The S'gaw,( or ) also known as Skaw, S'gaw, S'gau, White Karen, Paganyaw, Pgaz Cgauz and Pakayo, are an ethnic group of

Burma 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 ...

and

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 ...

. They speak the

S'gaw Karen language S’gaw, S'gaw Karen, or S’gaw K’Nyaw, commonly known as Karen, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the S'gaw Karen people of Myanmar and Thailand. A Karenic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, S'gaw Karen is spoken by over 2 mi ...

.Ethnologue - Karen, S’gaw
/ref> The S'gaw are a subgroup of the

Karen people The Karen, kjp, ပ်ုဖၠုံဆိုဒ်, my, ကရင်လူမျိုး, , th, กะเหรี่ยง ( ), also known as the Kayin, Kariang or Kawthoolese, are an ethnolinguistic group of Sino-Tibetan language ...

. They are also referred to by the

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

"White Karen", a term dating from colonial times and used in contrast to the

Karenni Karenni may refer to: * Karenni people * Karenni language * Karenni State, former name of Kayah State, Myanmar * Karenni States The Karenni States, also known as Red Karen States, was the name formerly given to the states inhabited mainly by ...

(or "Red Karen") and the Pa'O (or "Black Karen"), even though the latter often rejected the term "Karen" to refer to themselves. Sir George Scott. ''Among the Hill Tribes of Burma – An Ethnological Thicket.'' National Geographic Magazine, 1922, p. 293 The S'gaw live primarily in eastern Burma ( Karen State, Mon state,

Karenni state Kayah State ( my, ကယားပြည်နယ်, formerly Karenni State) is a state of Myanmar. Situated in eastern Myanmar, it is bounded on the north by Shan State, on the east by Thailand's Mae Hong Son Province, and on the south and wes ...

). Many of them migrate to Thai-Burmese border and live there as a refugees for many decades due to conflict in Karen state. S'gaw people are the founder of the

Karen National Union The Karen National Union ( my, ကရင် အမျိုးသား အစည်းအရုံး; abbreviated KNU) is a political organisation with an armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), that claims to represent the Ka ...

(KNU).

Origins

Karen ( S'gaw and

Pwo {{for, Pwo languages, Pwo languages Pwo is a sacred initiation ritual, in which students of Micronesia navigation, traditional navigation in the Caroline Islands in Micronesia become navigators (''palu'') and are initiated in the associated secrets. ...

) legend refer to a 'river of running sand' () which they believe Pu Taw Meh Pa led the Karen people across the river of the running sand. Many Karen think this refers to the Gobi Desert, although they have lived in Burma for centuries. The legend made the Karen people believe that they are from

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karen People (Burma) Ethnic groups in Myanmar Ethnic groups in Thailand

Origins

See also

References