by Hla Min

Update : 25th October 2026

Language

There are two forms of Myanmar / Burmese language.

• Myanmar Sagar မြန်မာစကား (Oral / spoken)
• Myanmar Sar မြန်မာစာ (Written)

Alphabet

The Alphabet has 33 Eik Khaya အက္ခရာ (letter or character).

Grouping

There are several groups (Wagga ဝဂ္ဂ) of five letters.

Linguists and phonologists refer to the groups as

• Gutturals (Ka group) က ဝဂ်
• Palatels (Sa group) စ ဝဂ်
• Cerebrals (Ta-ta-lin-chaik group) ဋ ဝဂ်
• Dentals (Ta group)
• Labials (Pa group)

• The first group (known as “Ka” wag [or wagga]) consists of
  Ka (Ka gyi), Kha (Kha Gway), Ga (Ga Nge), Ga (Ga Gyi) and Nga.
  Note that the 3rd and 4th members have the same sound.

Basic Rules

• There are some basic rules for “Pa Sint” (where one letter is placed on top of the other).
• One rule says “Eik Khaya Tu, Wag Tu Sint”. It means the two letters forming a “Pa Sint” must be the same, or from the same group.
  So, it is a “No No” to have a Ka on top of Sa.
• Another rule says, “Even for letters within a group, the ordering must be preserved”.
  So, Ka can be put on top of Kha, but not the other way.
  Also, Ga Nge can be put on top of Ga Gyi, but not the other way.

Byee and Thara

• Ah is used as a Byee ဗျည်း (Consonant) and sometimes as a Thara သရ (Vowel).
• A Burmese word can be formed with a Byee and one or more Thara.

Typewriter Keyboard

When the Burmese Keyboard was implemented for a typewriter (e.g. Olympia), the keys are labeled Red (keys that prevent the shifting of the carriage to type Thara) and Black (keys that signal the completion of the word and allows the carriage to advance).

Word Processing

The early Burmese word processing systems use

• transliteration (e.g. on Apple Macintosh computers)
• Thara before Byee (as in the typewriter)
• Byee followed by Thara (which requires processing to delimit the words and to have a canonical ordering for representation).

Issues

• The Myanmar Sar Ah Phwe မြန်မာစာအဖွဲ့ published two major revisions for spelling. It forced publishers to use “Tit” တစ် instead of “Ta” တ (without exception) with a fine of ten pyas for each violation. Scholars pointed out the ancient pagoda had “Bo Ta Htaung” ဗိုလ်တထောင် and not “Bo Tit Htaung” in its inscriptions, but the group who wanted to please Number One prevailed.
• There was a rush to implement Burmese type faces and type fonts.
  The implementations did not have consensus and did not address compliance (e.g. with Unicode).
  They led to the incompatibility issues in the current computer systems, smart phones and devices.
• Short Messaging Systems inadvertently degraded the spelling prowess.

by Hla Min

Update : 15th October 2026

Photo by Saya Dr. Yan Naing Lwin

Jan 19, 1987 · Center for Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University at “DeKalb”- The Center will have its formal opening on July 29 and 30, 1987. Richard Cooler, the Director of the new Center, will send out the detailed announcement !

I have arranged the key note address by U Nu, the first Prime Minister of Burma for the opening ceremony. U Nu also gave a summer class in “Buddhism” prior to the opening ceremony.

Here is a picture that I took of the group as we toured the Lake Shore one day.

You will notice U Nu (First and Last Prime Minister of the Union of Burma), late Professor Than Tun (History, Visiting Scholar in residence) & Mrs. Than Tun. Also, Burmese Lecturer Saya U Kyaw Hlaing. Dr. Cynthia Htaik is just behind U Nu. I still have some hair on my head! The Standard Oil Building can be seen in the back ground.

Standard Oil Building (Chicago), Illinois, is now known as the Aon Center.

Editor’s Notes

• Dr. Yan Naing Lwin is Emeritus Professor and Chair of the Physics Department at Western Illinois University (WIU).
• U Saw Tun is Head of the Burmese Department at Northern Illinois University (NIU).
• U Kyaw Hlaing lives in Southern California.

by Hla Min

Updated : 10th October 2026

News

Before the Internet, we get international, national and local news from the newspapers. Most papers were printed at night in batches. The early batches were dispatched by road and rail to other cities. The later batches have a “STOP PRESS” section to cover the “latest” news.

Most newspapers get the international and/or national news from news agencies such as Reuters, AP, and UPI. They get local news from their reporters and from other people willing to submit or share the news.

For example, I would write reports of the Rag Regatta, Monsoon Regatta and Annual Regatta and give it to selected newspapers.

Later, I would type reports of the golf tournaments at RGC (Rangoon Golf Club) and/or BGC (Burma Golf Club) provided by Saya U Soe Paing.

Newspapers

There were ten (or more) newspapers in our younger days. Most households will subscribe two (or more) newspapers. One can sell old newspaper (by weight).

In the early days, most were morning newspapers. A few were evening newspapers.

The English newspapers include Nation (by U Law Yone and team), and Guardian (by U Sein Win and team).

