Karenni or Red Karen (Kayah Li: ; my, ကရင်နီ), known in Burmese as Kayah ( my, ကယား), is a

Karen Karen may refer to: * Karen (name), a given name and surname * Karen (slang), a term and meme for a demanding woman displaying certain behaviors People * Karen people, an ethnic group in Myanmar and Thailand ** Karen languages or Karenic l ...

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

spoken by over half a million

Kayah people The Karenni ( my, ကရင်နီ, ), also known as the Kayah ( my, ကယားလူမျိုး) or Kayah Li (Karenni: ), are a Karen people native to the Kayah State of Myanmar (Burma). According to a 1983 census, the Karenni consist ...

(Red Karen) in

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. The name ''Kayah'' has been described as "a new name invented by the Burmese to split them off from other Karen". Eastern Kayah is reported to have been spoken by 260,000 in Burma and 100,000 in Thailand in 2000, and Western Kayah by 210,000 in Burma in 1987. They are rather divergent. Among the Western dialects are Yintale and kayahManu (''Manumanaw'' in Burmese).

Distribution and varieties

Eastern Kayah is spoken in: * Shadaw township, Kayah State (east of the Thanlwin River) *

Langkho Langkho, Laangkher, or Linkhay is a town and seat of Langkho Township and Langkho District, in the Shan State of eastern Burma. It is located east of Wān Long. It is served by Langhko Airport and is accessed along the National Road 45. A bridge ...

district,

Shan State Shan State ( my, ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်, ; shn, မိူင်းတႆး, italics=no) also known by the Endonym and exonym, endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. ...

Eastern Kayah dialects are Upper Eastern Kayah and Lower Eastern Kayah, which are mutually intelligible. The speech variety of Huai Sua Thaw village (Lower Eastern) is prestigious for both dialect groups. The Eastern Kayah have difficulty understanding the Western Kayah. Western Kayah is spoken in Kayah State and

Kayin State Kayin State ( my, ကရင်ပြည်နယ်, ; kjp, ဖၠုံခါန်ႋကၞင့်, italics=no; ksw, ကညီကီၢ်စဲၣ်, ), also known by the endonyms Kawthoolei and Karen State, is a state of Myanmar. The ca ...

, east of the Thanlwin River. It is also spoken in Pekon township in southern

. *northern dialect:

(north of Loikaw) *southern dialect:

Hpruso Hpruso ( my, ဖရူဆိုမြို့) is a town in the Kayah State of eastern part of Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British Engl ...

and Dimawso townships (south of Loikaw) Western Kayah dialects are part of a dialect continuum of Central Karen varieties stretching from Thailand. They include: *Northern dialect of Western Kayah *Southern dialect of Western Kayah *Dawtama *Dawnnyjekhu *Sounglog *Chi Kwe *Wan Cheh Yintale, reportedly a variety of Western Kayah, is spoken in 3 villages of Hpasawng township, Bawlakhe district, Kayah State. Yintale dialects are Bawlake and Wa Awng. Kawyaw, reportedly similar to Western Kayah, is spoken in 23 villages along the border of Bawlake and

townships, in the West

Kyebogyi Western Karenni was the collective name for the four Karenni States located west of the Salween River: Bawlake, Nammekon, Naungpale, and Kyebogyi. On 21 June 1875, the government of British India and king Mindon of Burma signed a treaty recognizi ...

area of Kayah State. Kawyaw dialects are Tawkhu and Doloso, which have been reported to be difficult to mutually understand.

Writing system

According to Aung 2013, Manumanaw Karen does not yet have a standardized script. Catholic missionaries developed a spelling using the Latin script which is used in religious documents, including the translation of the Bible. A Manumanaw Karen literature committee has been set up and is developing literacy programs with SIL, using spelling based on Burmese script , so that it is accepted by Catholics and Baptists. The tones are indicated using the caron, the

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ch ...

or without the addition of these on the vowels: , . The diaeresis below is used to indicate the

breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...

on the vowels: . Seven digraphs are used. The five vowels of the alphabet are supplemented by four accented letters representing their own vowels. Tones are represented using the

and the caron over the vowel. The

is indicated with an umlaut below the vowel letter. Breathy voiced vowel letters can also have a diacritic indicating the tone.

References

External links

*
Eastern Kayah Li basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{Languages of Burma Karenic languages

Distribution and varieties

Writing system

References

Further reading

External links