ကို

See also: က, ကဲ့, and თ

Burmese

Etymology 1

Inherited from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *(g/k)əw-n (“elder brother, senior male relative”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kò/
• Romanization: MLCTS: kui • ALA-LC: kui • BGN/PCGN: ko • Okell: kou

Noun

ကို • (kui)

1. (honorific) Form of address for younger men

   ကို ဇေယျာ သော်

   kui jeyya sau

   Ko Zayar Thaw

Coordinate terms

• ဒေါ် (dau) (for older women)
• မ (ma.) (for younger women)
• ဦး (u:) (for older men)

Etymology 2

From Old Burmese ကိုဝ် (kuiw).

Pronunciation

• Phonetic respellings: ကို, ဂို
• IPA^(key): /kò/, /ɡò/
• Romanization: MLCTS: kui • ALA-LC: kui • BGN/PCGN: ko/go • Okell: kou/kou

Particle

ကို • (kui)

1. indicates a direct or indirect object

   ကင်မရာကို ခပ်ဝေးဝေးမှာ ထားပါ။

   kangma.rakui hkap-we:we:hma hta:pa||

   Put the camera at a fair distance.

   ငါ့ကို များများ ပေးပါး။

   nga.kui mya:mya: pe:pa:||

   Give me a lot.

   အမေ့ကို ထမင်းချက်ဖို့ ပြောထားသေးလား။

   a.me.kui hta.mang:hkyakhpui. prau:hta:se:la:||

   Did you tell mother to cook?

Usage notes

Triggers induced creaky tone of a preceding low tone in pronouns and personal referents. Often omitted, especially in the colloquial language.

Preposition

ကို • (kui)

1. to (indicating a destination), in, at

   ဘယ်တုန်းက ဒီမြို့ကို ရောက်သလဲ။

   bhaitun:ka. di-mrui.kui rauksa.lai:||

   When did you arrive in this town?

Usage notes

• IPA^(key): /kò/ (after /ʔ/)
• IPA^(key): /ɡò/ (after a vowel or /ɴ/)

References

• Pain, Frederic. "Towards a panchronic perspective on a diachronic issue: the rhyme<-uiw> in Old Burmese." Australian Journal of Linguistics 37.4 (2017): 424-464.
• “ကို” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.
• “ကို” in Burmese/Myanmar Dictionary of Grammatical Forms (Routledge 2001, →ISBN), by John Okell and Anna Allott.