Languages of Myanmar

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Languages of Myanmar (Burma)
Birmanisch Tabelle.png
Burmese alphabets in order
Official Myanmar
Semi-officialEnglish
Regional Shan, Karen, Kachin, Rakhine, Mon, Karenni, Chin, Kokang
Vernacular Myanmar English
Minority Many Sino-Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, Austroasiatic and Indo-Aryan languages
Foreign English, Mandarin Chinese
Signed Burmese sign language
Keyboard layout
QWERTY/Burmese layout
MyWin Myanmar Unicode Layout.svg
A map of languages used in Burma Ethnolinguistic map of Burma 1972 en.svg
A map of languages used in Burma

There are approximately a hundred languages spoken in Myanmar (also known as Burma). [1] Burmese, spoken by two-thirds of the population, is the official language. [2]

Contents

Languages spoken by ethnic minorities represent six language families: Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic, Tai–Kadai, Indo-European, Austronesian and Hmong–Mien, [3] as well as an incipient national standard for Burmese sign language. [4]

Burmese

A Burmese speaker, recorded in Taiwan.

Burmese is the native language of the Bamar people and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as that of some ethnic minorities in Burma like the Mon. In 2007, Burmese was spoken by 33 million people as a first language. [5] Burmese is spoken as a second language by another 10 million people, particularly ethnic minorities in Burma and those in neighbouring countries. [6]

Burmese is a Sino-Tibetan language belonging to the Southern Burmish branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages. Burmese is the most widely spoken of the Tibeto-Burman languages and among the Sino-Tibetan languages, the second most widely spoken, after the Sinitic languages. [7] Burmese was the fourth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after Chinese, Tibetan, and Tangut. [7] There are various Burmese dialects or related languages, the largest being Arakanese (or Rakhine), which retains the /r/ sound of older forms of Burmese, as well as various differences in vowel pronunciations. Some anglicisation of Burmese words were made with Rakhine pronunciations such as Irrawaddy for the Ayeyarwady River. Other prominent Burmese dialects or languages include the Intha language and the Tavoyan dialects in Dawei. The following at typically considered languages:

As far as natural language processing research dealing with interaction of computers and Burmese human-spoken language is concerned, during the period spanning more than 25 years, from 1990 to 2016, notable work has been done and annotated in the areas of Burmese language word identification, segmentation, disambiguation, collation, semantic parsing and tokenization followed by part-of-speech tagging, machine translation systems , text keying/input, text recognition and text display methods. [9] The scope for further research too has been explored for areas of parallel corpus development as well as development of search engines and WordNet for the Burmese language. [9]

Non-Burmese languages

Aside from Burmese and its dialects, the hundred or so languages of Myanmar include Shan (Tai, spoken by 3.2 million), Karen languages (spoken by 2.6 million), Kachin (spoken by 900,000), Tamil (spoken by 1.1 Million), various Chin languages (spoken by 780,000), and Mon (Mon–Khmer, spoken by 750,000). [1] [3] Most of these languages use the Burmese script.

In Myanmar, usage of its minority languages is discouraged. [10]

It is not clear if there are one or two Burmese sign languages.[ citation needed ]

Sino-Tibetan

Lolo-Burmese

There are various Sino-Tibetan languages outside of the South Burmish branch. A few minorities in northern Shan State and Kachin State speak languages of the North Burmish branch of the Burmish languages, namely:

Of the Loloish languages, Myanmar has four groups primarily in Shan State, with the Lisu also living in Kachin State. These four languages use the Roman alphabet through spelling introduced by Christian missionaries in the twentieth century. The four languages are:

Other Loloish languages include the Nusu [11]

Chin languages

The largest linguistic diversity, however, is in Chin State, where even the tern "Chin" is a Burmese name given to fifty-two named groups with shared similarities. Most, but not all, belong to the Kuki-Chin language family. Many Chin languages are described by place names, such as Tedim, Hakha and Falam. [11]

Other Sino-Tibetan

A Covid-19 poster in Sgaw Karen script Stop the Spread of Germs (COVID-19) ksw.jpg
A Covid-19 poster in Sgaw Karen script

Beyond the Chin, there are a variety of other Sino-Tibetan languages outside of the Lolo-Burmese branch the most prominent being the Karenic languages with twenty languages shared between twenty-one distinct Karen and Karenni groups. The primary languages are within these are:

