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Font: Burmese
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Attested as early as the 12th century AD, Burmese script is used to write the Burmese language, as well as languages of the Karen, Taungthu and Mon people in Myanmar (Burma). Based on the model of Brahmi script, Burmese script is a descendant of the extinct Mon script. Since Burmese script used to be inscribed on palm leaves, the strokes had to be kept round to avoid tearing the leaves. Because of its rounded appearance, it resembles the southern group of Indic scripts (e.g. Sinhalese or Malayalam) from which Burmese ultimately descends. Burmese is a syllabic script in which the basic unit is the consonant-based syllable with an inherent [a] vowel.
Burmese is written horizontally from left to right and its basic set of symbols consists of 33 consonants and 14 vowels. Spaces are used to separate phrases, not words; the single vertical bar marks a small break, while the end of a sentence is marked with a double vertical bar. At the beginning of a word, vowels appear in independent form which is based on a fixed 'vowel bearer' modified by diacritics. When used to replace the inherent vowel of a consonantal syllable, vowels appear in diacritic (or satellite) form before, after, above, below or surrounding the modified syllable. The combinations of consonants and diacritic vowels are often represented by special ligatures. Although Burmese is a tonal language, tone is usually not explicitly indicated, but is implied by the vowels used. In a consonant cluster, (i.e. a sequence of consonants without intervening vowels) the secondary consonant often takes the form of a subscript under the primary one. In Burmese, the inherent vowel of a syllable is suppressed by a circular stroke above the character. Burmese has a native set of symbols for the numerals 0 to 9.
1 For a fuller description of the features of Brahmi-derived scripts, see 'Devanagari'.
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