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16 BIRMAH.
In Dalrymple's Oriental Repository, the Birmans
are called Boragrhmans. In the Birman alphabet,
published at Rome in 1776, the name is written
Bomans.* The first question to be determined is,
whether the appellative is derived from the name
of a country, or is merely an honourable designa-
tion denoting a warlike class. Some have supposed
that Birmah or Birman is the same as Myamma
or Biamma the proper name of Ava. On the other
hand some old travellers mention a city and country
to the east of Ava, under the name of Banna, Brema,
or Brama, which they describe as a separate kingdom
from Ava, and whose king sometimes carried on wars
against the king of Ava/f* While again, Leblanc dis-
terance to the final consonants according to the abrupt mode by
which we are accustomed to terminate these words.
" A native
of Arracan," says Dr, Hamilton, "of natural strong parts and
acute apprehension, with whom more than common pains
have been taken for some months past, to correct this defect,
can scarcely now, with the most determined caution, articulate
a word or syllable in Hindustani that has a consonant for a
final, which frequently occasions very unpleasant and some ridiculous
equivocations ;
and such is the force of habit, even in making
the most simple and easy thing difficult, that, obvious as the first
elementary sound appears to our comprehension, in an attempt that
was made to teach him the Nagari character, of which it is the
inherent vowel, a number of days elapsed before he could be
brought to pronounce it, or even to form any idea of it, and then
but a very imperfect one." Asiat. Res., vol. v. p. 148. Nor is
this peculiarity confined to the Birmans. The Chinese is formed
on the same principle, as well as some of the African dialects,
and, possibly, those of Tibet.
* Malte Brun. vol. iii. p. 340.
t " Southward, Pegu confines upon Martaban and Siam ; eastward,
upon Brama, Camboya, and Cochin China; northward,
upon Ava, Tazaty, and Arracan; westward, upon the gulf
of Bengal. The kingdom of Pegu is cut through in many places
by that great river, called by the High Indians Amoucherat, and
by the natives, the river of Peni or Caypumo, or Martaban, that