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88-899: Shweli River ( Burmese : ရွှေလီမြစ် ; Chinese : 瑞丽江 ) is a river in China and Myanmar (Burma). Also known as the Nam Mao ( Shan : ၼမ်ႉမၢဝ်း ; Tai Nüa : ᥘᥛᥳ ᥛᥣᥝᥰ ) in Shan or Dai , and Ruili River or Longchuan River (龙川江) in Chinese , it forms 26 km of the boundary between Burma and China . It is one of the tributaries of the Myanmar's chief river, the Ayeyarwady , and originates in Yunnan Province of China. It flows through northern Shan state and Sagaing Division , and enters

176-764: A crocodilian , was last spotted in 1927. The Irrawaddy dolphin has been known to reach the upper tributaries of the Ayeyarwady including the Shweli. Based on surveys in 2003 and 2006, a total of 49 species of fish were collected in Shweli river and tributaries in China. By the combination of the investigated species and specimens in the museum of Kunming Institute of Zoology , there are a total of 60 species belonging to 8 orders, 19 families, and 44 genera in Shweli river drainage, among which 16 species are endemic to Irrawaddy drainage and 9 species are alien species. On composition,

264-477: A monotypic taxon . John Edward Gray reviewed zoological specimens in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London . He also considered the gharial monotypic in 1869. He placed it in the family Gavialidae together with the false gharial ( Tomistoma schlegelii ) because both have long, slender jaws and similar dentition. Gharialis hysudricus proposed by Richard Lydekker in 1886

352-565: 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

440-645: 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

528-842: A 4.9 m (16 ft) long gharial weighed around 560 kg (1,230 lb), while a 4.8 m (16 ft) long Nile crocodile weighed 680 kg (1,500 lb). The gharial once thrived in all the major river systems of the northern Indian subcontinent, from the Indus River in Pakistan , the Ganges in India, the Brahmaputra River in northeastern India and Bangladesh to the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar . In

616-418: A body length of at least 3 m (9 ft 10 in) and grow up to a length of 6 m (19 ft 8 in). Adult males weigh about 160 kg (350 lb) on average, but can reach a weight of up to 600 kg (1,300 lb). The gharial is among the largest living crocodilians, with the heaviest recorded male weighing 977 kg (2,154 lb). A 6.55 m (21 ft 6 in) long gharial

704-889: A broader prey base than the gharial including snakes , turtles , birds , mammals and dead animals. The gharial is well adapted to hunting fish underwater because of its sharp interlocking teeth and long narrow snout, which meets little resistance in the water. It does not chew its prey, but swallows it whole. Juvenile gharials were observed to jerk their heads back to manoeuvre fish into their gullets, sliding them in head first. Young gharials feed on insects , tadpoles , small fish and frogs . Adults also feed on small crustaceans . Remains of Indian softshell turtle ( Nilssonia gangetica ) were also found in gharial stomachs. Gharials tear apart large fish and pick up and swallow stones as gastroliths , probably to aid digestion or regulate buoyancy. Some gharial stomachs also contained jewellery. Stones weighing about 4.5 kg (10 lb) were found in

792-462: A hissing sound that can be heard 75 m (246 ft) away. The gharial is the only living crocodilian with such visible sexual dimorphism . Mature male gharials have larger skulls than females, exceeding a basal length of 715 mm (28.1 in) and a width of 287 mm (11.3 in). Female gharials reach sexual maturity at a body length of 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) and grow up to 4.5 m (14 ft 9 in). Males mature at

880-409: A hollow bulbous nasal protuberance at the tip of the snout upon reaching sexual maturity . This protuberance resembles an earthen pot known locally as "ghara". The male's ghara starts growing over the nostrils at an age of 11.5 years and measures about 5 cm × 6 cm × 3.5 cm (2.0 in × 2.4 in × 1.4 in) at an age of 15.5 years. It enables the males to emit

968-550: 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

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1056-674: 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,

1144-401: A more advanced level of specialization. Others suggested that it evolved much later than other crocodilians because of its low levels of blood protein divergence. As it shares this trait with the false gharial, it was suggested that they form a sister group . In contrast, it was suggested that the gharial and all the other crocodilians form a sister group as the structure of its tail muscles