These five languages tend to have their own scripts, based on the Mon-Burmese script, but are typically written with the Roman alphabet. A few other languages like the Lahta language who lack traditional writing use Karenic scripts. Pa'o does not have its own script. [12]

In the north, the Jingpho language (or Kachin language) is the main language of a larger Kachin language group, mostly in the Jingpho-Luish branch of Sino-Tibetan including:

This group also includes the extinct Taman language. [12]

The Mruic languages in western Myanmar make another small group of Sino-Tibetan languages with the following:

In the Northwest there are a couple Naga languages and Konyak languages including:

In far northern Kachin, there are three distinct Sino-Tibetan languages from various branches:

From the Sinitic branch, Mandarin Chinese also has a presence both from Chinese people in Myanmar and from the Kokang ethnic group in northeastern Myanmar, who speak a Yunnanese variety of Mandarin.

Austroasiatic

Mon language signs in Mawlamyine Mawlamyine, Myanmar (Burma) - panoramio (16).jpg
Mon language signs in Mawlamyine

Historically, the most important Austroasiatic language is the Mon language of the lower delta region, which is now diminishing in usage. Most remaining Austroasiatic languages today are in Shan State from the Palaungic branch.

Kra-Dai

There are seven distinct languages recognised but, many Kra–Dai languages in Myanmar are collectively known as the Shan language and consist of a dialect continuum with many similarities to official Thai spoken in Thailand.

Austronesian

The only native Austronesian language is Saloun, known in Burmese as Moken, which is similar but distinct from the Moklen language spoken in southern Thailand. [13]

Hmong-Mien

Indo-Aryan and Dravidian

Indo-Aryan languages exist natively on the northern border of Rakhine State reflecting the shifting borders between various South Asian states and Myanmar throughout history. In addition, various Indian groups migrated to Myanmar during British rule in Burma, bring both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages

English as a second language

Newspapers in the street of Yangon (February 2006) including publications also in English Marchand de journaux a Yangon.jpg
Newspapers in the street of Yangon (February 2006) including publications also in English

Today, Burmese is the primary language of instruction, and English is the secondary language taught. [10] English was the primary language of instruction in higher education from late 19th century to 1964, when Gen. Ne Win mandated educational reforms to "Burmanise". [15] English continues to be used by educated urbanites and the national government.

See also

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 Goddard 2005
  2. ↑ Burmese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  3. 1 2 Myanmar in Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (25th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
  4. ↑ Mathur & Napoli, 2010, Deaf around the World: The Impact of Language
  5. ↑ Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin
  6. ↑ Burmese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  7. 1 2 Bradley 1993, p. 147.
  8. ↑ Bradley & 118-119.
  9. 1 2 Saini 2016, p. 1.
  10. 1 2 Lintner 2003 , p.  189
  11. 1 2 3 Bradley 2020, p. 120-121.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Bradley 2020, p. 122.
  13. 1 2 3 Bradley 2020, p. 122-123.
  14. ↑ Bradley 2020, p. 122-124.
  15. ↑ Thein 2004 , p.  16

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sino-Tibetan languages</span> Language family native to Asia

Sino-Tibetan is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Sinitic languages. Other Sino-Tibetan languages with large numbers of speakers include Burmese and the Tibetic languages. Four United Nations member states have a Sino-Tibetan language as their main native language. Other languages of the family are spoken in the Himalayas, the Southeast Asian Massif, and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Most of these have small speech communities in remote mountain areas, and as such are poorly documented.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shan people</span> Southeast Asian ethnic group

The Shan people, also known as the Tai Long or Thai Yai, are a Tai ethnic group of Southeast Asia. The Shan are the biggest minority of Burma (Myanmar) and primarily live in the Shan State of this country, but also inhabit parts of Mandalay Region, Kachin State, Kayah State, Sagaing Region and Kayin State, and in adjacent regions of China, Laos, Assam and Meghalaya, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Though no reliable census has been taken in Burma since 1935, the Shan are estimated to number 4–6 million, with CIA Factbook giving an estimate of five million spread throughout Myanmar which is about 10% of the overall Burmese population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bamar people</span> Ethnic group in Southeast Asia

The Bamar people are a Sino-Tibetan-speaking ethnic group native to Myanmar. With an estimated population of around 35 million people, they are the largest ethnic group in Myanmar, accounting for 68.78% of the country's total population. The geographic homeland of the Bamar is the Irrawaddy River basin. The Bamar speak the Burmese language which serves as the national language and lingua franca of Myanmar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karenic languages</span> Language family

