Mru language

Last updated
Mru
𖩃𖩓𖩑
Mru in Mru script.png
'Mru' in the Mru script
Native to Bangladesh, Myanmar
Ethnicity Mru
Native speakers
(50,000 cited 1999–2007) [1]
Mru script, Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3 mro
Glottolog mruu1242
ELP Mru
Map showing the expanse of the Mru people in Bangladesh Map of Mru people in Bangladesh.png
Map showing the expanse of the Mru people in Bangladesh
Mru women harvesting rice Mru women reaping in a paddy field.jpg
Mru women harvesting rice

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.

Contents

Classification

Mru forms the Mruic language branch with Hkongso and Anu, which are spoken in Paletwa Township, Chin State, Myanmar. The position of Mruic with Sino-Tibetan is unclear. however, the language share similarities with Bodo-Garo languages.

Distribution

Percentage Map of Mru people by Upazila in bandarban district Map of Mru people in Bandarban.png
Percentage Map of Mru people by Upazila in bandarban district

The Mros live in forest areas of Lama Upazila, Ruma Upazila, Alikadam Upazila, and Thanchi Upazila near Chimbuk Mountain of Bandarban District, Bangladesh (Rashel 2009). In Myanmar, they also live in Buthidaung Township and Ponnagyun Township in Sittwe District (Akiab), Rakhine State.

Subdivisions

Ethnologue (22nd edition) lists 3 main dialects as Anok, Dowpreng (Dopreng), and Sungma (Tshungma), as well as the 2 minor dialects of Domrong and Rumma.

There are five Mru dialects according to Ebersole (1996).

There are five major Mro clans (Rashel 2009).

Rashel (2009) also lists another classification scheme which lists ten Mro clans.

Grammar

Unlike the Kuki-Chin languages, Mru has SVO (subject-verb-object) word order (Ebersole 1996).

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive/
Affricate
voiceless p t k ʔ
aspirated tɕʰ
voiced b d
Fricative s ( ʃ ) h
Rhotic r
Approximant w l j

/s/ can also be heard as [ʃ]. [3]

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i ɯ u
Mid ɛ ɤ ɔ
Open a

[4]

Numerals

Rashel (2009:159) lists the following Mro numerals.

  1. lok
  2. pre
  3. sum
  4. tle
  5. tnga
  6. trok
  7. rinit
  8. riyat
  9. tako
  10. homod

Script

Mru
Mro, Krama [1]
Script type
alphabet
Time period
1980s — present
LanguagesMru
ISO 15924
ISO 15924 Mroo(264),Mro, Mru
Unicode
Unicode alias
Mro
U+16A40–U+16A6F

The Mru script is an indigenous, messianic script: In the 1980s Menlay Murang (also known as Manley Mro) created the religion of Khrama (or Crama) and with it a new script for the Mru language. [5] [6]

The script is written from left to right and has its own set of digits. It does not use tone marks.

The Mru language is written in both the Latin and Mru scripts.

Unicode

The Mru alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

The Unicode block for the Mru script, called Mro, is U+16A40–U+16A6F:

Mro [1] [2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+16A4x𖩀𖩁𖩂𖩃𖩄𖩅𖩆𖩇𖩈𖩉𖩊𖩋𖩌𖩍𖩎𖩏
U+16A5x𖩐𖩑𖩒𖩓𖩔𖩕𖩖𖩗𖩘𖩙𖩚𖩛𖩜𖩝𖩞
U+16A6x𖩠𖩡𖩢𖩣𖩤𖩥𖩦𖩧𖩨𖩩𖩮𖩯
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2. ^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Mru at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mruic". Glottolog 3.0 . Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Williams, Nicholas J. (2008). Directionals in Mru. Dartmouth College.
  4. Namkung, Ju (1996). Mru. Phonological Inventories of Tibeto-Burman Languages. (STEDT Monograph Series, 3.): Berkeley: Center for Southeast Asia Studies. p. 268.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  5. Hosken, Martin; Everson, Michael (24 March 2009). "N3589R: Proposal for encoding the Mro script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF). Retrieved 2 August 2014.
  6. Zaman, Mustafa (24 February 2006). "Mother Tongue at Stake". Star Weekend Magazine. 5 (83). The Daily Star.

Further reading