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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.

Mru
Mrung
The word 𖩌𖩑𖩗 'Kow (Village)' in Mro script[1]
Native to	Bangladesh, Myanmar
Ethnicity	Mru
Native speakers	50,000 (1999–2007)[2]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Mruic[3] Mru
Writing system	Mru script, Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mro
Glottolog	mruu1242
ELP	Mru

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.

Distribution

The Mros live in forest areas of Lama, Ruma, Alikaram, and Thanchi 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.

• Anok: largest and central
• Tshungma: in the north
• Domrong: in the lowlands north of the Matamuri
• Dopreng: in far south and into Arakan
• Rumma: in far south and into Arakan

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

• Anawk
• Süngma
• Dopreng
• Tamsa
• Rengmitsa

There are five major Mro clans (Rashel 2009).

• Dengua
• Premsang
• Kongloi
• Maizer
• Ganaroo Gnar

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

• Yarua (subdivisions below)
  • Khatpo
  • Chimlung
  • Zongnow
• Sangkan
• Chawla
• Ngaringcha
• Tang
• Deng
• Kough
• Tam-tu-chah
• Kanbak
• Prenju
• Naichah
• Yomore
• Rum/Rumthu

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	tɕ	k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	tɕʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d
Fricative			s	(ʃ)		h
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w	l	j

/s/ can also be heard as [ʃ].[4]

Vowels

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

[5]

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[2]
Script type	alphabet
Languages	Mru
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mroo (264), ​Mro, Mru
Unicode
Unicode alias	Mro
Unicode range	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.[6][7]

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)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+16A4x

𖩀‎

𖩁‎

𖩂‎

𖩃‎

𖩄‎

𖩅‎

𖩆‎

𖩇‎

𖩈‎

𖩉‎

𖩊‎

𖩋‎

𖩌‎

𖩍‎

𖩎‎

𖩏‎

U+16A5x

𖩐‎

𖩑‎

𖩒‎

𖩓‎

𖩔‎

𖩕‎

𖩖‎

𖩗‎

𖩘‎

𖩙‎

𖩚‎

𖩛‎

𖩜‎

𖩝‎

𖩞‎

U+16A6x

𖩠‎

𖩡‎

𖩢‎

𖩣‎

𖩤‎

𖩥‎

𖩦‎

𖩧‎

𖩨‎

𖩩‎

𖩮‎

𖩯‎

Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 14.0 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also

• Mru word list (Wiktionary)

References

• Ebersole, Harold. 1996. The Mru Language: A preliminary grammatical sketch. Ms.
• Peterson, David A., "Where does Mru fit into Tibeto-Burman?", The 42nd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL 42), November 2009, Payap University, Chiangmai, Thailand. Cf. p. 14.
• Rashel, Md Mostafa (2009). "Morphosyntactic Analysis of Mro Language." Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics, Vol, 2, No, 3, February 2009, 141–160.

Further reading

• Clifton, John M. 2009. "Orthography development as an ongoing collaborative process: lessons from Bangladesh". 1st International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC)
• Mru word list (Luce 1985)
• Mru word list (Matisoff 1987)
• https://aksharamukha.appspot.com/describe/Mro Many languages able translate to Mro language.
• https://keymanweb.com/?_ga=2.244017925.1829076129.1590300131-764973306.1590300131 Used to example for Mro keyboard font.

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