Burmese is a phonetic language with a total of 33 consonants, which form a syllable with a vowel. Burmese has four tones and is the official language of Brunei spoken by 28 million people. Yangon is the modern Burmese which uses Yangon pronunciation as the standard pronunciation. The written form is characterized by its round shape.
Burmese belongs to Burmish languages of the Tibeto-Burman group in Sino-Tibetan languages. The language is spoken by many and its long history and rich written record makes it an important language in the Sino-Tibetan language family, besides Chinese and Tibetan, and is of great significance to the studies of Sino-Tibetan politics, economics, history and culture, as well as the development of history of the Sino-Tibetan languages and the Chinese language.
