Danau, also spelled Htanaw or Danaw (), is an

Austroasiatic language The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

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 ...

(Burma). It is the most divergent member of the

Palaungic The Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages are a group of nearly 30 Austroasiatic languages, with scholars disagreeing on exactly which languages to include in the classification. They are spoken in scattered pockets across an inland region of South ...

branch (Sidwell 2010). According to community estimates (2023), Danau is spoken by about 3,000 people in six villages near

Aungban Aungban () () is a prominent trading town in the southern Shan State of Myanmar. Aungban plays a vital role in the national agricultural supply chain, distributing produce to various regions across the country. It is located in Kalaw Township w ...

Kalaw Township Kalaw Township () is the capital township of Kalaw District in southwestern Shan State, eastern Myanmar. The principal town is Kalaw. This township contains Kalaw, Aungban and Heho Heho () is a small town in Kalaw Township, Shan State of Myan ...

Shan State Shan State (, ; , ) is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha Province, Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai Province, Chia ...

. Danau was described as a "critically endangered" language in

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

's 2010 ''

Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger The UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger'' was an online publication containing a comprehensive list of the world's endangered languages. It originally replaced the ''Red Book of Endangered Languages'' as a title in print after a ...

.''

Name

Danau is the most common English form of the ethnonym; the Danau themselves pronounce the name of their ethnic group and language as . The meaning and origin of the name are unknown. Zaw Lwin Oo (2021:35) states that the endonym ''kənɒ̀'' means 'the people who like to live peacefully' (အေးအေးဆေးဆေး နေတတ်သောလူမျိုး). This etymology of the name is unknown to the native speakers, though, and no related word is found in the present-day language.

Speakers

The Danau are a little known ethnic group in Myanmar. Even in the nearby town of

, it is common for people to confuse this group with the local Danu majority. According to historical accounts, the Danu had served as archers for King

Alaungpaya Alaungpaya (, ; also spelled Alaunghpaya or Alaung-Phra; 11 May 1760) was the founder and first emperor of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma. By the time of his death from illness during his Burmese–Siamese War (1759–60), campaign in Siam, this ...

, who founded the

Konbaung Dynasty The Konbaung dynasty (), also known as the Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်), was the last dynasty that ruled Burma from 1752 to 1885. It created the second-largest empire in history of Mya ...

in the 18th century. The Danu settled in the

Pindaya Pindaya ( ''Pìñṯáyá myoú'') is the capital of the Danu Self-Administered Zone in Shan State, east-central Myanmar. It is located in Pindaya Township. Mainly famous for its limestone caves called Pindaya Caves where thousands of Buddha ...

region after returning from wars in Thailand, and speak a variant of Burmese that is characterized by minor differences in pronunciation. The Danau, on the other hand speak a completely different Austroasiatic language, which nevertheless has numerous words borrowed from Burmese (and also ultimately from

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

via Burmese). The Danau live primarily in the villages of Taungpohla, Thaethit, Htinyugon, Chaunggya and Naung In, within a short distance of the towns of Aungban and Heho. As these villages are surrounded by Pa'O villages, Danau people tend to speak Pa'O as well as Burmese (and the Burmese varieties Intha and Taungyoe). In spite of the small size of the Danau-speaking population, the language is vigorous and being taught to children. The current situation is in contrast to the prediction made by the linguist Gordon H. Luce in 1965, when he called Danau a 'dying' language. The Danau people are primarily farmers, growing sesame, turmeric, ginger, chili, groundnut and potato for local consumption and for sale at nearby markets.

Writing system

Danau has no traditional orthography. Speakers use ad-hoc Burmese and Pa'O inspired spelling to represent their language in informal situations, especially on social media and karaoke videos. Since 2020, a systematic way of writing Danau in Burmese script has been developed by members of the language community in cooperation with a team of international linguists. The finalized draft of the new orthography is currently (July 2023) being tested by the speakers. A first primer is expected to be published in 2024.

