ခင်ဗျား

See also: ခင်ဗျာ and ခင်ဗျာ့

Burmese

Etymology

Contraction of သခင်ဘုရား (sa.hkangbhu.ra:, “master lord”).

Pronunciation

• Phonetic respellings: ခင်ဗျား, ခ'များ
• IPA^(key): /kʰɪ̀ɴbjá/, /kʰəmjá/
• Romanization: MLCTS: hkangbya: • ALA-LC: khaṅʻbyāʺ • BGN/PCGN: hkinbya:/hkămya: • Okell: hkiñbyà/hkămyà

Pronoun

ခင်ဗျား • (hkangbya:)

1. (men's speech) you (singular, polite, used by males)

   ခင်ဗျားနာမည်ဘယ်လိုခေါ်သလဲ။

   hkangbya:namanybhailuihkausa.lai:||

   What is your name?

Particle

ခင်ဗျား • (hkangbya:)

1. (men's speech) sir

Usage notes

Put at the end of a sentence as a polite term of address to the listener. Used by males.

1. မင်္ဂလာပါ ခင်ဗျာ

   mangga.lapa hkangbya

   Hello (male speaker with the word used as an appellative)

Synonyms

• နင် (nang) (addressed to someone younger than the speaker)
• မင်း (mang:) (addressing peers or subordinates)
• ရှင် (hrang) (singular, polite, used by females)

Derived terms

• ခင်ဗျာ့ (hkangbya.)

 

See also

Burmese personal pronouns

Burmese	Person	Level of speech	Remarks
ငါ (nga)	First	Informal	used when speaking to one's equals or inferiors
ကျွန်တော် (kywantau)	First	Formal	used by males
ကျွန်မ (kywanma.)	First	Formal	used by females
ကျွန်ုပ်	First	Informal
ကျုပ် (kyup)	First	Informal
နင် (nang)	Second	Informal	used when speaking to one's equals or inferiors
မင်း (mang:)	Second	Informal	used when speaking to one's equals or inferiors
ညည်း (nyany:)	Second	Informal	used by females when addressing another female of same age or one younger
တော် (tau)	Second	Informal	used by females
ခင်ဗျား (hkangbya:)	Second	Formal	used by males
ရှင် (hrang)	Second	Formal	used by females
သင် (sang), အသင် (a.sang)	Second	Formal
သူ (su)	Third
သင်း (sang:)	Third
ချင်း (hkyang:)	Third

Further reading

• “ခင်ဗျား” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.