Burmese language

Refer to notes on Myanmar script.

Web pages should be based on web internationalisation best practice:

• Correctly declare the encoding of a page. Currently only IANA registered character encoding suitable for Burmese web pages is UTF-8. The Unicode 5.1 version is preferred over the Unicode 4.0/5.0 version. Backend systems could use UTF-16 or UTF-32 where appropriate.
• Declare the primary language of the document : add a lang and where necessary a xml:lang attribute to the document's root (html) element. The language code for Burmese is my.
• Both web accessibility and web internationalisation best practice require marking up any changes in language.

Information on web internationalisation is available from http://www.w3.org/International

Web applications should support the Burmese (my-MM) locale and implement Burmese collation.

Web sites should use language specific styling where appropriate.

Every language has its own typographic and typesetting traditions. Default rendering of HTML elements by web browsers is based on typographic and typesetting conventions of the Latin and Cyrillic scripts, and especially shaped by English conventions typesetting and typographic principles.

The following pages attempt to explore some ideas about Burmese Web typography and ways of fine tuning rendering Burmese using CSS:

1. Fonts
2. Headings
3. Lists
4. Emphasis
5. Quotes
6. Nested typography
7. Resetting default browser styling

• Working notes
• Test pages

• Features of Myanmar Language Document Styles by Zaw Htut (2003)
• CSS styling for Burmese document