အဘွား
a.bhwa:/ʔəpʰwá/
The Burmese word for grandma is အဘွား (a.bhwa:).
အဘွား is used to refer to a grandmother in an informal way.
Meaning: grandmother (informal) (noun)
How do you pronounce it?
The word is pronounced a.bhwa: (/ʔəpʰwá/).
Did you know?
- In Burmese culture, calling a stranger 'grandmother' using အဘွား is a way to show warmth and endearment to an older woman in a public setting.
- The word အဘွား originates from the Proto-Lolo-Burmese root *pʷa-n.
- While အဘွား is the informal term, in very traditional or royal contexts, different honorifics are used to distinguish between a paternal and maternal grandmother.
Examples in context
- အဘွားက အရမ်းချစ်ဖို့ကောင်းတယ်။a bwa ka a yan chit pho kaung tal.Grandma is very lovely.
- အဘွားဆီကို သွားရအောင်။a bwa si ko thwar ya aung.Let's go to grandma's.
- အဘွားက မုန့်တွေလုပ်ပေးတယ်။a bwa ka mone tway lote pay tal.Grandma makes snacks for me.
Example conversation
Aung Aung and Su Su are talking about their family.
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungမင်း အဘွားနဲ့ တွေ့ပြီးပြီလား။min a bwa nae tway pyi pyi larHave you met your grandma yet?
- စုစု Su Suဟုတ်၊ မနေ့က တွေ့ခဲ့တယ်။hoat, ma nay ka tway khay talYes, I saw her yesterday.
- အောင်အောင် Aung Aungအဘွား နေကောင်းလား။a bwa nay kaung larIs grandma doing well?
- စုစု Su Suဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ အဘွား အခု နေကောင်းပါတယ်။hoat kae, a bwa a khu nay kaung par talYes, grandma is healthy now.
Sources
- Pronunciation: Wiktionary entry အဘွား, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries အဘွား, CC BY-SA 4.0.
