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116-787: The Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War ( Burmese : ကုန်းဘောင်-ဟံသာဝတီ စစ် ) was the war fought between the Konbaung Dynasty and the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom of Burma (Myanmar) from 1752 to 1757. The war was the last of several wars between the Burmese -speaking north and the Mon -speaking south that ended the Mon people 's centuries-long dominance of the south. The war began in April 1752 as independent resistance movements against Hanthawaddy armies which had just toppled

232-565: A pitch-register language like Shanghainese . There are four contrastive tones in Burmese. In the following table, the tones are shown marked on the vowel /a/ as an example. For example, the following words are distinguished from each other only on the basis of tone: In syllables ending with /ɰ̃/ , the checked tone is excluded: In spoken Burmese, some linguists classify two real tones (there are four nominal tones transcribed in written Burmese), "high" (applied to words that terminate with

348-436: A Light Infantry Division (44th). Major districts are divided for example, Mawlamyine, Thaton, and Ye districts. At present, army infantries are densely placed in the former neutral territory of Ye district for future plans. Ye has become the major city for Southern Mon State with Sector Operation Command of Air Defense, and Military Operations Command 19 based headquarters. Mon State consists of two districts: The following

464-635: A NNW–SSE direction, forms a natural border with Kayin State. Mon State includes some small islands, such as Kalegauk , Wa Kyun and Kyungyi Island , along its 566 km (352 mi) of coastline. The state's capital is Mawlamyine . Mon tradition holds that the Suwarnabhumi mentioned in the Edicts of Ashoka and the Dîpavamsa was their first kingdom (pronounced Suvanna Bhoum), founded around

580-901: A civil war. Mon separatists formed the Mon Peoples Front , which was later superseded by the New Mon State Party (NMSP) in 1962. Since 1949, the eastern hills of the state (as well as portions of Thaninthaya Division) have been under control of the NMSP and its military arm, the Mon National Liberation Front (MNLF). In addition to fighting the central government, the MNLF has fought the Karen people over control of lucrative border crossings into Thailand . In 1974, partially to assuage Mon separatist demands,

696-473: A force of several thousand well-armed troops to take Shwebo. But the army lacked cannon to overcome the stockade, and it was forced to lay siege. A month into the siege, on 20 June 1752, Alaungpaya burst out at the head of a general sortie and routed the besiegers. The Hanthawaddy forces withdrew in disarray, leaving their equipment, including several scores of muskets, which were "worth their weight in gold in these critical days". The news spread. Soon, Alaungpaya

812-478: A friendship. Although Alaungpaya was becoming deeply suspicious of British intentions, he also needed to secure modern arms against French-defended Syriam. He agreed that the British could stay at their settlement at Negrais , which they had occupied since 1753, but postponed signing any immediate treaty with the company. Instead, he proposed an alliance between the two countries. The British who were about to enter

928-550: A lesser extent, Burmese has also imported words from Sanskrit (religion), Hindi (food, administration, and shipping), and Chinese (games and food). Burmese has also imported a handful of words from other European languages such as Portuguese . Here is a sample of loan words found in Burmese: Since the end of British rule, the Burmese government has attempted to limit usage of Western loans (especially from English) by coining new words ( neologisms ). For instance, for

1044-633: A lot as it has excellent transportation with the capital Yangon. Transportation routes include Train, Bus, Sea line and Airlines. The newly opened Mawlamyine Bridge gives quick access from southern Ye to North Bago and Yangon by a day journey. Three Pagoda Pass is an alternative route which communicates Mon state with neighbour Kanchanaburi province of Thailand. According to the Mon State Directorate of Investment and Company, foreign direct investment from 1994 to 2016 in Mon State

1160-445: A major factory (Burmese, Ka-Sa-La) of rubber products run by Ministry of Industry (1). Forests cover approximately half of the area and timber production is one of the major contributors to the economy. Minerals extracted from the area include salt , antimony , and granite . Natural resources such as forest products, and onshore and offshore mineral resources, are exploited only by top Myanmar military leaders and foreign companies. At

1276-716: A minority speak non-standard dialects found in the peripheral areas of the country. These dialects include: Arakanese in Rakhine State and Marma in Bangladesh are also sometimes considered dialects of Burmese and sometimes as separate languages. Despite vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among Burmese dialects, as they share a common set of tones, consonant clusters, and written script. However, several Burmese dialects differ substantially from standard Burmese with respect to vocabulary, lexical particles, and rhymes. Spoken Burmese

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1392-605: A rival resistance leader, Chit Nyo of Khin-U . A dozen legends gathered around his name. Men felt that when he led them they could not fail. Despite repeated setbacks, Pegu incredibly still did not send in reinforcements even as Alaungpaya consolidated his gains throughout Upper Burma. Instead of sending every troop they had, they merely replaced Talaban , the general who won Ava, with another general, Toungoo Ngwegunhmu . By late 1753, Konbaung forces controlled all of Upper Burma except Ava. On 3 January 1754, Alaungpaya's second son, Hsinbyushin , only 17, successfully retook Ava, which

1508-466: A stop or check, high-rising pitch) and "ordinary" (unchecked and non-glottal words, with falling or lower pitch), with those tones encompassing a variety of pitches. The "ordinary" tone consists of a range of pitches. Linguist L. F. Taylor concluded that "conversational rhythm and euphonic intonation possess importance" not found in related tonal languages and that "its tonal system is now in an advanced state of decay." The syllable structure of Burmese

1624-594: Is 190 inches (4.8 m) and in Thaton is 217 inches (5.5 m). Rain is especially heavy in July and August. Mon State has a cultivated area of nearly 4,500,000 acres (1,800,000 ha), mostly under rice . The major secondary crop is rubber . Orchards and rubber plantations are found in the mountainous areas while Coastal fishing and related industries such as production of dried fish, fish sauce and agar-agar are in southern part, Ye district. Production of Betel nut

