S'gaw Karen or S'gaw K'nyaw, commonly known simply as Karen, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the S'gaw Karen people of

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 ...

and

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. A Karenic branch of the

Sino-Tibetan language family Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a language family, family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European languages, Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan languag ...

, S'gaw Karen is spoken by over 2 million people in

Tanintharyi Region Tanintharyi Region (, ; Mon: or ; formerly Tenasserim Division and Tanintharyi Division) is a region of Myanmar, covering the long narrow southern part of the country on the northern Malay Peninsula, reaching to the Kra Isthmus. It borders ...

Ayeyarwady Region Ayeyarwady Region ( , , ; formerly Ayeyarwady Division and Irrawaddy Division) is a region of Myanmar, occupying the delta region of the Ayeyarwady River (Irrawaddy River). It is bordered by the Rakhine State to the northwest, the Bago Region to ...

Yangon Region Yangon Region (, ; formerly Rangoon Division and Yangon Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar. Located in central Myanmar, the region is bordered by Bago Region to the north and east, the Gulf of Martaban to the south, and Ayeyarwady ...

, and

Bago Region Bago Region (, ; formerly Pegu Division and Bago Division) is an administrative divisions of Myanmar, administrative region of Myanmar, located in the southern central part of the country. It is bordered by Magway Region and Mandalay Region to ...

in Myanmar, and about 200,000 in northern and western Thailand along the border near Kayin State. It is written using the S'gaw Karen alphabet, derived from the

Burmese script Burmese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia * Burmese people * Burmese language * Burmese alphabet * Burmese cuisine * Burmese culture Animals * Burmese cat * Burmese chicken * Burmese (horse) ...

, although a Latin-based script is also in use among the S'gaw Karen in northwestern Thailand. Additionally, the Kwekor script is used in

Hlaingbwe Township Hlaingbwe Township (; Pwo Karen: ; ) is a township of Hpa-an District in the Kayin State of Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a ...

. Various divergent dialects are sometimes seen as separate languages: Paku in the northeast, Mopwa (Mobwa) in the northwest, Wewew, and Monnepwa.

History

S'gaw belongs to the Karenic branch of the

. The S'gaw language has been used as the official language in the

Kayin State Kayin State (, ; ; , ), formerly known as Karen State, is a Administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. The capital city is Hpa-An, also spelled Pa-An. The terrain of the state is mountainous; with the Dawna Range running along the ...

and of the Karen National Union (KNU) organization who have waged a war against the Burmese government since early 1949. A Bible translation was published in 1853. The first issue of the Karen-language monthly periodical, ''The Morning Star (Hsa Too Ghaw)'', was published in 1842.

Distribution and varieties

S'gaw is spoken in the Ayeyarwady delta area, in the Ayeyarwady, Bago, Kayin, and Rangon Regions. S'gaw speakers are frequently interspersed with Pwo Karen speakers. S'gaw dialects are: * Eastern dialect of S'gaw (Pa'an) * Southern dialect of Western Kayah (Dawei) * Delta dialect of S'gaw Paku is spoken in:
* northern

: hills southeast of

Taungoo Taungoo (, ''Tauñngu myoú''; ), also spelled Toungoo and formerly Toung-ngú, is a district-level city in the Bago Region of Myanmar, 220 km from Yangon, towards the north-eastern end of the division, with mountain ranges to the east a ...

in eastern

, bordering

* southern Kayah State (also known as Karenni State). Paku dialects are Shwe Kyin, Mawchi, Kyauk Gyi, Bawgali, the names of which are based on villages. * Kyauk Gyi and Shwe Kyin are spoken in

Taungoo District Taungoo District (also Taungngu, Toungoo, ) is a Districts of Burma, district of the Bago Division in central Burma, Burma (Myanmar). The capital lies at Taungoo. This district covers an area of around 10,627 square kilometers (4,103 square miles). ...

, eastern

, near the

border. * Mawchi is spoken in Kayah State. * Bawgali is spoken in north

. Mobwa is spoken in 9 villages at the western foot of the Thandaung Mountains in Thandaung township,

. There are also some in

township,

. Mobwa dialects are Palaychi (Southern Mobwa) and Dermuha (Southern Mobwa). Karen people in the Andaman Islands: S'gaw Karen is also spoken in the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India comprising 572 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited. The islands are grouped into two main clusters: the northern Andaman Islands and the southern Nicobar Islands, separated by a ...

, Union Territory of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The total population in the Andamans is about 2000 people, living in eight villages in the Mayabunder and Diglipur

tehsil A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a Zila (country subdivision), district including the designated populated place that ser ...

s of the North and Middle Andaman district: * Mayabunder tehsil – Webi, Deopur, Lataw, Lucknow (Burmadera), Karmatang-9 and 10 * Diglipur tehsil – Borang, Chipon

Dialects

The S'gaw Karen language has at least 3 dialects. They are

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

to each other; however, there may be words that sound unfamiliar to one another. *Northern dialect – also known as southern dialect of Kayah State is the S'gaw dialect that does not have the th sound in their language or dialect. They replace the southern and eastern dialects th with s. For example: while the southern and eastern would say ''moe tha boe'', the northern dialect would say ''moe sa boe''. This dialect used the

Roman alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from —additions su ...

for their writing system. *Southern dialect and Eastern (Pa'an) dialect – these two dialects are very similar but there may be words that each may not understand due to regional location which allowed the dialects to grow apart. These two dialects use the Myanmar script as their writing system. *There are also different accents in the Karen language.

