Description
The work has been compiled to meet a want which is greatly felt in this Province by all whose duties bring them in contact with the natives in business or social life. There are very few persons who are familiar with English, Burmese Hindustani and Tamil. People from India often know one or both of the native languages but are unable to converse in the third. Their stay here is generally too short to render their acquisition of Burmese either desirable or useful?though whilst here they have frequent occasions to wish to make themselves understood by Burmans or others. To aid such is one of the purposes of this work. In its preparation the Revd. F. Poynder?s Dictionary, published by the Christian Knowledge Society has been employed. From that Dictionary all words in common use have been incorporated into the Vocabulary in alphabetical order. A few useful sentences, on the plan of Forbes?s Hindustani Manual have been added. The Burmese is given in the native character as well as in English it has not been the design of’ the compilers to adopt any new system of transliteration but they have tried so to spell the words that an ordinary English reader will be able to pronounce them. In the preparation of this work the compilers feel that they have striven to supply a real want. They are conscious of many imperfections in their performance but they send forth their book with every confidence that it will be found useful.