1740-444: Is C(G)V((V)C), which is to say the onset consists of a consonant optionally followed by a glide , and the rime consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong with a consonant. The only consonants that can stand in the coda are /ʔ/ and /ɰ̃/ . Some representative words are: Mon State Mon State ( Burmese : မွန်ပြည်နယ် , pronounced [mʊ̀ɴ pjìnɛ̀] ; Mon : တွဵုရးဍုင်မန် )

1856-578: Is a large number of ethnic Bamar , as well as members of the Kayin and Pa-O ethnic groups and a small, dwindling Anglo-Burmese community. Many are isolated and many do not understand or speak Burmese . There is a Thai Community in Kyaikkami . The majority of people are Buddhist . Religion in Mon (2014) According to the 2014 Myanmar Census , Buddhists make up 92.6% of Mon State’s population, forming

1972-654: Is a summary of the public school system in the state in the academic year 2002–2003. Almost all institutions of higher education in the state are located in Mawlamyine. Mawlamyine University is the main university and the largest university in the state. The general state of health care in Myanmar is poor. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals have limited number of basic facilities and equipment. The following

2088-535: Is also a sustaining business of Mon state, as the Mon peasants preserved their heredity land onwards along with the government regulations, however, there are some many parts of uncultivated crude land in the area closed to neighbour Karen state . Moreover, modern business development includes growing of cashew trees (acajoú, in Portuguese), from which they collect the cashew nut for market elsewhere. Other industries include paper, sugar, rubber tires. Thaton has

2204-461: Is an administrative division of Myanmar . It lies between Kayin State to the east, the Andaman Sea to the west, Bago Region to the north and Tanintharyi Region to the south, also having a short border with Thailand 's Kanchanaburi Province at its south-eastern tip. The land area is 12,155 km (4,693 sq mi). The Dawna Range , running along the eastern side of the state in

2320-442: Is pronounced [mõ̀ũndã́ĩ] . The vowels of Burmese are: The monophthongs /e/ , /o/ , /ə/ , /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ occur only in open syllables (those without a syllable coda ); the diphthongs /ei/ , /ou/ , /ai/ and /au/ occur only in closed syllables (those with a syllable coda). /ə/ only occurs in a minor syllable , and is the only vowel that is permitted in a minor syllable (see below). The close vowels /i/ and /u/ and

2436-759: Is remarkably uniform among Burmese speakers, particularly those living in the Irrawaddy valley, all of whom use variants of Standard Burmese. The standard dialect of Burmese (the Mandalay - Yangon dialect continuum ) comes from the Irrawaddy River valley. Regional differences between speakers from Upper Burma (e.g., Mandalay dialect), called anya tha ( အညာသား ) and speakers from Lower Burma (e.g., Yangon dialect), called auk tha ( အောက်သား ), largely occur in vocabulary choice, not in pronunciation. Minor lexical and pronunciation differences exist throughout

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2552-584: Is the value of the four native final nasals: ⟨မ်⟩ /m/ , ⟨န်⟩ /n/ , ⟨ဉ်⟩ /ɲ/ , ⟨င်⟩ /ŋ/ , as well as the retroflex ⟨ဏ⟩ /ɳ/ (used in Pali loans) and nasalisation mark anusvara demonstrated here above ka (က → ကံ) which most often stands in for a homorganic nasal word medially as in တံခါး tankhá 'door', and တံတား tantá 'bridge', or else replaces final -m ⟨မ်⟩ in both Pali and native vocabulary, especially after

2668-638: Is the word "moon", which can be လ la̰ (native Tibeto-Burman), စန္ဒာ/စန်း [sàndà]/[sã́] (derivatives of Pali canda 'moon'), or သော်တာ [t̪ɔ̀ dà] (Sanskrit). The consonants of Burmese are as follows: According to Jenny & San San Hnin Tun (2016 :15), contrary to their use of symbols θ and ð, consonants of သ are dental stops ( /t̪, d̪/ ), rather than fricatives ( /θ, ð/ ) or affricates. These phonemes, alongside /sʰ/ , are prone to merger with /t, d, s/ . An alveolar /ɹ/ can occur as an alternate of /j/ in some loanwords. The final nasal /ɰ̃/

2784-491: The [ ɹ ] sound, which has become [ j ] in standard Burmese. Moreover, Arakanese features a variety of vowel differences, including the merger of the ဧ [e] and ဣ [i] vowels. Hence, a word like "blood" သွေး is pronounced [θw é ] in standard Burmese and [θw í ] in Arakanese. The Burmese language's early forms include Old Burmese and Middle Burmese . Old Burmese dates from

2900-588: The /l/ medial, which is otherwise only found in Old Burmese inscriptions. They also often reduce the intensity of the glottal stop . Beik has 250,000 speakers while Tavoyan has 400,000. The grammatical constructs of Burmese dialects in Southern Myanmar show greater Mon influence than Standard Burmese. The most pronounced feature of the Arakanese language of Rakhine State is its retention of

3016-473: The Burmese alphabet began employing cursive-style circular letters typically used in palm-leaf manuscripts , as opposed to the traditional square block-form letters used in earlier periods. The orthographic conventions used in written Burmese today can largely be traced back to Middle Burmese. Modern Burmese emerged in the mid-18th century. By this time, male literacy in Burma stood at nearly 50%, which enabled

3132-618: The English language in the colonial educational system, especially in higher education. In the 1930s, the Burmese language saw a linguistic revival, precipitated by the establishment of an independent University of Rangoon in 1920 and the inception of a Burmese language major at the university by Pe Maung Tin , modeled on Anglo Saxon language studies at the University of Oxford. Student protests in December of that year, triggered by

3248-614: The Irrawaddy Delta and Dagon (Yangon) by May. The French defended port city of Syriam (Thanlyin) held out for another 14 months but eventually fell in July 1756, ending French involvement in the war. The fall of the 16-year-old southern kingdom soon followed in May 1757 when its capital Pegu (Bago) was sacked. Disorganized Mon resistance fell back to the Tenasserim peninsula (present-day Mon State and Tanintharyi Region ) in

