Burmese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kò/

Noun

ကို • ‎(kui) (Romanization: MLCTS: kui • ALA-LC: kui • BGN/PCGN: ko • Okell: kou)

1. Form of address for younger men

   ကို ဇေယျာ သော်‎

   kui jeyya sau

   Ko Zayar Thaw

Coordinate terms

• ဒေါ် ‎(dau) (for older women)
• မ ‎(ma.) (for younger women)
• ဦး ‎(u:) (for older men)

References

• “ကို” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kò/ (after /ʔ/)
• IPA^(key): /ɡò/ (after a vowel or /ɴ/)

Particle

ကို • ‎(kui) (Romanization: MLCTS: kui • ALA-LC: kui • BGN/PCGN: ko, go • Okell: kou, kou)

1. indicates a direct or indirect object

   ကင်မရာကို ခပ်ဝေးဝေးမှာ ထားပါ။‎

   kangma.rakui hkap-we:we:hma hta:pa||

   Put the camera at a fair distance.

   ငါ့ကို များများ ပေးပါး။‎

   nga.kui mya:mya: pe:pa:||

   Give me a lot.

   အမေ့ကို ထမင်းချက်ဖို့ ပြောထားသေးလား။‎

   a.me.kui hta.mang:hkyakhpui. prau:hta:se:la:||

   Did you tell mother to cook?

Usage notes

Triggers induced creaky tone of a preceding low tone in pronouns and personal referents. Often omitted, especially in the colloquial language.

Postposition

ကို • ‎(kui) (Romanization: MLCTS: kui • ALA-LC: kui • BGN/PCGN: ko, go • Okell: kou, kou)

1. to (indicating a destination), in, at

   ဘယ်တုန်းက ဒီမြို့ကို ရောက်သလဲ။‎

   bhaitun:ka. dimrui.kui rauksa.lai:||

   When did you arrive in this town?

References

• “ကို” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.
• “ကို” in Burmese/Myanmar Dictionary of Grammatical Forms (Routledge 2001, ISBN 0-7007-1381-6), by John Okell and Anna Allott.