Group name Grouped consonants
Unaspirated (သိထိလ) Aspirated (ဓနိတ) Voiced (လဟု) Nasal (နိဂ္ဂဟိတ)
Velars
(ကဏ္ဍဇ)
ကဝဂ်
က ka
[k]
kha
[]
ga
[ɡ]
gha
[ɡ]
nga
[ŋ]
ကကြီး [k] ခကွေး ဂငယ် [ɡ] ဃကြီး [ɡ] [ŋ]
Palatals
(တာလုဇ)
စဝဂ်
csa
[ts]
csha
[tsʰ]
jza
[dz]
jzha
[dz]
gna
[ɲ]
စလုံး [ts] ဆလိမ် ဇကွဲ [dz] ဈမျဉ်းဆွဲ [dz] [ɲ]
Alveolars
(မုဒ္ဓဇ)
ဋဝဂ်
ta
[t]
tha
[]
da
[d]
dha
[d]
na
[n]
ဋသန်လျင်းချိတ် [t] ဌဝမ်းဘဲ ဍရင်ကောက် [d] ဎရေမှုတ် [d] ဏကြီး [n]
Dentals
(ဒန္တဇ)
တဝဂ်
ta
[t]
tha
[]
da
[d]
dha
[d]
na
[n]
တဝမ်းပူ [t] ထဆင်ထူး ဒထွေး [d] ဓအောက်ခြိုက် [d] နငယ် [n]
Labials
(ဩဌဇ)
ပဝဂ်
pa
[p]
pha
[]
ba
[b]
bha
[b]
ma
[m]
ပစောက် [p] ဖဦးထုပ် ဗထက်ခြိုက်‌ [b] ဘကုန်း [b] [m]
Miscellaneous consonants
Without group
(အဝဂ်)
ya
[j]
ra/rja
[ɹ]

[j]

la
[l]
wa
[w]
stha
[θ]

[ð]

ယပက်လက် [j] ရကောက်‌ [ɹ] [j] [l] ဝ‌ [w] သ‌ [θ] [ð]
ha
[h]
la
[l]
a
[ʔ]
ဟ‌ [h] ဠကြီး [l] ʔ
Independent vowels
/ʔḭ/ /ʔì/ /ʔṵ/ /ʔù/
/ʔè/ /ʔɔ́/ /ʔɔ̀/
Phonetics sparśa
(Plosive)
anunāsika
(Nasal)
antastha
(Approximant)
ūṣman/saṃghaṣhrī
(Fricative)
Voicing aghoṣa saghoṣa aghoṣa saghoṣa
Aspiration alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa alpaprāṇa mahāprāṇa
က ဝဂ်

(ကဏ္ဍဇ)Velars

[က] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ka
[k]
[ခ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) kha
[kʰ]
[ဂ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ga
[ɡ]
[ဃ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) gha
[ɡ]
[င] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) nɡa
[ŋ]
[ဟ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ha
[h]
စ ဝဂ်

(တာလုဇ)Palatals

[စ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) csa
[ts]
[ဆ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) csha
[tsʰ]
[ဇ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) jza
[dz]
[ဈ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) jzha
[dz]
[ည] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ɡna
[ɲ]
[ယ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ya
[j]
śa
[ʃ]
ဋ ဝဂ်

(မုဒ္ဓဇ) Alveolars

[ဋ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ta
[t]
[ဌ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) tha
[tʰ]
[ဍ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) da
[d]
[ဎ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) dha
[d]
[ဏ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) na
[n]
[ရ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ra
[ɹ]
ṣa
[ʂ]
တ ဝဂ်

(ဒန္တဇ) Dentals

[တ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ta
[t]
[ထ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) tha
[tʰ]
[ဒ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) da
[d]
[ဓ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) dha
[d]
[န] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) na
[n]
[လ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) la
[l]
[သ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) stha
[θ]
ပ ဝဂ်

(ဩဌဇ) Labials

[ပ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) pa
[p]
[ဖ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) pha
[pʰ]
[ဗ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ba
[b]
[ဘ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) bha
[b]
[မ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) ma
[m]
[ဝ] အမှား။ {{Lang}}: unrecognized variant: burmese (အကူအညီ) wa
[w]


အာ အဲ အို အံ အား
အာ အိ အီ အု အူ အေ အဲ အော အော် အို အံ အား
a aa i ii u uu e ae au ou o am ah
a i u e ae au o
အဲ အို
က ကိ ကု ကေ ကဲ ကော ကို


a aa i ii u uu e ae ai au o
အာ အဲ အာဣ အို
က
k ([k])

kh ([kʰ])

g ([ɡ])

gh ([ɡ])

ng ([ŋ])

c ([s])

ch ([sʰ])

j ([z])

jh ([z])

ny ([ɲ])

t ([t])

th ([tʰ])

d ([d])

dh ([d])

n ([n])

t ([t])

th ([tʰ])

d ([d])

dh ([d])

n ([n])

p ([p])

ph ([pʰ])

b ([b])

bh ([b])

m ([m])

y ([j])

r ([j] / [r])

l ([l])

w ([w])

s ([θ] / [ð])

h ([h])

l ([l])

a ([ə] / [a])