3364-509: The Mon of Lower Burma broke away in 1740, and founded the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom with the capital at Pegu (Bago). The "palace kings" at Ava had been unable to defend against the Manipuri raids, which began in 1724 and had been ransacking increasingly deeper parts of Upper Burma. Ava failed to recover southern Lan Na (Chiang Mai) that revolted in 1727, and did nothing to prevent the annexation of northern Shan states by Qing China in

3480-675: The Mon people , who until recently formed the majority in Lower Burma . Most Mon loanwords are so well assimilated that they are not distinguished as loanwords, as Burmese and Mon were used interchangeably for several centuries in pre-colonial Burma. Mon loans are often related to flora, fauna, administration, textiles, foods, boats, crafts, architecture, and music. As a natural consequence of British rule in Burma , English has been another major source of vocabulary, especially with regard to technology, measurements, and modern institutions. English loanwords tend to take one of three forms: To

3596-534: The Myanma Salonpaung Thatpon Kyan ( မြန်မာ စာလုံးပေါင်း သတ်ပုံ ကျမ်း ), was compiled in 1978 by the commission. Burmese is a diglossic language with two distinguishable registers (or diglossic varieties ): The literary form of Burmese retains archaic and conservative grammatical structures and modifiers (including affixes and pronouns) no longer used in the colloquial form. Literary Burmese, which has not changed significantly since

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3712-614: The Pyu language . These indirect borrowings can be traced back to orthographic idiosyncrasies in these loanwords, such as the Burmese word "to worship", which is spelt ပူဇော် ( pūjo ) instead of ပူဇာ ( pūjā ), as would be expected by the original Pali orthography. The transition to Middle Burmese occurred in the 16th century. The transition to Middle Burmese included phonological changes (e.g. mergers of sound pairs that were distinct in Old Burmese) as well as accompanying changes in

3828-534: The Seven Years' War against the French seemed like natural allies. Despite what Alaungpaya regarded as a magnanimous gesture over Negrais no direct military help of any kind materialized. Konbaung troops would now have to take Syriam the hard way. The siege continued for the remainder of 1755. The French inside were desperate for reinforcements from their India headquarters at Pondicherry . Alaungpaya returned to

3944-677: The Southern Burmish branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages , of which Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non- Sinitic languages. Burmese was the fifth of the Sino-Tibetan languages to develop a writing system, after Classical Chinese , Pyu , Old Tibetan and Tangut . The majority of Burmese speakers, who live throughout the Irrawaddy River Valley, use a number of largely similar dialects, while

4060-541: The Thudhamma Nikaya (79.8%), followed by Shwegyin Nikaya (14.9%), with the remainder of monks belonging to other small monastic orders . 3,550 thilashin were registered in Mon State, comprising 5.9% of Myanmar’s total thilashin community. Bordering Bago Division in the south of Sittaung River Mouth, Kayin State in the east, Thailand and Taninthayi Division in the south and Andaman Sea and Gulf of Mottama in

4176-709: The Toungoo Dynasty . Alaungpaya , who founded the Konbaung Dynasty, quickly emerged as the main resistance leader, and by taking advantage of Hanthawaddy's low troop levels, went on to conquer all of Upper Burma by the end of 1753. Hanthawaddy belatedly launched a full invasion in 1754 but it faltered. The war increasingly turned ethnic in character between the Burman (Bamar) north and the Mon south. Konbaung forces invaded Lower Burma in January 1755, capturing

4292-413: The 11th to the 16th century ( Pagan to Ava dynasties); Middle Burmese from the 16th to the 18th century ( Toungoo to early Konbaung dynasties); modern Burmese from the mid-18th century to the present. Word order , grammatical structure, and vocabulary have remained markedly stable well into Modern Burmese, with the exception of lexical content (e.g., function words ). The earliest attested form of

4408-457: The 13th century, is the register of Burmese taught in schools. In most cases, the corresponding affixes in the literary and spoken forms are totally unrelated to each other. Examples of this phenomenon include the following lexical terms: Historically the literary register was preferred for written Burmese on the grounds that "the spoken style lacks gravity, authority, dignity". In the mid-1960s, some Burmese writers spearheaded efforts to abandon

4524-470: The 19th century, in addition to concomitant economic and political instability in Upper Burma (e.g., increased tax burdens from the Burmese crown, British rice production incentives, etc.) also accelerated the migration of Burmese speakers from Upper Burma into Lower Burma. British rule in Burma eroded the strategic and economic importance of the Burmese language; Burmese was effectively subordinated to

4640-797: The British in both Negrais and in Syriam have declared for Alaungpaya. While the British settlements agreed to side with the Konbaung forces, three British ships, the East India Company ships Arcot , Hunter and Elizabeth joined the Hanthawaddy forces, apparently without orders by their superiors. The counterattack was unsuccessful. The British, fearing reprisals by Alaungpaya, now speedily sent, Captain Baker, to Alaungpaya at Shwebo with presents of cannon and muskets and with orders to conclude

4756-471: The British in the lead-up to the independence of Burma in 1948. The 1948 Constitution of Burma prescribed Burmese as the official language of the newly independent nation. The Burma Translation Society and Rangoon University's Department of Translation and Publication were established in 1947 and 1948, respectively, with the joint goal of modernizing the Burmese language in order to replace English across all disciplines. Anti-colonial sentiment throughout

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4872-486: The British in the war, in return for promises of their own leadership after the defeat of Burma. Hundreds of thousands of Mons who had migrated into Siam returned to their homeland when it came under British rule. However, British promises to restore the Mon Kingdom were never fulfilled. During colonial times, Moulmein had a substantial Anglo-Burmese population; an area of the city was known as 'Little England' due to

4988-557: The Buddhist clergy (monks) from the laity ( householders ), especially when speaking to or about bhikkhus (monks). The following are examples of varying vocabulary used for Buddhist clergy and for laity: Burmese primarily has a monosyllabic received Sino-Tibetan vocabulary. Nonetheless, many words, especially loanwords from Indo-European languages like English, are polysyllabic, and others, from Mon, an Austroasiatic language, are sesquisyllabic . Burmese loanwords are overwhelmingly in

