Very nice, indeed. I think someone here knows how to read Burmese, but I can't remember who. The peacock on the grip is that national symbol of Burma, by the way.
The first inscription is up-side-down, though.
I turned it around below.
And just to impress everyone with my idiot-savant abilities (
) ... . I can usually at least sound out the words in Burmese, but this one contains some consonent sounds and diacriticals that I can't figure out. I was hoping for a date (those are easy), but there isn't any. The most I can get from the ferrule inscription is:
__ tu' __ pa'
__ thu' (or maybe thui', in either case with a "high" tone)
sa' ti' nra (and some diacritical I can't figure out)
It is the first letter/cluster in the first and second lines (appears twice in the first line, actually - what looks like a left-facing cresent overlapped by a circle) that I can't find, and the downward swooping line at the end of the second (well, just before the double-dot diacritical) and the third lines. I think the swoop is a diacritical of some sort (additions to consonants that determine vowel sounds, vowel position, and tone).
The engraving on the handle is easier to parse out, but there is again one letter/cluster I can't get:
ba' ma' tui __e'n~ min
In all of these I had to put the accents and tildes after the letter. These are the "classic" pronunciations - modern pronunciation is apparently a little different.
So now anyone who actually reads and speaks Burmese can mock me.
I read somewhere that it takes about 2 years to become proficient in Burmese, so I have a long way to go.
