Four years in Upper Burma

by W. R. Winston

CHAPTER XIII.
THE BURMANS.

Of the forty or more different races and tribes dwelling in Burma and on its frontiers, the Burmans are the leading race: first, in point of numbers, for they far exceed any of the others; also as regards position and advantages, for they naturally, as the leading race, have come to occupy all the best and most fertile soil, all the tracts of country lying between the great mountain ranges, the valleys of the Irrawaddy and the Chindwin rivers; and still more in respect of their prestige, for they have long been the ruling race of this region, and their language is far more widely diffused than any other. Most of the other indigenous races of Burma, as we have seen, are demon worshippers, uncivilised, without a written language, and with many and wide diversities from the Burmans. The Burmans, however, have an ancient civilisation, an elaborate religious system, a philosophy and a literature, and with regard to the arts, handicrafts and conveniences of ordinary life, are quite on a par with the Hindus. The present chapter applies to the Burman race.

The Burmans are of Mongolian origin, in common with the Chinese, Siamese and other inhabitants of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. Their features plainly show this, especially the almond-shaped eye, the slightly flattened nose and the almost entire absence of hair on the faces of the men. They are lighter in complexion than the majority of the natives of India, and slightly browner than the Chinese.

They show a marked contrast in many respects to the races of India, especially in the entire absence of caste. The king was the fountain of all position in the country. He made and unmade nobles at his sole will and pleasure, so that there is no hereditary rank or nobility. There is also no priestly caste like the Brahmins of India; the Buddhist monks are recruited from all classes, from the royal family downwards. Except the pagoda slaves, a class doomed to hereditary servitude in connection with the more important sacred shrines, and with a few other trifling exceptions, the Burmans as a people have all the avenues of native life and privilege open to them. This renders them less fastidious and more approachable than the people of India, and does away with the withering, blighting effects of caste. It renders them less conservative also, and makes them more ready to take up new ideas.

The Burmese language, in common with the Mongolian languages generally, is monosyllabic, each word consisting of one syllable. Of course the progress of all languages tends to unite words, and in the majority of languages this tendency has resulted in the original monosyllables becoming so united and changed as to be not easily capable of separation. But in Burmese and other monosyllabic languages very many names and words are still of one syllable, and even where they are of two or three, each syllable seems to show a sturdy vigour of its own, and a determination to preserve its individuality complete, and not sink into the position of a mere servant of its neighbours. In pronunciation or reading of Burmese this appears in a marked degree; and in writing Burmese names one always feels inclined to follow the pronunciation, and insert the hyphen between the syllables. Even where there is any disposition of the syllables to cleave together in the formation of words, in anything like a permanent form, they readily fall asunder the moment they are touched for the purpose of critical examination.

SPECIMEN OF BURMESE TYPE.

To compensate for the convenience of expression afforded in most languages by inflections, much is made in the Burmese of particles. Indeed, the grammar of the language, which is very simple, consists largely of the classification of the monosyllables that serve as particles, and a great deal of variety of meaning is expressed by tones. The alphabet is derived from the ancient Nagari, the common source of the alphabets of many of the Indian languages, but the characters themselves belong exclusively to the Burmese tongue, except that they have been adopted for the Shan and Karen languages. The alphabet is called the them-bon-gyee or great basket of learning, and it well deserves the name; for what with the 10 vowels, the 32 consonants, the vowel-consonants to the number of 10 × 32, and a very numerous series of characters to express many combinations of letters, it really is a very great basketful indeed, and occupies 28 pages of a closely printed pamphlet with the characters alone.