REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF
UNITED NATIONS ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
Version 4.0, September 2013

Burmese

No romanization systems for Burmese have been put forward at the United Nations conferences on the standardization of geographical names or at sessions of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names. Currently there is no official system of romanization in Myanmar. In 1989 the government of Myanmar changed the Roman-alphabet spellings of the names of several cities in Myanmar to bring them closer to Burmese pronunciation but this was done on an ad hoc basis¹.

The only known romanization system of Burmese is that of the BGN and the PCGN (1970) which is based on the 1907 version of the Tables for the Transliteration of Burmese into English, published in 1908 by the Office of the Superintendent, Government Printing, Rangoon, Burma.

Burmese uses an alphasyllabic script. The romanization is not reversible to its original script form.

System of romanization

The BGN/PCGN 1970 System² is given below.

I. Consonant characters

1	က	kaA
2	ခ	kaA
3	ဂ	ga
4	ဃ	ga
5	င	nga
6	စ	saA
7	ဆ	saA
8	ဇ	za
9	ဈ	za
10	ည	nyaB
11	ဋ	taA
12	ဌ	taA
13	ဍ	da
14	ဎ	da
15	ဏ	na
16	တ	taA
17	ထ	taA
18	ဒ	da
19	ဓ	da
20	န	na
21	ပ	paA
22	ဖ	paA
23	ဗ	ba
24	ဘ	ba
25	မ	ma
26	ယ	ya
27	ရ	ya
28	လ	la
29	ဝ	wa
30	သ	thaC
31	ဟ	ha
32	ဠ	la
33	အ	aD

• ^A See note 1.
• ^B Syllable-final variant character: ဥ.
• ^C Syllable-final variant character: ဿ.
• ^D See note 3.

II. Independent vowel characters (see also note 4)

1	ဣ	i
2	ဤ	i
3	ဥ	u
4	ဦ	u
5	၏	eA
6	ဧ	e
7	ဩ	awB

• ^A This character is actually an abbreviation, a genitive/declarative marker.
• ^B Also used in combination with abbreviated vowel characters: ဩော, ဪ.

III. Abbreviated vowel characters (က stands for any consonant character)

1	ကံ	an
2	ကာ	aA
3	ကိ	i
4	ကီ	i
5	ကု	uB
6	ကူ	uB
7	ကဲ	è
8	ကော	awA
9	ကော်‌	awA
10	ကို	oB
11	ကေ	e

• ^A To avoid graphic confusion with some other characters, ာ and ာ် are lengthened upwards after consonant characters ခ ka, ဂ ga, င nga, ဒ da, ပ pa, and ဝ wa, e.g. ခါ ka, ခေါ်‌ kaw. After characters ဇ za, ဌ ta, ဓ da, ဖ pa and ဗ ba this practice seems to be optional.
• ^B If in conflict with another subscript symbol, a vowel character ု or ူ may be written after consonant characters, with a prolonged upper part, e.g. ကျူ kyu, မျိုး myo.

IV. Other symbols (က or မ stands for any consonant character)

1	ကြ	-yA
2	ကျ	-yB
3	ကွ	-w
4	မှ	h-C
5	င်္	in-D
6	က်	(E)

• ^A Exceptional romanization: ခြ cha (see also note 1).
• ^B Exceptional romanization: ချ cha (see also note 1).
• ^C Adds h before the consonant, e.g. မှ hma; exceptional romanization: ရှ sha.
• ^D Adds -in to the end of the preceding syllable: ဘင်္ဂလားအော် Bin-gala Aw.
• ^E End-of-syllable mark (marks the absence of the inherent vowel).

Symbols 1, 2 and 3 may also occur in combinations: ကြွ -yw, ကျွ -yw.

V. Syllable endings (က stands for any initial consonant character; syllables beginning with ဝ /w/ may have different romanization equivalents, these are also listed below)

1	ကက်	et
2	ကိုက်	aik
3	ကောက်	auk
4	ကင်	in
5	ကိုင်	aing
6	ကောင်	aung
7	ကစ်	it
8	ကိဇ်	eik
9	ကည်	i, in, eA
10	ကတ်	at
11	ကိတ်	eik
12	ကုတ်	ôk
13	ကွတ်	ut
14	ဝတ်	wut
15	ကေတ်	it
16	ကန်	an
17	ကိန်	ein
18	ကုန်	ôn
19	ကွန်	un
20	ဝန်	wun
21	ကပ်	at
22	ကိပ်	eik
23	ကုပ်	ôk
24	ကွပ်	ut
25	ကမ်	an
26	ကိမ်	ein
27	ကုမ်	ôn
28	ကွမ်	un
29	ဝမ်	wun
30	ကယ်	è
31	ကဥ်	in
32	ကံ	an
33	ကိံ	ein
34	ကုံ	ôn
35	ဝံ	wun

• ^A The choice of romanization depends on the actual pronunciation.

Notes

1. Certain consonant sounds change their value if used after any vowel letter or nasal consonant except as cited in note 5. The changes, as expressed in Roman letters, are the following: ch > gy, k > g, p > b, s > z, t > d.
2. In romanization, -a is always accompanying the Burmese consonant character unless this has got a dependent vowel character or an end-of-syllable mark: မဒမ madama.
3. At the beginning of a word, the character အ should not be romanized, unless followed by a consonant character that does not bear a vowel character or an end-of-syllable mark, in which case the character အ should be romanized a: အကာ aga, but အိုဘဲ့ obè, အပ် at. At the beginning of a medial or final syllable, အ should be rendered by a hyphen: မအူ ma-u, သီးပင်အိုင် Thibin-aing.
4. The independent vowel characters should be romanized with a hyphen at the beginning of medial and final syllables: ကြေဧ kye-e.
5. When two consonant characters are written one above the other without an end-of-syllable mark, the upper character should be romanized first, followed by the lower character, and then the vowel and consonant characters, if any: ပည္ဇ panyza, အန္တိမဘဝ andimabawa. Alternative romanizations, as indicated in note 1, do not apply to the upper character: သေတ္တာ thetta, မိစ္ဆာ missa, ဥက္ကဌ ukkada.
6. When the letter n at the end of a syllable is followed by g or y at the beginning of the next syllable, hyphen should be added in between them; similarly hyphen should be used between t and h if they are in different syllables: အင်းကွတ် in-gut (but ဖွေါငန် shwengan).
7. Tone marks ့ and း should not be romanized.

References

1. Government of the Union of Myanmar Notification 5/89. Eighth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, Berlin, 27 August – 5 September 2002. Document E/CONF.94/INF.75.
2. BGN/PCGN Romanization Systems, available at: http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/romanization.html and http://www.pcgn.org.uk/Romanisation_systems.htm.