, fit, beautiful”), and cognate with Jingpho htap (“beautiful, capable”).
The "rumbling noise", "stop", and "honorific" senses are not listed by STEDT, though the "honorific" sense could be an extension of the "suitable, clever" sense. Note similarities to Old Chinese 調 (OC *dɯːw, *dɯːws, *tɯw, “to adjust, train; matching; style”), though the vowels do not seem to match.


တော်

my-noun

တော် • (tau)

တော်နေရာ တော်နေရာ#Burmese

first out of the five blocks of seats to which courtiers attending an audience given by the king are assigned according to protocol (same as တော်နေရာ (taunera))


တော်

head

တော် • (tau)

my-pronoun

တော် • (tau)

(women's speech, familiar, informal) you (second person pronoun)


တော်

head

တော် • (tau)

my-suffix

တော် • (tau)

ဆံတော်

denotes power, sacredness, reverence or royalty


မောင်း

particle suffixed to some color terms to indicate deep shade in color


နိုး

particle suffixed to a verb to denote hope or expectation


ရိုး

Inherited from Old Burmese ရိုဝ်း (ruiw). The "bone" sense is from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *rus (“bone”). MED groups all other senses etymologically together with the "bone" sense, which seems to be tentatively supported by Luce 1981 but not by STEDT, which gives no etymology for the "simple" sense (rûi "plain, simple; artless; honest; old-fashioned"). The various senses may perhaps be linked with the following semantic shifts: "bone" > "handle" > "long stretch or row" > "lineage" > "tradition, custom" > "usual and customary" > "simple, honest".

inh+

particle suffixed to a verb, denoting veracity of a proposition


ချင်း

och-l

彊 (OC *kaŋs, *ɡaŋ, *ɡaŋʔ, “two keeping faithfully together”)

(obsolete) (third person pronoun: he, she, it)


ချင်း

particle suffixed to nouns to indicate one-by-one sequence

particle suffixed to verbs to denote simultaneous action

particle suffixed to nouns to indicate reciprocity or co-equality


ဖက်

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *pʷak (“half, one of a pair”); cognate with Jingpho [script needed] (bàʔ, “folded”) (STEDT). Luce compares Old Chinese 併 (OC *breːŋʔ, *breːŋs, *peŋʔ, *peŋs, *beːŋʔ, “side by side”) for the "one of a pair" sense.


ဖိုး

ဘိုး ဘိုး#Burmese


မို့

မို့လို့ မို့လို့#Burmese

(same as မို့လို့ (mui.lui.)) particle suffixed to nouns and pronouns: "because (it was you)", "only"


မြ

Possibly from Sanskrit मरकत (marakata, “emerald”) or Pali marakata (“emerald”). Compare Tibetan མར་གད (mar gad, “emerald”).


မြ

→ Shan: မျႃႉ (mjâ̰a)

→ Mon: မြ


မြ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *(m/b)rak (“to cut; to tear; to maul; to lacerate”). Related to မြက် (mrak, “to be sharp-edged; keen-edged”).

inh

particle indicating a noticeable sensation


ဩ

An independent vowel letter of the Burmese alphabet.


ကြိုဆိုပါ၏

(literary) postpositional marker placed at the end of an affirmative sentence (followed by interrogative particle in the case of an interrogative sentence)


ကျွန်

particle suffixed to verbs to denote affectation


သည်

Proto-Tibeto-Burman *sin (“body, owner, agentive nominalizer”)

-er, -ist (particle suffixed to some nouns to denote a practitioner of some trade or a person in a particular plight or situation)


မြောက်

my-verb

မြောက် • (mrauk)


ဆန်း

Borrowed from Pali chanda. Doublet of ဆန္ဒ (hcanda.).