5104-639: The Burmese language into Lower Burma also coincided with the emergence of Modern Burmese. As late as the mid-1700s, Mon , an Austroasiatic language, was the principal language of Lower Burma, employed by the Mon people who inhabited the region. Lower Burma's shift from Mon to Burmese was accelerated by the Burmese-speaking Konbaung Dynasty 's victory over the Mon-speaking Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom in 1757. By 1830, an estimated 90% of

5220-469: The Burmese language is called Old Burmese , dating to the 11th and 12th century stone inscriptions of Pagan . The earliest evidence of the Burmese alphabet is dated to 1035, while a casting made in the 18th century of an old stone inscription points to 984. Owing to the linguistic prestige of Old Pyu in the Pagan Kingdom era, Old Burmese borrowed a substantial corpus of vocabulary from Pali via

5336-499: The Hanthawaddy leadership alienated their Burman constituency in the south, Alaungpaya gathered troops from all over Upper Burma, including Shan , Kachin and Chin levies. By January 1755, he was ready to launch a full-scale invasion of the south. The invading army now had a considerable manpower advantage. Hanthawaddy troops still had better firearms and modern weaponry. (Hanthawaddy's firearm advantage would claim many Konbaung casualties in upcoming battles.) Alaungpaya's first target

5452-476: The Hanthawaddy leadership escalated "self-defeating" policies of ethnic polarization. They began requiring all Burmans in the south to wear an earring with a stamp of the Pegu heir-apparent and to cut their hair in Mon fashion as a sign of loyalty. This persecution strengthened Alaungpaya's hand. Alaungpaya was only happy to exploit the situation, encouraging remaining Burman troops to come over to him. Many did. While

5568-658: The Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of the country. These varieties include the Yaw , Palaw, Myeik (Merguese), Tavoyan and Intha dialects . Despite substantial vocabulary and pronunciation differences, there is mutual intelligibility among most Burmese dialects. Below is a summary of lexical similarity between major Burmese dialects: Dialects in Tanintharyi Region , including Palaw, Merguese, and Tavoyan, are especially conservative in comparison to Standard Burmese. The Tavoyan and Intha dialects have preserved

5684-552: The Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term ဆွမ်း , "food offering [to a monk]", Lower Burmese speakers use [sʰʊ́ɰ̃] instead of [sʰwáɰ̃] , which is the pronunciation used in Upper Burma. The standard dialect is represented by the Yangon dialect because of the modern city's media influence and economic clout. In the past, the Mandalay dialect represented standard Burmese. The most noticeable feature of

5800-423: The Konbaung Dynasty. He prepared the defenses by stockading his village, now renamed Shwebo, and building a moat around it. He had the jungle outside the stockade cleared, the ponds destroyed and the wells filled. Konbaung was only one among many other resistance forces, at Salin along the middle Irrawaddy and Mogaung in the far north, which had independently sprung up across panicked Upper Burma. Fortunately for

5916-403: The Konbaung armies turned their sights on the main port city of Syriam (Thanlyin), which stood in their way to Pegu. On 5 May 1755, Konbaung troops defeated a Hanthawaddy division at Dagon , on the opposite bank of Syriam. Alaungpaya envisioned Dagon to be the future port city, added settlements around Dagon and renamed the new city, Yangon (lit. "End of Strife"). The fortified port of Syriam

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6032-444: The Konbaung counterattack, and pushed back the invaders to Sagaing , on the west bank of the Irrawaddy, opposite Ava. On the east bank, Hsinbyushin also broke the siege of Ava. With the rainy season just a few weeks away, the Hanthawaddy command decided to retreat. Meanwhile, Burman refugees who had escaped general slaughter by the delta Mons seized Prome (Pyay), the historical border town between Upper Burma and Lower Burma, and shut

6148-632: The Konbaung troops forced their way in behind rolling baskets amid heavy slaughter by musket fire, and captured the Mayanbin fort, relieving the siege. They captured many muskets, cannon and ammunition, which Hanthawaddy had acquired from Europeans at Thanlyin, along with 5000 prisoners of war. The Hanthawaddy troops retreated to the delta. Alaungpaya entered Prome, returned solemn thanks at the Shwesandaw Pagoda , and received homage of central Burma. He held an investiture, honoring those who had led

6264-518: The Mandalay dialect is its use of the first person pronoun ကျွန်တော် , kya.nau [tɕənɔ̀] by both men and women, whereas in Yangon, the said pronoun is used only by male speakers while ကျွန်မ , kya.ma. [tɕəma̰] is used by female speakers. Moreover, with regard to kinship terminology , Upper Burmese speakers differentiate the maternal and paternal sides of a family, whereas Lower Burmese speakers do not. The Mon language has also influenced subtle grammatical differences between

6380-603: The Mon leaders of the rebellion welcomed southern Burmans and Karens who despised Ava's rule. The first king of Restored Hanthawaddy, Smim Htaw Buddhaketi , despite his Mon title, was an ethnic Burman. Burmans of the south had served in the Mon-speaking Hanthawaddy army although there had been episodes of purges of Burmans throughout the south by their Mon compatriots since 1740. (About 8000 ethnic Burmans were massacred in 1740.) Instead of persuading their Burman troops to stay, when they needed every last soldier,

6496-580: The Mon was Dvaravati which prospered until around 1024 AD when their capital was ruled by the Khmer Empire and most of the inhabitants fled west to present-day Myanmar and eventually founded new kingdoms. These, too, eventually came under pressure from new ethnic groups arriving from the north. Lower Burma , including what is now Mon State, was conquered by Great Britain in 1824 after the First Anglo-Burmese War . The Mon assisted

6612-414: The Mon's written records have been destroyed through wars. The Mons blended Indian and Mon cultures in a hybrid of the civilisations. By 825 they had firmly established themselves in southern and southeastern Myanmar and founded the cities of Bago (Pegu) and Thaton . By the mid-9th century, they had come to dominate all of southern Myanmar. The first recorded kingdom that can undisputedly be attributed to

6728-465: The Mu valley. Alaungpaya personally led forty of his best men to meet the detachment at Halin, south of Shwebo, and wiped them out. It was 20 April 1752 (Thursday, 4th waxing of Kason 1114 ME). As Upayaza prepared to ship the main body of his troops downstream, leaving a garrison behind under his next-in-command, Talaban. Before leaving he received the unpleasant news that one of his detachments, sent to demand