Grammatical structure

Danau has a basic SVO clause structure, with free omission of known or contextually retrievable elements. The internal structure of phrases is inconsistent in terms of head and dependent arrangements, showing influence from verb-final Tibeto-Burman, especially Burmese, and equally mixed Karenic Pa'O. Grammatical and semantic relations are expressed by both pre- and postpositions, clausal and verbal modifiers (relative clauses and "adjectives") can precede or follow the noun they modify. The verb phrase in Danau exhibits a complex internal structure, combining prefixes and suffixes. as well as primary and secondary verbs. The latter can occur either before or after the main verb(s), depending on their function. The complete VP pattern is REF1 REF2 2 1 2 UFF1 UFF2'' Only one element can occur in each of the affix slots in a VP, but multiple V1 and V2 are allowed.The main verb (V1) is the only obligatory element in a VP, all other parts are optional. All non-verbal elements, such as nominals and adverbials, occur outside the VP, either on the left or right.

Vocabulary

The basic vocabulary of Danau is clearly

(Austroasiatic), although the language contains a large number of words that are either borrowed from neighboring languages such as Burmese/Intha, Pa'O, and Shan, or of unknown origin. An online dictionary is currently being compiled and continuously expanded.

Phonology

Danau has a three-way distinction in plosive onsets: voiceless (/k, c, t, p, ʔ/), voiceless-aspirate (/kʰ, cʰ, tʰ, pʰ/) implosive (only /ɗ/ and /ɓ/). Sonorants found in onset position are /ŋ, ɲ, n, m, j, r, l, w/v. Unlike Burmese, Danau does not have voiceless/aspirated sonorants. Fricatives are /s, sʰ, and h/. In coda position, only /ʔ/, /h/, and /ɴ/ are distinguished, although some speakers retain apparently more conservative pronunciations with specified place of articulation (/k, t, p/ and /ŋ, n, m/) in some words. There is much individual variation in words like ''ʔùɴ'' 'water', which may be pronounced as ''ʔùn'', ''ʔũ̀'', or ''ʔùm'' by different speakers. Onset clusters are frequent, combining stops or fricatives with liquids (j, r, l, w). Danau has a rich vowel inventory, including monophthongs and diphthongs: i ɪ, ɯ, u, ʊ, e, ɛ, ə, ɔ, o, a, ɐ, ɒ, ai, au, ou, ei, ɛe, eə. Some vowels occur only in closed syllables, /ə/ and /n̩/ are found only in the first (weak) syllable of sesquisyllabic words. Danau is a tonal language with four tones according to some sources, while others, including native speakers, identify three tones. The three tones of Htanaw are realized as low/low-falling, mid/mid-falling, and high/high-rising. Tones in Danaw not only play a role in the lexicon, but also have grammatical functions. Tone sandhi changes low or mid tone words to high tone when preceded by a high tone, though not all words are affected by them. Tone sandhi works not only within words and phrases, but in some cases also across phrase and clause boundaries. The details of the sandhi rules, including the nature of lexemes affected, remain to be investigated. Nothing is known at the present regarding the origin and development of tones in Danau, apart from the fact that they are not inherited from proto-Palaungic. Sidwell, Paul. 2015. The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon. Munich, Lincom Europa. There is no obvious connection between tones and segmental changes in the language (devoicing, loss of finals) as has been described widely in other languages of

Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, Radius, radially arrayed compass directions (or Azimuth#In navigation, azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, ...

and

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

References

External links

* ELAR archive o
Documentation of Danau
* Htanaw orthography development and language material a
htanawsar.org
* Htanaw online dictionary at
livingdictionaries.app
*Htanaw language recordings and transcripts a
SWISSUbase
*Htanaw o
YoutubeA preliminary documentation of Danau, an endangered language of Myanmar (Burma)
*Aung Si. 2014
Documentation of Danau, an endangered language of Myanmar (Burma)
Endangered Languages Archive. *Aung Si. 2014
Documenting Bird Names in Danaw
Conference presentation, SEALS 24. {{Austro-Asiatic languages Palaungic languages Languages of Myanmar