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95-606: Non-state opponents The Karen National Liberation Army ( Burmese : ကရင်အမျိုးသား လွတ်မြောက်ရေးတပ်မတော် ; abbreviated KNLA ) is the military branch of the Karen National Union (KNU), which campaigns for the self-determination of the Karen people of Myanmar (formerly Burma). The KNLA has been fighting the Burmese government since 1960s as part of the Karen conflict , which has been ongoing since 1949. The KNLA

190-510: 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

285-642: A Myanmar Army camp in Kyaukkyi Township in Bago Region . A number of foreigners have gone to Myanmar to fight for the KNLA. Dave Everett , a former Australian SAS soldier, fought for the KNLA and was later arrested in Australia for trying to steal money to fund the KNLA. Des Ball , a professor at ANU, has advised them on military strategy. Thomas Bleming, an American, claims to have fought for

380-645: A federal union of Burma. Around this time the Karen National Liberation Council was formed as a new emergency administration by the KNU, which then founded the Karen National Liberation Army. In 1970, the KNLA was reorganized into 7 brigades and additional special battalions under the personal command of Bo Mya . These units combined KNLA soldiers with local KNDO militias in each brigade's territory quickly growing

475-550: 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

570-457: A number of conditions for participating in the poll, including changes to the constitution to reduce the army's influence, international supervision for free and fair polls, and freeing all political prisoners including Suu Kyi. Senior General Than Shwe , leader of the ruling military junta , has pledged to release political prisoners in an amnesty before the election, though he has not stated when this would occur. On 11 August 2009, Suu Kyi

665-464: A political party, and therefore over 2,000 political prisoners will not be able to participate, possibly including Aung San Suu Kyi (depending on whether her house arrest is deemed to fall under the definition of "serving a prison term"). The Political Parties Registration Law also bars members of religious orders, members of insurgent groups 'as defined by the state' and foreigners from joining political parties. This separation of Buddhism and politics

760-690: A port from which to receive military supplies, the Karen forces gradually withdrew to the southeast of Burma. In 1967, the Karen National United Party began to change its approach to the war, withdrawing more from the Irrawaddy delta and, in 1976, changing its policy on wanting an independent state, and joining a new alliance, the National Democratic Front. This alliance of armed ethnic political parties supported

855-648: A possible crackdown by the military government. The KNLA, along with its parent organisation the KNU, signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) with the government of Myanmar on 15 October 2015, along with several other insurgent groups. In September 2016, KNLA fighters began clashing with members of the Mon National Liberation Army (MNLA), the armed wing of the New Mon State Party (NMSP), in

950-540: A press conference in Malacañang Palace that " [We] express our disappointment towards the actions done by the Burmese government towards the NLD, and also with regards to such a farce-like elections which just appeared to be a display." At the time of the election Aljazeera argued that the election marginalised Aung San Suu Kyi . It asked "How much power and reach would she still have to rally her followers barely

1045-558: A quarter of the 440 parliament seats will be reserved for the military officials. People holding military positions are not permitted to contest the election; as such, 20 members of the junta, including Prime Minister Thein Sein , retired from their posts to participate in the election. The first of five election laws was announced in March 2010, concerning the creation of an election commission. The Union Election Commission Law states that

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1140-525: A senior Myanmar Army officer, Brig.-Gen. Kaung Myat, was killed by the KNLA. He had been the commander of the No. 5 Military Operations Command. The next month, on 19 June, DKBA soldiers began attacking the KNLA Brigade 7 headquarters, which they then captured on 23 June. During 2010, increasing numbers of Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) soldiers defected to the KNLA, or fled to Thailand, following

1235-564: A speech to military retirees, Than Shwe said that the transition to a parliamentary system meant various parties with different opinions would appear, but he warned that the new parties should "avoid anything that leads to harming state interests". The constituencies available for contesting are 330 civilian seats in the House of Representatives (out of 440) and 168 civilian seats in the House of Nationalities (out of 224). The remaining seats are designated for military officials and to be selected by

