Mon Proverbs

Before you read, you should know:

1. * tells you that the words expressed (before *) are not completely correct. There are some problems with font rendering.
2. The groups of words between two // (for example: //... ... ...//) are the transliteration of the original Mon proverbs.
3. The groups of words between two / (for example: /... ... .../) are the transcription of the original Mon proverbs.

ြမေမာဝ်ေဇတ် ဟွႛေထာႛသ-မူ*မန်ေဇတ် ဟွႛေထာႛဂကူ။

//mra mow’ jet’ hwa; tho; smū man’ jet’ hwa; tho; ga kū.//

/mréq maao jet huq thoq ha-mao mon jet huq thoq ha-kao/

• ြမေမာဝ် /mréq maao/ (n): sandalwood; spice (s ြမေမာဝ်သွ 1 /pərɛ̀³ mò¹ hwa/ 1 noun spice. Mon Dictionary at Sealang.net)
• ေဇတ် /jet/ (v): to be true, to be real.
• ဟွႛ /huq/(aux): negator “not”.
• ေထာႛ /thoq/ (v): to leave, to throw away.
• သ-မူ /ha-mao/ (n): smell, fragrance.
• မန် /mon/ (n): Mon (national.)
• ဂကူ /ha-kao/ (n): nationality, race, people.

Direct translation: A real sandalwood never throws its fragrance away. Likewise, a real Mon never throws his/her identity/nationality away.

ေခတ်ေလဝ် သဒးဗက်၊ နရက်ေလဝ်သဒးေဖက်။

//khet’ lew’ sa daḥ bak’, na rak’ ley’ sa daḥ phek’.//

/khet lay déh bak na-rak lay déh phaoik/

• ေခတ် /khet/ (n): time; era; age.
• ေလဝ် /lay/ (article): used to emphasize on the doer or the actions it does.
• သ /saq, sa/ (aux): often used in old Mon. It shows future actions.
• ဒး /déh/ (aux): used to show obligation, duty or necessary.
• ဗက် /bak/ (v): to follow; to flow.
• နရက် /na-rak/ (n): the evil place; the hell.
• ေဖက် /phaoik/ (v): to be afraid of; to scare.

Translation 1: Follow the flow suit but beware of the hell, too.

Translation 2: You must go in the flow of time at the same time need to be afraid of being sent to the hell.

ဆာန်ကဵုေလပ်၊ ေစပ်ကဵုတီရဟ်။

//chān’ kue lep’, cep’ kue taṁ rah’.//

/chan kaw lep chep kaw tem rauh/

• ဆာန် /chan/ (v): to love.
• ကဵု /kaw/ (aux): used to give someone suggestion “to make something sure”.
• ေလပ် /lep/ (v): to have skills to do something.
• ေစပ် /chep/ (v): to try something new; to try to know the taste of something.
• တီ /tem/ (v): to know, to learn.
• ရဟ် /rauh/ (n): taste.

Translation 1: Make sure you love it right: make sure you know its taste when you try.

Translation 2: If you love, make sure you love it right: If you try, make sure you know how it tastes

ဆာန်ဟွႛညာတ်ဒုဟ်၊ ဍုဟ်ဟွႛညာတ်ဂုဏ်။

//chān’ hwa; ññāt’ duh’, ḍuh’ hwa; ññāt’ guṇ’.//

/chan huq nyat dooh dooh huq nyaat goon/

• ဆာန် /chan/ (v): to love.
• ဟွႛ /huq/ (aux): negator “not”.
• ညာတ် /nyat/ (v): to see.
• ဒုဟ် /dooh/ (n): fault, imperfection.
• ဍုဟ် /dooh/ (v): to hate.
• ဂုဏ် /goon/ (n): goodness; advantage; strength.

Translation 1: Love not see imperfection, hate not see goodness.

Translation 2: When you love somebody, you might think whatever he/she does is right but when you hate him/her, you are blind to see his goodness.

