Bamar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Bamar |
|---|
 |
| Total population |
|
c. 30,000,000 |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Myanmar |
| Languages |
| Burmese |
| Religions |
| Theravada Buddhism |
| Related ethnic groups |
| Yi, Nakhi, Tibetans and to a lesser extent Bodo and Karen |
The Bamar (Burmese: 
; MLCTS: ba. ma lu. myui:; IPA: [bəmàː], also called Burman), are the dominant ethnic group of Myanmar, constituting approximately 68% (30,000,000) of the population. However, there is some speculation that the government has slightly inflated this figure. Furthermore, a reliable census has not been taken in over a century, and figures are based on estimates. The Bamar usually have straight black hair, and a darker skin tone (although intermixing makes skin tone vary).
The Bamar are frequently called simply Burmese, but this term is ambiguous as it can also refer to a citizen of Myanmar who belongs to a different ethnic group (Karen, Shan, etc.). The military junta uses the term "Myanmar" to describe persons of all ethnic backgrounds in Myanmar.
Contents |
[edit] Language
The Burmese language, (the official language of Myanmar), is widely spoken by many of the ethnic minorities as well as the majority Bamar. Its core vocabulary consists of Sino-Tibetan words, but many terms associated with Buddhism, arts, sciences, and government have derived from the Indo-European languages of Pali and English. The Rakhine, although culturally distinct from the Bamar, are ethnically related to the Bamar and speak a dialect of Burmese that includes retention of the /r/ sound, which has coalesced into the /j/ sound in standard Burmese (although it is still present in orthography). Additional dialects come from coastal areas of Tanintharyi Division, and include Myeik (Beik) and Dawei (Tavoyan).[1] English was introduced in the 1800s when the Bamar first came into contact with the British as a trading nation and continued to flourish under subsequent colonial rule.
[edit] Origins
The Bamar are of East Asian descent, having origins in present-day Tibet, and are thought to have migrated from the steppes of present-day Mongolia. They migrated 3,000 years ago to the lower valleys of the Ayeyarwady River, an area they ethnically dominate today. They are linguistically related to the Tibetans and to a lesser extent to the Chinese. The Bamar largely replaced the Mon and the earlier Pyu, ethnic groups that originally dominated the region.
[edit] Distribution
The Bamar are most numerous in Myanmar, constituting the majority ethnic group. Thailand has the second largest number of Bamar. They are either fleeing the political situation or seeking economic opportunities. The United States is also home to a large Burmese American population and many have settled in Europe, particularly in Great Britain. The Burmese diaspora, which is a recent phenomenon in historical terms and began at the start of World War Two, has been mainly brought about by a protracted period of military rule and reflects the ethnic diversity of Myanmar. Firstly, the Anglo-Burmese following Burmese independence in 1948 began moving to the UK, Australia, New Zealand and North America, to be followed by the Bamar themselves. It is by no means confined to the West; Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Korea and Japan are also popular destinations.
[edit] Culture and society
The Bamar wear sarongs, called longyi (လုံခ္ယည္) collectively. Women wear longyi known as htamain (ထမီ), while men wear longyi called paso (ပုဆုိး). Formal attire often consists of jewellery, silk scarves, and jackets. On formal occasions, men often wear cloth turbans called gaungbaung (ခောင္းပောင္း) and Mandarin collared jackets called taikpon (တုိက္ပုံ), while women wear blouses. Both genders wear velvet sandals called Mandalay pa nak (မန္တလေးဖိနပ္), although leather, rubber and plastic sandals (ဂ္ယပန္ဖိနပ္, lit. Japanese shoes) are also worn. In cities and urbanised areas, Western dress, including T shirts, jeans and frocks with shoes or trainers, has become more popular, especially among the younger generation. Tattoos, earrings, and long hair tied in a knot were once common among Bamar men, but have ceased to be fashionable since after World War II; men in shorts and men sporting ponytails as well as both sexes with bleached hair have made their appearance in Yangon more recently. Interestingly Westernisation also appears to come via Japan and Singapore. The Bamar of both sexes and all ages also wear thanaka, especially on their faces, although the practice is largely confined to women and children, and Western makeup and cosmetics have always enjoyed a captive market in urban areas. However, thanaka is not exclusively worn by the Bamar, as many other ethnic groups throughout Myanmar utilise this cosmetic.
