BY AUGUSTIN
IDIOMS are important in everyday spoken language because they express ideas succinctly and reflect cultural nuances and creativity.
ဗာရာဏသီ ချဲ့
/ barrarnase hkyae
Traces back to Benares.
If a small incident is exaggerated, it is said to be traced back to Benares.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
ဗာရာဏသီမြို့သည် ကာသီတိုင်း၏ မင်းနေပြည်တော်ဖြစ်သည်။ ဗုဒ္ဓခေတ်မ တိုင်မီ ကာလက ရံခါရံခါအားဖြင့် - သုရုဒ္ဓန, သုဒဿန, ဗြဟ္မဝဒ္ဓန, ပုပ္ဖဝတီ, မောလိနီ နှင့် ရမ္မနဂရ ဟူသော အမည် များဖြင့် တည်ရှိခဲ့ဖူးသည်။ ယင်းမြို့၏အကျယ်အဝန်းမှာ ၁၂ ယူဇနာ ရှိခဲ့သည်။ ဗာရာဏသီမြို့သည် ဂင်္ဂါမြစ်ဘေးတွင် တည်ရှိသည်။ ဗာရာဏသီမြို့အနီး ဣသိ ပတနမိဂဒါယ (ခေါ်) ဆာရ်နာတ်၌ ဗုဒ္ဓဘုရားရှင်က တရားစကြာ တရားဟော ကြားခဲ့သဖြင့် အလေးပြုထိုက်သော၊ မြင့်မြတ်သောမြို့၊ ဗုဒ္ဓဓမ္မ ပြန့်ပွားရာ မြတ်သောဆိပ်ကမ်း ဖြစ်ပေသည်။
ဗာရာဏသီမြို့သည် လက်မှုပညာသိပ္ပံအတတ်၊ အသက်မွေးမှု၊ ကုန်ရောင်း ကုန်ဝယ်အတတ်၊ နှုတ်မှုပညာ၊ ဝိဇ္ဇာအတတ် စသည်၏လွန်စွာကြီးကျယ်သော ဗဟိုဌာနကြီးဖြစ်ခဲ့သည်။ ထိုမြို့မှ စန္ဒကူး၊ ကာသိတိုင်းဖြစ် ရောင်စုံအဝတ်၊ ပိုးထည်၊ ချည်ထည်များသည် လွန်စွာထင်ပေါ် ကျော်ကြားခဲ့ကုန်သည်။
Varanasi was once the kingdom of Kashi and has been known by various names in the pre-Buddhist era, including Surudhana, Sudasana, Brahmavadhana, Pappavati, Molini, and Ramnagara. The city’s area spanned 12 yojanas. Yojana is an ancient Indian unit of measurement thought to represent the distance a royal army could march in a day, approximately seven kilometres. Located along the banks of the Ganges River, Varanasi holds great significance in Buddhist history, as it was here that Lord Buddha delivered his teachings at Isipatana Migadaya, also known as Sarnath. Sarnath, located near the city, is home to the Deer Park. Varanasi remains an important city where Buddhism spread and continues to be a centre of spiritual significance.
Varanasi is also known for its crafts. People made a living by trading goods and practising oratory skills. It was a major centre for mysticism. The city was famous for its colourful and fine fabrics, including silk and cotton, especially its beautiful textiles.
Traces back to Benares
Many Myanmar folk tales begin by referencing Benares, much like the Jataka tales in Buddhism, which also often start there. Benares plays a prominent role in the Jataka tales because many of their events occurred there. As a result, when a small incident is exaggerated or made to seem more significant than it really is, people say that it “traces back to Benares”. This Myanmar idiom implies that the incident is being blown out of proportion or is far-fetched.
This idiom originates from the tradition of Myanmar folk tales and is tied to the Jataka tales in Buddhism, where Benares is a central location. Benares, an ancient city in India, is often mentioned in these stories as the place where important events took place.
This idiom conveys the idea of embellishing or distorting reality to make something seem more significant than it actually is, often with a sense of irony.
USAGES:
1. Making a mountain out of a molehill Definition: To exaggerate a small issue into something much bigger. Example: She made a mountain out of a molehill when she said missing the meeting was the end of the world.
2. Blowing things out of proportion Definition: To exaggerate the importance of something. Example: His complaint about the coffee was blown out of proportion, considering how minor the issue was.
3. Making a fuss over nothing Definition: To react with unnecessary emotion or attention to something trivial. Example: Stop making a fuss over nothing; it’s just a small mistake!
4. Turning a small thing into a big deal Definition: To exaggerate the importance of a minor issue. Example: She turned the delay into a big deal, even though it was only five minutes.
5. Cry over spilled milk Definition: To make a big issue over something that cannot be undone. Example: It’s no use crying over spilt milk; the report is late, but let’s fix it.
6. Making a big deal out of nothing Definition: To treat something insignificant as if it were important. Example: You’re making a big deal out of nothing. It was just a simple mistake.
7. Turning a minor problem into a catastrophe Definition: To blow a small issue out of proportion. Example: Stop turning every little inconvenience into a catastrophe. It’s really not that serious.
