Pwo Karen languages

Last updated
Pwo
ဖျိၩ့, ဖျိၩ့ၡိ, ဖၠုံ, ဖၠုံယှိုဝ်
Ethnicity Karen
Geographic
distribution
Karen State, Burma and across the border into Thailand
Linguistic classification Sino-Tibetan
Glottolog pwoo1239

The Pwo Karen language is one of the main groups of the Karen languages, alongside the S'gaw Karen language and Pa'O. The Pwo Karen language contains four different dialects, which are at best marginally mutually intelligible:

The people who speak the language are referred to by many names, notably "Pwo Karen" or simply "Karen". The people call themselves Ploan Sho. The Pwo Karen people have lived in the eastern part of Burma for centuries, and in the western and northern parts of Thailand for at least seven or eight centuries. The population of “Pwo karen” is 1,525,300 in Myanmar.

The endonym is Phlou[pʰlou̯] or Ka Phlou[ka pʰlou̯], meaning "human beings".

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Thai language</span> Thai language related to standard Thai and Lao

Kam Mueang or Northern Thailanguage is the language of the Northern Thai people of Lanna, Thailand. It is a Southwestern Tai language that is closely related to Lao. Kam Mueang has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in the native Northern Thailand, with a smaller community of Lanna speakers in northwestern Laos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen people</span> Ethnolinguistic group of people in Myanmar and Thailand

The Karen, also known as the Kayin, Kariang or Kawthoolese, are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language–speaking peoples. The group as a whole is heterogeneous and disparate as many Karen ethnic groups do not associate or identify with each other culturally or linguistically. These Karen groups reside primarily in Kayin State, southern and southeastern Myanmar. The Karen, approximately five million people, account for approximately seven percent of the Burmese population. Many Karen have migrated to Thailand, having settled mostly on the Myanmar–Thailand border. A few Karen have settled in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, and other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katuic languages</span> Subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family

The fifteen Katuic languages form a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken by about 1.3 million people in Southeast Asia. People who speak Katuic languages are called the Katuic peoples. Paul Sidwell is the leading specialist on the Katuic languages. He notes that Austroasiatic/Mon–Khmer languages are lexically more similar to Katuic and Bahnaric the closer they are geographically. He says this geographic similarity is independent of which branch of the family each language belongs to. He also says Katuic and Bahnaric do not have any shared innovations, so they do not form a single branch of the Austroasiatic family, but form separate branches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monic languages</span> Branch of Austroasiatic languages in Southeast Asia

The Monic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic language family descended from the Old Monic language of the kingdom of Dvaravati in what is now central Thailand. The Nyahkur people continue directly from that kingdom, whereas the Mon are descendants of those who migrated to Pegu after the 11th century Khmer conquest of Dvaravati.

Payap University, established in 1974, is a private and non-profit institution founded by the Foundation of the Church of Christ in Thailand. Payap University is a liberal arts and pre-professional school offers a doctoral degree in peacebuilding; masters in divinity, linguistics, TESOL, law, MBA and music; and bachelor degrees in arts, sciences, accountancy, business, economics nursing, law, and Christian theology. Payap is a founding member of the Association of Private Higher Education Institutions in Thailand and an active member of the Association of Christian Universities and Colleges in Asia, as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peopling of Thailand</span>

The peopling of Thailand refers to the process by which the ethnic groups that comprise the population of present-day Thailand came to inhabit the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tai Tham script</span> Abugida script

Tai Tham script is an abugida writing system used mainly for a group of Southwestern Tai languages i.e., Northern Thai, Tai Lü, Khün and Lao; as well as the liturgical languages of Buddhism i.e., Pali and Sanskrit. It is historically known as Tua Tham. In Thailand and Myanmar, the script is often referred to as Lanna script in relation to the historical kingdom of Lan Na situating in the Northern region of modern day Thailand and a part of Shan state in Myanmar. Local people in Northern Thailand also call the script as Tua Mueang in parallel to Kam Mueang, a local name for Northern Thai language. In Laos and Isan region of Thailand, a variation of Tai Tham script, often dubbed Lao Tham, is also known by the locals as To Tham Lao or Yuan script. Tai Tham script is traditionally written on a dried palm leaf as a palm-leaf manuscript.

Bruu is a Mon–Khmer dialect continuum spoken by the Bru people of mainland Southeast Asia.

The Ao or Central Naga languages are a small family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken by various Naga peoples of Nagaland in northeast India. Conventionally classified as "Naga", they are not clearly related to other Naga languages, and are conservatively classified as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan, pending further research. There are around 607,000 speakers of the languages in total.

The Kuki-Chin languages are a branch of 50 or so Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most speakers of these languages are known as Mizo in Mizoram and Manipur. Also, as Kukī in Assamese and Bengali and as Chin in Burmese; some also identify as Zomi. Mizo is the most widely spoken of the Kuki-Chin languages. The Kuki-Chin language has official status in both Chin State and Mizoram as Chin and Mizo respectively.

Karenni or Red Karen, known in Burmese as Kayah, is a Karen dialect continuum spoken by over half a million Kayah people in Burma.

Eastern Pwo or Phlou, is a Karen language spoken by Eastern Pwo people and over a million people in Myanmar and by about 50,000 in Thailand, where it has been called Southern Pwo. It is not intelligible with other varieties of Pwo, with which it shares 63 to 65% lexical similarity. The Eastern Pwo dialects share 91 to 97% lexical similarity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southwestern Tai languages</span> Branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia

The Southwestern Tai, Southwestern Thai or Thailanguages are a branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. Its languages include Siamese, Lanna, Lao, Shan and others.

Northern Pwo, or Phlong, is a Karen language of Thailand. It is not intelligible with other varieties of Pwo, though it is close to Phrae Pwo. Northern Pwo consists of the mutually intelligible dialects of Mae Ping, Omkoi (Hod), and Mae Sarieng.

Phrae Pwo, or Northeastern Pwo, is a Karen language spoken in Phrae, Lampang, and Chiang Rai provinces of Thailand. It is not intelligible with other varieties of Pwo, though it is close to Northern Pwo.

Lawa is a Mon–Khmer language of Thailand. There are two distinct varieties or dialects of Lawa, considered to be separate languages; their names in the Ethnologue are Eastern Lawa and Western Lawa. They are spoken in Lawa villages in the provinces of Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.

Mok, also known as Amok, Hsen-Hsum, and Muak, is an Angkuic language or dialect cluster spoken in Shan State, Myanmar

Proto-Karenic or Proto-Karen is the reconstructed ancestor of the Karenic languages.

References