1232-466: 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

1320-628: 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

1408-430: 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: Gharial The gharial ( Gavialis gangeticus ), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile ,

1496-411: Is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are 2.6 to 4.5 m (8 ft 6 in to 14 ft 9 in) long, and males 3 to 6 m (9 ft 10 in to 19 ft 8 in). Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a ghara , hence the name "gharial". The gharial

1584-564: Is a more detailed cladogram that shows the gharial's proposed placement within Gavialidae , including extinct members: Gharial Gavialis bengawanicus † Gavialis browni † Gryposuchus colombianus † Ikanogavialis † Gryposuchus pachakamue † Piscogavialis † Harpacochampsa † Toyotamaphimeia † Penghusuchus † Gavialosuchus † Tomistoma lusitanicum † False gharial Tomistoma schlegelii The gharial

1672-423: Is olive-coloured, with adults being darker than young, which have dark brown cross bands and speckles. Its back turns almost black at 20 years of age, but its belly is yellowish-white. It has four transverse rows of two scales on the neck, which continue along the back. Scutes on the head, neck and back form a single continuous plate composed of 21 to 22 transverse series, and four longitudinal series. Scutes on

1760-442: 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

1848-584: 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

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1936-638: 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/

2024-413: Is unique. Sequencing of a ribosomal segment of mitochondrial DNAs of gharial and false gharial revealed that they share 22 unique nucleotides , a similarity of 94%, supporting the view that they are sister taxa. Analyses of nuclear gene sequences of both species also support the view that they are sister taxa. Molecular genetics and tip dating studies indicates a genetic divergence between

2112-669: Is well adapted to catching fish because of its long, narrow snout and 110 sharp, interlocking teeth. The gharial probably evolved in the northern Indian subcontinent . Fossil gharial remains were excavated in Pliocene deposits in the Sivalik Hills and the Narmada River valley. It currently inhabits rivers in the plains of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is the most thoroughly aquatic crocodilian, and leaves

2200-491: 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

2288-588: 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

2376-778: The Ayeyarwady River valley in central Myanmar, which are dated to the Late Pleistocene . During the Quaternary , Gavialis dispersed as far as Java via the Siva– Malayan route, which did not require saltwater crossings. Fossil remains of Gavialis bengawanicus found on Java were dated to the Early Pleistocene. G. bengawanicus fossils found in Thailand's Nakhon Ratchasima Province support

2464-527: 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

2552-618: 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

2640-488: The Hindustani word ' ghara ' for an earthen pot, in reference to the nasal protuberance on the adult male's snout. It is also called 'gavial'. The name 'fish-eating crocodile' is a translation of its Bengali name 'mecho kumhir', with 'mecho' being derived from 'māch' meaning fish and 'kumhir' meaning crocodile. The name 'Indian gharial' has occasionally been used for gharial populations in India. Lacerta gangetica

2728-521: The IUCN Red List since 2007. The oldest known depictions of the gharial are about 4,000 years old and were found in the Indus Valley . Hindus regard it as the vehicle of the river deity Gaṅgā . Local people living near rivers attributed mystical and healing powers to the gharial, and used some of its body parts as ingredients of indigenous medicine . The name 'gharial' is derived from

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2816-711: The Karnali – Babai River system in Bardia National Park and the Narayani –Rapti river system in Chitwan National Park . In spring 2017, the Babai River was surveyed using an unmanned aerial vehicle , which detected 33 gharials on a stretch of 102 km (63 mi). In India, gharial populations are present in the: Between 1979 and 1993, less than 20 individuals were sighted in

2904-723: 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

2992-534: 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

3080-614: 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

3168-619: The Taungoo Dynasty succeeded in pacifying them to establish Burmese suzerainty once and for all. King Hsinbyushin (1763–1776) of the Konbaung Dynasty also successfully resisted Chinese army in Sino-Burmese War (1765-9) that advanced down the Shweli and Myitnge river valleys. The territory south of the Shweli, about 500–600 square kilometres (190–230 sq mi), north of Namtu and from Namkham to

