Karen languages
The Karen languages or Karen languages (also Kareang , Kariang or Kayin languages ) form a subgroup of the Tibetan Burman languages , a primary branch of Sinotibetic . The 15 languages are spoken by around 4 million people in Burma and Thailand . The most important individual languages are Sgaw (Sgo, language of the White Karen) with 1.6 million speakers and Pwo with 1.3 million speakers. The speakers live in two very different regions: on the one hand, in the deltas of the Irawaddy ,Salween and Sittang , on the other hand in the rugged hills and valleys of the Tenasserim Mountains on the border with Thailand.
Karen languages are monosyllabic and tonal with four meaning-defining tones. Syntactically, they are of the VO type ; H. the object follows the verb and adjectives / adverbs follow the word to be modified - just like Thai, but different from many other Tibeto-Burmese languages .
Kareang and Kariang are the names for the Karen and their languages in the Thai and Mon languages , while in the Burmese language they are called Kayin and the Shan Yang . At the beginning of the 19th century, European missionaries in Tenasserim began to design a typeface for the two most important Karene languages, Sgaw and Pwo. Between 1847 and 1850 an extensive collection of words appeared in Tavoy .
Classification and subunits
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Sinotibian
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Tibeto Burmese
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Karen
- Sgaw-Bghai-Kayah group
- Sgaw group
- Sgaw (S'gaw, Sgo, language of the White Karen) (1.6 million) Dialects: Panapu, Palachi
- Paku (Pagu, Monebwa, Mogwa) (5,000)
- Bghai (Bwe) group
- Geko (Padaung) (10,000)
- Lahta (Taru) (10,000)
- Bwe (15,000)
- Geba (10,000)
- Kayah group
- Kayah (Kayah Li, language of the Red Karen) (500,000)
- Manumanaw (10,000)
- Yinbaw (7,000)
- Yintale (10,000)
- Brek (Bre) (20,000)
- Sgaw group
- Pwo (Pho) (1.3 million)
- Phlou dialects: Pa'an (Moulmein), Kawkareik, Tavoy
- Thailand dialects: Kanchanaburi, Ratchaburi
- Bassein dialects: Bassein, Tuan Net, Maubin
- Phlong dialects: Mae Ping, Omkoi (Hod), Mae Sarieng, Phrae
- Pa'o (Pao, Taungthu, language of the Black Karen) (600,000)
- Zayein (10,000)
- Sgaw-Bghai-Kayah group
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Karen
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Tibeto Burmese
Classification, dialects and speaker numbers according to the given web link.
Individual evidence
- ^ Sau Kau-too, J. Wader: Thesaurus of the Karen knowledge. Tavoy 1847-1850
literature
Karen
- Sau Kau-too, J. Wader: Thesaurus of the Karen knowledge . Tavoy 1847-1850.
- David Solnit: Eastern Kayah Li. In: Graham Thurgood, Randy J. LaPolla (Eds.): The Sino-Tibetan Languages. Routledge, London 2003.
- Atsuhiko Kato: Pwo Karen. In: Graham Thurgood, Randy J. LaPolla (Eds.): The Sino-Tibetan Languages. Routledge, London 2003.
Tibeto Burmese
- Christopher I. Beckwith (Ed.): Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages. Brill, Leiden / Boston / Cologne 2002.
- Paul K. Benedict: Sino-Tibetan. A Conspectus. Cambridge University Press, 1972.
- Scott DeLancey: Sino-Tibetan Languages. In: Bernard Comrie (Ed.): The World's Major Languages. Oxford University Press, 1990.
- Austin Hale: Research on Tibeto-Burman Languages. Mouton, Berlin / New York / Amsterdam 1982.
- James A. Matisoff: Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman. University of California Press, 2003.
- Anju Saxena (Ed.): Himalayan Languages. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004.
- Graham Thurgood, Randy J. LaPolla (Eds.): The Sino-Tibetan Languages. Routledge, London 2003.
- George Van Driem: Languages of the Himalayas. Brill, Leiden 2001.
See also
Web links
- Ernst Kausen: The Classification of the Sino-Tibetan Languages. (DOC; 116 kB)