Shö is a
Kuki-Chin language
The Kuki-Chin languages (also called Kuki-Chin-Mizo, Kukish or South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages) are a branch of 50 or so Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most speakers of the ...
dialect cluster
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...
of Burma and Bangladesh. There are perhaps three distinct dialects, Asho (Khyang), Chinbon, and Shendu.
Mayin and Longpaw are not mutually intelligible, but have been subsumed under the ISO code for Chinbon because Mayin-Longpaw speakers generally understand Chinbon. Minkya is similarly included because most Minkya speakers understand Mayin.
Geographical distribution
Chinbon (Uppu) is spoken in the following townships of Myanmar.
*
Chin State
Chin State (, ) is a state in western Myanmar. The Chin State is bordered by Sagaing Division and Magway Division to the east, Rakhine State to the south, Bangladesh to the south-west, and the Indian states of Mizoram to the west and Manipu ...
:
Kanpetlet and
Paletwa
Paletwa (, ) is one of the westernmost towns of Myanmar, in Chin State 18 kilometres from the border with Bangladesh. Its population in 2014 was about 97,000.
Demographics
Rakhine is the Lingua Franca of the region, while Kuki-Chin language ...
townships
*
Magway Region
Magway Region ( my, မကွေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Magway Division) is an administrative division in central Myanmar. It is the second largest of Myanmar's seven divisions, with an area of . Pa Del Dam (ပဒ ...
:
Saw and
Sidoktaya
Sidoktaya, also Sitoktaya or Setoketaya ( my, စေတုတ္တရာမြို့) is a town and seat of Sidoktaya Township in Minbu District of Magway Division, situated in middle west region of Burma. It is bordered with Sali ...
townships
*
Rakhine State
Rakhine State (; , , ; formerly known as Arakan State) is a state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region to the east, the Bay of Ben ...
:
Minbya township
Asho is spoken in
Ayeyarwady Region
Ayeyarwady Region ( my, ဧရာဝတီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး , , ; formerly Ayeyarwady Division and Irrawaddy Division), is a region of Myanmar, occupying the delta region of the Ayeyarwady River (Irrawaddy River). It is bo ...
,
Bago Region
Bago Region ( my, ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the country. It is bordered by Magway Region a ...
, and
Magway Region
Magway Region ( my, မကွေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; formerly Magway Division) is an administrative division in central Myanmar. It is the second largest of Myanmar's seven divisions, with an area of . Pa Del Dam (ပဒ ...
, and
Rakhine State
Rakhine State (; , , ; formerly known as Arakan State) is a state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady Region to the east, the Bay of Ben ...
, Myanmar.
VanBik (2009:38)
lists the following Asho dialects.
*Settu (spoken from
Sittwe
Sittwe (; ; formerly Akyab) is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe, pronounced ''sait-tway'' in the Rakhine language, is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers empty ...
to
Thandwe
Thandwe ("Thandway" in Arakanese; ; formerly Sandoway) is a town and major seaport in Rakhine State, the westernmost part of Myanmar. Thandwe is very ancient, and is said to have been at one time the capital of Rakhine State, then called Arakan. ...
— mostly Sittwe to
Ann)
*Laitu (spoken in
Sidoktaya Township)
*Awttu (spoken in
Mindon Township
Mindon Township ( my, မင်းတုန်းမြို့နယ်) is a township of Thayet District in the Magway Region of Burma (Myanmar)
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions ...
)
*Kowntu (spoken in
Ngaphe,
Minhla,
Minbu)
*Kaitu (spoken in
Pegu
Bago (formerly spelt Pegu; , ), formerly known as Hanthawaddy, is a city and the capital of the Bago Region in Myanmar. It is located north-east of Yangon.
Etymology
The Burmese name Bago (ပဲခူး) is likely derived from the Mon langu ...
,
Mandalay
Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census).
Mandalay was fo ...
,
Magway)
*Lauku (spoken in Myepone,
Kyauk Phyu,
Ann)
Shendu is spoken in
Mizoram
Mizoram () is a state in Northeast India, with Aizawl as its seat of government and capital city. The name of the state is derived from "Mizo", the self-described name of the native inhabitants, and "Ram", which in the Mizo language means "lan ...
, India.
Phonology
The Asho dialect (K’Chò) has 26 to 30 consonants and ten to eleven vowels depending on the dialect.
* Voiced plosives /b d ɡ z/ are only heard in the Plains dialect.
* In the Plains dialect, dental plosives /t̪ t̪ʰ/ are pronounced as alveolar
tʰ along with /d/ being only alveolar.
* Velar plosives /k kʰ/ may be palatalized as affricates
ʃ tʃʰbefore front vowels.
* In some dialects a voiceless is heard in place of /ʃ/.
* /j/ may also be heard as a fricative in free variation among dialects.
Diphthongs:
* Sounds /ʏ ʉ/ only occur in the Hill dialect. In the Plains dialect, /ʊ u/ is heard in place of /ʏ ʉ/.
* An shortened
̆is heard in unstressed syllables.
* /ɤ/ can sometimes be heard as more central .
* A prevelarized /ˠi/ occurs in the Plains dialect.
Morphology
Similar to other Kukish languages, many Asho verbs have two distinct stems. This stem alternation is a Proto-Kukish feature, which has been retained to different degrees in different Kukish languages.
References
Kuki-Chin languages
Languages of Bangladesh
{{st-lang-stub