Sak (also known as Cak, Chak, or Tsak) is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Sal branch spoken in

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

and

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

by the Chak people.

Geographical distribution

Cak is spoken in Bangladesh by about 3,000 people and in Rakhine State, Burma by about 1,000 people according to ''Ethnologue''. In Bangladesh, Cak is spoken in Baishari, Naikhyongchari, and Dochari (Huziwara 2018). In Rakhine State, Burma, Sak is spoken in

Maungdaw Maungdaw (, ) is a town in Rakhine State, in the western part of Myanmar (Burma). It is the administrative seat of Maungdaw Township and Maungdaw District. Bordering Bangladesh, Maungdaw is home to one of 2 official border trade posts with Bang ...

Buthidaung Buthidaung (, ) is a town in Rakhine State, in the westernmost part of Myanmar (Burma). It is the administrative seat of the Buthidaung Township. Buthidaung lies on the west bank of the Mayu river, and experienced severe flooding in June 2010 and ...

, Rathedaung, and

Mrauk U Mrauk U ( ) is a town in northern Rakhine State, Myanmar. It is the capital of Mrauk-U Township, a subregion of the Mrauk-U District. Mrauk U is culturally significant for the local Rakhine people, Rakhine (Arakanese) people and is the location ...

townships (Huziwara 2018). The Baishari dialect is the most conservative one (Huziwara 2018). According to ''Ethnologue'', in Bangladesh, Chak is spoken in 14 villages in: *

Chittagong Division Chittagong Division (), officially Chattogram Division, is geographically the largest of the eight administrative divisions of Bangladesh. It covers the southeasternmost areas of the country, with a total area of and a population according to th ...

: Baishari, Bandarban, Bishar Chokpra *Southern Naikhongchari area in the Arakan Blue Mountains

Phonology

Consonants

* Sounds /tsʰ, kʰ, w/ mainly occur from loanwords. */ts, tsʰ, dz/ is also heard as ʃ, tʃʰ, dʒamong other dialects. * �occurs as a realization of the consonant sequence /ŋj/.

Vowels

* �only occurs in minor syllables or as a result of vowel reduction of /a/.

Numerals

Sak uses a decimal-based numeral system. Sak uses two sets of numerals: an indigenous system, and another system borrowed from Arakanese, often used for numbers beyond ten.

Writing system

A new script for the Sak language was devised by Mong Mong Cak and disseminated in 2013. Previously, Bengali and Burmese scripts were used on an ''ad hoc'' basis. The Cak script is a Brahmic-style

abugida An abugida (; from Geʽez: , )sometimes also called alphasyllabary, neosyllabary, or pseudo-alphabetis a segmental Writing systems#Segmental writing system, writing system in which consonant–vowel sequences are written as units; each unit ...

with 33 consonants and 11 vowels represented.

* * *Glottolog 2.7 - Sak. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 201

* *Huziwara, Keisuke. 2002. “Chakku-go no onsei ni kansuru koosatu” phonetic analysis of Cak Kyoto University Linguistic Research yooto Daigaku Gengogaku Kenkyuu21:217–73. *Huziwara, Keisuke. 2008. Chakku-go no kizyutu gengogakuteki kenkyuu descriptive linguistic study of the Cak language Doctoral dissertation, Kyoto University. lix + 942 pp. * *Huziwara, Keisuke. 2010. “Cak prefixes.” In Dai Zhongming and James A. Matisoff, eds., Zang-Mian-yu yanjiu sishi nian orty Years of Sino-Tibetan Studies pp. 130–45. Harbin: Heilongjiang University Press. * *Thurgood, G., & LaPolla, R. J. (2003). ''The Sino-Tibetan languages''. *Voegelin, C. F., & Voegelin, F. M. (1965). Languages of the world: Sino-Tibetan fascicle five. ''Anthropological Linguistics,'' ''7''(6), 1-58. Retrieved February 12, 2016

References

External links

Samples of Spoken Sak/Chak from a Missionary Project

Draft Unicode proposal for the Chak script
{{Languages of Bangladesh Sal languages Languages of Myanmar Languages of Bangladesh