The Shan language (written Shan: လိၵ်ႈတႆး, pronounced [lik táj] (listen), spoken Shan: ၵႂၢမ်းတႆး, pronounced [kwáːm táj] (listen) or ၽႃႇသႃႇတႆး, pronounced [pʰàːsʰàː táj]; Burmese: ရှမ်းဘာသာ, pronounced [ʃáɰ̃ bàðà]; Thai: ภาษาไทใหญ่, pronounced [pʰāː.sǎː.tʰāj.jàj]) is the native language of the Shan people and is mostly spoken in Shan State, Myanmar. It is also spoken in pockets of Kachin State in Myanmar, in Northern Thailand and decreasingly in Assam. Shan is a member of the Tai–Kadai language family and is related to Thai. It has five tones, which do not correspond exactly to Thai tones, plus a "sixth tone" used for emphasis. It is called Tai Yai or Tai Long in other Tai languages.
Shan | |
---|---|
Tai Yai | |
တႆး | |
Pronunciation | [lik.táj] |
Native to | Myanmar, Thailand, China |
Region | Shan State |
Ethnicity | Shan |
Native speakers | 3.3 million (2001)[1] |
Language family | Kra–Dai
|
Writing system | Mon–Burmese (Shan alphabet) |
Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | Myanmar |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | shn |
ISO 639-3 | shn |
Glottolog | shan1277 |
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. |
The number of Shan speakers is not known in part because the Shan population is unknown. Estimates of Shan people range from four million to 30 million,[citation needed] with about half speaking the Shan language.[citation needed] In 2001 Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk estimated 3.2 million Shan speakers in Myanmar; the Mahidol University Institute for Language and Culture gave the number of Shan speakers in Thailand as 95,000 in 2006, though including refugees from Burma they now total about one million.[2][3] Many Shan speak local dialects as well as the language of their trading partners. Due to the civil war in Burma, few Shan today can read or write in Shan alphabet, which was derived from the Burmese alphabet.
The Shan language has a number of names in different Tai languages and Burmese.
The Shan dialects spoken in Shan State can be divided into three groups, roughly coinciding with geographical and modern administrative boundaries, namely the northern, southern, and eastern dialects. Dialects differ to a certain extent in vocabulary and pronunciation, but are generally mutually intelligible. While the southern dialect has borrowed more Burmese words, Eastern Shan is somewhat closer to northern Thai languages and Lao in vocabulary and pronunciation, and the northern so-called "Chinese Shan" is much influenced by the Yunnan-Chinese dialect. A number of words differ in initial consonants. In the north, initial /k/, /kʰ/ and /m/, when combined with certain vowels and final consonants, are pronounced /tʃ/ (written ky), /tʃʰ/ (written khy) and /mj/ (written my). In Chinese Shan, initial /n/ becomes /l/. In southwestern regions /m/ is often pronounced as /w/. Initial /f/ only appears in the east, while in the other two dialects it merges with /pʰ/.
Prominent dialects are considered as separate languages, such as Khün (called Kon Shan by the Burmese), which is spoken in Kengtung valley, and Tai Lü. Chinese Shan is also called (Tai) Mao, referring to the old Shan State of Mong Mao. 'Tai Long' is used to refer to the dialect spoken in southern and central regions west of the Salween River. There are also dialects still spoken by a small number of people in Kachin State and Khamti spoken in northern Sagaing Region.
J. Marvin Brown (1965)[4] divides the three dialects of Shan as follows:
Shan has 19 consonants. Unlike Thai and Lao there are no voiced plosives [d] and [b].
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | /m/ မ |
/n/ ၼ |
/ɲ/ ၺ |
/ŋ/ င |
||
Plosive | unaspirated | /p/ ပ |
/t/ တ |
/tɕ/ ၸ |
/k/ ၵ |
/ʔ/[lower-alpha 1] ဢ |
aspirated | /pʰ/ ၽ |
/tʰ/ ထ |
/kʰ/ ၶ |
|||
Fricative | (/f/)[lower-alpha 2] ၾ |
/s/ သ |
/h/ ႁ | |||
Trill | (/r/)[lower-alpha 3] ရ |
|||||
Approximant | /j/ ယ |
/w/ ဝ |
||||
Lateral | /l/ လ |
Shan has ten vowels and 13 diphthongs:
Front | Central-Back | Back |
---|---|---|
/i/ | /ɨ/~/ɯ/ | /u/ |
/e/ | /ə/~/ɤ/ | /o/ |
/ɛ/ | /a/ /aː/ | /ɔ/ |
[iu], [eu], [ɛu]; [ui], [oi], [ɯi], [ɔi], [əi]; [ai], [aɯ], [au]; [aːi], [aːu]
Shan has less vowel complexity than Thai, and Shan people learning Thai have difficulties with sounds such as "ia," "ua," and "uea" [ɯa]. Triphthongs are absent. Shan has no systematic distinction between long and short vowels characteristic of Thai.
