Pali, as I’ve discovered (after learning to read and write) how much Pali and Pali-derived words are a part of daily conversation. Without Pali, the Burmese would be at a loss for words, literally. Deciding which one to use when I try to spell by sound is practically impossible without a dictionary, unless I bet on the 50/50 chance that one of the two is correct. A dizzying number of Burmese words use the -y- medial. This is perhaps my biggest pet peeve in writing in Burmese. However, modern day Burmese has basically merged the ‘r’ sound into the ‘y’ sound, so there are now two medials for the same pronunciation. In olden times, the two symbols stood for two different pronunciations, -r- and -y- respectively (so ‘Myanma’ today was once pronounced ‘Mranma’). In Burmese, there are two different spellings for for the ‘-y-‘ medial (as in ‘M yanma’), called ya-yit (ြ) and ya-pin (ျ). However, it has its fair share of oddities, mostly found in spelling. Its letters are simple and in general, pronunciation follows spelling. To be fair, Burmese isn’t the hardest language in the world to learn how to read and write. Tipitaka stone inscriptions at Kuthodaw Pagoda