The Burmese/Myanmar newspapers include Kyemon (modeled after the Daily Mirror), Yangon, Tun, Hanthawaddy, Oway, Bama Khit (and later Moe Gyo), Myanmar Ah Lin, Man Daing, Ah Htauk Taw (known for gossip), Tagun (“Banner” known for sports) and Ludu (in Mandalay).

Some papers have political affiliations. They had roles during the AFPFL split.

The papers have columnists such as Zawana and Thagadoe.

Some carry information about the horse races in general and their picks for the “Treble Tote” .

Some carry cartoons, serial novels and daily horoscope.

Each paper has a signature.

After Coup d’etat

Things changed after the coup d’etat on March 2, 1962.

Several newspapers were shit down or nationalized. Censorship with varying degrees was introduced.

NAB (News Agency Burma) was formed to

• compile news from the news agencies
• select news
• translate the selected news
• distribute the news and translations to the six national newspapers (four in Burmese/Myanmar and two in English).

Two new papers were established with Sayagyi Shwe Oo Daung as Chief Editor of the “Loke Tha Pyithu Nay Zin” and Saya U Khin Maung Latt as Chief Editor of the “Working People’s Daily” (WPD). Grapevine says that the then Number One promised “full authority” to the two Chief Editors.

The promise did not last long. U Khin Maung Latt was asked if he wanted to be an Ambassador. Daw Khin Myo Chit stepped in and replied that “Ko Latt would go back to teaching”.

My Writings

I wrote articles (mostly on computers), poems and translations (including a short story by U Thu Kha) for the Guardian and WPD. I received fifteen kyats for most of them. U Thu Kha and I got fifty kyats each for the short story and its translation.

I was requested to write for the Sarsodaw Nay Supplement. I was shown the type set copy of my writing about Ananda Thuriya (“A Man of Infinite Valor”). The higher authorities did not want the readers to appreciate “Dhammata“; so it did not appear in the newspaper on Sarsodaw Nay.

The six Chief Editors were formed into two groups. Each group (with one English and two Burmese Chief Editors) would be penalized if an item published in one of their newspaper was found to be sensitive.

U Soe Myint (GBNF, Chief Editor of Guardian and later father-in-law of KMZ) approved my writings (mostly about Computer Applications).

by Hla Min

Updated : 9th October 2026

Mingun Bell မင်းကွန်းခေါင်းလောင်း

• For a certain period, the Mingun Bell weighing 55555 viss was the largest functioning ringing bell in the world.
• Young Burmese remember the weight of the bell with the mnemonic “Min Phyu Hman Hman Pyaw မမင်းဖြူမှန်မှန်ပြော”
• One viss ပိဿာ equals 3.6 pounds.

Mingun Jetavana Sayadaw U Narada (1868 – 1955) မင်းကွန်းဇေတဝန်ဆရာတော်ဦးနာရဒ

• Credited as for the revival of Vipassana (ဝိပဿနာInsight) Meditation in Burma
• Went to one Mingun Sayadaw, who presumably had studied meditation under Thee Gon သဲကုန်း ဆရာတော်Sayadaw, and asked for guidance.
• Was told to study Sattipattha (သတိပဌာန်from the Scriptures) deeply and then practice meditation
• Prominent disciples : Mahasi Sayadaw မဟာစည် and Taung Pulu Sayadaw တောင်ပုလု
• TMC (Tathagata Meditation Center) တထာဂတhas published a book about Sayadaw.

Mingun Tipitaka Sayadaw Ashin Vicittasarabhivamsa မင်းကွန်းတိပိဋကဆရာတော်

• U Vicittasarabhivamsa (GBNF) ဦးဝိစိတ္တသာရာဘိဝံသ was listed in the “Guinness Book of World Records” for his phenomenal memory.
• When Burma hosted the Sixth Buddhist Council ဆဌသံဂါယနာ at Kaba Aye Pagoda in 1954 – 56 to commemorate the 2500th year of the “Sasana Calendar“, Sayadaw acted as the “Reciter” of the Tipitaka (Triple Basket : Vinaya, Sutta, and Abhidhamma) and the selected Commentaries.
• According to the Kaba Aye Edition, the Tipitaka covers 8000+ pages.
  Vinaya : ဝိနည်း Monastic rules of conduct
  Sutta : သုတ္တန် Discourses
  Abhidhamma : အဘိဓမ္မာ Ultimate Reality
• Sayadaw could recall all and provide exposition.
• To prepare for the Buddhist Council, Sir U Thwin ဦးသွင် requested Mingun Sayadaw to take the Tipitaka examination.
• Sayadaw passed the Oral and Written tests for the Three Baskets with Distinction.
• Oral tests will fail a candidate if he needs five (or six) prompts. Sayadaw did not need a single prompt.
• Written tests cover in-depth topics.
• During the recitation, Sayadaw amazed the examiners by pointing out the variations of the text and highlighted the preferred version.
• First Sayadaw to be conferred “Guardian / Bearer of the Tipitaka & Treasurer of the Dhamma“.
• When Sayadaw received requisites, he gave them to the monks (in the town where he received them).
• To support the monks studying for the later Tipitaka examinations, Sayadaw set up a monastery in Mingun and accepted monks who had finished Dhammacariya.