Shan has phonemic contrasts among the tones of syllables. There are five to six tonemes in Shan, depending on the dialect. The sixth tone is only spoken in the north; in other parts it is only used for emphasis.
The table below presents six phonemic tones in unchecked syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in sonorant sounds such as [m], [n], [ŋ], [w], and [j] and open syllables.
No. | Description | IPA | Description | Transcription* | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | rising (24) | ˨˦ | Starting rather low and rising pitch | ǎ | a (not marked) |
2 | low (11) | ˩ | Low, even pitch | à | a, |
3 | mid(-falling) (32) | ˧˨ | Medium level pitch, slightly falling in the end | a (not marked) | a; |
4 | high (55) | ˥ | High, even pitch | á | a: |
5 | falling (creaky) (42) | ˦˨ˀ | Short, creaky, strongly falling with lax final glottal stop | âʔ, â̰ | a. |
6 | emphatic (343) | ˧˦˧ | Starting mid level, then slightly rising, with a drop at the end (similar to tones 3 and 5) | a᷈ |
The following table shows an example of the phonemic tones:
Tone | Shan | IPA | Transliteration | English |
---|---|---|---|---|
rising | ၼႃ | /nǎː/ | na | thick |
low | ၼႃႇ | /nàː/ | na, | very |
mid | ၼႃႈ | /nāː/ | na; | face |
high | ၼႃး | /náː/ | na: | paddy field |
creaky | ၼႃႉ | /na̰/ | na. | aunt, uncle |
The Shan tones correspond to Thai tones as follows:
The table below presents four phonemic tones in checked syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in a glottal stop [ʔ] and obstruent sounds such as [p], [t], and [k].
Tone | Shan | Phonemic | Phonetic | Transliteration | English |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
high | လၵ်း | /lák/ | [lak˥] | lak: | post |
creaky | လၵ်ႉ | /la̰k/ | [la̰k˦˨ˀ] | lak. | steal |
low | လၢၵ်ႇ | /làːk/ | [laːk˩] | laak, | differ from others |
mid | လၢၵ်ႈ | /lāːk/ | [laːk˧˨] | laak; | drag |
The syllable structure of Shan is C(G)V((V)/(C)), which is to say the onset consists of a consonant optionally followed by a glide, and the rhyme consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong alone. (Only in some dialects, a diphthong may also be followed by a consonant.) The glides are: -w-, -y- and -r-. There are seven possible final consonants: /ŋ/, /n/, /m/, /k/, /t/, /p/, and /ʔ/.
Some representative words are:
Typical Shan words are monosyllabic. Multisyllabic words are mostly Pali loanwords, or Burmese words with the initial weak syllable /ə/.
Person | Pronoun | IPA | Meaning[5] |
---|---|---|---|
first | ၵဝ် | kǎw | I/me (informal) |
တူ | tǔ | I/me (informal) | |
ၶႃႈ | kʰaː | I/me (formal) "servant, slave" | |
ႁႃး | háː | we/us two (familiar/dual) | |
ႁဝ်း | háw | we/us (general) | |
ႁဝ်းၶႃႈ | háw.kʰaː | we/us (formal) "we servants, we slaves" | |
second | မႂ်း | máɰ | you (informal/familiar) |
ၸဝ်ႈ | tsaw | you (formal) "master, lord" | |
ၶိူဝ် | kʰə̌ə | you two (familiar/dual) | |
သူ | sʰǔ | you (formal/singular, general/plural) | |
သူၸဝ်ႈ | sʰǔ.tsaw | you (formal/singular, general/plural) "you masters, you lords" | |
third | မၼ်း | mán | he/she/it (informal/familiar) |
ၶႃ | kʰǎa | they/them two (familiar/dual) | |
ၶဝ် | kʰǎw | he/she/it (formal), or they/them (general) | |
ၶဝ်ၸဝ်ႈ | kʰǎw.tsaw | he/she/it (formal), or they/them (formal) "they masters, they lords" | |
ပိူၼ်ႈ | pɤn | they/them, others |
Given the present instabilities in Burma, one choice for scholars is to study the Shan people and their language in Thailand, where estimates of Shan refugees run as high as two million, and Mae Hong Son Province is home to a Shan majority. The major source for information about the Shan language in English is Dunwoody Press's Shan for English Speakers. They also publish a Shan-English dictionary. Aside from this, the language is almost completely undescribed in English.[citation needed]
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Italics indicate extinct languages |