ဒုဟ်မွဲ က-လုင်*ဍုန်၊ ဂုဏ်လ-ၚီ*လီုအာ။

//duh’ mwai klung’ ḍun’, guṇ lṅaṁ luṁ ā.//

/dooh moa kloing doon goon ngeem lom a/

• ဒုဟ် /dooh/ (n): fault, imperfection.
• မွဲ /moa/ (number): one; 1.
• က-လုင် /kloing/ (v): to come.
• ဍုန် /doon/ (v): to replace; to land.
• ဂုဏ် /goon/ (n): goodness; advantage; strength.
• လ-ၚီ/ngeem/ (number): one thousand; 1,000.
• လီု /lom/ (v): to destroy, to ruin, and to brake down.
• အာ /a/ (v, aux): to go (away) or (to be gone away.)

Translation: One imperfection comes, one thousand good things (you’ve done) will be replaced.

ဆာန်ဒးကဵုကသပ်၊ ဂိုဟ်ဒးကဵုပတပ်ဂၠံင်။

//chān’ daḥ kue ka sap’, guih’ daḥ kue pa tap glaṃṅ’.//

/chan déh kaw ka sop geih d’eh ko pa top glong/

• ဆာန် /chan/ (v): to love.
• ဒး /déh/ (aux): used to show obligation, duty or necessity.
• ကဵု /kaw/ (v): to give.
• ကသပ် /ka sop/ (n): advice, suggestion.
• ဂိုဟ် /geih/ (v): to value.
• ပတပ် /pa top/ (v, n): straight; right, to make something right.
• ဂၠံင် /glong/ (n): way; path, street; road.

Translation: Love, and then give him/her your good advice: value and then give (show) him/her the right way.

ဟွႛတီပိၜါ တမၠာညးဟီု။

//hwa; taṁ pi ḅā tamlaa ññaḥ huṁ.//

/huq tem puaq ba kla (tomla) nyiah hom/

• ဟွႛ/huq/(aux): negator “not”.
• တီ /tem/ (v): to know, to learn.
• ပိ /puaq/ (number): three; 3.
• ၜါ /ba/ (number): two; 2.
• တမၠာ (ကၠာ) /tomla, kla/ (time expression): similar to the use of English “before”.
• ညး /nyiah/ (n, pron): he or she (used when the listener is older than speaker); he or [she but very rare] (more polite than using ေဍဟ် /déh/ or ေဗဟ် /béih/ which means the same thing.)
• ဟီု /hom/ (v): to speak; to say; to talk to.

Translation 1: Without knowing how to count, say before anyone else does.

Translation 2: Without having a good education, try to talk first (before anyone else does.)

မိက်နန် ဂွႛတာဲ၊ မိက်နာဲဂွႛဍိက်။

//mik’ nan’ gwa; tāai, mik’ nāai gwa; ḍik’.//

/moik non geiq taai moik naai geiq doik/

• မိက် /moik/ (v): to desire; to want; to wish.
• နန် /non/ (n): royal palace.
• ဂွႛ /geiq/ (v): to get; to gain; to obtain.
• တာဲ /taai/ (n): hut.
• နာဲ /naai/ (n): master; leader; Mister.
• ဍိက် /doik/ (n): slave.

Translation: Want a palace but get only a hut: want a master but get only a slave.

ဗုင်လပ, ဗကတ်၊ မတ်လပ, ပေကင်။

//buṅ’ la pa ba kat’, mat’ la pa pa keng’.//

/bauing paq ba kaot moot paq pa kieng/

• ပေကင် /pa kieng/ (n): to get used to; to be familiar with.
• ဗုင် /bauing/ (n): stomach; abdomen.
• လပ /paq/ (article): used as a negator.
• ဗကတ် /ba kaot/ (v): to get used to; to be familiar with.
• မတ် /moot/ (n): eyes.

Translation: Do not let your stomach get used to something (till you cannot help yourself eating it too much): do not train your eyes to get used to something (till you cannot help yourself seeing it again and again.)

