The Burmese language (Burmese: မြန်မာဘာသာ; pronounced: [mjəmà bàðà]; MLCTS: myanma bhasa) is the official language of Burma. Burmese is the native language of the Bamar and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as that of some ethnic minorities in Burma like the Mon. Burmese is spoken by 32 million as a first language and as a second language by 10 million, particularly ethnic minorities in Burma and those in neighboring countries. (Although the constitution officially recognizes the English name of the language as the Myanmar language, most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese.)

Burmese is a tonal, pitch-register, and syllable-timed language, largely monosyllabic and analytic language, with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Tibeto-Burman language family, which is a subfamily of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. The language uses the Burmese script, derived from the Old Mon script and ultimately from the Brāhmī script.

Burmese language, literary and spoken, is called မြန်မာဘာသာ (mranma bhasa [mjəmà bàðà]), with ဘာသာ (from Pali bhasa, "language"). The language is classified into two categories. One is formal, used in literary works, official publications, radio broadcasts, and formal speeches. The other is colloquial, used in daily conversation and spoken. This is reflected in the Burmese words for "language": စာ (ca [sà]) refers to written, literary language, and စကား (ca.ka: [zəɡá]) refers to spoken language. Burmese therefore can mean either မြန်မာစာ mranma ca (written Burmese), or မြန်မာစကား mranma ca.ka: (spoken Burmese). The မြန်မာ (mranma) portion of these names may be pronounced [mjəmà] or, more colloquially, ဗမာ ([bəmà]).