Non-state allies
78-581: The Kayan New Land Party ( Burmese : ကယန်းပြည်သစ်ပါတီ , abbreviated : KNLP ) is a political party in Myanmar . Its armed wing is Kayan New Land Army. The Ne Win government, which was established in a coup in 1962, advocated Burmese Way to Socialism and promoted hard-line policies. In 1963, the Anti-dam construction Committee was established in Pekong Township by local leaders. In May 1964,
156-565: 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
234-597: A formal alliance with the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in 1979 and adopted the Maoist "people's war" strategy upheld by the CPB. In 1983, under CPB's leadership, KNLP alongside Karenni National People's Liberation Front and Shan State National Liberation Organisation formed the central regional command which lasted until CPB was forced underground due to internal mutiny from its Wa and Kokang cadres. On 11 August 1998,
312-566: A high school student in Rangoon and joined The Irrawaddy after his release. The English language print edition of The Irrawaddy ceased publication in September 2015, while the Burmese language edition was halted in January 2016. In October 2022, the military government of Myanmar officially revoked the publication license of The Irrawaddy , stating that with its coverage, the news site
390-730: A left-wing Pa-O army, and the Karenni National People's Liberation Front (KNPLF), a left-wing offshoot of KNPP. When CPB collapsed in 1989, divisions arose from within the KNLP: in 1991, the Kayan National Guard (KNG) split from the KNLP with about 60 troops and negotiated a ceasefire with the military regime . On 20 June of the same year, the KNLP rejoined the NDF. On 26 July 1994, after losing its alliance partner,
468-550: 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
546-443: A number of organisations, including The Irrawaddy and Democratic Voice of Burma , to cut programmes and fire staff. Another article alleged the death of popular singer May Sweet in a London traffic accident. Both stories were quickly flagged as fictitious, and Aung Zaw later speculated that the attack was launched by a pro-military junta group or Naypyidaw's cyber warfare department. On October 2, 2014, The Irrawaddy’s website
624-579: A platform to members of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners , the 88 Generation Students Group , and other civil society groups. It has reported extensively on ongoing conflicts between the military and ethnic armed groups, and recent protests over land seizures and education reforms. The Irrawaddy's websites were subjected to Distributed Denial of Service attacks during the Saffron Revolution , and again on
702-463: A representative of KNLP in the shadow government formed by the elected lawmakers and ethnic minority leader in the aftermath of the military coup in February 2021. Burmese language Burmese ( Burmese : မြန်မာဘာသာ ; MLCTS : Mranma bhasa ; pronounced [mjəmà bàθà] ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Myanmar , where it is the official language , lingua franca, and
780-466: 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
858-411: 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: The Irrawaddy The Irrawaddy ( Burmese : ဧရာဝတီ ; MLCTS : ei: ra wa. ti )
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#1732787208183936-643: 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
1014-568: Is a news website by the Irrawaddy Publishing Group (IPG), founded in 1990 by Burmese exiles living in Thailand . As a publication produced by former Burmese activists who fled violent crackdowns on anti-military protests in 1988, it has always been closely associated with the pro-democracy movement, although it remains unaffiliated with any of the political groups that have emerged since the 8888 Uprising . The Irrawaddy
1092-539: Is harmful to "state security, rule of law and public tranquility". According to a Financial Times article, The Irrawaddy initially received support from international donors like the National Endowment for Democracy and Open Society Foundations . Despite its critical role in reporting on Myanmar’s issues, the publication has faced scrutiny and accusations of bias. Critics argue that it has occasionally suppressed stories that could have negatively affected
1170-442: 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
1248-478: Is published in both English and Burmese , with a primary focus on Burma and Southeast Asia . It is regarded as one of the foremost journalistic publications dealing with political, social, economic and cultural developments in Burma. In addition to news, it features in-depth political analysis and interviews with a wide range of Burma experts, business leaders, democracy activists and other influential figures. It
1326-759: 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
1404-584: 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
1482-638: 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/
1560-491: 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
1638-588: 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
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#17327872081831716-475: 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
1794-618: 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
1872-723: 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
1950-534: 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
2028-772: The Panghsang Conference organised by the United Wa State Army in November 2015. After the 2021 Myanmar coup, the KNLP secretly cooperated with the resistance by training them. The party also pressured the government to release the arrested for protesters, and got them released. In May 2021, the KNLP and the People’s Defence Force clashed with the Tatmadaw in the southern Shan State village of Soung Nan Khe. According to The Irrawaddy , it
2106-614: 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
2184-566: 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