The Karen or Karenic languages are tonal languages spoken by some 4.5 million Karen people. They are of unclear affiliation within the Sino-Tibetan languages. The Karen languages are written using the Karen script. The three main branches are Sgaw, Pwo and Pa'O. Karenni and Kayan are a branch of Karen languages. They are unusual among the Sino-Tibetan languages in having a subject–verb–object word order; other than Karen, Bai and the Chinese languages, Sino-Tibetan languages have a subject–object–verb order. This is likely due to influence from neighboring Mon and Tai languages.

The Gong language is an endangered Tibeto-Burman language of Western Thailand, spoken in isolated pockets in Uthai Thani and Suphanburi provinces.

The Sal languages, also known as the Brahmaputran languages, are a branch of Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in northeast India, as well as parts of Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), and China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kuki-Chin languages</span> Language family

The Chin-Kuki-Mizo,are a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most notable Chin-Kuki-Mizo speaking ethnic groups are referred to collectively as the Zo people which includes: the Kuki of Manipur and the Mizo of Mizoram, Assam, Manipur, Tripura and Bangladesh and the Chin of Chin state,Myanmar.

The Tibeto-Kanauri languages, also called Bodic, Bodish–Himalayish, and Western Tibeto-Burman, are a proposed intermediate level of classification of the Sino-Tibetan languages, centered on the Tibetic languages and the Kinnauri dialect cluster. The conception of the relationship, or if it is even a valid group, varies between researchers.

The Nung or Nungish languages are a poorly described family of uncertain affiliation within the Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Yunnan, China and Burma. They include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lolo-Burmese languages</span> Sino-Tibetan language group of Southeast Asia

The Lolo-Burmese languages of Burma and Southern China form a coherent branch of the Sino-Tibetan family.

The Burmish languages are a subgroup of the Sino-Tibetan languages consisting of Burmese as well as non-literary languages spoken across Myanmar and South China such as Achang, Lhao Vo, Lashi, and Zaiwa.

The Loloish languages, also known as Yi and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of 50–100 Sino-Tibetan languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of Southwestern China. They are most closely related to Burmese and its relatives. Both the Loloish and Burmish branches are well defined, as is their superior node, Lolo-Burmese. However, sub-classification is more contentious.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tibeto-Burman languages</span> Group of the Sino-Tibetan language family

The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak Tibeto-Burman languages. The name derives from the most widely spoken of these languages, Burmese and the Tibetic languages, which also have extensive literary traditions, dating from the 12th and 7th centuries respectively. Most of the other languages are spoken by much smaller communities, and many of them have not been described in detail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mru language</span> Sino-Tibetan language primarily spoken in Bangladesh

Mru, also known as Mrung (Murung), is a Sino-Tibetan language of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is spoken by a community of Mrus (Mros) inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh with a population of 22,000 according to the 1991 census, and in Rakhine State, Myanmar. The Mrus are the second-largest tribal group in Bandarban District of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. A small group of Mros also live in Rangamati Hill District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kadu language</span> Sino-Tibetan language of Burma

Kadu or Kado ; is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Sal branch spoken in Sagaing Region, Myanmar by the Kadu people. Dialects are Settaw, Mawkhwin, and Mawteik [extinct], with 30,000 speakers total. Kadu is considered an endangered language, and is closely related to the Ganan and Sak languages.

Tai Laing, also known as Shan-ni, is a Tai language of Burma, closely related to Khamti and Shan. It is written in its own variant of Burmese script, and though not taught in schools, is experiencing a cultural revival, albeit still small. There is no census of speakers, but they are estimated to number around 100,000.

Anu-Hkongso is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken between the Kaladan and Michaung rivers in Paletwa Township, Chin State, Burma. It is closely related to Mru, forming the Mruic language branch, whose position within Sino-Tibetan is unclear. It consists of two dialects, Anu (Añú) and Hkongso.

Mruic or Mru–Hkongso is a small group of Sino-Tibetan languages consisting of two languages, Mru and Anu-Hkongso. Their relationship within Sino-Tibetan is unclear.

Central Tibeto-Burman or Central Trans-Himalayan is a proposed branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family proposed by Scott DeLancey (2015) on the basis of shared morphological evidence.

References

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