အေရဝ်ေလာန် ေကာန်သဒးကဵုညး။

//a rew’ lon’ kon’ daḥ kue ññaḥ.//

/a ree loon koon déh kaw nyiah/

• အေရဝ် /a ree/ (n): speech; spoken language.
• ေလာန် /loon/ (v): to exceed; to be more than.
• ေကာန် /koon/ (n): son.
• သ /saq, sa/ (aux): often used in old Mon. It shows future actions.
• ဒး /déh/ (aux): used to show obligation, duty or necessary.
• ကဵု /kaw/ (v): to give.
• ညး /nyiah/ (n, pron): he or she (used when the listener is older than speaker); he or [she but very rare] (more polite than using ေဍဟ် /déh/ or ေဗဟ် /béih/ which means the same thing.)

Translation 1: Speak too much; you get to give your son.

Translation 2: Speaking too much with no limitation can make you lose your son.

အေရဝ်လပဟီုဖအိုတ်၊ ေၝာႛမၞိဟ် လပတက်ဂစိုတ်။

//a rew’ la pa huṁ pha auit’, ḅho; mnih’ la pa tak’ ga cuit’.//

/a ree paq hom ha-ot beiq ma-neeh pa tak ha chot/

• အေရဝ် /a ree/ (n): speech; spoken language.
• လပ /paq/ (article): used as a negator.
• ဟီု /hom/ (v): to speak; to say; to talk to.
• ဖအိုတ် /ha-ot/ (v, aux): used to show that “the doer does something all up”.
• ေၝာႛမၞိဟ် /beiq ma-neeh/ (n): the leader of some people; chief of the region, e.g. village.
• တက် /tak/ (v): to beat; to strike; to take (photos), etc.
• ဂစိုတ် /ha chot/ (v): to kill.
• တက်ဂစိုတ်: to beat to death.

Translation: Do not speak it all up: do not beat the leader (of some people) to death.

အာမဂး ဒးစိုပ်၊ ေကတ်မဂး ဒးဂွႛ ၊ ေကၠာန်မဂး ဒးဒဟ်။

//ā ma gaḥ daḥ cuip’, ket’ ma gaḥ daḥ gwa;, klon’ ma gaḥ daḥ dah’.//

/a magéh déh chop ket magéh déh geiq kloon magéh déh dauh/

• အာ /a/ (v): to go away.
• မဂး /magéh/ (conditional): often used in old Mon: similar to the use of English “if”.
• ဒး /déh/ (aux): used to show obligation, duty or necessary.
• စိုပ် /chop/ (v): to arrive, to get there, to reach.
• ေကတ် /ket/ (v): to get; to take.
• ဂွႛ /geiq/ (v): to get; to gain; to obtain.
• ေကၠာန် /kloon/ (v): to do; to make.
• ဒဟ် /dauh/ (v): to be.

Translation: If go, you will get there. If take, you will get it. If do, it will get done.

ပညာနွံကီု သတိလီုဒဟ်။

//paññyā nwaṃ kuṁ sa ti luṁ dah’//

/paon nya neim kom ha-tuaq lom dauh/

• ပညာ /paon nya/ (n): wisdom; knowledge (skills or ability.)
• နွံ /neim/ (v): to be in existence; to be there; to have (to own or possess.)
• ကီု /kom/ (aux): often ကီုေလဝ်: used to show oppositional clause to another clause of the sentence.
• သတိ /ha-tuaq/ (n): awareness; consciousness.
• လီု /lom/ (v): to destroy, to ruin, and to brake down.
• ဒဟ် /dauh/ (aux): used to show that it is common for something to happen frequently.

Translation 1: You may have knowledge yet your awareness can be lost sometimes.

Translation 2: You may be wise yet sometimes you may lose your mind.

ဇုတ်သကဲ ဟွႛြပဲနူဇုတ်ေဇၞာ်။

//jut’ sa kai hwa; prai nū jut’ jno’//

/joot ha koua huq proua noo joot ha nook/

• ဇုတ်သကဲ /joot ha koua/(n): ribs.
• ဇုတ်ေဇၞာ် /joot ha-nook/(n): backbone.
• ဟွႛ /huq/(aux): negator "not".
• ြပဲ /proua/(v): noble, good, etc.
• နူ /noo/(article): used for comparison, (more) than. 

Translation 1: Ribs are not nobler than backbone.

Translation 2: Ribs are not more important than backbone.