Phonology

The following displays the phonological features of present S'gaw Karen:

Consonants

* An aspirated fricative [] may be present among different accents and dialects. * /θ/ (သ) is pronounced [θ] in most Myanmar varieties and [s] in northern Thailand.

Vowels

* varies between central and , depending on the dialect.

Tones

Ken Manson (2009) proposed a Karen tone box to help understand Karenic tonal diversity and classify Karenic languages. It is similar to William Gedney's Tai tone box (''see Proto-Tai language#Tones''). The tone box contains diagnostic words for use during field elicitation.

Alphabet (Burmese script)

The S'gaw Karen alphabet consists of 25 consonants, 9 vowels, 5 tones and 5 medials. The Karen alphabet was derived from the

as created by the help of the American Baptist missionary Jonathan Wade in the early 1830s. The Karen alphabet was created for the purpose of translating the Bible into the Karen language. S'gaw Karen script is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability. *က has a sound intermediate between k and g; as in g for good *ခ is the aspirate of က. It is pronounced like kh as heard in the word camp. *ဂ has no analogue in English or German. See:

voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in most varieties of Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents ...

*ဃ is pronounced like ch in the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

bach, or the

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

loch. *င is pronounced like ng as heard in sing *စ has a sound intermediate between s and z. *ဆ is the aspirate of စ. It has the sound of ssh, as heard in the phrase hiss him. *ၡ is pronounced like sh as heard in shell *ည is pronounced like ny as heard in canyon *တ has a sound intermediate between t and d; say t without air coming out *ထ is the aspirate of တ. It is pronounced like ht as heard in the word hot *ဒ is pronounced like d as heard in day *န is pronounced like n as heard in net *ပ has a sound intermediate between b and p; say p without air coming out *ဖ is pronounced like p as heard in pool *ဘ is pronounced like b in ball *မ is pronounced like m as heard in mall *ယ is pronounced like y as heard in backyard *ရ is pronounced like r as heard in room *လ is pronounced like l as heard in school *ဝ is pronounced like w as heard in wonderful *သ is pronounced like th as heard in thin *ဟ is pronounced like h as heard in house *အ as a consonant, has no sound of its own; it is a mere stem to which vowel signs are attached. Vowel carrier *ဧ is pronounced as a ɦ sound. See: breathy-voiced glottal approximant

Vowels

Vowels can never stand alone and if a word starts with a vowel syllable, use the vowel carrier "အ" which is silent in order to write words that start with vowel. *အ – a in quota *အါ – a in bad *အံ – i in mean *အၢ – German ö in Göthe *အု – German ü in Glück and Korean

Hangul The Korean alphabet is the modern writing system for the Korean language. In North Korea, the alphabet is known as (), and in South Korea, it is known as (). The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs ...

character "ㅡ" *အူ – u in rule, oo in moon *အ့ – a in rate *အဲ – e in met *အိ – o in note *အီ – aw in raw

Tones

In S'gaw Karen, every syllable consists of a

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

, either alone, or preceded by a single or double

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

. A syllable always ends in a vowel. Every syllable may be pronounced in six different tones, the meaning varying according to the tone in which it is pronounced. The number of tones and their pronunciation varies depending on the dialect. Below are the pronunciations of the tones in S'gaw Karen according to Gilmore (1898). *Where no tone is marked, the syllable is pronounced with a rising inflection.

Double consonants

When one consonant follows another with no vowel sound intervening, the second consonant is represented by a symbol, which is joined to the character representing the first consonant. The examples of writing the Karen alphabet are: * + → , pronounced * + + → , pronounced * + + → , pronounced * + + + → , pronounced

Alphabet (Latin script)

The Karen Latin alphabet has 24 consonants, 9 vowels and 5 tones. The tones are written with alphabetic letters.

