structural:summarization, linguistic:translation
Pronouns

Subject pronouns begin sentences, though the subject is generally omitted in the imperative forms and in conversation. Grammatically speaking, subject markers (က in colloquial, သည် in formal) must be attached to the subject pronoun, although they are also generally omitted in conversation. Object pronouns must have an object marker (ကို in colloquial, အား in formal) attached immediately after the pronoun. Proper nouns are often substituted for pronouns. One's status in relation to the audience determines the pronouns used, with certain pronouns used for different audiences.

Polite pronouns are used to address elders, teachers, and strangers, through the use of feudal-era third person pronouns in lieu of first- and second-person pronouns. In such situations, one refers to oneself in third person: ကျွန်တော် kya. nau for men and ကျွန်မ kya. ma. for women, both meaning "your servant", and refer to the addressee as မင်း min ('your highness'), ခင်ဗျား khang bya: ('master, lord') (from Burmese သခင်ဘုရား 'lord master') or ရှင် hrang "ruler/master". So ingrained are these terms in the daily polite speech that people use them as the first and second person pronouns without giving a second thought to the root meaning of these pronouns.

When speaking to a person of the same status or of younger age, ငါ nga ('I/me') and နင် nang ('you') may be used, although most speakers choose to use third person pronouns. For example, an older person may use ဒေါ်လေး dau le: ('aunt') or ဦးလေး u: lei: ('uncle') to refer to himself, while a younger person may use either သား sa: ('son') or သမီး sa.mi: ('daughter').

The basic pronouns are:

Other pronouns are reserved for speaking with bhikkhus (Buddhist monks). When speaking to a bhikkhu, pronouns like ဘုန်းဘုန်း bhun: bhun: (from ဘုန်းကြီး phun: kri: 'monk'), ဆရာတော် chara dau ('royal teacher'), and အရှင်ဘုရား a.hrang bhu.ra: ('your lordship') are used depending on their status ဝါ. When referring to oneself, terms like တပည့်တော် ta. paey. tau ('royal disciple') or ဒကာ da. ka, ('donor') are used. When speaking to a monk, the following pronouns are used:

In colloquial Burmese, possessive pronouns are contracted when the root pronoun itself is low toned. This does not occur in literary Burmese, which uses ၏ as postpositional marker for possessive case instead of ရဲ့. Examples include the following:

The contraction also occurs in some low toned nouns, making them possessive nouns (e.g. အမေ့ or မြန်မာ့, "mother's" and "Myanmar's" respectively).