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93-453: Kachin State ( Burmese : ကချင်ပြည်နယ် ; Kachin : Jinghpaw Mungdaw ) is the northernmost state of Myanmar . It is bordered by China to the north and east ( Tibet and Yunnan , respectively), Shan State to the south, and Sagaing Region and India ( Arunachal Pradesh ) to the west. It lies between north latitude 23° 27' and 28° 25' longitude 96° 0' and 98° 44'. The area of Kachin State

186-671: A language shift from Jingpho to Burmese. Other Kachin tribes speak and write their own language: the Zaiwa , the Rawang , and the Lisu , who speak both the Lisu language and the Lipo language . English is also widely spoken as a working language. The ethnic data from the 2014 census is available only with the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) and not released to the public. As per the 1983 Census,

279-565: 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

372-645: 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 the Sino-Tibetan languages , of which Burmese is the most widely spoken of the non- Sinitic languages. Burmese

465-561: A legislature ( Kachin State Hluttaw ), and a judiciary. According to the 2014 Myanmar Census , Buddhists , who make up 64.0% of Kachin State's population, form the largest religious community there. Religious minority communities include Christians (33.8%), Muslims (1.6%), Hindus (0.4%), and animists (0.2%) who collectively comprise the remainder of Kachin State's population. 2.8% of the population listed no religion, other religions, or were otherwise not enumerated. According to

558-550: 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

651-457: A lower density and refractive index than jadeite. Massive jadeite also characteristically shows a more granular texture than nephrite or serpentinite. Jadeite has a fusibility of 2.5 (making it moderately easy to fuse with a propane flame) and gives a yellow flame color. Pure jadeite has the composition NaAlSi 2 O 6 and has the typical clinopyroxene structure. This consists of long chains of silica tetrahedra in which each silicon ion

744-674: 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 the Mandalay dialect is its use of the first person pronoun ကျွန်တော် , kya.nau [tɕənɔ̀] by both men and women, whereas in Yangon,

837-666: A pressure of 10 to 25 kbar and a temperature of 600 to 1,000 °C (1,100 to 1,800 °F) via the reaction: Jadeite can also form at high pressure via the reaction: At still higher pressure, corresponding to the highest blueschist facies , jadeite reacts with lawsonite to form zoisite and paragonite : Minerals associated with jadeite include: glaucophane , lawsonite , muscovite , aragonite , serpentine and quartz . Rocks that consist almost entirely of jadeite are called jadeitite . In all well-documented occurrences, jadeitite appears to have formed from subduction zone fluids in association with serpentinite . Jadeitite

930-466: 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

1023-628: 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 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

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1116-465: Is 89,041 km (34,379 sq mi). The capital of the state is Myitkyina . Other important towns include Bhamo , Mohnyin and Putao . Kachin State has Myanmar's highest mountain, Hkakabo Razi at 5,889 metres (19,321 ft), forming the southern tip of the Himalayas , and a large inland lake, Indawgyi Lake . The Qing dynasty of China briefly controlled the present Kachin state during

1209-419: 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: Jadeite Jadeite is a pyroxene mineral with composition Na Al Si 2 O 6 . It

1302-424: Is also a rare parting on [100]. The interlocking crystals of massive jadeite help give it its extreme toughness. Jadeite has a Mohs hardness of 6.5 to 7, slightly less than that of common quartz . Fracture surfaces are sugary in texture, and sparkle from the exposed perfect cleavage on [110]. Jade is relatively dense, with a specific gravity of 3.3 to 3.5 in natural specimens. The specific gravity increases with

1395-653: Is found exclusively in high-pressure, low-temperature metamorphic rock of continental margins. Here it may be found as pods or veins or as disseminated grains. Deposits are found in Myanmar , the Alps, Russia, California, Japan, and Guatemala . In the Franciscan Complex of California, jadeite is associated with glaucophane, aragonite, muscovite, lawsonite, and quartz. However, occurrences of lapidary quality are almost exclusive to Myanmar . Stream boulders of

1488-402: Is hard ( Mohs hardness of about 6.5 to 7.0), very tough, and dense, with a specific gravity of about 3.4. It is found in a wide range of colors, but is most often found in shades of green or white. Jadeite is formed only in the subduction zones of continental margins, where rock undergoes metamorphism at high pressure but relatively low temperature. Jadeite is the principal mineral making up