6844-479: The OB vowel *u e.g. ငံ ngam 'salty', သုံး thóum ('three; use'), and ဆုံး sóum 'end'. It does not, however, apply to ⟨ည်⟩ which is never realised as a nasal, but rather as an open front vowel [iː] [eː] or [ɛː] . The final nasal is usually realised as nasalisation of the vowel. It may also allophonically appear as a homorganic nasal before stops. For example, in /mòʊɰ̃dáɪɰ̃/ ('storm'), which

6960-559: The Siamese threat was never as acute as the threat from Upper Burma, the traditional home of political power in Burma. The Siamese takeover of Upper Tenasserim was an opportunistic land grab taking advantage of Hanthawaddy's preoccupations with Ava. It is unclear whether the Siamese ever planned or had the means to extend their influence into mainland Lower Burma. It was much more probable that any existential threat to Hanthawaddy would come from Upper Burma. The Hanthawaddy command nevertheless

7076-492: The West, Mon state is situated between latitudes 14°52′ north and 17°32′ north and longitudes 96°51′ east and 98°13′ east. Mon State has a tropical climate. It has temperate weather as it is located in the low latitude zone and near the sea. The state has only slight changes in temperature. The average temperature of Mawlamyine in January is 78 °F (26 °C) and in April is 85 °F (29 °C). Annual rainfall in Mawlamyine

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7192-491: The adoption of neologisms. An example is the word "university", formerly ယူနီဗာစတီ [jùnìbàsətì] , from English university , now တက္ကသိုလ် [tɛʔkət̪ò] , a Pali-derived neologism recently created by the Burmese government and derived from the Pali spelling of Taxila ( တက္ကသီလ Takkasīla ), an ancient university town in modern-day Pakistan. Some words in Burmese may have many synonyms, each having certain usages, such as formal, literary, colloquial, and poetic. One example

7308-439: The allegiance of Moksobo had been cut to pieces by the inhabitants. He ought to have enquired more carefully into the nature of the incident, but made the fatal mistake of treating it as trivial. With the parting injunction to Talaban to make an example of the place, he set off home with his troops. Another larger detachment was sent. It too was defeated, with only half a dozen got back to Ava alive. In May, Gen. Talaban himself led

7424-464: The border into Siam. One Mon monk wrote of the time: "Sons could not find their mothers, nor mothers their sons, and there was weeping throughout the land". Soon, entire communities of ethnic Burmans from the north began to settle in the delta. Mon rebellions still flared up in 1762, 1774, 1783, 1792, and 1824–1826. Each revolt typically was followed by fresh deportations, Mon flight to Siam, and punitive cultural proscriptions. The last king of Hanthawaddy

7540-459: The centuries. Aside from the Forty Years' War in the 14th and 15th centuries, the south usually had been on the losing side. But this war proved to be the proverbial final nail. For the Mon, the defeat marked the end of their dream of independence. For a long time, they would remember the utter devastation that accompanied the final collapse of their short-lived kingdom. Thousands fled across

7656-640: The city to the surviving 20 men of the Golden Company and the families of the 73 who died. A few days later and a few days too late, on 29 July 1756, two French relief ships, the Galatee and the Fleury arrived, loaded with troops as well as arms, ammunition, and food from Pondicherry. The Burmese seized the ships and press-ganged 200 French officers and soldiers into Alaungpaya's army. Also on board were 35 ship's guns, five field guns, and 1300 muskets. It

7772-525: The close portions of the diphthongs are somewhat mid-centralized ( [ɪ, ʊ] ) in closed syllables, i.e. before /ɰ̃/ and /ʔ/ . Thus နှစ် /n̥iʔ/ ('two') is phonetically [n̥ɪʔ] and ကြောင် /tɕàũ/ ('cat') is phonetically [tɕàʊ̃] . Burmese is a tonal language , which means phonemic contrasts can be made on the basis of the tone of a vowel. In Burmese, these contrasts involve not only pitch , but also phonation , intensity (loudness), duration, and vowel quality. However, some linguists consider Burmese

7888-547: The coast came to an end. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of the Sino-Tibetan language family . The Burmese alphabet is ultimately descended from a Brahmic script , either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabets. Burmese belongs to

8004-633: The coast. (Alaungpaya died in the war.) The resistance was driven out of Tenasserim in 1765 when Alaungpaya's son Hsinbyushin seized the lower coastline as part of the Burmese-Siamese War (1765–1767) . The Konbaung–Hanthawaddy war was the last of the many wars fought between the Burmese-speaking north and the Mon-speaking south that began with King Anawrahta 's conquest of the south in 1057. Many more wars had been fought over

8120-518: The core leadership of Konbaung armies for the next thirty years. They include the likes of Minhla Minkhaung Kyaw , Minkhaung Nawrahta , Maha Thiha Thura , Ne Myo Sithu , Maha Sithu and Balamindin . Most other resistance forces, as well as officers from the disbanded Palace Guards, had joined him with such arms as they retained. By October 1752, he had emerged the primary challenger to Hanthawaddy and driven out all Hanthawaddy outposts north of Ava, and their allies Gwe Shans from Madaya. He also defeated

8236-415: The dawn of 26 July 1756, after bloody hand-to-hand fighting they managed to pry open the great wooden gates, and in darkness, amid the war cries of the Konbaung troops ("Shwebotha!" "Shwebotha!"; lit. natives of Shwebo) and the screams of the women and the children inside, the city was overrun. The Hanthawaddy commander barely escaped the carnage. Alaungpaya presented the stacks of gold and silver captured from

8352-411: The early monsoon rains poured down in torrents outside the makeshift huts, they ate together in their king's presence. Alaungpaya gave each a leather helmet and lacquer armor. That evening, on 25 July 1756, as the Konbaung troops banged their drums and played loud music to encourage Syriam's defenders into thinking festivities were underway and to relax their watch, the Golden Company scaled the walls. At