2262-699: The Union Solidarity and Development Party , a wing of the Tatmadaw, in the 2015 Myanmar general election . There are connections between KNLP and NLD, as the daughter of KNLP Major Win Maw ran for Pyithu Hluttaw from NLD and won. Ba Ham Htan, the son of KNLP's founder U Shwe Aye, was appointed the National Unity Government 's Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Human Rights in May 2021, as
2340-413: 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
2418-457: 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
Kayan New Land Party - Misplaced Pages Continue
2496-470: 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
2574-526: 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
2652-557: 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
2730-688: 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
2808-469: 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
2886-658: 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
2964-552: 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
3042-720: The KNLP cooperated with the Karenni National Progressive Party and joined the National Democratic Front (NDF) in 1976, but left the NDF in 1977 to align with the Communist Party of Burma . In 1979, the KNLP formed an alliance with CPB, as the areas it controlled were far from the border and foreign support was not forthcoming. It also had a joint struggle relationship with the Shan State Nationalities Liberation Organisation (SSNLO),
3120-665: The KNLP issued a statement jointly with the Karenni National People's Liberation Front and the Shan State National Liberation Organisation supporting the National League for Democracy and calling for a National Assembly of elected representatives in the 1990 elections . The statement also called for tripartite talks between SLORC , NLD and EAOs. In May 2004, a joint statement was issued with seven other EAOs at
3198-486: The KNLP negotiated a ceasefire with the military regime and was granted autonomy for the areas it controlled as Kayah State Special District 3. It was also granted concessions for timber harvesting and mining development. However, relations between the KNLP and the military regime were not stable, and in a document leaked to WikiLeaks, the US Embassy in Rangoon described the relationship as 'hot and cold relation with
Kayan New Land Party - Misplaced Pages Continue
3276-647: The KNLP-led Kayan National Education Committee established Kayan National University. KNU was established in an anti-junta controlled zone of the Kayan Region to promote Kayan culture in postsecondary education. Initially offering Teacher Training, Agriculture, Healthcare, Development and Social Science, Computer Science, and Kayan Literature and Languages, KNU will eventually offer other fields such as Natural Sciences, Economics, Law, and Civil Engineering. KNLP established
3354-518: 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
3432-564: The National Convention to review the powers of the Tatmadaw in the new constitution and to respect the autonomy of ethnic minorities. In June 2014, the KNLP supported the National League for Democracy's call for an amendment to Section 436 of the 2008 Constitution, which gives the Tatmadaw de facto veto power in constitutional reform. In December of the same year, it also stated that it would support any party other than
3510-513: The National League for Democracy (NLD), especially during the 2015 electoral campaign. The rise of Buddhist nationalism and hate speech in Myanmar has also influenced its coverage. Although Kyaw Zwa Moe, an editor at The Irrawaddy, insists that the publication aims to remain unbiased, there are concerns that a shift towards a more commercial model may be impacting editorial decisions, potentially aligning with local business interests. The Irrawaddy
3588-568: The Ne Win government demonetised the 50 kyats and 100 kyats without prior notice. On 4 June 1964, villagers from Pekong township rebelled against the Ne Win government and attacked a military outpost. The first armed group was organised by Bo Pyan, who led the anti-Japanese struggle, but Shwe Aye, a former Rangoon University student, joined him and formed the Kayan New Land Party on 8 August that year. Lintner (1994) describes that
3666-479: 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
3744-551: The SPDC'. In 2005, a militia supported by the national army was created within KNLP-controlled areas, and the KNLP was forced to withdraw after clashes. After the ceasefire, the KNLP worked closely with the national army and became more like a militia. In 2009, the military regime pressured the KNLP to convert to a Border Guard Force (BGF) or militia, as under the 2008 Constitution , all military organisations must be under
3822-491: 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
3900-445: The armed struggle in 1964 occurred after the demonetisation of high-value banknotes by the government, but some reports suggest that the establishment of the KNLP in the same year was in response to the anti-dam movement. South (2020) also states that the KNLP decided to launch an armed struggle for religious freedom following the expulsion of all foreign missionaries, including Roman Catholic missionaries, from Myanmar. Initially,
3978-525: 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
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#17327872081834056-667: The control of Tatmadaw. SPDC claimed that the KNLP had converted to the militia in November 2009, but the KNLP denied this. Initially, the KNLP was considered as one of 'dialogue partners' by the government and was invited to the National Convention , but later was excluded from the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement and the Union Peace Conference – 21st Century Panglong . The KNLP was one of 12 ethnic EAOs that participated in
4134-523: The country, while maintaining a legacy presence in Chiang Mai. The Irrawaddy formerly published a monthly English language magazine and a weekly Burmese-language journal, both of which were circulated in Burma and Thailand. Its English and Burmese language websites are updated daily. The editor of the English edition is Kyaw Zwa Moe , younger brother of Aung Zaw, who was jailed for eight years while