နဖူးစာ / na.hpu:ca /
Literal meaning: “forehead writing”
Figurative meaning: Destiny, fate, or predestination, especially in relation to romantic relationships.
If fate brings two people together, distance cannot keep them apart.
မိန်းမနှင့်ယောကျ်ားပေါင်းသင်းရအောင် ဖန်တီးပေးသောကံ။ ရှေးရေစက်။
ရှေးကံ နဖူးစာက နှိုးဆော်စေ့စပ်ပါမူကား…..
နဖူးစာ ရွာလည်
ဖူးစာဖက်မှန်လျှင် မည်မျှပင် ရေမြေဒေသ ကွာဝေးခြားနားပါစေတွေ့ဆုံ ပေါင်းဖက်ရမြဲ ဖြစ်သည်။
အချစ်နတ်ဘုရား သို့မဟုတ် မြားနတ်မောင် သို့မဟုတ် ကံကြမ္မာက ကြိုတင် စီစဉ်ပေးထားသည်ဟူသော ယုံကြည်ချက်ကို ရည်ညွှန်းသည်။ မြား နတ်မောင် (Cupid) သည် ရောမနတ်ဘုရားဖြစ်ပြီး လူများကို မြားပစ်သည့် ထွားကြိုင်းသော အတောင်ပံရှိ ကလေးလေးအဖြစ် မကြာခဏ ပုံဖော်လေ့ရှိ သည်။
The letters on the forehead
The Myanmar idiom “the letters on the forehead” refers to the belief that two individuals are destined to be lifelong partners. In this context, when a man and a woman marry, it is said that their union has been arranged by the God of Love or Cupid, who is thought to inscribe their fate on their foreheads at the time of their birth. This figurative phrase symbolizes the notion that some relationships are predestined and that these two individuals are meant to be life partners.
The idiom “the letters on the forehead” conveys the idea that love and marriage are often fated or destined, a belief rooted in the concept that certain individuals are meant to be together.
USAGES:
1. “Written in the stars”
Definition: The belief that a relationship or event is predestined or meant to happen, as though it was written by a higher power or fate.
Example: “It feels like our love was written in the stars; we’ve been together forever.”
2. “Meant to be”
Definition: The idea that two people are destined to be together, regardless of circumstances.
Example: “We met by chance, but I believe we were meant to be together.”
3. “Soulmate”
Definition: A person who is perfectly suited to another, often believed to be predestined or fated.
Example: “I truly believe she’s my soulmate – we just understand each other completely.”
4. “Destined for each other”
Definition: A belief that two people are fated to be together as if it was always meant to happen.
Example: “Despite all the challenges, they are destined for each other.”
5. “A match made in heaven”
Definition: A perfect and destined relationship, often used to describe a couple that seems ideally suited for each other.
Example: “They’ve been through so much together, and yet they are a match made in heaven.”
6. “Fate brought us together”
Definition: The belief that a relationship is not just a matter of chance, but rather something that was meant to happen by fate.
Example: “I never expected to meet her, but fate brought us together.”
7. “The one”
Definition: The person who is believed to be the perfect partner for someone, often thought of as a predestined match.
Example: “I knew from the first time I saw him that he was the one.”
နို့ သက်ခံ /nou. dhe’ khan/ နို့စို့ကလေး နို့စို့ရာတွင် အားစိုက်မစို့ဘဲ မိခင်နို့သက်သည်ကို စောင့်၍ သောက် သည်။ အချို့ကလေးသည ် နိ ု့သက် ခံ စိ ု့တတ် သည် ။
To swallow the drops of milk oozing out
This Myanmar idiom refers to a child who, instead of making an effort to suckle from their mother’s breast, simply waits for the milk to drip freely and then swallows it without any active effort. The phrase is used to describe someone who seeks to gain benefits or rewards without putting in the necessary effort or hard work. Just as a baby might wait for the milk to flow out effortlessly rather than suck for it, this idiom suggests a person who passively takes advantage of an opportunity without exerting the necessary diligence or energy.
The idiom “To swallow the drops of milk oozing out” reflects the idea of someone seeking rewards or benefits without putting in the required effort or hard work. It conveys the message that effort is essential to achieving success and that passive or effortless actions are generally seen as less admirable.
USAGES:
1. “Take the easy way out”
Definition: To choose a solution that requires the least effort or commitment.
Example: He always takes the easy way out instead of facing the tough decisions head-on.
2. “Sit back and relax”
Definition: To refrain from active involvement or effort, allowing things to happen without personal contribution.
Example: He prefers to sit back and relax while others do the hard work.
3. “Let someone else do the heavy lifting”
Definition: To avoid doing the hard work and leave it to others.
Example: She always expects her teammates to do the heavy lifting during the project.
4. “Rest on your laurels”
Definition: To rely on past achievements and avoid putting in more effort.
Example: After winning the championship, he rested on his laurels and didn’t improve his skills.
5. “Coast along”
Definition: To proceed without making a lot of effort or facing challenges.
Example: He coasted along in the company, doing the bare minimum to get by.
6. “Get something on a silver platter”
Definition: To receive something with little or no effort, often implying it is undeserved.
Example: She got the promotion on a silver platter because of her connections, not her work.
