Burmese is the official language of Myanmar and the mother tongue of the Bamar majority, with total users estimated at well over 30 million once second-language speakers are counted. It sits in the Sino-Tibetan family and is tonal, so the pitch of a syllable changes the meaning of a word. The rounded Burmese script descends from the Mon script and ultimately from the ancient Brahmi writing of India; its circular letter shapes are often attributed to centuries of writing on palm leaves. There is a marked gap between the formal literary register used in books, newspapers and broadcasts and the colloquial register of everyday speech. Speakers of Myanmar's many other languages, such as Shan, Karen and Rakhine, commonly use Burmese as a second language.
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