1581-414: Is intermediate in composition between jadeite and diopside . However, there is not a true solid solution series, as omphacite has its own structure that is slightly different from either pure jadeite or pure diopside, so that it is separated from either end member by a miscibility gap . Chloromelanite is a dark green variety of jadeite in which some aluminium is replaced by iron, while imperial jade ,

1674-593: Is one of 7 projects planned for the Irrawaddy River. Kachin State is the world's largest source of rare earths , which are critical in the supply chains of many multinational corporations, including Tesla and General Motors. In 2021, China imported US$ 200 million of rare earths from Myanmar in December 2021, exceeding 20,000 tonnes. Rare earths were discovered near Pang War in Chipwi Township in

1767-442: 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

1860-404: Is resistant to weathering, and alluvial boulders of jadeitite released from the serpentine-rich environments in which they formed can have weights of up to tons. Raw specimens having Burmese tax stamps or polished slots for evaluating quality are prized by some collectors. Jadeite's color commonly ranges from white through pale apple green to deep jade green but can also be blue-green (like

1953-445: Is surrounded by four oxygen ions, with two of the oxygen ions shared with neighboring silica tetraheda. The chains are bonded together by aluminium and sodium ions to form the full three-dimensional structure of a jadeite crystal. The aluminium joins pairs of chains (occupying the so-called M1 site) while sodium joins the paired chains to neighboring paired chains (occupying the so-called M2 site). The resulting crystal structure belongs to

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2046-584: 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

2139-638: 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/

2232-863: Is well known for its jade mines. Bhamo is one of the border trading points between China and Myanmar. A significant amount of legal and illegal cross-border trade along the China–Myanmar border passes through Kachin State, through border posts operated by both the central government (e.g., Lweje ) and ethnic armed organisations (e.g., Laiza and Kanpaikti ). Over 600 tons of jade stones, which were unearthed from Lone-Khin area in Hpakant Township in Kachin State, had been displayed in Myanmar Naypyidaw to be sold in November 2011. Most of

2325-491: 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

2418-588: 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

2511-577: The 1962 Burmese coup d'état . The vast mountainous hinterlands are predominantly Kachin , whereas the more densely populated railway corridor and southern valleys are mostly Shan and Bamar . The northern frontier was not demarcated and until the 1960s . Various Chinese governments had claimed the northern-half of Kachin State as Chinese territory since the 18th century. Before the British rule, roughly 75% of all Kachin jadeite ended up in China, where it

2604-527: 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

2697-567: The Burmese army began on 9 June 2011 at Ta-pein hydropower plan and continued throughout 2012. Initial reports suggested that from June to September 2011 a total of 5,580 Internally Displaced Persons from 1,397 households arrived at 38 IDP camps under Myanmar Government control. In August 2012 thousands of Kachin refugees were forced by the Chinese Government back into Myanmar despite the continued fighting there; NGOs like Human Rights Watch called to cease such action and pointed

2790-562: 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

2883-638: The Kachin Independence Organisation in 2022. Rare earth mining has contaminated and polluted the local environment, including waterways and forests, and eroded mountainous landscapes, and impacted the health of locals. Since the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état , mining of rare earths in Kachin State has accelerated, due to lack of proper oversight. Land has also been seized from locals to conduct mining operations. As of March 2022, 2,700 mining collection pools scattered across 300 separate locations were found in Kachin State, encompassing

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2976-723: 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

3069-534: 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

3162-614: 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

3255-551: The SPDC 's controversial peace accord, and the political landscape remains highly unstable. The complex political situation started when the Kachin armed group was established on 25 October 1960, after the UN government announced the state religion as Buddhism, as the Kachin people stopped believing in the government administration system, established after the federal union was agreed upon in

3348-939: The State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee 's 2016 statistics, 7,966 Buddhist monks were registered in Kachin State, comprising 1.5% of Myanmar's total Sangha membership, which includes both novice samanera and fully-ordained bhikkhu. The majority of monks belong to the Thudhamma Nikaya (95.3%), followed by the Shwegyin Nikaya (4.7%), with the remainder of monks belonging to other small monastic orders . 1,103 thilashin were registered in Kachin State, comprising 1.8% of Myanmar's total thilashin community. Burmese and Jingpho are lingua francas of Kachin State. Since Burma achieved independence in 1948, significant numbers of Burmese speakers have settled in Kachin State, which has accelerated