The Burmese alphabet is arranged in groups of five, and within each group, consonants can stack one another. The consonant above the stacked consonant is the final of the previous vowel. Most words of Sino-Tibetan origin are spelt without stacking, but polysyllabic words of Indo-European origin (such as Pali, Sanskrit, and English) are often spelt with stacking. Possible c

Group Burmese Transcriptions Example
ka. က္က, က္ခ, ဂ္ဂ, ဂ္ဃ, င်္ဂ kk, khk, gg, ggh, and ng g respectively ang ga. lip (အင်္ဂလိပ်‌)1, meaning "English"
ca. စ္စ, စ္ဆ, ဇ္ဇ, ဇ္ဈ, ဉ္စ, ဉ္ဇ, cc, chc, jj, jjh, nyc, nyj wijja (ဝိဇ္ဇာ), meaning "knowledge"
ta. ဋ္ဋ, ဋ္ဌ, ဍ္ဍ, ဍ္ဎ, ဏ္ဍ tt, tht, dd, ddh, nd kanta. (ကဏ္ဍ), meaning "section"
ta. တ္တ, ထ္ထ, ဒ္ဒ, န္တ, န္ထ, န္ဒ, န္ဓ, န္န tt, htht, dd, nt, nht, nd, ndh, nn manta. le: (မန္တလေး), Mandalay, a city in Myanmar
pa. ပ္ပ, ဗ္ဗ, ဗ္ဘ, မ္ပ, မ္ဗ, မ္ဘ, မ္မ, pp, bb, bbh, mp, mb, mbh, mm kambha (ကမ္ဘာ), meaning "world"
ya. , လ္လ ss, ll pissa (ပိဿာ), meaning viss, a traditional Burmese unit of weight measurement

1ang ga. lip is uncommonly spelt ang ga. lit (အင်္ဂလိတ်).

All consonantal finals are pronounced as glottal stops ([ʔ]), except for nasal finals. All possible combinations are as follows, and correspond to the colors of the initials above:

Consonant Transcription (with IPA)
k -ak (-က် [eʔ]), -wak (ွက် [weʔ]), -auk (‌ောက် [auʔ]), -uik (ိုက် [aiʔ])
c -ac (-စ် [iʔ])
t -at (-တ်[aʔ]), -wat (ွတ် [waʔ] or [uʔ]), -ut (ုတ် [ouʔ]), it (ိတ်‌ [eiʔ])
p -p (-ပ် [aʔ] or [ɛʔ]), -wap (ွပ်[waʔ] or [uʔ]), -up (ုပ်), ip (ိပ်‌ [eiʔ])

Nasalised finals are transcribed differently. Transcriptions of the following diacritical combinations in Burmese for nasalised finals are as follows:

Consonant Transcription (with IPA)
ng -ang (-င် [iɴ]), -wang (ွင်[wiɴ]), -aung (‌ောင် [auɴ]), -uing (ိုင် [aiɴ])
ny -any (-ည် [e] or [ei]), -any (-ဉ် iɴ])
n -an (-န် [aɴ]), -wan (ွန်[waɴ] or [uɴ]), -un (ုန် [ouɴ]), -in (ိန် [eiɴ])
m -am (-မ်[aɴ]), -wam (ွမ်‌ [waɴ] or [uɴ]), -um (ုမ် [ouɴ]), -im (ိမ် [eiɴ])
-am ( [aɴ]), -um (ုံ [ouɴ]) (equivalent to -am, but spelt with an anunaasika)

Monophthongs are transcribed as follows:

Burmese Transcription IPA Remarks
Low High Creaky Low High Creaky Low High Creaky
ား - -a -a: -a. [à] [á] [a̰] Can be combined with medial -w-.
ယ် ဲ့ -ai -ai: -ai. [ɛ̀] [ɛ́] [ɛ̰]
ော် ော ော့ -au -au: -au. [ɔ̀] [ɔ́] [ɔ̰] As a full vowel in the high tone, it is written and transcribed au:. As a full vowel in the creaky tone, it is written and is transcribed au.
ူး -u -u: -u. [ù] [ú] [ṵ] As a full vowel in the creaky tone, it is written and is transcribed u.. As a vowel in low tone, it is written and transcribed u.
ို ိုး ို့ -ui -ui: -ui. [ò] [ó] [o̰]
ီး -i -i: i. [ì] [í] [ḭ] As a full vowel in the creaky tone, it is written and is transcribed i.. As a full vowel in the high tone, it is written and transcribed i:.
ေး ေ့ -e -e: -e. [è] [é] [ḛ] As a full vowel in the high tone, it is written and is transcribed ei:. It can be combined with medial -w-.