Adoniram Judson

“ The Burmese language recognizes no grammatical or artificial gender, but that only which consists in the distinction of the sexes, viz, the masculine and the feminine.
§56. The two genders are distinguished, sometimes by different words, as ယောက်ျား, a man, မိမ္မ, a woman; sometimes by regarding the simple noun as masculine, and affixing မ for feminine, as ရဟန်း, a priest (of Boodh) , ရဟန်းမ, a priestess; and sometimes by affixing ထီး, or ဖ, or ဖို, for the masculine, and မ for the feminine; as ခွေးထီး, a dog, ခွေးမ, a bitch; ကြက်ဖ, a cock, ကြက်မ, a hen; ငန်းဖို, a gander, ငန်းမ, a goose. ”

“ Adjectives are of three kinds, pronominal, verbal, and numeral.
§80. Adjectives of either kind are prefixed to their nouns, by means of the connective သည် or သော, if singular, and the same, or ကုန်​သည်, or ကုန်​သော, if plural, or directly affixed. But to this general rule there are several exceptions, particularly in the pronominals.
§81. An adjective and noun united in either way form a compound word, which admits the plural affix and the affixes of cases, the same as a simple noun. ”

“ The comparative degree is made, by means of the secondary noun အထက်, or အောက်, and verb, as အိမ်​ထက်​ကြီး​သည်, to be greater than the house, or by a circumlocution of verbs, as သာ​၍​ကြီး​သည်, to exceed in greatness, or be greater. ”

“ The letters of the first or က class are gutturals (ကဏ္ဍဇာ [1] ) ; those of the second or စ class are palatals (‌တာလုဇာ) ; those of the third or ဋ class are cerebrals (မုဒ္ဓဇာ) ; those of the fourth or တ class are dentals (ဒန္တ‌ဇာ) ; and those of the fifth or ပ class are labials (ဩဋ္ဌဇာ) . §8. The first letter of each class is a simple articulation, smooth and soft; the third is the same, rough and hard; the second is the aspirate of the first; the fourth, according to the Nagari system, is the aspirate of the third, but according to the Burmese pronunciation, is the same ”

“ The negative is made by prefixing မ to the verb, which, beside its negative power, has the privilege of occasionally dispensing with the assertive affixes, or of conveying an assertive power to the root, or to the qualifying and euphonic affixes of number, and the auxiliary affixes of tense, all of which, in affirmative sentences, require an assertive affix, thus သွား​သည်, he goes, မ​သွား, or မ​သွား​ဘူး, he goes not ”

“ The noun affixes may be distributed into nine classes, viz, the Nominative, the Objective, the Possessive, the Dative, the Causative, the Instrumentive, the Connective, the Locative, and the Ablative.
nominative.
§59. သည် is the most common nominative affix, denoting the agent or subject of the verb; as ထို​လူ​သည်​ကောင်း​၏, that man is good; but in simple sentences, it is most commonly omitted; as သူ​ကောင်း​သည်, he is good; also in participial clauses, ဆ​ရာ​ပြော​သော​စ​ကား the words which the teacher speaks. ”

“ Most verbal nouns retain the same power of government as their verbs, that is, cause the preceding noun to take the same affix as their verbs do, as ဇာတ်​ကို​ဟော​စ​ပြု​သည်, he makes a beginning of rehearsing the zat; ဇာတ်​ကို​ဟော​တော်​မူ​သည်, he rehearses the zat, or he does rehearsing the zat ”

“ Names of races of men, of countries, towns, &c. when used to qualify a following noun, as အင်္ဂ​လိတ်, an Englishman, အင်္ဂ​လိတ်​လူ, ditto, အင်္ဂ​လိတ်​ပြည်, England, the country of the English; မြမ္မာ, a Burmese, မြမ္မာ​စ​ကား, the Burmese language; ရန်​ကုန်, Rangoon, the town of Rangoon, ရန်​ကုန်​မြို့, ditto ရန်​ကုန်​သား, or ရန်​ကုန်​မြို့​သား, a son, or native of Rangoon. ”

“ To these may be added a number of verbs, which are occasionally used to qualify a principal verb, as,—
အပ်, to be right, proper, as သွား​အပ်​သည်, it is right to go; sometimes passive, in translation from the Pali, particularly when used as an adversative to တတ်; frequently euphonic.
အား to be at leisure, as သွား​အား​သည်, to be at leisure to go.
ကောင်း, to be good, as သွား​ကောင်း​သည်, it is good to go.
ခဲ, to be hard, difficult, as ရခဲ​သည်, it is difficult to obtain.
စမ်း, to try, make trial, as ပြုစမ်း​သည်, to do by way of trial; sometimes but little more than euphonic. ”