ဆန်း

particle suffixed to a verb to convey the meaning of “no more than”


ရဲ

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman *s-(r/y/w)ay (“bold, heroic”). Cognate with Mizo [Term?] (huāi, “bold, daring”) (STEDT). Luce additionally adduces Old Chinese 烈 (OC *red, “ardent, fiery”) as a cognate. This is semantically appealing, though the final in the Old Chinese reconstruction does not seem to match.
The senses of "brave", "bright red", "rampant", and "police" are all grouped together by MED.

inh

particle suffixed to verbs to denote the sense of having the courage to do something


သလား

to go up and down; to promenade; to parade (to attract attention)


သော

(literary) particle suffixed to a word to form an adjective


စလုံး

particle conveying the sense " all; without exception" with reference to the number of people, things, etc. preceding it


ချက်

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese *ʔ-kyakᴴ (“rope, cord, navel”), from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *kyak (“navel, umbilical cord, rope”), mainly attested in Lolo-Burmese and Qiangic; cognate with Akha [script needed] (tjaq, “rope”). The Tibeto-Burman root is possibly cognate with Old Chinese 弋 (OC *lɯɡ, “to shoot arrow (with string attached)”) and/or 繳 (OC *kleːwʔ, *kljewɢ, *ɡreːɡ, “string attached to arrow”), with the latter more phonologically likely; however, the reconstruction of the former makes a connection unlikely, and the latter's reconstruction is uncertain due to internal inconsistencies in the Middle Chinese readings (STEDT).


တောင်း

particle which serves to emphasize the verb or adjective preceding it


ကြိမ်

my-particle

ကြိမ် • (krim)

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman *k/g-r(u/i)m (“to meet”); compare Jingpho khrum (“to meet”) (STEDT).

inh

နှစ်ကြိမ်


ချေ

used at or near the end of a clause or sentence for emphatic or euphonic effect; also used to soften the force of a request or a denial

(colloquial) particle conveying the sense of impending event


တွက်

→ Jingpho: tak

→ Mon: တော်

→ Shan: ထွၵ်ႈ (thāuk)

Provisionally inherited from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *twak (“to calculate, count, tally”); cognate with Tedim Chin tuak (STEDT). Said root may be connected to Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-twa (“handspan”), in which case see Old Chinese 度 (OC *daːɡs, *daːɡ, “degree, capacity”) for more.

och-l

to do or work out arithmetical sums; solve mathematical problem; calculate; compute

to refuse to do things because others would not


တွက်

numerical classifier used in counting the snapping of fingers


အဲ

eighth in the set of twelve vowels traditionally taught in the learning of the Burmese language


ပြင်း

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *brwaŋ (“loud; bright”) (STEDT). Cognate with Burmese ပြောင် (praung, “to shine”) and Old Chinese 明 (OC *mraŋ, “bright”), 炳 (OC *praŋʔ, “bright, luminous”).

inh

particle infixed to verbs emphasizing the intolerable nature of a particular situation


ရှာ

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese *s/g-(y/r)a (“to seek, search, look for”), with no certain cognates outside of Lolo-Burmese (STEDT). Luce adduces Old Chinese 搜 (OC *sru, “to seek, look for”) as a cognate, which appears reasonable given the semantics and Old Chinese reconstruction.
Despite similar modern pronunciations, almost certainly unrelated to Korean 찾 (chat, “to find”).

ငါ့ မျက်မှန်ကို ရှာပေး!


အလား

Perhaps from အ- (a.-, “nominal prefix”) + လား (la:, “to reach, go”).

af

particle suffixed to a noun to denote similarity: like, as


ခဲ

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *(g/k)aː(r/l) (“solid, congealed, frozen, viscous, strong”). Cognates include Tibetan [script needed] (gar-ba, “strong”), Old Chinese 健 (OC *ɡans, “strong, healthy”) (STEDT).


ခဲ

ကမ္ဘာကျော်တွေရဲ့ မြင်ရခဲတဲ့ မင်္ဂလာဆောင်ဓာတ်ပုံများ

The celebrity wedding photos that are rarely seen

ရန်ကုနမှာ နှင်းကျခဲတယ်

particle suffixed to a verb to denote rarity, uncertainty, or tardiness in its occurrence: rarely, hardly ever, seldom


မည်

Cognate with Garo বিমুং (bimuŋ, “name”), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *r-miŋ (“name; to name”).

inh

numerical classifier for counting ingredients of a drug or kinds of dishes served


သမား

→ Mon: သမာ

Borrowed from Mon သမာ. Despite similar phonetics and semantics, likely unrelated to Japanese 様 (sama, “polite suffix”).

particle suffixed to the name of some trade or activity to denote a person's proficiency in it

particle suffixed to the name of a certain substance or gambling game to denote a person's addiction to it


ကုန်

my-noun

ကုန် • (kun)

→ Jingpho: gun

→ Shan: ၵုၼ်ႇ (kùn)


ကုန်

my-verb

ကုန် • (kun)

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *(m-)kul (“all”). The "come to an end, be used up" sense is considered separate from the "all" sense by STEDT, but equivalent by MED, perhaps via semantic extension from "all" > "all used".


