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Burmese numerals (Burmese: မြန်မာဂဏန်း, [mjàɴmà ɡa̰náɴ]) are a set of numerals traditionally used in the Burmese language, although the Arabic numerals are also used. Burmese numerals follow the Hindu-Arabic numeral system commonly used in the rest of the world.
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Zero to nine
1 Burmese for zero comes from Sanskrit śūnya.
2 Can be abbreviated to IPA: [kʰʊ̀ɴ] in list contexts, such as telephone numbers.
Spoken Burmese has innate pronunciation rules that govern numbers when they are combined with another word, be it a numerical place (e.g. tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.) or a measure word.
These pronunciation shifts are exclusively confined to spoken Burmese and are not spelt any differently.
Ten to a million
1 Shifts to voiced consonant following three, four, five, and nine.
Ten to nineteen are almost always expressed without including တစ် (one).
Another pronunciation rule shifts numerical place name (the tens, hundreds and thousands place) from the low tone to the creaky tone.
Hence, a number like 301 is pronounced [θóʊɴ ja̰ tɪʔ] (သုံးရာ့တစ်), while 300 is pronounced [θóʊɴ jà] (သုံးရာ).
The digits of a number are expressed in order of decreasing digits place. For example, 1,234,567 is expressed as follows (where the highlighted portions represent numbers whose tone has shifted from low → creaky:
1 When combined with the numeral place, the pronunciations for 1 and 2 shift from a checked tone (glottal stop) to an open vowel ([ə]).
Round number rule
When a number is used as an adjective, the standard word order is: number + measure word (e.g. ၅ ခွက် for "5 cups"). However, for round numbers (numbers ending in zeroes), the word order is flipped to: measure word + number (e.g. ပုလင်း ၂၀, not ၂၀ ပုလင်း, for "20 bottles"). The exception to this rule is the number 10, which follows the standard word order.
Ordinal numbers
Ordinal numbers, from first to tenth, are Burmese pronunciations of their Pali equivalents. They are prefixed to the noun. Beyond that, cardinal numbers can be raised to the ordinal by suffixing the particle မြောက် ([mjaʊʔ], lit. "to raise") to the number in the following order: number + measure word + မြောက်.
Decimal and fractional numbers
Colloquially, decimal numbers are formed by saying ဒသမ ([daʔθəma̰], Pali for 'tenth') where the decimal separator is located. For example, 10.1 is ဆယ် ဒသမ တစ် ([sʰè da̰ (daʔ) θəma̰ tɪʔ]).
Half (1/2) is expressed primarily by တစ်ဝက် ([təwɛʔ]), although ထက်ဝက်, အခွဲ and အခြမ်း are also used. Quarter (1/4) is expressed with အစိတ် ([ʔəseɪʔ]) or တစ်စိတ်.
Other fractional numbers are verbally expressed as follows: denominator + ပုံ ([pòʊɴ]) + numerator + ပုံ. ပုံ literally translates as "portion." For example, 3/4 would be expressed as လေးပုံသုံးပုံ, literally "of four portions, three portions.
Alternate numbers
Other numbers, not of Tibeto-Burman origin, are also found in the Burmese language, usually from Pali or Sanskrit. They are exceedingly rare in modern usage.