Mru, also known as Mrung (Murung), is a

Sino-Tibetan language Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is spoken by a community of Mrus (Mros) inhabiting the

Chittagong Hill Tracts The Chittagong Hill Tracts ( bn, পার্বত্য চট্টগ্রাম, Parbotto Chottogram), often shortened to simply the Hill Tracts and abbreviated to CHT, are group of districts within the Chittagong Division in southeast ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

with a population of 22,000 according to the 1991 census, and in

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 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 Mrus are the second-largest tribal group in

Bandarban District Bandarban ( bn, বান্দরবান, Chakma: 𑄝𑄚𑄴𑄘𑄧𑄢𑄴𑄝𑄚𑄴) is a district in South-Eastern Bangladesh, and a part of the Chittagong Division. It is one of the three hill districts of Bangladesh and a part of ...

of the

. A small group of Mros also live in

Rangamati Hill District Rangamati Hill District (Chakma:𑄢𑄋𑄟𑄖𑄴𑄳𑄠 ;) is a district in south-eastern Bangladesh. It is a part of the Chattogram Division, and the town of Rangamati serves as the headquarters of the district. By area, Rangamati is th ...

Classification

Mru forms the Mruic language branch with Hkongso and Anu, which are spoken in

Paletwa Township Paletwa Township ( my, ပလက်ဝမြို့နယ်) is a township of Matupi District in the Chin State of Myanmar. It consists of Paletwa and Sami towns and Paletwa is the administrative center for the township. Also known as Arakan Hi ...

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 Ma ...

. The position of Mruic with Sino-Tibetan is unclear.

Distribution

The Mros live in forest areas of Lama, Ruma, Alikaram, and Thanchi near Chimbuk Mountain of

(Rashel 2009). In

, they also live in

Buthidaung Township Buthidaung Township ( my, ဘူးသီးတောင်မြို့နယ် ) is a township of Maungdaw District in the Rakhine State of Myanmar (Burma). The principal town and administrative seat is Buthidaung Buthidaung (, ) is a town i ...

and Ponnagyun Township in

Sittwe District Sittwe District ( my, စစ်တွေခရိုင်) is a district of the Rakhine State in western Myanmar. The capital lies at Sittwe. Administrative divisions Sittwe District consists of the following townships: * Pauktaw Township * Ponn ...

(Akiab),

Subdivisions

''Ethnologue'' (22nd edition) lists 3 main dialects as Anok, Dowpreng (Dopreng), and Sungma (Tshungma), as well as the 2 minor dialects of Domrong and Rumma. *Anok: largest and central *Tshungma: in the north *Domrong: in the lowlands north of the Matamuri *Dopreng: in far south and into Arakan *Rumma: in far south and into Arakan There are five Mru dialects according to Ebersole (1996). *Anawk *Süngma *Dopreng *Tamsa *Rengmitsa There are five major Mro clans (Rashel 2009). *Dengua *Premsang *Kongloi *Maizer *Ganaroo Gnar Rashel (2009) also lists another classification scheme which lists ten Mro clans. *Yarua (subdivisions below) **Khatpo **Chimlung **Zongnow *Sangkan *Chawla *Ngaringcha *Tang *Deng *Kough *Tam-tu-chah *Kanbak *Prenju *Naichah *Yomore *Rum/Rumthu

Grammar

Unlike the

Kuki-Chin languages 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 ...

, Mru has SVO ( subject-verb-object) word order (Ebersole 1996).

Phonology

Consonants

/s/ can also be heard as �

Vowels

Numerals

Rashel (2009:159) lists the following Mro numerals. #lok #pre #sum #tle #tnga #trok #rinit #riyat #tako #homod

Script

The Mru script is an indigenous, messianic script: In the 1980s Menlay Murang (also known as Manley Mro) created the religion of Khrama (or Crama) and with it a new script for the Mru language. The script is written from left to right and has its own set of digits. It does not use tone marks. The Mru language is written in both the Latin and Mru scripts.

Unicode

The Mru alphabet was added to the

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0. The Unicode block for the Mru script, called Mro, is U+16A40–U+16A6F:

References

* Ebersole, Harold. 1996. ''The Mru Language: A preliminary grammatical sketch''. Ms. * Peterson, David A.
"Where does Mru fit into Tibeto-Burman?"
''The 42nd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics'' (ICSTLL 42), November 2009,

Payap University Payap University ( th, มหาวิทยาลัยพายัพ; ), established in 1974, is a private and non-profit institution founded by the Foundation of the Church of Christ in Thailand. Payap University is a liberal arts and pre-pr ...

Chiangmai Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

. Cf. p. 14. * Rashel, Md Mostafa (2009).
Morphosyntactic Analysis of Mro Language
" ''Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics'', Vol, 2, No, 3, February 2009, 141–160.