1330-573: A speech to the Indian parliament, US President Barack Obama said of the election that "When peaceful democratic movements are suppressed – as in Burma – then the democracies of the world cannot remain silent ... It is unacceptable to steal an election as the regime in Burma has done again for the world to see." Edwin Lacierda , the spokesperson of Philippine president Benigno Aquino III , said in

1425-466: 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

1520-556: A week after the south-east Asian nation's first general election in two decades?" One such reason was because the NLD's boycott may have failed if it does not play the right cards in dealing with at least a semblance of an elected opposition in a "semi-legitimate" parliament. Pending her release from jail, the political atmosphere would have changed because of a new military leadership that may not be as "cosmopolitan" and "practical" in dealing both with her and external players. The British ambassador to Myanmar, Andrew Heyn, also said: "What they

1615-633: 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: 2010 Burmese general election Thein Sein USDP Thein Sein USDP General elections were held in Myanmar on 7 November 2010, in accordance with

1710-643: 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 the Southern Burmish branch of

1805-418: Is a long-standing feature of Myanmar politics, dating back to before independence, and was incorporated in the 1947 independence Constitution at the request of the monkhood. The other laws stipulate that anyone currently serving a prison term is barred from running or voting in the elections for the upper and lower houses. A 224-member House of Nationalities will have 168 elected candidates and 56 nominated by

1900-625: Is not one that we should continue to support, and hopefully get a greater international base to take action against them." She claimed to have support from other countries, "I have been heartened by the response that we have received. I have spoken to a number of the foreign secretaries of ASEAN countries, who've issued strong statements." She added that she was working to get more support in the United Nations. UK Foreign Minister William Hague said that "holding flawed elections does not represent change." Myanmar barred foreign observers and

1995-442: 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

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2090-759: 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

2185-584: 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

2280-638: 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/

2375-491: 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

2470-588: 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

2565-475: 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

2660-618: 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

2755-510: The Karen community and the Burmese majority. Some Karens sought independence while others attempted co-existence within Burma. The KNLA was preceded by the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO), an armed organisation formed by the KNU in 1947 to defend Karen communities and interests. Most KNDO soldiers had previously served in the forces of British Burma . In early 1949, the Burmese government arrested

2850-723: 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

2945-534: 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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3040-564: The National Democratic Force to contest the elections, claiming that a boycott would play into the hands of the government. The government has established the Union Solidarity and Development Party , the successor to the mass organisation Union Solidarity and Development Association , which claims to have around half the population as members. The National Unity Party , which contested the 1990 election as

3135-500: The National League for Democracy boycotted the elections. The result was a sweeping victory for the Union Solidarity and Development Party , which won nearly 80% of seats contested across the upper and lower houses. The United Nations expressed concern about the fairness of the elections, and western countries dismissed them as fraudulent. Due to the strict separation of powers in the constitution , members elected to

3230-605: The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw were automatically disqualified from their seats if they accepted appointment to an executive or judicial body. As a result, many elected members elected were quickly disqualified from their seats after accepting appointment to bodies such as the Cabinet of Myanmar . By-elections to fill 48 vacancies left by such appointments as well as by resignations and deaths were held in April 2012 . Going into

3325-614: 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

3420-566: 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 a minority speak non-standard dialects found in

3515-535: The Tanintharyi Region . Both the KNU and NMSP were signatories of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) at the time of the fighting. A temporary bilateral truce was reached between the two groups on 14 March 2018. Tensions between the KNU and the Tatmadaw increased as unrest swept the country following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état . On 27 March 2021, KNLA Brigade 5 overran a Myanmar Army base near

