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Anthropology of kinship
Basic concepts Family Lineage Affinity Consanguinity Marriage Incest taboo Endogamy Exogamy Moiety Monogamy Polygyny Polygamy Concubinage Polyandry Bride price Bride service Dowry Parallel / cross cousins Cousin marriage Levirate Sororate Posthumous marriage Joking relationship Clan Cohabitation Fictive / Milk / Nurture kinship Descent Cognatic / Bilateral Matrilateral Lineal Collateral House society Avunculate Linealities Ambilineality Unilineality Matrilineality Patrilineality Household forms and residence Extended Matrifocal Matrilocal Neolocal Nuclear Patrilocal
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Related articles Alliance theory Matrilineal / matrilocal societies Feminist anthropology Sex and Repression in Savage Society Social Bonding and Nurture Kinship "The Traffic in Women"
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The Burmese kinship system is a fairly complex system used to define family in the Burmese language. In the Burmese kinship system:

• Maternal and parental lineages are not distinguished, except for members of the parents' generations.
• Relative age of a sibling relation is considered.
• Gender of the relative is distinguished.
• Generation from ego is indicated.

History

Many of the kinship terms used in Burmese today are extant or derived from Old Burmese. These include the terms used to reference siblings and in-laws.

Grades of kinship

The Burmese kinship system identifies and recognizes six generations of direct ancestors, excluding the ego:

1. Be (ဘဲ) - great-grandfather's great-grandfather (6 generations removed)
2. Bin (ဘင်) - great-grandfather's grandfather (5 generations removed)
3. Bi (ဘီ) - great-grandfather's father (4 generations removed)
4. Bay (ဘေး) - great-grandfather (3 generations removed)
5. Pho (ဘိုး) - grandfather (2 generations removed)
6. Phay (ဖေ) - father (1 generation removed)

The Burmese kinship system identifies seven generations of direct descendants, excluding the ego:

1. Tha (သား) - (1 generation removed)
2. Myi (မြေး) - (2 generations removed)
3. Myit (မြစ်) - (3 generations removed)
4. Ti (တီ) - (4 generations removed)
5. Tut (တွတ်) or Hmyaw (မျှော့) - (5 generations removed)
6. Kyut (ကျွတ်) - (6 generations removed)
7. Hset (ဆက်) - (7 generations removed)

Extended family and terminology

Kinship terms differ depending on the degree of formality, courtesy or intimacy. Also, there are regional differences in the terms used.

Common suffixes

• female: မ (ma)
• male: ဖ (hpa)

Burmese also possesses kin numeratives (in the form of suffixes):

• eldest: ကြီး (gyi) or အို (oh)
• second youngest: လတ် (lat)
• youngest: လေး (lay), ထွေး (htway), or ငယ် (nge)

Relationships

The Burmese kinship system also recognizes various relationships between family members that are not found in English, including:

• တူအရီး (tu ayi) - relationship between uncle or aunt and nephew or niece
• ခမည်းခမက် (khami khamet) - relationship between parents of a married couple
• မယားညီအစ်ကို (maya nyi-ako) - relationship between the husbands of two sisters
• သမီးမျောက်သား (thami myauk tha) - relationship between cousins, used in Arakanese language

Members of the nuclear family

Members of the extended family

References

1. မာလေး (1977). မြန်မာ့ဆွေမျိုးစပ် ဝေါဟာရများ (PDF) (in Burmese). စာပေဗိမာန်. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-15. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
2. Burling, Robbins (October 1965). "Burmese Kinship Terminology". American Anthropologist. 67 (5): 106–117. doi:10.1525/aa.1965.67.5.02a00740. JSTOR 668758.
3. ^ Tun, Than (1958). "Social life in Burma, AD 1044-1287" (PDF).
4. ^ Sein Tu (September 1997). "Myanma Family Roles and Social Relationships". Myanmar Perspectives. Archived from the original on October 26, 2007. Retrieved 6 October 2013.
5. ^ Bradley, David (1989). "Uncles and Aunts: Burmese Kinship and Gender" (PDF). South-east Asian Linguisitics: Essays in Honour of Eugénie J.A. Henderson: 147–162. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-10-11. Retrieved 2013-10-19.
6. Myanmar-English Dictionary. Myanmar Language Commission. 1993. ISBN 978-1-881265-47-4.

• Kinship terminology
• Culture of Myanmar
• Burmese language