ကုန်

my-particle

ကုန် • (kun)

စာမေးပွဲ ကျကုန်တာပဲ

particle following a verb to denote plurality or totality:

ရှတ်အင်္ကျီ ပေကုန်ပီ


ပြ

Inherited from Old Burmese ပ္လ. According to Luce, related to Tibetan པྲ (pra, “sign, token, prognostic”). Note also the resemblance to Old Chinese 表 (OC *prawʔ, “to show; surface, exterior”). Mon ပၠ.

och-l

particle suffixed to a verb to convey the sense of demonstrating or relating something


စမ်း

探 (OC *l̥ʰuːm, *l̥ʰuːms, “to grope for, search”)

參 (OC *sʰluːm, *sʰluːms, *sloːm, *sʰrum, *srum, “to inspect, participate”)

ပြောစမ်းပါအုံး

မလုပ်စမ်းပါနဲ့

(colloquial) Indicates urgency in an imperative, suffixed to a verb.


တကာ

နေရာတကာ

နိုင်ငံတကာ


မိ

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese *s/ʔ-mi¹ (“to catch, overtake”), though STEDT adduces no additional cognates (and Luce 1981 makes no mention of this word).

och-l

眯 (OC *miːʔ, “to get dust in one's eye, blind”)

particle suffixed to verbs to convey the meaning of "happen to"


မော

耗 (OC *hmaːws, “to reduce, cripple, use up”)

word suffixed to some verbs or adjectives as an intensifier: very, exceedingly


စေ့

齊 (OC *zliːl, *zliːls, “to order, arrange”)

to come up to a specified number or time


ခြင်း

တိုးတက်ခြင်း


ပြု

造 (OC *skʰuːɡs, *sɡuːʔ, “to do, make, build”)

to do; to act; to commit; to pursue some course of action


အတိုင်း

particle infixed between nouns to effect a simile


သည့်

particle suffixed to a word to form an adjective


တဲ့

(colloquial) suffixed to a word to form an adjective or adjective clause


တဲ့

(colloquial) suffixed to a phrase or sentence to denote reported speech


ပက်

particle suffixed to a verb or noun as emphasis


ကဲ

According to Hill (2019), the "overdo" sense is related to Old Chinese 嘉 (OC *kraːl, “excellent, auspicious; to praise”).
It is unclear whether the "oversee" sense is related to the "overdo" sense, though MED groups them together.

to overdo, exceed, go beyond accepted limit


တာ

cog

Proto-Kuki-Chin *taʔ (“to gauge, measure”)

och-l

圖 (OC *daː, “diagram; to plot, plan; to draw”)

(colloquial) particle suffixed to verbs and adjectives to form nouns, similar to a gerund (-ing)


သမ

Perhaps related to သမား (sa.ma:) or a contraction of သူမ (suma.).

word indicating a female practitioner of some art or trade


ကြောင်း

particle suffixed to verbs to form nouns


ပင်

Possibly from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *(b/p)ul (“root; stump; tree”). Cognate with Old Chinese 本 (OC *pɯːnʔ, “source; root”). Luce tentatively gives 萌 (OC *mreːŋ, “sprout”) as a cognate.

inh

numerical classifier used in counting tall upright things (trees, plants, poles, etc.) and long strands (hair, thread, etc.)


