L&gw 15 (1965) 186-227, Q North-Holland BubIishing Co.

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NISSAYA BURMESE
A CASE OF SYSTEMATIC ADAPTATION
TO A FOREIGN GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX

JOHN OKELL

It is recorded in the Burmese chronicles that king Anorahta ‘placed

the thirty sets of the Pitaka’ - the Theravada Buddhist Bcriptures which
he had brought into his kingdom - ‘in a shrine studded all over with
precious stones, and had the noble Order of monks give instruction in
them.’ This event is said to have taken place in the second half of the
eleventh century AD, Instruction in the Pitaka and in Pali, the language
in which they are written, is still given today and has had profound effects
on the language and literature of the Burmese. The purpose of this paper
is to draw atten& to one of t3ese effects in the field of language, namely
‘ptissnya Burmese’. Besides being a linguistic curiosity in itsew, nissaya
Burmese, it is suggested, may well have an importance for the analysis
of Burmese grammar that hais not been properly seen in perspective.
Early Western grammars (e.g. Judsonl) and Lonsdale2)) were dominated
by nissaya-influenced Burmese and accepted most of it without question,
while recent studies (e.g. Stewr.rt,3) Cornyo,4) Minn Latt5)) have perhaps
tended to underrate it.
Nissaya are works in which each word 01’ phrase of a Pali text is
followed immediately by its Burmese translations) (example in
Appendix 1). They have been known in Bslrma since at least the mid-

‘) T’he Rev. A. Judson, Grammar of the brmese language, Rangoon, 1888, new ed.,
i951.
‘) A. W. Lonsdale, Burmese grammar, Ranlpu(3n., 1899.
3, J. A. Stewart, Manual of colloquia! _%~:++.~a,London, 1955.
*) W.S.Comyn, Outline of Burmese mamma:: (Language Dissertation, 38), Balti-
more, 1944.
‘) Minn Latt, ‘Reports on studies in Burme:e Grammar’, Arch& Orient&i, first
report, XXX, 1962; second report, XXXT, 1963 ; ; hird report XXXII, 1964.
4, In some nissaya the Burmese incorporar.& material, literary or explanatory,
additional to the Pali text. Tin Lwin (see n. 8 b&w) classities four types of nissaya:
verbatim, fnee, ornate, and translation with sho_rt notes. It is the ordinary verbatim
type, with minimal additions, which is relevanr. for this paper,