လေ

See also: လေး and လှေ

Burmese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lè/
• Romanization: MLCTS: le • ALA-LC: le • BGN/PCGN: le • Okell: lei

Etymology 1

Inherited from Old Burmese လိယ်, from Proto-Lolo-Burmese *s/ʔ-ləy¹, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *g-ləj. Cognate with Rakhine လီ.

Noun

လေ • (le)

1. wind, air

Derived terms

• လေမုန်တိုင်း (lemuntuing:)
• လေယာဉ် (leyany)
• လေအေးစက် (lee:cak)

Further reading

• “လေ” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.
• Nishi, Y. (1999). Old Burmese: toward the history of Burmese. Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology, 23(3), 659-692.

Etymology 2

Particle

လေ • (le)

1. Used to soften an indicative sentence: you see, you know?, remember?, after all

   သူတို့မှာ မရှိဘူးလေ

   sutui.hma ma.hri.bhu:le

   They don't have any, remember?

2. Used to soften an imperative sentence: if that's okay, if you don't mind, if you want

   ပိတ်ချင်ယင် ပိတ်လေ

   pithkyang-yang pitle

   Do shut it if you want to.

Further reading

• “လေ” in Burmese/Myanmar Dictionary of Grammatical Forms (Routledge 2001, →ISBN), by John Okell and Anna Allott.
• “လေ” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.
• Okell, John (1969) A Reference Grammar of Colloquial Burmese, London: Oxford University Press, page 340