3610-413: 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

3705-457: 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

3800-470: 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

3895-769: The 224 seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw (House of Nationalities) were up for election. The remaining 56 seats (25%) were not elected, and instead reserved for military appointees (taken from Tatmadaw personnel; officially known as "Army Representatives"). 325 of the 440 seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw (House of Representatives) were up for election after 5 seats in Shan State were cancelled. The remaining 110 seats (25%) were not elected, and instead reserved for military appointees (taken from Tatmadaw personnel; officially known as "Army Representatives"). Than Nyein,

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3990-526: 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

4085-557: 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

4180-990: The Burmese army. KNLA troops wear woodland camouflage uniforms like those from Thai forces. KNLA operates 7 brigades in Kawthoolei areas. Each brigade has several battalions, as shown below. 1st brigade operated in Doothahtu district 2nd brigade operated in Tawoo district 3th brigade operated in Klerlweehtu district 4th brigade operated in Tavoy district 5th brigade operated in Mutraw district 6th brigade operated in Dooplaya district 7th brigade operated in Hpa-an district Burmese language Burmese

4275-688: 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

4370-469: 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

4465-473: The DKBA planned the action in the towns of Myawaddy and Three Pagodas Pass to take advantage of the deployment of the military for election monitoring. Many voters in the area, fearing an attack, stayed away from the polls. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest on 13 November, despite a court ruling quashing her release. She then said there were no regrets over her party's boycott of

4560-590: 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

4655-552: 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

4750-662: The KNU/KNLA Peace Council, led by the former KNLA brigade 7 commander Brig-Gen Htay Maung (Htein Maung), broke away from the KNLA in February 2007, and organised a peace talk as well as a cease-fire agreement with the Burmese military government without the approval of the KNU central committee. On 14 February 2008, Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan , the KNU secretary-general, was assassinated in Thailand . On 13 May 2009,

4845-811: The Karen and has written a book called War in Karen Country . Three of the KNLA's French volunteers were killed in action: Jean-Phillipe Courreges (killed 1985), Olivier Thiriat (killed 1989), and Guillaume Oillic (killed 1990). Jean-Phillipe Courreges belonged to the Groupe Union Défense , a white nationalist students union. KNLA soldiers are issued M16 rifles from the Vietnam war era, and also AK-47s . They also have used RPG-7s , M203 grenade launchers , M79 grenade launchers as well as mortars. Some KNLA soldiers have used World War II-era M1 carbine . The KNLA has also used captured weapons from

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4940-588: The Lower House, with the USDP winning 133. The USDP won 81 of 86 races newly announced for the Upper House. The new and previously announced results show the USDP gained majorities in both houses of parliament: 190 out of the 219 (86%) seats announced for the 330-seat lower house, and 95 out of 107 (88%) seats announced for the 168-seat upper house. The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) won 80% of

5035-518: 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

5130-479: 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

5225-540: The Thai border, killing 10 soldiers including a deputy battalion commander. The Myanmar army launched multiple airstrikes on Karen villages in retaliation. On 27 April 2021, the KNLA captured a Myanmar Army base along the Salween river, bordering Thailand's Mae Sam Laep sub-district. A civilian on the Thai side of the border was wounded by a stray bullet during the battle. On 9 September 2021, KNLA Brigades 3 and 5 captured

5320-491: 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

5415-565: The announcement that the DKBA would be absorbed into the Burmese military government's Border Guard. The DKBA had previously been allied to, but distinct from, government forces. In November 2010, following the general election of 2010 , large parts of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army are alleged to have mutinied and re-aligned themselves with the KNLA, resulting in the escalating conflict with junta troops . The two rebel armies have formed an alliance, in advance of

5510-605: The chairman of the National Democratic Force, claimed the election was marred by irregularities. "We have our evidence. Some candidates complained ... because there was vote cheating." Khin Maung Swe, the leader of the opposition National Democratic Force alleged: "We took the lead at the beginning but the USDP later came up with so-called advance votes and that changed the results completely, so we lost." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon claimed voting conditions had been "insufficiently inclusive, participatory and transparent." The People's Republic of China's Foreign Ministry said