4212-480: The country. Burmese is the most widely-spoken language in the country, where it serves as the lingua franca . In 2007, it was spoken as a first language by 33 million. Burmese is spoken as a second language by another 10 million people, including ethnic minorities in Myanmar like the Mon and also by those in neighboring countries. In 2022, the Burmese-speaking population was 38.8 million. Burmese
4290-471: The defend of Muslims and Allah, Irrawaddy have shown attacking Buddhists and others Non-Muslims with Media News (sic).” Before media reforms in 2012 allowed exile media organizations to establish an official presence in Burma, The Irrawaddy relied on a network of stringers and sources operating inside the country and communicating developments back to Chiang Mai by telephone. In some instances, inaccurate reports were published on political developments during
4368-669: 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
4446-598: 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
4524-522: 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
4602-515: 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
4680-809: The native language of the Bamar , the country's principal ethnic group. Burmese is also spoken by the indigenous tribes in Chittagong Hill Tracts ( Rangamati , Bandarban , Khagrachari , Cox's Bazar ) in Bangladesh, and in Mizoram state in India. The Constitution of Myanmar officially refers to it as the Myanmar language in English, though most English speakers continue to refer to the language as Burmese , after Burma —a name with co-official status that had historically been predominantly used for
4758-548: 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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#17327872081834836-525: 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
4914-425: 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
4992-410: The sincerity of the country’s political and economic reforms, and called for an end to the military’s ongoing presence in political affairs. Since her release from house arrest, The Irrawaddy has also at times been critical of National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party. While not formally affiliated with any of Burma’s myriad pro-democracy groups, The Irrawaddy has given
5070-764: 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
5148-448: 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
5226-425: 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,
5304-430: The uprising's anniversary in 2008 and 2010, which temporarily shut down both its English and Burmese online editions. On 12 March 2011, The Irrawaddy was hacked by unknown attackers who posted fake articles on the magazine’s website. One of the articles alleged a feud between Aung Zaw and Aung San Suu Kyi, claiming that the National League for Democracy leader had encouraged funding cuts for exiled media that have forced
5382-432: 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
5460-445: The wake of the suppression of the pro-democracy movement and the consolidation of military control under the State Law and Order Restoration Council . The BIG's main offices were relocated to Chiang Mai , Thailand in 1995–96, and the organization was renamed the Irrawaddy Publishing Group in 1999 to coincide with an expansion of the magazine's focus to include other political issues in Southeast Asia. The organization's online service
5538-401: 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,
5616-410: 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
5694-620: Was a KNLP non-commissioned officer who joined the resistance and clashed with the Tatmadaw, and in June of the same year, the KNLP jointly with the Karenni National People's Liberation Front and the Karenni National Peace and Development Party (both two forces have converted to BGF), under the name of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) declared ceasefire with the Tatmadaw although it
5772-529: Was an outspoken and strident critic of the State Law and Order Restoration Council and its successor, the State Peace and Development Council . Towards the end of the junta era, it criticized the protracted drafting of the 2008 Constitution by the military, and highlighted irregularities in the conduct of the 2010 general elections . Since the election of a civilian government, the magazine has questioned
5850-444: Was hacked by a group apparently sympathetic to the radical Buddhist 969 Movement , which rose to prominence after the outbreak of intercommunal riots across Burma in 2012. Prompted by the website's syndication of a wire story reporting a cooperation agreement between the 969 Movement and Sri Lanka ’s Bodu Bala Sena Buddhist nationalist organization, the front page was defaced to read: “Irrawaddy supports Jihad and Radical Muslims. For
5928-466: Was launched in 2000 to provide more regular coverage of breaking news, notably the fallout from the 2003 banking crisis and the downfall of senior junta leader Khin Nyunt . In 2012, following legislative reforms to end Burma's decades-old system of prepublication censorship and the granting of new media licenses, The Irrawaddy opened a bureau in Rangoon and gradually moved its editorial operations into
6006-521: Was quickly rejected by the KNDF and the KNDF resumed fighting the Tatmadaw not long after. In March 2022, like other militia groups, it still has close relations with Myanmar military, as the party was provided with weapons by them. However, several KNLP garrisons were targeted by the Myanmar military's aerial bombing runs. On the contrary, there were also reports of KNLP obstructing resistance forces from attacking Myanmar military positions. On 6 August 2024,
6084-540: Was started in 1990 with the name Burma Issues . The founder is Aung Zaw , a student activist from Rangoon University who left the country after the 1988 imposition of martial law and started the Burma Information Group (BIG) in Bangkok. The BIG initially circulated The Irrawaddy amongst foreign embassies, human rights groups and the Burmese exile community to update on developments inside Burma in
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