ပင်

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman *baŋ (“tired, exhausted”), and cognate with the first syllable of Kaang Chin [Term?] (bɔŋ³⁵ kʉ³¹, “tired”). This root is very likely allofamic with Proto-Tibeto-Burman *bal (“tired, thirsty”), whence ပန်း (pan:, “tired”) (STEDT).

cog

(especially in compounds) to be laden, be heavy, be weighed down, be weary


ပင်

particle suffixed to a word for emphasis


ပေ

corypha palm; talipot palm (Corypha elata, Corypha umbraculifera)


ပေ

particle suffixed to a verb for emphasis

particle suffixed to a noun to denote certainty


ကွာ

Base form of ခွာ (hkwa, “to pull away, peel”).


ကွာ

(colloquial) word interjected when speaking to one's peers or to a younger person


ချ

Inherited from Old Burmese ခ္လ (kla), derived from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *(k/g)la-k/y/t (“to fall”). Cognate with Mizo tla ~ tlâk (“to fall”) and Old Chinese 下 (OC *ɡraːʔ, *ɡraːs, “lower; under; to go down”). By synchronic analysis, the causative of ကျ (kya.) (STEDT).

och-l

to cause to fall, put down, bring down, drop, lower


ချ

particle often suffixed to certain verbs for emphasis

particle suffixed to certain verbs to convey the sense equivalent to "down"


တိုင်း

particle suffixed to nouns to convey the sense "every"


တမ်း

cog

Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g-tam ~ g-dam (“to talk, speak”)

ငွေတစ်ထောင်တမ်း

မခွဲတမ်း

လုပ်မြဲတမ်း

ပျော်မြဲတမ်း


စရာ

မေးစရာရှိပါတယ်.

a particle suffixed to a verb to form a verbal noun or adjective


ဖို

Tibetan ཕྱོགས (phyogs, “direction; for the sake of”)

a word suffixed to a noun to denote maleness

a term to differentiate one from the other in a pair of opposites


ရွက်

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman *rwak (“leaf, leaflike part”). Cognate with the second syllable of Japhug [Term?] (tɐ jwɐk, “leaf”) (STEDT); an older theory by Luce also connects the word to Old Chinese 喬 (OC *krew, *ɡrew, “section on the shaft of a spear near the spearhead for hanging a feather; panache-hanger”), though this seems outdated.
The "carry on the head" sense is considered identical to the "leaf" sense by MED, but separate by STEDT (which doesn't assign etymology: rwak "carry on head") and Luce, the latter who compares Old Chinese 頍 (OC *kʰʷeʔ, “to raise one's head”).

och-l

particle suffixed to a verb to denote responsibility for some task


ရစ်

From Proto-Lolo-Burmese *r-sik ~ *s-yik (“to twist”), from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *sik (“to pinch, twist”); cognate with Mizo [Term?] (sìk-I, sìh-II, “to pinch or nip (with the finger nails), to pluck”) (STEDT).


ရစ်

numerical classifier for counting installments, stages, chevrons, stripes, etc.


ရစ်

word suffixed to a verb to indicate being left behind


လေ့

particle suffixed to a verb to denote a habit


စီ

och-l

齊 (OC *zliːl, *zliːls, “even, uniform, along a line”)

particle suffixed to numerical classifiers indicating equal distribution


လော

與 (OC *la, *laʔ, *las, “exclamation indicating doubt”)

particle suffixed to a noun to denote interrogation


တုန်း

my-particle

တုန်း • (tun:)

particle suffixed to verbs to denote continuing action or state: still, currently


တော့

to toss or throw up something repeatedly into the air with one's head, hand, foot, etc.


တော့

particle suffixed to verbs to indicate finality


တော့

particle suffixed to verb as an emphasis, equivalent in usage to the adverb "when"


ပေါ

numerical classifier for bundles of seedlings


ရော

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *rjaw (“to mix”). Cognate with Old Chinese 交 (OC *kreːw, “to intersect, mingle”); see there for more (STEDT).

particle suffixed to a noun to denote inclusion: also, as well as, etc.


