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 spoken by over half a million
Kayah people (Red Karen) in
Burma.
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
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
Shan State.
*northern dialect:
Shan State (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
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 ...
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 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
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 ...
and the
caron over the vowel. The
breathy voice is indicated with an umlaut below the vowel letter. Breathy voiced vowel letters can also have a diacritic indicating the tone.
References
Further reading
*Kirkland, Cortney, and Erin Dawkins. 2007
''A Sociolinguistic survey of Eastern Kayah Li in Thailand'' Chiang Mai: Payap University.
*
Shintani Tadahiko. 2018. ''The Yintalay language''. Linguistic survey of Tay cultural area (LSTCA) no. 115. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA).
External links
*
Eastern Kayah Li basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{Languages of Burma
Karenic languages