ဇနီး
ja.ni:/zəní/formal
The Burmese word for wife is ဇနီး. If unsure, use ဇနီး (ja.ni:). Wiktionary also lists မယား (ma.ya:).
Meaning: female partner in a marriage (noun)
Ways to say it
| Burmese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | IPA | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ဇနီး | ja.ni: | /zəní/ | formal |
| မယား | ma.ya: | /məjá/ |
Both forms are used to refer to a female partner in a marriage.
Which one should you use?
ဇနီး is the standard term used in formal settings, while မယား is the colloquial version.
Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?
ဇနီး is a formal term suitable for official documents or polite introductions. မယား is an informal or colloquial way to say wife and can sometimes sound blunt or less respectful depending on the context.
How do you pronounce it?
ja.ni:
Did you know?
- The Sanskrit root of ဇနီး also links it to words meaning 'birth' or 'generation', reflecting the ancient connection between marriage and the continuation of a lineage.
- In some traditional contexts, a man might refer to his wife by her relation to the children, such as 'the mother of [child's name]', rather than using a word for 'wife'.
- Burmese often uses kinship terms based on age rather than just marital status, so a husband might refer to his wife using a term that denotes her relative age to him.
Examples in context
- သူ့ဇနီးက ဆရာဝန်တစ်ယောက်ပါ။thu zani ga sayar wun ta yout par.His wife is a doctor.
- ကျွန်တော့်ဇနီးက အိမ်မှာရှိနေပါတယ်။kyun taw zani ga ein hmar shi nay par tal.My wife is at home.
- သူ့ဇနီးကို မိတ်ဆက်ပေးချင်ပါတယ်။thu zani ko mate sat pay chin par tal.I want to introduce his wife.
Example conversation
Kyaw Kyaw introduces his wife to a colleague.
- နှင်းနှင်း Hnin Hninဒါက ကျော်ကျော်ရဲ့ ဇနီး လားရှင်။dar ga kyawkyaw ye zanee lar shin.Is this Kyaw Kyaw's wife?
- ကျော်ကျော် Kyaw Kyawဟုတ်ကဲ့၊ သူမက ကျွန်တော့်ရဲ့ ဇနီး ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။houk ke, thuma ga kyuntawt ye zanee hpyit par tal.Yes, she is my wife.
- နှင်းနှင်း Hnin Hninတွေ့ရတာ ဝမ်းသာပါတယ်ရှင်။tway ya dar wan thar par tal shin.Nice to meet you.
- ကျော်ကျော် Kyaw Kyawကျွန်တော်တို့လည်း ဝမ်းသာပါတယ်ခင်ဗျာ။kyuntaw toe lal wan thar par tal khin byar.We are glad to meet you too.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “wife” translations and entries ဇနီး, မယား, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries ဇနီး, မယား, CC BY-SA 4.0.