“ The verbal in ရာ, from အလျာ or အလျှာ, what is for, commonly written စရာ, the verbal in ဖို့, or ဘို့, from အဖို့, a portion, and the verbal in ရန် (from ရန်​သည်, to appropriate) , denote what is for some purpose, as စား​စ​ရာ, what is for eating, or to be eaten; ကြည့်​ဘို့ what is to be looked at; ပြုရန်, what is to be done.
4th. The verbal in ဖွယ် or ဘွယ်, sometimes စချင်​ဘွယ်, from ဘဖွယ်, what is suitable, denotes what is fit for, adapted to, or worthy of some use or purpose, as စား​ဘွယ်, what is good to eat, an eatable; အံ့ဘွယ် what is wonderful; ချစ်​စ​ချင်​ဘွယ်, what is lovely. ”

“ It is used with the vowels ဧ, အဲ, ဩော, အို, and the nasal consonants.
§39. The short heavy accent (း) , called ဝတ်​စ​နှစ်​လုံး, the two round woot-tsahs, or ရှေ့​ပေါက်, the dots before (after) , is placed after the latter, thus ကန်း. It is used with the vowels အာ, ဤ, ဦ, ဧ, အို, and the nasal consonants. This accent is considered as inherent in the vowel အဲ (unless superseded by the light accent) , and in the final consonant မ်, when combined with the vowel အ. In the latter case it is frequently omitted as superfluous; and in the former case, almost uniformly, in modern usage. ”

“ In colloquial discourse, a strong negative is sometimes made by affixing ရိုး​လား, to the root, or မို့​တုံး, a contraction of မတုတ်​တုံး, to an assertive affix, as သွား​ရိုး​လား, or သွား​သည်​မို့​တုံး, he goes not. ”

“ Adverbs proper, as ဧကန်, certainly, အလ​ကား, in vain, လား​လား, an intensive before a negative, as လား​လား​မ​ပြော, he says nothing at all, ခပ်, rather, prefixed to adjectives, formed from verbal roots by reduplication.
2. Pronominal adjectives used to modify a following verb, as အဘယ်​သို့​နေ​သ​နည်း, how does (he) remain? ထို​သို့​နေ​သည်, (he) remains thus; or combined with a secondary noun and similarly applied, as ဘယ်​လောက်​ကြီး​သ​နည်း, how large is (it) ? သည်​က​လောက်, properly သည်​ခန့်​လောက်​ကြီး​သည်, (it) is so large. How? ”

“ Adverbs formed from nouns, beginning with a syllabic အ, by dropping the အ, prefixing တ, one, and affixing တည်း, only, as တညီ​တ​ညီ, even, all together, from အညီ, evenness, uniformity.
7. Incomplete clauses, as အကယ်၍, certainly, for အကယ်​ဖြစ်၍; အထူး​သ​ဖြင့်, exceedingly, for အထူး​ဖြစ်​သ​ဖြင့်.
8. Adverbial affixes, as follows:—
ကဲ့သို့, as, like as.
ချည်း, only, merely, nothing but, as လူတို့​ချည်း, men only, nothing but men, သွား​သည်​ချည်း; he only goes, does nothing but go.
စင်, even, slightly emphatic.
စီ, each, as တယောက်စီ, each one, ကိုယ်စီ, ditto; apiece, as တခုစီ one a piece. ”

“ The true epoch of Burman time is the annihilation of Gaudama, the last Boodh or deity, which is placed five hundred and fourty-four years before Christ; but the vulgar epoch is placed eleven hundred and eighty-two years later, or six hundred and thirty-eight years after Christ. ”

“ St. ↑ The latter sound especially obtains, when the initial letter is ည, ယ, ရ, or a consonant compounded with the symbol ယ or ရ [ee, as in been. St.] ↑ Or it. St. ↑ Ei, as in vein, skein, St. ↑ Ai, as in air. St. ↑ Ŏ, as oo in foot. St. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Ooa, as oo in foot, or soon. St. ↑ Ei as in vein, skein, St. ↑ Pron. myit-ta. St. ↑ Pron. မျည် St. ↑ မင်း is also feminine. St. ↑ သ like th in the. St. Notes ”