3441-466: The Uyu River remain an important source of jadeite. Jadeite is the dominant mineral of the most desirable variety of jade . This was prized in traditional Chinese culture, where it was worked into a great variety of beautiful ornaments and utensils. Jadeite was also used by Stone Age peoples for implements and weapons. Jade received its name, "piedra de ijada" ("stone of the side"), because it

3534-406: The monoclinic system , with space group C2/c . Pure jadeite has the composition NaAlSi 2 O 6 . There is no significant replacement of silicon by aluminium in natural jadeite, and only very limited substitution of ferric iron for aluminium. However, calcium substitutes for up to 20% of the sodium, balanced by substitution of magnesium or ferrous iron for aluminium. Omphacite

3627-448: The recently rediscovered "Olmec Blue" jade ), pink, lavender and a multitude of other rare colors. Chloromelanite is a very dark green to black variety. Color is largely affected by the presence of trace elements such as chromium and iron. Its translucence varies from opaque to almost clear. Variations in color and translucence are often found even within a single specimen. Significant occurrences of jadeite are isolated and rare. It

3720-413: 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

3813-457: 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

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3906-608: The 1760 Sino-Burmese War . What is now Kachin State was historically inhabited by a diverse population of various ethnolinguistic groups, including the Rawang , the Lisu , the Jingpo , the Zaiwa , the Lashi/Lachik and the Lawngwaw/Maru, all of whom had overlapping territories and varying social structures. The term "Kachin" is a term given by the British during the colony period referring to ethnic groups living between

3999-464: The 1947 Panglong agreement. Between 1962 and 2010, the military government ruled over Myanmar. Cease fire agreements between ethnic armed groups and the government were made starting in 1989. And then in 2011 the new government led by President Thein Sein, broke the cease fire agreement which was agreed upon by the former military government and the Kachin ethnic armed group in 1994, resuming fighting against

4092-410: 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

4185-471: 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

4278-557: 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

4371-688: 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

4464-469: 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

4557-867: The Frontier Areas" in principle and envisioned the creation of a Kachin State by the Constituent Assembly. Burma attained independence on 4 January 1948. Kachin State was formed in the same year out of the former British Burma civil districts of Bhamo and Myitkyina , together with the larger northern district of Puta-o . Kachin State was officially announced on 10 January 1948 and Kachin State Government held "Mungdaw Masat Masat Manau" (forming of Kachin State Manau) for three consecutive days since 9 to 11 January as happiness since that year they held Manau on 10 January every year until

4650-432: 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 the Irrawaddy River valley. For instance, for the term ဆွမ်း , "food offering [to

4743-659: The KIO actively participated in the military-led constitution-drafting-process, attending the National Convention, which was boycotted by the democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and ethnic political parties. The KIO together with 12 other ethnic groups demanded amendments of the draft to be more in line with a federal democratic system and to give autonomy to states (Zaw Oo & Win Min 2007). The seventeen-year ceasefire broke down and fighting between

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4836-773: The Kachin Independence Organization and the government resumed in June 2011 after the Kachin Independent Army disallowed the government's order to transform into a Border Guard Force and it claimed that the regime's 2008 Constitution lacked federal democratic principles and equal political rights for ethnic minorities based on the Panglong Agreement. Renewed fighting between the Kachin Independence Army and

4929-540: The Kachin custom of maternal cousin marriage, wherein it is permissible for a man to marry his mother's brother's daughter, but not with the father's sister's daughter. In pre-colonial times, the Kachin were animist . After the 1760s Qing-Konbaung war , the Chinese exercised a degree of control over the present-day northeastern Kachin State. During the British colonization of Burma, the Kachin Hills tribal autonomy

5022-550: The Kachin who are living in the northern part of Myanmar, northern part of Shan, near the China border on 9 June 2011. Because of the abrupt internal conflict, thousands of internally displaced people fled to refugee camps which are located in the government-controlled area as well in the Kachin Independence Army controlled area (Hlaing, 2005). KIO made a ceasefire agreement with the military government in 1994 while leaving political issues to be discussed with

