ပဲ

Inherited from Proto-Tibeto-Burman *bay (“pea, bean, small weight or coin”), an areal word in Mainland Southeast Asia. Cognate with Mizo [Term?] (bê, “bean”); for more cognates outside of Tibeto-Burman, compare ‌Mon ၜဲ (“lentil, bean”), Old Chinese 豍 (OC *peː, “pea”) and 貝 (OC *paːds, “cowrie”) (STEDT: paì "peas, beans, lentils").

• IPA^(key): /pɛ́/
• Romanization: MLCTS: pai: • ALA-LC: pai • BGN/PCGN: pè: • Okell: pè

ပဲ • (pai:)

1. pea, bean, legume, pulse

Appears to be from the same source as the "bean" sense of Etymology 1. The sense “anna” is a semantic loan from Hindi अन्न (ann).

ပဲ • (pai:)

1. anna (unit of currency in British India)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “Not mentioned by STEDT, and doesn't appear to be mentioned by Luce 1981.”)

• ကပဲ (ka.pai:)
• ဘဲ (bhai:)

(after a vowel or /ɴ/)

• Phonetic respelling: ဗဲ
• IPA^(key): /bɛ́/
• Romanization: MLCTS: pai: • ALA-LC: pai • BGN/PCGN: bè: • Okell: pè

(after /ʔ/)

• IPA^(key): /pɛ́/
• Romanization: MLCTS: pai: • ALA-LC: pai • BGN/PCGN: pè: • Okell: pè

ပဲ • (pai:)

1. (colloquial) indicates emphasis on the word or phrase it follows: just, only
2. Used after any sentence element or an entire sentence to add emphasis, indeed, really

   ဒီမှာပဲ နေခဲ့။

   dihmapai: nehkai.||

   Stay right here!

   ခင်ဗျားသူငယ်ချင်းပဲ ရေးတာလား။

   hkangbya:su-ngaihkyang:pai: re:tala:||

   Was it your friend who wrote it?

   သိတာပေါ့။ ကျွန်တော့် ညီတစ်ဝမ်းကွဲပဲ။

   si.tapau.|| kywantau. nyitac-wam:kwai:pai:||

   Of course! I know him, he’s my cousin!

• ပင် (pang) (literary)

• “ပဲ” in Burmese/Myanmar Dictionary of Grammatical Forms (Routledge 2001, →ISBN), by John Okell and Anna Allott.
• “ပဲ” in Myanmar–English Dictionary (Myanmar Language Commission 1993). Searchable online at SEAlang.net.