Pyu (language)
Pyu or Tircul is an extinct Tibeto-Burmese language spoken in what is now Burma and western Thailand .
The language was spoken by the Pyu , who held a prominent position in what is now Burma between the 3rd and 12th centuries before being assimilated by the Burmese . Today you can only find Pyu in inscriptions, most of which also have texts in Pali .
Pyu was provisionally assigned to the Lolo-Burmese languages , but there are also reasons for an assignment to the Jingpho-Sak languages (Bradley 1993). Many researchers treat them as an independent branch of the Tibeto-Burmese languages before more clues have been found for a more precise classification.
Individual evidence
- ^ Matisoff (2003)
- ↑ Van Driem in http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/clao_0153-3320_2003_num_32_2_1638 (last accessed on November 20, 2010)
literature
- James A. Matisoff: Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman . University of California Press, Berkeley 2003, ISBN 0-520-09843-9 .