8468-669: The early post-independence era led to a reactionary switch from English to Burmese as the national medium of education, a process that was accelerated by the Burmese Way to Socialism . In August 1963, the socialist Union Revolutionary Government established the Literary and Translation Commission (the immediate precursor of the Myanmar Language Commission ) to standardize Burmese spelling, diction, composition, and terminology. The latest spelling authority, named

8584-426: The entire Irrawaddy River. But they could not make further progress. They met heavy Konbaung resistance at Kyaukmyaung and lost many men trying to take a heavily fortified Ava. Two months into the invasion, the invasion was going nowhere. The Hanthawaddy forces had lost many men and boats, and were short on ammunition and supplies. In May, Alaungpaya personally led his armies (10,000 men, 1000 cavalry, 100 elephants) in

8700-465: The fall of Pegu, the governors of Martaban (Mottama), and Tavoy (Dawei) who had sought Siamese protection, now backtracked and sent in tribute to Alaungpaya. After the fall of Pegu, remnants of Mon resistance fell back to the upper Tenasserim peninsula (present-day Mon State ), and remained active there with Siamese support. However, the resistance was disorganized, and did not control any major towns. It remained active only because Konbaung's control of

8816-598: The form of nouns . Historically, Pali , the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism , had a profound influence on Burmese vocabulary. Burmese has readily adopted words of Pali origin; this may be due to phonotactic similarities between the two languages, alongside the fact that the script used for Burmese can be used to reproduce Pali spellings with complete accuracy. Pali loanwords are often related to religion, government, arts, and science. Burmese loanwords from Pali primarily take four forms: Burmese has also adapted numerous words from Mon, traditionally spoken by

8932-577: The former king himself and other captives from Ava in October 1754. This shortsighted action removed the only possible rival to Alaungpaya, and allowed those who had stayed loyal to the former king to join Alaungpaya with an easy conscience. The conflict increasingly turned into an ethnic conflict between the Burman north and the Mon south. It was not always so. When the southern rebellion began in 1740,

9048-486: The front in January 1756 with his two sons, Naungdawgyi and Hsinbyushin . In July, Alaungpaya launched another attack by water and by land, capturing the only French ship left at the port, and the French factory at the outskirts of the town. On 14 July 1756 (3rd waning of Waso 1118 ME), Minhla Minkhaung Kyaw , the chief of musket corps and top Konbaung general, was severely wounded by cannon fire. As Minhla Minkhaung Kyaw lay dying of his wounds and being brought back by boat,

9164-420: The gates of Ava. Upayaza , the heir apparent of Hanthawaddy throne, issued a proclamation, summoning the administrative officers in the country north of the city to submit, and swear allegiance to the king of Hanthawaddy. Many regional chiefs of Upper Burma faced a choice: whether to join the Hanthawaddy forces or resist occupation. A few chose to cooperate. But many others chose to resist. By late March 1752, it

9280-491: The gates to the retreating Hanthawaddy armies. Knowing the importance of Prome for the safety of his kingdom, King Binnya Dala of Hanthawaddy ordered his forces to retake Prome at any cost. Led by Talaban, the Hanthawady forces consisted of 10,000 men and 200 war boats laid siege to Prome. By late 1754, the siege of Prome was going nowhere for Talaban's men. The besiegers had been able to fight off Konbaung attempts to lift

9396-522: The introduction of English into matriculation examinations , fueled growing demand for Burmese to become the medium of education in British Burma; a short-lived but symbolic parallel system of "national schools" that taught in Burmese, was subsequently launched. The role and prominence of the Burmese language in public life and institutions was championed by Burmese nationalists, intertwined with their demands for greater autonomy and independence from

9512-460: The invasion went as planned. The Hanthawaddy forces led by Upayaza, the heir-apparent, and Gen. Talaban defeated the Konbaung armies led by Alaungpaya's sons Naungdawgyi and Hsinbyushin at Myingyan . One Hanthawaddy army chased Hsinbyushin to Ava, and laid siege to the city. Another army chased Naungdawgyi's army, advancing as far as Kyaukmyaung a few miles from Shwebo, where Alaungpaya was residing. The Hanthawaddy flotilla had complete control of

9628-424: The king went down to the boat himself to see his old childhood friend, who had won him many battles. The king publicly mourned the death of his chief general and honored him with a funeral under a white umbrella before the whole army. The leader of the French, Sieur de Bruno , secretly tried to negotiate with Alaungpaya, but was found out and put in prison by Hanthawaddy commanders. The siege went on. For Alaungpaya,

9744-499: The large Anglo-Burmese community. Nowadays this community has dwindled to a handful of families as most have left for the UK or Australia. In 1947, the Mon sought self-determination from the yet unformed Union of Burma . Burmese Prime Minister U Nu refused, saying that no separate national rights for the Mon should be contemplated. The Burmese army moved into areas claimed by the Mon nationalists and imposed rule by force which resulted in

9860-670: The largest religious community there. Minority religious communities include Christians (0.5%), Muslims (5.8%), and Hindus (1%) who collectively comprise the remainder of Mon State’s population. 0.1% of the population listed no religion, other religions, or were otherwise not enumerated. According to the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee ’s 2016 statistics, 32,769 Buddhist monks were registered in Mon State, comprising 6.1% of Myanmar's total Sangha membership, which includes both novice samanera and fully-ordained bhikkhu. The majority of monks belong to

9976-515: The literary form, asserting that the spoken vernacular form ought to be used. Some Burmese linguists such as Minn Latt , a Czech academic, proposed moving away from the high form of Burmese altogether. Although the literary form is heavily used in written and official contexts (literary and scholarly works, radio news broadcasts, and novels), the recent trend has been to accommodate the spoken form in informal written contexts. Nowadays, television news broadcasts, comics, and commercial publications use

10092-469: The mid-1730s. King Mahadhammaraza Dipadi of Toungoo made feeble efforts to recover Lower Burma in the early 1740s, but by 1745, Hanthawaddy had successfully established itself in Lower Burma. The low-grade warfare between Ava and Pegu went on until late 1750, when Pegu launched its final assault, invading Upper Burma in full force. By early 1752, Peguan forces, equipped with French arms, had reached

