Myanmar Letter Sa

In Burmese, သ starts syllables with a th-like consonant. Burmese teaching calls it thá (also typed tha in Latin letters); the BGN/PCGN romanization, a government system that spells Burmese with Latin letters, writes th-. The sound is made with the tongue near the teeth; the “th” in English thin is only an approximation.

Pali and Old Burmese accounts give it an earlier s sound. Modern Burmese has a th-like sound here, so “sa” and thá refer to different stages of the letter’s sound history, not two present-day pronunciations.

This consonant fills a place in Burmese syllables. Vowels and tone signs around it help shape the full syllable.

Why is Burmese writing so round?

The script’s curves are commonly linked to palm-leaf writing: straight cuts could split the leaf.

Myanmar writing grew from a South Indian tradition related to Brahmi and was adapted to write Mon, a regional language. Burmese, Shan, Karen, and other languages use the script too. Accounts place the Mon adaptation around the eighth century and surviving Myanmar-script records in the eleventh–twelfth centuries.