တည့်

(of people) to be compatible, agree, be on good terms


ချီ

For the "lift, carry" sense, from Proto-Lolo-Burmese *kyi¹˜² (“to lift, raise”), from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kyi (“to lift, raise, awake”). Cognate with Akha [script needed] (tjhì, “to lift”), Old Chinese 起 (OC *kʰɯʔ, “to rise, raise”) (STEDT).
It is unclear if the particle and classifier senses are etymologically connected, though MED groups them together.

inh

particle often suffixed to certain nouns to form adverbial phrases of time, number or manner


ချီ

numerical classifier used in counting number of performances or shows


မို့လို့

မို့ (mui., “because”) + လို့ (lui., “because”).

af

particle suffixed to nouns and pronouns: "because (it was you)", "only"


မြဲ

particle suffixed to verbs: as always, as usual


လွန်း

particle suffixed to verbs or adjectives to convey the meaning of "excessive"


လင့်

From Proto-Tibeto-Burman *ljaŋ (“to wait”); cognate with Lahu [Term?] (lɔ¹, “to wait”) (STEDT).

လင့်စင် လင့်စင်#Burmese

(same as လင့်စင် (lang.cang)) scaffold used for shooting big game; watchtower


စေ

och-l

使 (OC *srɯʔ, *srɯs, “to order, send someone, use”)

particle suffixed to a verb denoting effectuation


ကိုင်း

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *kuːŋ (“tree, branch, stem”) (whence also ခိုင် (hkuing, “stalk, strong”)), which is perhaps an old loan from Mon-Khmer, according to Schuessler. See Old Chinese 弓 (OC *kʷɯŋ, “bow (weapon); curved”) for more (STEDT).

inh

အကိုင်း အကိုင်း#Burmese

(same as အကိုင်း (a.kuing:)) branch, limb (of a tree)


ကိုင်း

particle prefixed to a phrase or sentence to gain the attention of the addressee, comparable to the expression "well"


ခန့်

cog

Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ka(n/ŋ) (“to know, see”)

och-l

看 (OC *kʰaːn, *kʰaːns, “to look, consider, observe”)

particle suffixed to nouns to indicate that quantity mentioned is an approximate number: about, around, approximately


ရော့

သွားရော့လဟယ်။

ပြောရော့မယ်။

particle suffixed to a verb for emphasis


မျှ

particle suffixed to numerical classifiers to denote the notion of "about" or "approximately"

emphatic particle used in negative imperatives or statements


လိမ့်

my-particle

လိမ့် • (lim.)

Abbreviated form of လိမ့်မည် (lim.many, “probably”), with further analysis of the syllable unclear.

suffixed after verbs to indicate possible uncertainty: probably


ဟာ

particle used to emphasize disapprobation


ဝံ့

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s/m-wam (“to dare”); compare Mizo huam (“to dare”), as well as perhaps Old Chinese 敢 (OC *klaːmʔ, “to dare”) (STEDT).

particle suffixed to a verb to convey the meaning "dare"


ငဲ့

(poetic, same as ရဲ့ (rai.)) of, 's (indicating possession)


နီးပါး

နီး (ni:, “near”) + ပါး (pa:, “thin, sharp, sparse”).

af

နီးနီး နီးနီး#Burmese

(same as နီးနီး (ni:ni:)) nearly, almost


သင့်

och-l

相 (OC *slaŋ, *slaŋs, “reciprocal, evaluate for oneself”)


တရ

af

တ (ta., “adverbial prefix”) + ရ (ra., “to attain”)

particle prefixed to some verbs and adjectives to form adverbs and also for intensive effect


ဟယ်

particle suffixed to a verb to convey a note of disapprobation


တိတိ

Reduplication of တိ (ti., “to trim, pare”).

reduplication

particle denoting that something is exactly equal to the number or amount aforementioned: exactly, no more no less, spot on


အနှုန်း

အ- (a.-, “nominal prefix”) + နှုန်း (hnun:, “rate; to compare”).

af

ငွေလအနှုန်း

တနှုန်း တနှုန်း#Burmese

(same as တနှုန်း (ta.hnun:)) particle denoting that the preceding noun is employed as an object of comparison: like, similar to


ပေ့

(colloquial) particle suffixed to a verb for emphasis


ဟင်

(colloquial) exclamation registering disappointment, disapproval, or surprise


ဟင်

word used as a sentence final in questions and solicitations

word used as a prefix to denote incomprehension: pardon, I beg your pardon, etc.