10208-443: The next few years with Siamese help but was driven out by 1765 when Konbaung armies captured the peninsula from the Siamese. The war proved decisive. Ethnic Burman families from the north began settling in the delta after the war. By the early 19th century, assimilation and intermarriage had reduced the Mon population to a small minority. The authority of Toungoo Dynasty with the capital at Ava (Inwa) had long been in decline when

10324-525: The population in Lower Burma self-identified as Burmese-speaking Bamars; huge swaths of former Mon-speaking territory, from the Irrawaddy Delta to upriver in the north, spanning Bassein (now Pathein) and Rangoon (now Yangon) to Tharrawaddy, Toungoo, Prome (now Pyay), and Henzada (now Hinthada), were now Burmese-speaking. The language shift has been ascribed to a combination of population displacement, intermarriage, and voluntary changes in self-identification among increasingly Mon–Burmese bilingual populations in

10440-469: The port of Thaton in about 300 BC, however, this is disputed by scholars. Oral tradition suggests that they had contact with Buddhism via seafaring as early as the 3rd century BCE, though definitely by the 2nd century BCE when they received an envoy of monks from Ashoka . The Mon converted to Theravada Buddhism sometime before the sixth century, and they adopted the Indian Pali script . Much of

10556-528: The present time one of the biggest foreign investments into Myanmar is for the exploitation of natural gas reserves in Mon State. The Yadana Gas project which connected pipelines alongside the towns of Mon state made harassed danger to the native Mon land and Mon people . In Mudon, a small town near Mawlamyine , there is an applied research center for agricultural science with laboratory bases in rubber plantation and fertilization of some other species. The future plans with tourism will benefit Mon state

10672-425: The region. Standardized tone marking in written Burmese was not achieved until the 18th century. From the 19th century onward, orthographers created spellers to reform Burmese spelling, because of ambiguities that arose over transcribing sounds that had been merged. British rule saw continued efforts to standardize Burmese spelling through dictionaries and spellers. Britain's gradual annexation of Burma throughout

10788-528: The resistance forces, the Hanthawaddy command mistakenly equated their capture of Ava with the victory over Upper Burma, and withdrew two-thirds of the invasion force back to Pegu, leaving just a third (less than 10,000 men) for what they considered a mop-up operation. Moreover, the Hanthawaddy leadership was concerned by the Siamese annexation of the upper Tenasserim peninsula (present-day Mon State ) while Hanthawaddy troops were laying siege to Ava. The decision to redeploy turned out to be an epic miscalculation as

10904-416: The siege but they could not take the fortified city either. At Pegu, some of the Hanthawaddy commanders now feared Alaungpaya's full-scale invasion of the south, and looked for an alternative. Preferring the loose rule of a weak king, they attempted to free the captive king, Mahadhammaraza Dipati on the throne of Hanthawaddy. The plot was discovered by Binnya Dala, who executed not only the conspirators but also

11020-764: The spoken form or a combination of the spoken and simpler, less ornate formal forms. The following sample sentence reveals that differences between literary and spoken Burmese mostly occur in affixes: Burmese has politeness levels and honorifics that take the speaker's status and age in relation to the audience into account. The suffix ပါ pa is frequently used after a verb to express politeness. Moreover, Burmese pronouns relay varying degrees of deference or respect. In many instances, polite speech (e.g., addressing teachers, officials, or elders) employs feudal-era third person pronouns or kinship terms in lieu of first- and second-person pronouns. Furthermore, with regard to vocabulary choice, spoken Burmese clearly distinguishes

11136-533: The starving city. The Konbaung armies broke through at moonrise, and massacred men, women, and children without distinction. Alaungpaya entered through the Mohnyin Gate, surrounded by a crowd of his guardsmen and French gunners, and prostrated himself before the Shwemawdaw Pagoda . The city walls and 20 gates by Tabinshwehti and Bayinnaung two centuries before were then razed to the ground. After

11252-514: The theoretically autonomous Mon State was created out of portions of Thaninthayi Division and Bago Division . Resistance continued until 1995, when NMSP and SLORC agreed a cease-fire. In 1996, the Mon Unity League was founded. SLORC troops continued to operate in defiance of the agreement. Mon State Government Mon State High Court The population was 2,054,393 according to 2014 Census . The majority are Mon . However, there

11368-448: The traditional homeland of Burmese speakers. The 1891 Census of India , conducted five years after the annexation of the entire Konbaung Kingdom , found that the former kingdom had an "unusually high male literacy" rate of 62.5% for Upper Burmans aged 25 and above. For all of British Burma , the literacy rate was 49% for men and 5.5% for women (by contrast, British India more broadly had a male literacy rate of 8.44%). The expansion of

11484-425: The underlying orthography . From the 1500s onward, Burmese kingdoms saw substantial gains in the populace's literacy rate , which manifested itself in greater participation of laymen in scribing and composing legal and historical documents, domains that were traditionally the domain of Buddhist monks, and drove the ensuing proliferation of Burmese literature , both in terms of genres and works. During this period,

11600-512: The upper Tenasserim peninsula in 1757–1759 was still largely nominal. Its effective control still did not extend beyond Martaban as the majority of the Konbaung armies were back north in Manipur and in the northern Shan states . However, no single southern leader emerged to rally the Mon populace as Alaungpaya did with the Burmans in 1752. A rebellion broke out in 1758 throughout Lower Burma but

11716-562: The uprising against Hanthawaddy. In early April, he launched the invasion of Irrawaddy Delta in a blitz . He occupied Lunhse , renaming it Myanaung (Speedy Victory). Moving down the river, the advance guard defeated the Hanthawaddy resistance at Hinthada , and captured Danubyu by mid-April, right before the Burmese new year festivities. By late April, his forces had overrun the entire delta. Alaungpaya now received homage from local lords, as far away as Thandwe in Arakan (Rakhine). Then