Consonants

* K matches with the English word guard * Hk matches with the English word car * G does not have a sound similar to the European languages but matches with the other Karen alphabet of ဂ * Q matches with the German word bach * Ng matches with the English word young * C matches with the English ch * Hs has the same sound as S * Ny matches with the Spanish letter ñ * T have similar sound with English d but say it without air coming out * Ht matches with the English word tool * D have the same sound as English d * N matches with English N * P have similar sound to English p but say it without air coming out * Hp matches with English p * B matches with English b * M matches with English m * Y matches with English y * R matches with English r * L matches with English l * W matches with English w * S matches with English s; same sound as Hs * H matches with English h * EH has no analogue in the European languages * AH has no analogue in the European languages

Vowels

* A matches with the Italian a * E matches with the English word rust; uh * I matches with the Italian i * O matches with the Spanish o * U matches with the Korean romanization eu * AI matches with the English word sell * EI matches with the name Jay * AU matches with the English word fault * OO matches with the English word cool

Tones

* av or ă – high mid tone * aj or à – middle of the sound * ax or â – low tone; low voice in a short time * af or ä – high-pitched tone * az or ā – even tone

Grammar

In terms of linguistic typology, S'gaw Karen is an

isolating language Social isolation, Isolation is the near or complete lack of social contact by an individual. Isolation or isolated may also refer to: Sociology and psychology *Social isolation *Isolation (psychology), a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theo ...

with scarce bound morphology and where most syllables can occur as independent words. The

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...

is subject–verb–object, which differs from other Tibeto-Burman languages, most of which are verb final.

Nouns and noun phrases

S'gaw Karen nouns are intrinsically neutral as to

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

, and

definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases that distinguishes between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those that are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...

. Plural reference is achieved by using the plural marker /təpʰà/. Like many East and Southeast Asian languages, S'gaw Karen uses classifiers to count objects expressed by count nouns, and measure words to quantify substances expressed by

mass nouns In linguistics, a mass noun, uncountable noun, non-count noun, uncount noun, or just uncountable, is a noun with the syntactic property that any quantity of it is treated as an undifferentiated unit, rather than as something with discrete elemen ...

. S'gaw Karen has two

demonstratives Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning depending on a particular frame ...

, /ʔi/ 'this' and /nè/ 'that', which follow the noun or the classifier phrase, if present.

Verbs and verb phrases

S'gaw Karen distinguishes between

intransitive In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb, aside from an auxiliary verb, whose context does not entail a transitive object. That lack of an object distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additi ...

, transitive, and

ditransitive In grammar, a ditransitive (or bitransitive) verb is a transitive verb whose contextual use corresponds to a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be ...

verbs. Transitive and ditransitive verbs require one and two objects, respectively, while intransitive verbs do not take objects. As an isolating language, S'gaw Karen lacks

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

inflection in nouns. The function of a noun is determined by its position in the clause; generally, subjects precede the verb while objects follow it. S'gaw Karen verbs do not inflect for tense or aspect; instead, these

grammatical categories In linguistics, a grammatical category or grammatical feature is a property of items within the grammar of a language. Within each category there are two or more possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive ...

are expressed using separate words.

Perfect aspect The perfect tense or aspect ( abbreviated or ) is a verb form that indicates that an action or circumstance occurred earlier than the time under consideration, often focusing attention on the resulting state rather than on the occurrence itself. ...

is expressed by the particle /lí/, which indicates a change in the situation.

Prospective aspect In linguistics, the prospective aspect ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical aspect describing an event that occurs subsequent to a given reference time.Matthews, P. H. (1997) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University P ...

is indicated by /kə-/, which precedes the verb. Sentences with are often translated using the

future tense In grammar, a future tense ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''achètera'', mea ...

in English. To negate a verb, the verb prefix /tə-/ and the final particle /bà/ are used. S'gaw Karen makes extensive use of verb serialization to express various grammatical meanings, such as causativity and benefaction.

Causative In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...

events, where a subject causes an object to perform an action or be in a state, are expressed using one of the verbs // 'make, cause' or // 'let, have (someone do something)' before the main verb. Which verb to use depends on whether or not the causer has direct and full control over the action; if not, and the causee has some control, is used (indirect causation), otherwise is used (direct causation). Benefaction refers to the performance of actions for someone's sake. In S'gaw Karen, benefactive clauses contain the verb // 'get', which follows the main verb or verb compound.

Pronouns

S'gaw Karen

personal pronouns Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it''). Personal pronouns may also take different for ...

are distinguished according to

person A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...

and

, except for the third person, which sometimes has the same form for the singular and the plural. Additionally, all pronouns are gender-neutral; for example, the third-person pronoun /ʔə-/ has the meanings 'he, his', 'she, her', 'it, its', 'they, their'. Below is a table showing the subject/possessive forms ( 'I; my', etcetera) and object forms ( 'me', etcetera) of the pronouns. :* The form /ʔəwɛ́/ is also used. :** The form /ʔəwɛ́θè/ is also used.

Prepositions

S'gaw Karen uses

prepositions Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

to indicate things such as the location, source, goal, or instrument of an action or situation. The most common S'gaw Karen prepositions are // 'at, to, from', // 'at', // 'to', // 'like, as', and // 'with'. When the source or goal of an action is a person, the locational word /ʔò/ is used.

References

External links

S'gaw Karen Grammar

S'gaw Karen Dictionary

Free Anglo-Karen Dictionary

Drum Publication Group
��Online S'gaw Karen language materials. Includes an online English – S'gaw Karen Dictionary.
Karen Teacher Working Group
��Several Karen fonts available for download. {{Languages of Thailand Karen language Subject–verb–object languages Tonal languages