5605-525: 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

5700-474: 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

5795-448: The election and had to register by 6 June . 40 parties have been approved by the Electoral Commission to contest the elections, some of which are linked to ethnic minorities . The National League for Democracy , which overwhelmingly won the previous 1990 elections but were never allowed to take power, and the party's participation is restricted in this elections, decided not to participate. Nonetheless, some senior members have formed

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5890-432: The election and thus it would "lack credibility." He accused the government of being "slow and incomplete" to meet political commitments, and said it was "deeply frustrating" that the government would not hold talks with the "international community." The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, commented on the election during Than Shwe's visit to China. "The international community can provide constructive help [for

5985-429: The election was "a critical step for Myanmar in implementing the seven-step road map in the transition to an elected government, and thus is welcome." India was conspicuously silent with segments of the Indian media questioning whether principle gave way to expediency. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov welcomed the vote and characterised it as a "step forward in the democratisation of Burmese society." During

6080-469: The elections, a debate emerged around whether Aung San Suu Kyi would be disqualified from contesting the elections under Article 59F of the new constitution, which banned from the Presidency any person whose spouse or children are foreign citizens. The United Nations , members of ASEAN , and Western nations, however, insisted that the elections would not be credible without the participation of Suu Kyi. The National League for Democracy (NLD) had set

6175-400: The elections] and refrain from any negative impact on the domestic political process of Myanmar and on regional peace and stability." The following day, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to the US Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on State and Foreign Affairs where she mentioned that the trial against Aung San Suu Kyi was allegedly "baseless charges." She also added that

6270-506: The ethnically Karen leader of the armed forces, Gen. Smith Dun , and replaced him with Burmese nationalist Ne Win . Continued attacks against Karen dominated townships around Rangoon and the arrest of Karen political leaders led the KNU to declare armed struggle , and the world's longest running civil war began. Early in the fighting, Karen forces overran much of northern Burma including towns such as Mandalay and established strong positions outside Rangoon at Insein Township . But lacking

6365-598: 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

6460-433: The government was "continuing resistance to a free and open electoral process. If they stay on the track they're on, their elections in 2010 will be totally illegitimate and without any meaning in the international community." She admitted that "We are absolutely committed to trying to come up with an approach that might influence the regime. We are going to try to do our best to influence them to see that this repressive regime

6555-402: The international media from the election. The election commission chief, Thein Soe, did add, however, that diplomats and representatives from UN organisations in the country would be allowed to observe the election. He justified the decision saying "We are holding the election for this country. It's not for other countries ... We will have credibility after holding the election in front of all

6650-459: 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

6745-424: The junta do when Suu Kyi is released will send a message. She is well informed and committed and wants to stay involved." The following day clashes erupted between the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) and government forces in Myawaddy by the Thai border. The fighting spilled over to the town of Three Pagodas Pass with reports that the DKBA had seized the town from the military. According to some reports,

6840-515: 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

6935-431: The main pro-government party and won 10 seats, has also registered to run. Reuters estimates that six parties in total are allied to the government. The new Democratic Party , established by Mya Than Than Nu, the daughter of former Prime Minister of Myanmar , U Nu and Nay Ye Ba Swe, the daughter of former Prime Minister Ba Swe , is aiming to take part in the election. Mya Than Than Nu will run as General Secretary of

7030-555: The military chief, while the 440-member House of Representatives will have 330 elected civilians and 110 military representatives. At the same time, the results of the 1990 elections were annulled as they did not comply with the new election laws. The new laws have been described as a "farce" by the Philippines and a "mockery" by the United States. Parties are required to have at least 1,000 members to participate in

7125-466: The military chief. During an East Asian summit in Vietnam, Foreign Minister Nyan Win confirmed Than Shwe would not be running in the election. Due to ongoing insurgent violence, elections were cancelled in parts of Mon State (4.08% of village-tracts), Shan State (10.69%), Kayah State (11.93%), Kachin State (16.60%), and Kayin State (47.25%). There have been concerns from aid agencies that

