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Languages of Myanmar (Burma)
Burmese alphabets in order
Official	Myanmar
Semi-official	English
Regional	Shan, Karen, Kachin, Rakhine, Mon, Karenni, Chin, Kokang
Vernacular	Myanmar English
Minority	Many Sino-Tibetan, Tai–Kadai, Austroasiatic and Indo-Aryan languages
Foreign	English, Mandarin Chinese
Signed	Burmese sign language
Keyboard layout	QWERTY/Burmese layout

There are approximately a hundred languages spoken in Myanmar (also known as Burma). Burmese, spoken by two-thirds of the population, is the official language.

Languages spoken by ethnic minorities represent six language families: Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic, Tai–Kadai, Indo-European, Austronesian and Hmong–Mien, as well as an incipient national standard for Burmese sign language.

Burmese

Burmese is the native language of the Bamar people and related sub-ethnic groups of the Bamar, as well as that of some ethnic minorities in Burma like the Mon. In 2007, Burmese was spoken by 33 million people as a first language. Burmese is spoken as a second language by another 10 million people, particularly ethnic minorities in Burma and those in neighbouring countries.

Burmese is a Sino-Tibetan language belonging to the Southern Burmish branch of the Tibeto-Burman languages. Burmese is the most widely spoken of the Tibeto-Burman languages and among the Sino-Tibetan languages, the second most widely spoken, after the Sinitic languages. Burmese was the fourth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after Chinese, Tibetan, and Tangut.

As far as natural language processing research dealing with interaction of computers and Burmese human-spoken language is concerned, during the period spanning more than 25 years, from 1990 to 2016, notable work has been done and annotated in the areas of Burmese language word identification, segmentation, disambiguation, collation, semantic parsing and tokenization followed by part-of-speech tagging, machine translation systems , text keying/input, text recognition and text display methods. The scope for further research too has been explored for areas of parallel corpus development as well as development of search engines and WordNet for the Burmese language.

Indigenous languages

Aside from Myanmar (Burmese) and its dialects, the hundred or so languages of Myanmar include Shan (Tai, spoken by 3.2 million), Karen languages (spoken by 2.6 million), Kachin (spoken by 900,000), Tamil (spoken by 1.1 Million), various Chin languages (spoken by 780,000), and Mon (Mon–Khmer, spoken by 750,000). Most of these languages use the Myanmar (Burmese) script.

In Myanmar, usage of its minority languages is discouraged.

It is not clear if there are one or two Burmese sign languages.

Sino-Tibetan

• Languages in Chin State
  • Anu-Hkongso
  • Shö
  • Bawm
  • Daai
  • Khumi
  • Falam
  • Hakha Chin
  • Kaang
  • Laitu
  • Lautu
  • Mara
  • Matu
  • Mizo
  • Mün
  • Ngawn
  • Welaung
  • Rungtu
  • Senthang
  • Sizang
  • Songlai
  • Sumtu
  • Tawr
  • Tedim
  • Thadou
  • Thaiphum
  • Zotung
  • Zyphe
• Other
  • Akeu
  • Akha
  • Anal
  • Nung
  • Sak
  • Derung
  • Hpon
  • Kadu
  • Ganan
  • Kayaw
  • Red Karen
  • Padaung
  • Kayaw
  • Lashi
  • Lahta
  • Lahu
  • Lhao Vo
  • Lisu
  • Mru
  • Mro
  • Akyaung Ari
  • Kayaw
  • Eastern Pwo
  • Western Pwo
  • Para
  • Khiamniungan
  • Koki
  • Konyak
  • Leinong
  • Tangsa
  • Long Phuri
  • Makury
  • Ponyo
  • Tangkhul
  • Tangsa
  • Achang
  • Nusu
  • Pa'o
  • Pyen
  • Arakanese
  • Rawang
  • Riang
  • Taman
  • Khams Tibetan
  • Geko Karen
  • Zaiwa
  • Zou
  • Intha-Danu

Austroasiatic

• Blang
• Danau
• Muak Sa-aak
• Palaung
• Riang
• Tai Loi
• Wa
• Mon

Kra-Dai

• Khamti
• Khün
• Tai Lue
• Tai Laing
• Tai Nuea

Austronesian

• Kedah Malay
• Moken (Salone)
• Moklen
• Standard Malay

Hmong-Mien

• Hmong

Indo-Aryan

• Nepali (Burmese Gurkha)
• Daingnet
• Rohingya
• Bengali
• Tanchangya

Dravidian

• Tamil
• Telugu

English as a second language

Today, Burmese is the primary language of instruction, and English is the secondary language taught. English was the primary language of instruction in higher education from late 19th century to 1964, when Gen. Ne Win mandated educational reforms to "Burmanise". English continues to be used by educated urbanites and the national government.

See also

• Burmese English

Footnotes

1. ^ Goddard 2005
2. Burmese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
3. ^ Myanmar in Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (25th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
4. Mathur & Napoli, 2010, Deaf around the World: The Impact of Language
5. Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin
6. Burmese at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
7. ^ Bradley 1993, p. 147.
8. ^ Saini 2016, p. 1.
9. ^ Lintner 2003, p. 189
10. Thein 2004, p. 16

References

• Saini, Jatinderkumar R. (30 June 2016). "First Classified Annotated Bibliography of NLP Tasks in the Burmese Language of Myanmar". Revista InforComp (INFOCOMP Journal of Computer Science). 15 (1). Lavras, MG, Brazil: University of Lavras: 1–11.
• Bradley, David (Spring 1993). "Pronouns in Burmese–Lolo" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 16 (1). Melbourne: La Trobe University. doi:10.32655/LTBA.16.1.06.

Bibliography

• Goddard, Cliff (2005), The Languages Of East And Southeast Asia: An Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-924860-5
• Myanmar in Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (25th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
• Lintner, Bertil (2003), "Myanmar/Burma", in MacKerras, Colin (ed.), Ethnicity in Asia, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-25816-2
• Thein, Myat (2004), Economic Development of Myanmar, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, ISBN 981-230-211-5

External links

• Linguistic map of Burma from Muturzikin.com
• Main spoken languages of Myanmar at MIMU

• Languages of Myanmar