5115-700: The Mesoamerican Olmec and also in Costa Rica . Over 180 axe heads made from jadeitite quarried in northern Italy in the Neolithic era have been found across the British Isles. Because of the difficulty of working this material, all the axe heads of this type found are thought to have been non-utilitarian and to have represented some form of currency or be the products of gift exchange. A great many jadeite beads and axe heads as well as

5208-479: 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

5301-772: The Prime Minister General Thein Sein made an agreement with the China Power Investment Cooperation in Beijing to build seven dams in Kachin State. The controversial construction project of a huge 1,055 megawatt hydroelectric power plant dam, the Myitsone Dam , is ongoing. It is funded by China Power Investment Cooperation. When completed, the dam will measure 152 metre high and the electricity produced will be sold to China. This project displaced about 15,000 people and

5394-491: 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

5487-494: The area of Singapore , and an exponential increase from 2016. Kachin State is served by the following airports: There is a railroad between Myitkyina and Mandalay (through Sagaing). The train takes 21–30 hours from Mandalay to Myitkyina. Educational opportunities in Myanmar are extremely limited outside the main cities of Yangon and Mandalay . It is especially a problem in Kachin State where over 60 years of fighting between

5580-413: The basic facilities and equipment. In general, the health care infrastructure outside of Yangon and Mandalay is extremely poor but is especially worse in remote areas like Kachin State. The following is a summary of the public health care system in the state. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with

5673-508: The central Bamar heartland to the south and China to the north. Traditional Kachin society was based on shifting hill agriculture. According to "The Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure", written by E. R. Leach, Kachin was not a linguistic category. Political authority was based on chieftains who depended on support from immediate kinsmen. Considerable attention has been given by anthropologists of

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5766-525: 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

5859-583: The conflict. Even though many Kachins were already displaced internally, only around 150,000 people are reported as IDPs. The Kachins are currently the major target for the Burmese government , yet relatively few Kachins have chosen to resettle in countries such as the United States or Australia, in comparison to other Myanmar ethnic minorities, such as the Karens and Chins. The Kachin State Government consists of an executive ( Kachin State Government ),

5952-604: 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

6045-669: 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

6138-513: The end of the 18th century, as fei tsui . Jadeite from the Motagua Valley , Guatemala , was used by the Olmec and Maya peoples , as well as the indigenous peoples of Costa Rica . Unusual colors, like "Olmec blue" jade, which is characterized by its deep blue-green, translucent hue with white flecking, are becoming more highly valued because of its unique beauty and historical use by

6231-524: The ethnic composition was Bamar: 29.3%, Shan: 24.2% and Kachin: 38.1%. In a speech delivered on 2016, Min Aung Hlaing of Tatmadaw gave the ethnic composition of the Kachin state as follows: Bamar – 29.2%, Shan – 23.6%, Jingphaw – 18.97%, Lisu – 7%, Rawam – 5%, Lawwaw – 3.33%, Lacheik – 2.89%, Zaikwa – 1.57% and Others – 8%. The economy of Kachin State is predominantly agricultural. The main products include rice, teak , sugar cane , opium . Mineral products include gold, jade , and rare-earth elements . Hpakant

6324-598: 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

6417-498: The government and insurgents has displaced thousands of people. The following is a summary of the education system in the state. The general state of health care in Myanmar is poor. The military government spends anywhere from 0.5% to 3% of the country's GDP on health care, consistently ranking among the lowest in the world. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals lack many of

6510-427: The illegality of doing so under international law. As of 9 October 2012, over 100,000 IDPs are taking shelter in various camps across Kachin State. The majority of IDPs (est. 70,000) are currently sheltering in KIA controlled territory. Fatality estimates were difficult to estimate but most reports suggested that between government troops, Kachin Independence Army rebels, and civilians upwards of 1,000 people had died in

6603-459: 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

6696-498: The iron content, and very pure jadeite has a specific gravity of 3.25. The luster is vitreous, or pearly on exposed cleavage surfaces, and the streak is colorless. Jadeite is translucent to transparent. Jadeite is characterized by its green color and tough aggregates of compact fibrous crystals. It can be distinguished from nephrite by its vitreous luster on polished surfaces (polished nephrite has an oily luster) and by its higher density and refractive index . Serpentine also has