Bamar cuisine contains many regional elements, such as stir-frying techniques and curries which can be hot but lightly spiced otherwise, almost always with fish paste as well as onions, garlic, ginger, dried chilli and turmeric. Rice (ထမင္း htamin) is the staple, although noodles (ခောက္ဆ္ဝဲ hkauk swè), salads (အသုတ္ a thouk), and breads (ပောင္မုန့္ paung mont) are also eaten. Green tea is often the beverage of choice, but tea is also traditionally pickled and eaten as a salad. The most well-known Bamar-originated dish is mohinga, rice noodles in a fish broth. Dishes from other ethnic minorities (Shan, Chinese, Indian) are also consumed.
Traditional Bamar music consists of an orchestra mainly of percussion and wind instruments but the saung gauk (ဆေင္းကောက္), a boat-shaped harp, is often symbolic of the Bamar. Modern Bamar music is typically Westernised, with influences particularly from American country music. However, rap and hip-hop have also gained popularity. Traditional Bamar dancing is similar to Thai dancing, and is known as yodaya aka (ယုိးဒယားအက, lit. Thai dance). Puppetry is also a popular form of entertainment and is often performed at pwés, which is a generic term for shows, celebrations and festivals. In urbanised areas, movies from both Bollywood and Hollywood have always been popular, but more recently Korean and Chinese films, especially DVDs, have become increasingly popular.
Rites of passage are also of cultural importance to the Bamar. These include shinbyu (ရ္ဟင္ပ္ရု), a novitiation ceremony for Buddhist boys, and na htwin (နားသ္ဝင္း), an ear-piercing ceremony for girls.
Buddhist festivals and holidays are widely celebrated among the Bamar. Thingyan, the Water Festival, which marks the beginning of the Burmese New Year in April, is one such example. Thadingyut, which marks the end of the Buddhist lent, is celebrated with the Festival of Lights in October. Kathina or robe offering ceremony for monks is held at the start of Lent in July and again in November.
[edit] Religion
The majority of Bamar are Buddhists of the Theravada tradition. People are expected to keep the basic five precepts and practise dana (charity), sila (morality), and bavana(meditation). Most villages have a monastery and often a pagoda maintained and supported by the layfolk. Annual pagoda festivals usually fall on a full moon day, and robe offering ceremonies for monks are held both at the beginning and after the Buddhist lent which coincides with the monsoons, and during which uposatha (sabbath) is generally observed once a week. Children used to be educated by monks before secular state schools came into being. A shinbyu ceremony by which young boys become novice monks for a short period is the most important duty of Buddhist parents. Christian missionaries had made little impact on the Bamar despite the popularity of missionary schools in cities.
The Bamar practise Buddhism along with nat worship which predated Buddhism. It involves rituals relating to a pantheon of 37 Nats designated by King Anawratha, although many minor nats are also worshipped. In villages, many houses have outdoors altars to honor nats, called nat ein (နတ္အိမ္), in addition to one outside the village known as nat sin (နတ္စင္) often under a bo tree. Indoors in many households, one may find a coconut called nat oun up the main post for the Eindwin Min Mahagiri (အိမ္တ္ဝင္းမင္းမဟာဂိရိ; lit. Indoors Lord of the Great Mountain), one of the most important of the Nats.
[edit] Naming
The Bamar typically use the day of birth (traditional 8-day calendar, which includes Yahu, Wednesday afternoon) as the basis for naming. Letters from groups within the Burmese alphabet are designated to certain days, from which the Bamar choose names[2]. They are chosen as follows:
| Day | Letters |
|---|---|
| Monday (တနင္းလာ) | က (ka), ခ (hka), ဂ (ga), ဃ (ga), င (nga) |
| Tuesday (အင္ဂာ) | စ (sa), ဆ (hsa), ဇ (za), ဈ (za), ည (nya) |
| Wednesday (ဗုဒ္ဓဟူး) | လ (la), ဝ (wa) |
| Yahu (ရာဟူး) | ယ (ya), ရ (ya, ra) |
| Thursday (က္ရားသပတေး) | ပ (pa), ဖ (hpa), ဗ (ba), ဘ (ba), မ (ma) |
| Friday (သောက္ရာ) | သ (tha), ဟ (ha) |
| Saturday (စနေ) | တ (ta), ထ (hta), ဒ (da), ဓ (da), န (na) |
| Sunday (တနင္ဂန္ဝေ) | အ (a) |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Khin Myo Chit (1980). Flowers and Festivals Round the Burmese Year.
- Tsaya (1886). Myam-Ma, The Home of the Burman. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 36-37.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (2005). Language Family Trees. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. SIL International. Retrieved on 2006-07-06.
- ^ Shway Yoe (Sir James George Scott) (1882), The Burman: his life and notions, London: Macmillan (Reprint: Norton, New York, 1963) pp. 4-6
[edit] External links
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