Burmese language

Burmese
Myanmar language
မြန်မာဘာသာ, Mranma bhasa
Pronunciation	[mjəmà bàθà]
Native to	Myanmar China (Dehong) Thailand (Mae Hong Son) India (Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura) Bangladesh (Chittagong)
Native speakers	L1: 33 million (2007)[1] L2: 10 million (no date)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Lolo-Burmese Burmish Burmese
Early forms	Old Burmese Middle Burmese
Writing system	Myanmar Mon–Burmese script Burmese Braille
Official status
Official language in	Myanmar
Regulated by	Myanmar Language Commission
Language codes
ISO 639-1	my
ISO 639-2	bur (B) mya (T)
ISO 639-3	mya – inclusive code Individual codes: mya – Myanmar int – Intha tco – Taungyo rki – Rakhine rmz – Marma ("မရမာ") Tay – Tavoyan dialects
Glottolog	sout3159
Linguasphere	77-AAA-a
Areas where Burmese is spoken (in dark blue those areas where it is more widely spoken). The map does not indicate where the language is a majority or minority.

This article contains Burmese script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Burmese script.

Burmese (Burmese: မြန်မာဘာသာ; MLCTS: Mranma bhasa; pronounced [mjəmà bàθà]) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Myanmar, where it is the official language, lingua franca, and the native language of the Bamar, the country's principal ethnic group. Burmese is also spoken by the indigenous tribes in Chittagong Hill Tracts (Rangamati, Bandarban, Khagrachari, Cox's Bazar) in Bangladesh, and in Tripura state in India. The Constitution of Myanmar officially refers to it as the Myanmar language in English,^[2] though most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese, after Burma—a name with co-official status that had historically been predominantly used for the country. Burmese is the most widely-spoken language in the country, where it serves as the lingua franca.^[3] In 2007, it was spoken as a first language by 33 million.^[4] Burmese is spoken as a second language by another 10 million people, including ethnic minorities in Myanmar like the Mon and also by those in neighboring countries.^[5] In 2022, the Burmese-speaking population was 38.8 million.^{[citation needed]}

Burmese is a tonal, pitch-register, and syllable-timed language,^[6] largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The Burmese alphabet is ultimately descended from a Brahmic script, either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabets.