The National Anthem[1] (Burmese: နိုင်ငံတော်သီချင်း; MLCTS: Nuingngamtausihkyang:; Burmese pronunciation:[nàɪɴŋàɴtɔ̀θìtɕʰɪ́ɴ]; lit.'State Song') is the national anthemofMyanmar. It consists of two parts; the first half is a traditional Burmese style section, before transitioning into the second half, a Western-style orchestra. Because of the second half, both the "National Anthem" and its predecessor "Dobama Song" are popularly known as "Kaba Ma Kyei" (Burmese: ကမ္ဘာမကျေ; MLCTS: Ka.bha ma. kye, Burmese pronunciation:[ka̰bàma̰tɕè]; lit.'Till the End of the World').[2][3]
A long-standing tradition is that those who sing the national anthem bow at the end, as a show of respect for the nation.
Pre-colonial Burma did not have a proper national anthem, but had compositions glorifying the king, which served as royal anthems. After the annexation of Burma by the British Raj in 1886, "God Save the King" became the national anthem of British Burma.[4]: 98
In 1930, a musician from Mandalay named Saya Tin went to Rangoon and contacted the Thakins to write a new national anthem together. They set four criteria for the anthem: it must include the background of Burmese history; the current situation of Burma with regrets, lessons, and then encouraging words; it must agitate Burmese habits to build a new age; and the anthem must agitate national pride of any Burmese who listens to it. For these criteria to be met, many Thakins including Thakin Ba Thaung, Thakin Thein Maung, Thakin Hla Baw, Thakin Tha Do, Thakin On Pe, Thakin Kyaw Tun Sein, and Thakin Po Ni helped find words, and YMB Saya Tin wrote the lyrics originally titled "Dobama Song" (တို့ဗမာသီချင်း). Besides being the leader of the Thakins, Thakin Ba Thaung was working as a teacher of translation at Rangoon University. He had a discussion with U Tun Sein, a tutor of mathematics; U Nyunt, a tutor of Burmese; and Ko Nu, a student. On 19 July 1930, the Dobama Song was sung for the first time in a reading room of Thaton Hostel. Written in Burmese and English, it was published in the University Magazine. On 20 July 1930, it was sung with a ceremony with a huge public crowd inside U San Tun Hall at the Rahu corner of Shwedagon Pagoda. After that the Dobama Asiayone received a lot of invitations to come and sing the song. The Thakins tried to establish a tradition of singing Dobama Song in every meeting and ceremony.[5]
On 27 June 1936, the Dobama Song was declared as the national anthem of Burma at the second conference of Dobama Asiayon held in Myingyan.[6] Since then, Burmese nationalist sang Dobama Song instead of God Save the King.
The State of Burma, a Japanese puppet state, officially adopted the Dobama Song as its state anthem in 1943.[7]
In the lead up to Burma's independence, U Nu asked U Sein Mya Maung to write a national anthem for their soon-to-be independent country. U Sein Mya Maung used the Dobama Song as a template, keeping the song's melody but slightly modifying the lyrics.[8][9] The National Anthem was adopted as Burma's national anthem on 22 September 1947.[4]: 99
On 18 June 1989, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (the ruling military junta at the time) ordered to change the word ဗမာ (ALA-LC:Bamā) to မြန်မာ (ALA-LC:Mranʻmā) in the lyrics of the national anthem, insisting that the former refers only to Bamar people, while the latter represents all the national races.[10] In fact, both words mean either Burma (Myanmar) or Burman (Bamar people).[11]
According to the 2008 Constitution of Myanmar, the complete version of the national anthem is specified as consisting of both the traditional Burmese style and Western-style sections.[12]
Ta.ra: hmya. ta. lwat lap hkrang: nai. ma. swe
Tui. prany tui. mre
Mya: lu hkap sim: ngrim: hkyam: ce hpo.
Hkwang. tu nyi hmya. wada. hpyu cang tai. prany
Tui. prany tui. mre
Prany htaung cu. a mwi a.mrai: tany tam. ce
A.dhithtan pru. pe htin: sim: cui. le
𝄆 Kambha ma. kye / Mranma prany /
Tui. bhui: bwa: a.mwe cac mui. hkyac mrat nui: pe // 𝄇
Prany htaung cu. kui a.sak pe: lui. tui. ka kwai ma.le /
Da tui. prany da tui. mre tui. puing nak mre //
Tui. prany tui. mre a.kyui: kui nyi nya cwa tui. ta.twe
Htam: hcaung pa sui. le tui. ta wan pe a. hpui: tan mre //
Accompanied with justice and freedom;
our nation, our motherland.
To bring peace to all people;
the nation having equal right and pure policy,
our nation, our motherland.
Let us preserve with vow
for perpetuity of our heritage of the Union.
𝄆 As long as the world exists, we love Myanmar,
the true heritage of our ancestors. 𝄇
We shall safeguard the Union by sacrificing our lives.
This is our nation, our motherland and our own land.
Let us serve unitedly for the interest of our nation, our motherland.
That is our duty for the precious land.
Where prevail justice and independence
It's our country ... Our land
Where prevail equal rights and correct policies
For people to lead a peaceful life
It's our country ... Our land
We solemnly pledge to preserve
The Union, and the heritage, for perpetuity.
𝄆 Until the world ends up shattering, long live Myanmar!
We love our land because this is our real inheritance. 𝄇
We will sacrifice our lives to protect our country,
This is our nation, this is our land and it belongs to us.
Being our nation and our land, let us do good causes to our nation in unity!
And this is our very duty to our invaluable land.
^ abcမြန်မာ့ စွယ်စုံကျမ်း [Burmese Encyclopedia] (in Burmese). Vol. 6. Rangoon: Burma Translation Society. pp. 98–99.
^တို့ဗမာ အစည်းအရုံးသမိုင်း ပြုစုရေးအဖွဲ့ (1976). တို့ဗမာအစည်းအရုံးသမိုင်း [Dobama Asiayone History] (in Burmese). စာပေဗိမာန်. pp. 134–137.
^"မြန်မာ့ဂီတနှင့် မြန်မာ့ဂုဏ်မြှင့်တင်". Myanmar Digital News (in Burmese). News and Periodicals Enterprise, Ministry of Information, Republic of the Union of Myanmar. 2022-06-28. Retrieved 2023-05-15.
^အောင်မြင့်ဦး(မဟာဝိဇ္ဇာ) (3 February 2020).『တို့ဗမာသီချင်း နှစ်၉၀ပြည့်ပြီ』[Do Bama Song has become 90 years old]. The Standard Time Daily (in Burmese): 9.
Works related to Kaba Ma Kyei at Wikisource
