ဘကြီး
bha.kri:/ba̰d͡ʑí/
The Burmese word for uncle is ဘကြီး (bha.kri:) or ဘထွေး.
Meaning: brother (or brother-in-law) of someone’s parent (noun)
Ways to say it
| Burmese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| ဘကြီး | bha.kri: | /ba̰d͡ʑí/ |
| ဘထွေး | bha.htwe: | /ba̰tʰwé/ |
These terms refer to the brother of one's parent. Beyond biological kinship, they are used as respectful honorifics for older men in social settings.
Which one should you use?
ဘကြီး is used specifically for an older brother of one's parent.
How do you pronounce it?
The romanization is bha.kri: and the IPA is /ba̰dʑí/.
Did you know?
- In Myanmar, you can call a total stranger ဘကြီး as a sign of respect, even if they have no relation to you.
- The word ဘကြီး is composed of ဘ, a root relating to kinship, and ကြီး, which means 'big' or 'great'.
- In many Burmese households, children might address their father's friends as ဘကြီး or ဘထွေး as if they were actual blood relatives. This blurs the line between biological family and community.
Examples in context
- ကျွန်တော့်ရဲ့ ဘကြီးက လူကောင်းတစ်ယောက်ပါ။kyan taw yae ba gyi ka lu kaung tit youk par.My uncle is a good person.
- ဘကြီးနဲ့အတူ ဈေးဝယ်သွားမယ်။ba gyi nae a tu zay wal thwar mae.I will go shopping with my uncle.
- ဘကြီးက အခု အိမ်မှာရှိတယ်။ba gyi ka a khu ain hma shi tal.Uncle is at home now.
Example conversation
Min Min and Khine Khine are talking about family members.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minဒါ ကျွန်တော့် ဘကြီး ပါ။dar kyun taw bgyi par.This is my uncle.
- ခိုင်ခိုင် Khine Khineတွေ့ရတာ ဝမ်းသာပါတယ်။tway ya dar wan thar par tal.Nice to meet you.
- မင်းမင်း Min Minသူက ရန်ကုန်က လာတာပါ။thu ga yan gon ga lar dar par.He came from Yangon.
- ခိုင်ခိုင် Khine Khineဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ မင်္ဂလာပါ။hote kae, mingalaba par.Yes, hello.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “uncle” translations and entries ဘကြီး, ဘထွေး, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ဘကြီး, ဘထွေး, CC BY-SA 4.0.