11832-547: The varieties of Burmese spoken in Lower and Upper Burma. In Lower Burmese varieties, the verb ပေး ('to give') is colloquially used as a permissive causative marker, like in other Southeast Asian languages, but unlike in other Tibeto-Burman languages. This usage is hardly used in Upper Burmese varieties, and is considered a sub-standard construct. More distinctive non-standard varieties emerge as one moves farther away from

11948-520: The wall. By mid-October, the combined armies converged on Pegu. Konbaung war boats too flung off Hanthawaddy fire-rafts and completed the Konbaung line around the city. By January 1757, the city was starving, and Binnya Dala asked for terms. Alaungpaya demanded no less than a full unconditional surrender. Those surrounding Binnya Dala were determined to fight on, and put the king under restraint. The famine only grew worse. On 6 May 1757 (4th waning of Kason 1119) Konbaung armies unleashed their final assault on

12064-466: The wide circulation of legal texts, royal chronicles , and religious texts. A major reason for the uniformity of the Burmese language was the near-universal presence of Buddhist monasteries (called kyaung ) in Burmese villages. These kyaung served as the foundation of the pre-colonial monastic education system, which fostered uniformity of the language throughout the Upper Irrawaddy valley,

12180-410: The word "television", Burmese publications are mandated to use the term ရုပ်မြင်သံကြား (lit. 'see picture, hear sound') in lieu of တယ်လီဗီးရှင်း , a direct English transliteration. Another example is the word "vehicle", which is officially ယာဉ် [jɪ̃̀] (derived from Pali) but ကား [ká] (from English car ) in spoken Burmese. Some previously common English loanwords have fallen out of use with

12296-662: The worry was that French reinforcements would soon arrive. He decided that the time had come for the fortress to be stormed, now. He knew that the French and the Mons, expecting no quarter, would resist fiercely and that hundreds of his men would die in any attempt to breach the walls. He called for volunteers and then selected 93, whom he named the Golden Company of Syriam , a name that would find pride of place in Burmese nationalist mythology. They included guards, officers, and royal descendants of Bayinnaung . The afternoon before, as

12412-574: Was Prome that had been under siege by the Hanthawaddy troops for seven months. The Hanthawaddy troops were well entrenched in their earthwork stockades surrounding Prome. They had repulsed Konbaung troops trying to relieve the siege throughout 1754. In January, Alaungpaya himself returned with a large army. Still, Konbaung assaults could not make any headway amid heavy musket fire by determined Hanthawaddy defenses. Alaungpaya then ordered large 6-foot (2 m) by 30-foot (9 m) basket cases filled with hay, which were to be used as cover. Then in mid-February,

12528-441: Was a considerable haul. More importantly, the battle ended French involvement in the Burmese civil war. After the fall of Syriam, Alaungpaya waited out the monsoon season. In September, one Konbaung army marched from Syriam in the south, while another army marched from Toungoo (Taungoo) in the north. The advance was slow with great losses as the Hanthawaddy defenses still had cannon and they were literally fighting with their backs to

12644-532: Was clear to everyone that Ava's fate was sealed. Hanthawaddy forces had breached Ava's outer defenses, and pushed Avan defenses inside the palace walls. At Moksobo in the Mu valley about 60 miles northwest of Ava, one village headman named Aung Zeya persuaded 46 villages in home region to join him in resistance. Aung Zeya proclaimed himself king with the royal style of Alaungpaya (the Future Buddha), and founded

12760-486: Was confident that they could pacify the entire Upper Burma countryside. At first the strategy seemed to work. They established outposts as far north as Wuntho and Kawlin in present-day northern Sagaing Region , and the Gwe Shans of Madaya in present-day northern Mandalay Region joined them. The Hanthawaddy officer stationed at Singu , about 30 miles north of Ava, sent a detachment of 50 men to secure allegiance of

12876-599: Was guarded by Hanthawaddy troops, aided by the French personnel and arms. Konbaung armies' first attempt to take the city in May 1755 was a failure. Its sturdy walls and modern cannon made it difficult any attempt to storm the fortress. In June, Hanthawaddy launched a counter-offensive, attacking the Konbaung stronghold at Yangon. During this time, the Konbaung and the British East India Company under Captain George Baker have been in negotiations and

12992-495: Was left ruined and burned. The whole of Upper Burma was clear of Hanthawaddy troops. Alaungpaya then turned to nearer Shan States to secure the rear, and to draw fresh levies. He received homage from the nearer sawbwas (saophas or chiefs) as far north as Momeik . In March 1754, Hanthawaddy did what they should have done two years before, and sent the entire army. It would have been 1751–1752 all over again except that they had to face Alaungpaya instead of an effete dynasty. At first,

13108-448: Was more than US$ 5.433 billion. Mon state has a capital of Mawlamyine , the fourth largest city in Myanmar. It was formerly known as Moulmein under the British colonial rule till the late 1980s. Administrative body is set under South Eastern Regional Command of Myanmar Army in Mawlamyine and Mawyawaddy Navy Command controls coastline security. There are dispersed army infantry battalions at many towns in Mon state, and Thaton has

13224-435: Was mustering a proper army from across the Mu valley and beyond, using his family connections and appointing his fellow gentry leaders as his key lieutenants. Success drew fresh recruits every day from many regions across Upper Burma. Alaungpaya then selected 68 ablest men to be the commanders of his growing army. Many of the 68 would prove to be brilliant military commanders in Konbaung's domestic and external campaigns, and form

13340-422: Was publicly humiliated and executed in 1774. In the aftermath of revolts, Burmese language was encouraged at the expense of Mon. Chronicles by the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Mon monks portrayed the south's recent history as a tale of unrelenting northern encroachment. By the early 19th century, assimilation and inter-marriage had reduced the Mon population to a small minority. Centuries of Mon supremacy along

13456-426: Was put down by local Konbaung garrisons. The window of opportunity came to a close in the second half of 1759 when the Konbaung armies, having conquered Manipur and the northern Shan states, were back down south, preparing for their invasion of the Tenasserim coast and Siam. The Konbaung armies seized the upper Tenasserim coast following the Burmese-Siamese War (1759–1760) , and pushed out the Mon resistance farther down

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