Karenni or Red Karen (Kayah Li: ; ), known in Burmese as Kayah (), is a Karen

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

spoken by over half a million Kayah people (Red Karen) in

Burma 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 ha ...

. The name ''Kayah'' has been described as "a new name invented by the Burmese to split them off from other Karen". Eastern Kayah is reported to have been spoken by 260,000 in Burma and 100,000 in Thailand in 2000, and Western Kayah by 210,000 in Burma in 1987. They are rather divergent. Among the Western dialects are Yintale and kayahManu (''Manumanaw'' in Burmese).

Distribution and varieties

Eastern Kayah is spoken in: * Shadaw township,

Kayah State Kayah State (, ), or 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 west by Kayin State. It lies approximately b ...

(east of the Thanlwin River) * Langkho district,

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 ...

Eastern Kayah dialects are Upper Eastern Kayah and Lower Eastern Kayah, which are mutually intelligible. The speech variety of Huai Sua Thaw village (Lower Eastern) is prestigious for both dialect groups. The Eastern Kayah have difficulty understanding the Western Kayah. Western Kayah is spoken in

and

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 ...

, east of the Thanlwin River. It is also spoken in Pekon township in southern

. *northern dialect:

(north of

Loikaw Loikaw (, ) is the largest city and the capital of Kayah State, also known as Karenni State, in Myanmar. It is located in the Karen Hills area, near the State's northern tip, just above an embayment on the Pilu River. The inhabitants are mostly K ...

) *southern dialect:

Hpruso Hpruso () is a town in the Kayah State of eastern part of Burma 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. ...

and Dimawso townships (south of

) Western Kayah dialects are part of a dialect continuum of Central Karen varieties stretching from Thailand. They include: *Northern dialect of Western Kayah *Southern dialect of Western Kayah *Dawtama *Dawnnyjekhu *Sounglog *Chi Kwe *Wan Cheh Yintale, reportedly a variety of Western Kayah, is spoken in 3 villages of Hpasawng township, Bawlakhe district,

. Yintale dialects are Bawlake and Wa Awng. Kawyaw, reportedly similar to Western Kayah, is spoken in 23 villages along the border of

Bawlake Bawlakhe () is a town in the Kayah State of eastern part of Burma. History Bawlakhe was originally known as Bawlake. The British official, James George Scott, wrote that local inhabitants in the 1890s claimed that Poe Bya Hla had ruled as the ...

and

townships, in the West

Kyebogyi Western Karenni was the collective name for the four Karenni States located west of the Salween River: Bawlake, Nammekon, Naungpale, and Kyebogyi. On 21 June 1875, the government of British India and king Mindon of Burma signed a treaty recogn ...

area of

. Kawyaw dialects are Tawkhu and Doloso, which have been reported to be difficult to mutually understand.

Phonology

Consonants

* /sʰ/ is heard as a palato-alveolar �before high-front vowels. * /ŋ/ is heard as a palatal �before front or mid vowels. * /ɾ/ may also be heard as a trill * /tɕ/ may also be occasionally be realized as � * /j/ may also be heard as a palatal fricative � * /ŋ/ may also be heard as palatal �when before front vowels and /j/. * /ɻ/ may also be heard as a trill among emphatic speech. * /w/ may also be heard as in free variation. * A glottal stop �is heard in zero-initial position before an initial vowel.

Vowels

Western

Eastern

* /ə/ may also be heard as a centralized �̈

Writing system

According to Aung 2013, Manumanaw Karen does not yet have a standardized script. Catholic missionaries developed a spelling using the Latin script which is used in religious documents, including the translation of the Bible. A Manumanaw Karen literature committee has been set up and is developing literacy programs with SIL, using spelling based on Burmese script , so that it is accepted by Catholics and Baptists. The tones are indicated using the

caron A caron or háček ( ), is a diacritic mark () placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages, to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation. Typographers tend to use the term ''caron'', while linguists prefer ...

, the

acute accent The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin alphabet, Latin, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabet, Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accen ...

or without the addition of these on the vowels: , . The diaeresis below is used to indicate the

breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...

on the vowels: . Seven digraphs are used. The five vowels of the alphabet are supplemented by four accented letters representing their own vowels. Tones are represented using the

and the

over the vowel. The

is indicated with an umlaut below the vowel letter. Breathy voiced vowel letters can also have a diacritic indicating the tone.

References

External links

*
Eastern Kayah Li basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
{{Languages of Burma Karenic languages