Category: Burma

• The article “A Question and Answer” was published in the Dhammananda Newsletter many years ago.
• “Neik Ban Zaw” is the pen name of my beloved spouse.

Burmese Typewriter

Olympia was commissioned to produce typewriters for Burmese.
Red keys were used to type vowels; the carriage did not go forward. Black keys were used to type consonants.
Back-spacing for half a step was necessary on the portable version to type tha gyee. Manual dexterity was needed to type some pa sint characters.
The office version edition had extra keys (e.g. tha gyee).

Character Sets

The early computers mostly used ASCII and EBCDIC.
It took some time to support other character sets.
The evolution has seen various type face/font families, keyboard layouts, Unicode support, …

IBM produced Selectric typewriters.
Golf ball-like character sets had to be installed/replaced.

Wang Computers provided word processors for various languages.
Ko Htay Aung worked at Wang for a while on the “Burmese” language project.

Chinese characters were input using (1) large tablets (2) three corner method (3) Romaji

Techniques

Burma Research Society (BRS) used transliteration for its publications. For example, “k-o-l” combination represents “ko”. The scheme was used on Macintosh.

Universities’ Computer Center (UCC) had projects to do Burmese word processing. Saya U Myo Min supervised a project for Ma San Yu Hlaing for “collation” (needed for sorting). Saya U Tun Aung Gyaw and his team (Ko Htay Aung, Ko Soe Myint, …) worked on Cromenco System Three for printing and processing. U Soe Win and team worked on Calcomp graph plotters.

We miss the days when we had type perfectly or reasonably well on typewriters using messy carbons.
Also, planning to cyclostyle double-sided printing (odd numbered pages first, then repeat with even-numbered pages).

Spelling

Burmese Language Commission bowed to higher authorities to revise the spelling at least two times.
Fines were imposed on authors and publishers spelling the established way. (e.g. “ta“) instead of the preferred way (e.g. “tit”) despite the scholars pointing out the old inscriptions at “bo ta htaung” (not “bo tit htaung”) pagoda.
CTK (Children’s Treasury of Knowledge) project was “delayed” to “correct” the spellings.

Censorship

It was not easy to write in those days without facing censorship.
It was taboo to quote “Dhammata” poem (by Ananda Thuriya).
It was a crime to mention the “setting sun.

Adeikhtan is rendered as Determination. It is a commitment to do something as planned. One needs resolve.

New Year Resolution is a form of Adeikhtan, but many do not seriously follow it.

A time-bounded Adeikhtan is easier to fulfill. At some meditation retreats, one pledges to practice mindfulness for the period (e.g. one hour).

According to the Buddhist Chronicles, the Bodhisatta (Buddha to be) made an Adeikhtan to meditate under the Bodhi Tree until he became Enlightened.

Examples of Determination

• Try a new task every day for a specified period
• Learn a new language every year
• [Hard] master four languages in a year by living and studying with native speakers
• Visit a number of places (e.g. countries) within a specified period

ဗေဒင်

Some claim that Bedin is a pseudo-science.

My father’s experience

My father sent his assistant to Dat Pone Zon Aung Min Gaung ဓာတ်ပေါင်းစုံအောင်မင်းခေါင် Pagoda to see a Bedin Saya (who was visiting the Pagoda).
The assistant showed the Bedin Saya a zartar ဇာတာ (Natal horoscope) of my father.
The Bedin Saya said, “The spouse of the Zartar’s owner is pregnant. She will give birth to a boy on a specified day of week. The boy will be known for his Pyin Nar Ye.” The assistant was surprised. He did not know that my mother was pregnant at that time.
Was it an educated guess? Or a random prediction?

Probability and Statistics give

• a low probability in guessing if someone is pregnant (without a medical test)
• a 50 – 50 chance on guessing the gender correctly
• one in seven chance on guessing the Day of Week correctly
• a low probability in guessing one’s strength and occupation correctly.

Despite the long odds, the prediction was correct on all counts.