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42 Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 9 U PE MAUNG TIN— RESEARCHER, SCHOLAR, PEDAGOGUE His Contribution to Burmese Studies in France Denise Bernot* U Pe Maung Tin possessed, by nature, all of the qualities of an erudite researcher: he was always ready to learn more; constantly trying to deepen his understanding; frequently opening a new line of inquiry; and in his work, at once rigorous and bold. U Pe Maung Tin never allowed himself to become a prisoner of tradition, though he knew perfectly the traditions of his own country and masterfully assimilated those of Great Britain. Convention never obstructed him from stating a scientific truth or doing the morally right thing. For those reasons, he le� behind a legacy of lasting valuable research. When working in London with Lilias E. Armstrong on the first study of Burmese phonetics,1 he boldly abandoned traditional transcription and adopted the new phonetic alphabet, defending his decision in the face of criticism, as he explains in his 1930 comment in the Journal of the Burma Research Society:2 Mr. Reynolds . . . has judged the Phonetic Reader by the official system; he said, “and in any case, and whatever the convention of the phonetic symbols may be, the use of sh and th to represent to an English reader any sounds other than shin and thin must be an endless source of confusion, the more so when the sounds ordinarily represented in English by sh and th do occur in * Professor Emeritus of Burmese Language and Civilization at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales à Paris. Author of a 15-volume Burmese-French dictionary, major bibliographical works, and numerous books and articles on literature and culture. Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 9 43 U Pe Maung Tin— Researcher, Scholar, Pedagogue Burmese.” The endless source of confusion can only arise if one reads the official system into the phonetic symbols chosen, looking at them, so to speak, with the official eye. At the time of writing this response, U Pe Maung Tin had not only established his reputation as a Pali scholar but was also starting to consider Burmese from a linguistic point of view, as is clear from his bibliography. The aim of A Burmese Phonetic Reader was not only to help students of Burmese but to “interest Burmans in the sounds and significant word-tones of their own language.” He gives useful hints on the various pronunciations of pj (with or without friction), of -Q (according to the end of the syllable), and many other points, which later lead to linguistic research on Burmese at Yangon University and abroad. U Pe Maung Tin revealed his acute interest in phonetics even earlier in a 1922 article with the intriguing title “Phonetics inaPassport,”inwhichhedescribedthePortuguesetranslation of a Burmese passport of 1783.3 The Burmese names and titles are rendered phonetically as heard by the Portuguese ear: For the Burmese ss\kEeta\mc\; [sikkèdawmin], the Portuguese has Chitkeydohming; for the Burmese saer;eta\@kI; [sayedawgyi], the Portuguese has Cheredohgry; for the Burmese qKc\Bura; [Thahkin Hpaya], the Portuguese has Saquem Purah; for the Burmese gulM qt–a [Gulan Tha�a], the Portuguese has Gulam Sa�ar. The Portuguese ch, s thus correspond to s, q; c would normally be pronounced by a Portuguese as the English sh. And there can be no question of the initial s being a sibilant. It would thus follow that s, q were pronounced sh, s in 1783 and not s, th as at present. But since this document is not a primer of phonetics, the 44 Journal of Burma Studies, Volume 9 Denise Bernot evidence it affords cannot be final. Everybody knows how strange one’s native words appear in a foreign garb and how difficult it is for a foreigner to acquire certain sounds. In this case the Portuguese may have had a bad ear or his Burman friends had some slight infirmity of the vocal organs or peculiarity of pronunciation such as a lisp. Or it may even be that both the speaker and hearer were at fault. Even if the right sound was heard, the writer may not have...

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