6789-512: The jade stones extracted in Myanmar, 25,795 tons in 2009–10 and 32,921 tons in 2008–09, are from Kachin State. The largest jade stone in the world, 3000 tons, 21 metres long, 4.8 metres wide and 10.5 metres high was found in Hpakant in 2000. The Myanmar government pays little attention to the deterioration of environment in Kachin because of jade mining. There has been erosion, flooding and mudslides. Several houses are destroyed every year. In 2006,

6882-599: The late 2010s. As China has shut down domestic mines due to the severe environmental impact, it has largely outsourced rare earth mining to Kachin State. Chinese companies and miners illegally set up operations in Kachin State without government permits, and instead circumvent the central government by working with a Border Guard Force militia under the Tatmadaw , formerly known as the New Democratic Army – Kachin , which has profited from this extractive industry. Mining operations also began in areas controlled by

6975-515: 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

7068-433: The mid-1960s through 1994, with an economy based on agriculture and trade with China, including of jade. After a Myanmar army offensive in 1994 seized the jade mines from the KIO, a peace treaty was signed, permitting continued KIO effective control of most of the State, under aegis of the Myanmar military. This ceasefire immediately resulted in the creation of numerous splinter factions from the KIO and KIA of groups opposed to

7161-503: The most valuable form of jade , a precious stone particularly prized in China. Most gem-quality jadeite jade comes from northern Myanmar . Jade tools and implements have been found at Stone Age sites, showing that the mineral has been prized by humans since before the beginning of written history . The name jadeite is derived (via French : jade and Latin : ilia ) from the Spanish phrase "piedra de ijada" which means "stone of

7254-429: The most valuable variety of jade, is colored an intense emerald green by traces of chromium . Jadeite occurs with albite in metamorphic rock of the low-temperature, high-pressure blueschist facies at destructive plate margins . Although it is intermediate in silica content between albite and nepheline , it is not stable under the conditions in which these two minerals are present. Formation of jadeite requires

7347-642: The next elected government. Throughout its struggle, both in the ceasefire and non-ceasefire period, KIO also made agreements with other ethnic rebels and alliances including the Democratic Alliance of Burma (DAB), the National Democratic Front (NDF), and United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC). The main goal was to pressure the military government and restore the federal democratic government with greater autonomy to Kachin State. During its 17 years of ceasefire from 1994 to 2011

7440-649: 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

7533-425: 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

7626-510: 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 the varieties of Burmese spoken in Lower and Upper Burma. In Lower Burmese varieties,

7719-690: The side". The Latin version of the name, lapis nephriticus , is the origin of the term nephrite , which is a different mineral that also shares the common name jade . Jadeite is a hard, extremely tough, rare mineral of the clinopyroxene family of minerals. Though highly variable in color, it is typically apple-green to emerald-green, or less commonly white or white with spots of green. Occurrences are typically granular or massive; individual crystals are very rare, occurring only as small prismatic crystals in vugs in massive jadeite. Crystals are four-sided or eight-sided in cross section and show perfect cleavage on [110] at angles of 87 and 93 degrees. There

7812-764: 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

7905-448: 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

7998-425: 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,

8091-462: 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 the Irrawaddy River valley toward peripheral areas of

8184-466: 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,

8277-410: 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

8370-597: Was accepted by the British government. British forces carried out two expeditions against the Kachin in 1892 and 1896. In 1910, the British occupied Hpimaw (Pianma) in the Pianma Incident . The pre-independence Burmese government under Aung San reached the Panglong Agreement with the Shan, Kachin, and Chin peoples on 12 February 1947. The agreement accepted "Full autonomy in internal administration for

8463-526: Was once thought to cure kidney ailments when applied to the side of the body. Jadeite is one of two minerals recognized as the gemstone jade . The other is nephrite . Occasionally, other minerals such as serpentine or quartz are sold as jade, but the difference can be determined by cleavage and hardness. Jadeite jade is the most valuable form, with the highest-quality material commanding prices well in excess of $ 200 per carat as of 1994 . Jadeite jade first came into significant use in China only towards

8556-647: Was prized much more highly than the local Chinese nephrite . Kachin troops formerly formed a significant part of the Burmese army. With the unilateral abrogation of the Union of Burma constitution by the Ne Win regime in 1962, Kachin forces withdrew and formed the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) under the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). Aside from the major towns and railway corridor, Kachin State has been virtually independent from

8649-839: 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 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

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