A Guide to the Romanization of Burmese

Okell, John

1 PRELIMINARY 1.1 Introduction: scope of booklet. 1.2 Abbreviations. 2 THE PROBLEM. 2.1 Sound and symbol: transliteration, transcription and combined systems 2.2 Burmese and the roman alphabet: ways of filling the gaps 3 SURVEY OF THE THREE METHODS OF ROMANIZATION 3.1Transliteration method. 3.2 Transcription method. 3.3 Combined method 3.4 Summary 4 THE THREE METHODS IN DETAIL 4.1 Transliteration 4.1.1 Table 1: Duroiselle' s system 4.1.2 Notes and variants: fi, ai, o2,ui, special vowels, medials, finals, tone marks, punctuation, abbreviations, spacing, Sanskrit letters. 4.1.3 Summary 4.2 Transcription 4.2.1 Table 2: early, conventional, IPA, and typewritten types 4.2.2 Notes and variants: aspirate plosives, palatal affricates, voiced consonants, voiced dental fricative, hush sibilant, nasal consonants, glottal onset, vowels, finals, tones, voicing, spacing. 4.2.3 Summary. 4.3 Combined method. 4.3.1 Table 3: Minn Latt's system 4.3.2 Notes and variants : velar and palatal initials, aspirate plosives, voiced plosives, nj/nj, j/y/r etc, glottal onset, vowels, ut un etc, finals, tones, voicing and spacing. 4.3.3 Summary. 5 CONCLUSION: CHOICE OF SYSTEM. 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 7 REFERENCE TABLES. 7.1 Recommended systems. 7.1.1 Transliteration: Table 4: standard transliteration and variation: sim plified transliteration. 7.1.2 Transcription: Table 5: standard phonetic transcription with standard conventional transcription and variations: phonetic transcription witn voicing marked conventional transcription with accented tones conventional transcription with raised comma tones. 7.2 Major transcriptions in current use: Table 6: 1957 Sprigg, 1955 Stewart, 1944 Cornyn, 1958 Cornyn, 1969 Okell, 1961 Ballard, 1966 Library of Congress, 1930 Government, 1966 Minn Latt.