7220-417: The military government will appoint all members of the commission and have the final say over the election results. Members of the commission must be "an eminent person, to have integrity and experience, to be loyal to the state and its citizens". A 17-member election commission was later named, headed by a former military officer. The second law bans anyone currently serving a prison term from belonging to

7315-598: The new constitution , which was approved in a referendum held in May 2008 . The election date was announced by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) on 13 August . The elections were the fifth step of the seven-step " roadmap to democracy " proposed by the SPDC in 2003, the sixth and seventh steps being the convening of elected representatives and the building of a modern, democratic nation, respectively. However,

7410-548: The party. Media coverage of the party has been banned by the military government. Another new party is being formed comprising members of a ceasefire group and a party that won seats in the 1990 elections. Five former members of the New Mon State Party (NMSP) and five members of Mon National Democratic Front (MNDF) together with five other Mon elites, who make up the new party, founded a 15-member committee and later announced that they are not going to participate in

7505-415: The people." The election was held amid tight security. Initial reports pointed to a light turnout across the country, possibly as low as 20% in some areas, and the possibility of irregularities. The Guardian reported that independent local observers were reporting "widespread voter intimidation and bribery" in the election. On 11 November, state radio announced the results for 147 constituencies in

7600-668: 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

7695-649: 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

7790-425: 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

7885-519: The regional commander of the Myanma Army , while a series of explosions were reported at a hydroelectric project being jointly built by a Chinese company in the north of the country, the latter thought to be the work of anti-government groups. The United Nations has expressed concern about the fairness of the election and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed "grave concern" that Aung San Suu Kyi would not be released before

7980-630: The seats that were up for election. The two largest opposition parties, the National Democratic Front and the Democratic Party conceded defeat; however, along with four other opposition parties, filed formal complaints about fraud with the election commission. The final results were announced by the Myanmar Union Election Commission on 17 November 2010. Detailed results in English are available. 168 of

8075-506: The size of the KNLA to 10,000 well-armed and experienced soldiers. In 1994 a group of Buddhist soldiers in the KNLA, claiming that the KNLA was unfairly dominated by Christians, broke away from the KNLA to form a new force, the DKBA , which soon organised a cease-fire with the Burmese military government. In 1995 KNLA lost Kawmoora and Myawaddy to the DKBA . This considerably reduced the KNLA's border trade taxation. A group calling itself

8170-764: 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

8265-448: 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

8360-425: 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,

8455-554: The upcoming election could see a growing number of refugees fleeing to Thailand and China, due to alleged government repression, poverty and low-level ethnic conflict . Ceasefires between the military government and ethnic groups were also deteriorating. In the run up to the election, there were several bomb blasts in Myanmar. A bomb attack on Myanmar New Year killed at least nine people in Yangon and injured many others, including

8550-502: The upcoming election. The Shan Nationalities League for Democracy , a Shan political party that came second in the 1990 election, is participating in the election as the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party . The SPDC has not answered opposition calls to amend the 2008 constitution or state clearly how the electoral process will be managed and the terms that new political parties can organise. In

8645-547: 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

8740-466: 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,

8835-410: 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

8930-472: Was reported to have had a strength of approximately 10,000 in 1970, 20,000 in 1980, 3,000 in 2001, 5,000 in 2006, 6,000 in 2012, and 7,000 in 2014. As of early 2021, the KNLA is estimated to have around 15,000 troops. The army is divided into seven brigades and a 'Special Force' reserved for special operations. At the time of Burmese independence from the British in 1948, there was considerable tension between

9025-418: Was sentenced to imprisonment for three years with hard labour over a trespass incident . This sentence was commuted by the military rulers to further house arrest of eighteen months. The NLD later announced they would not take part in the election due to the election laws. Key ministries including justice, defence and the interior will remain under the control of the military and under the 2008 constitution,

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