3256-469: The mugger crocodile ( Crocodylus palustris ) in parts of its range. They use the same nesting grounds, but differ in the selection of basking sites. The gharial basks close to water on shallow, sandy beaches and lays eggs only in sandy soil near water. The mugger crocodile also basks on sandy beaches, but unlike the gharial climbs steep embankments and rocks, and moves farther away from beaches for both basking and nest building. It also preys on fish, but has

3344-413: 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

3432-457: 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

3520-409: The 1930s and is limited to only 2% of its historical range today. Conservation programmes initiated in India and Nepal focused on reintroducing captive-bred gharials since the early 1980s. Loss of habitat because of sand mining and conversion to agriculture, depletion of fish resources and detrimental fishing methods continue to threaten the population. It has been listed as critically endangered on

3608-775: The 1940s, it was numerous in the Barak River in Assam , which held big fish at the time including golden mahseer ( Tor putitora ). A few individuals were also sighted in tributaries of the Barak River in Assam, Mizoram and Manipur up to 1988, but surveys were not carried out. In 1927, a gharial was shot in the Shweli River in Myanmar, a tributary of the Ayeyawady River. This is the only authenticated record in

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3696-410: 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

3784-535: The 23rd or 24th tooth. The snout of adult gharials is 3.5 times longer than the width of the skull's base. Because of this long snout the gharial is especially adapted to catching and eating fish. The nasal bones are rather short and widely spaced from the premaxillae . The jugal bone is raised. It becomes proportionally thicker with age. Two individuals in the weight range of 103–121 kg (227–267 lb) had an average measured bite force of 1,784–2,006  N (401–451  lb f ). Male gharials develop

3872-461: The Ayeyarwady at Inywa, 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Tagaung and south of Katha . Dai people, known as Shan in Burma, migrated from Yunnan into Burma along the Shweli. Maw Shans from Mong Mao settled in the Shweli valley, and raided and invaded the Bamar heartlands down the Shweli, some people believe that King Anawrahta of Bagan (1044–1077) reduced Mong Mao to a vassal state. But

3960-540: The Brahmaputra River in Assam between 2004 and 2007. In Bangladesh, gharials were recorded in Padma , Jamuna , Mahananda and Brahmaputra rivers between 2000 and 2015. The gharial is the most thoroughly aquatic crocodilian. It leaves the water only for basking on riverbanks. Being cold-blooded, it seeks to cool down during hot times and to warm up when ambient temperature is cool. Gharials bask daily in

4048-526: 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

4136-557: 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

4224-688: 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

4312-469: 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

4400-497: 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

4488-479: 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

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4576-491: 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

4664-462: The back are bony, but softer and feebly keeled on the sides. The outer edges of the forearms, legs, and feet have crests jutting out; fingers and toes are partly webbed. Its snout is very long and narrow, widened at the end, and with 27 to 29 upper teeth and 25 or 26 lower teeth on each side. The front teeth are the largest. The first, second, and third lower jaw teeth fit into spaces in the upper jaw. The extremely long mandibular symphysis extends to

4752-525: 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

4840-623: The cold season, foremost in the mornings, and prefer sandy and moist beaches. They change their basking pattern with increasing daily temperatures; they start basking earlier in the mornings, move back into the river when it is hot, and return to the beach later in the afternoon. Groups comprising an adult male, several females and subadults have been observed to bask together. Adult males dominate groups and tolerate immature males. Large groups of young, subadult and adult gharials form in December and January to bask. Adult males and females associate by mid February. The gharial shares riverine habitat with

4928-629: The country attesting the survival of gharials into the 20th century. Whether gharials still live in the Shweli River today is possible but remained unclear in 2012. By 1976, its global range had decreased to only 2% of its historical range, and fewer than 200 gharials were estimated to survive. It is locally extinct in Pakistan, Bhutan and Myanmar. Since the early 1980s, the population has been reinforced with captive-bred gharials that were released into wild habitats in India and Nepal. In 2017,

5016-604: 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

5104-578: The early 20th century, it was considered common in the Indus River and its Punjabi tributaries. By the early 1980s, it was almost extinct in the Indus. During surveys in 2008 and 2009, no gharial was sighted in the river. It was also present in India's Godavari River but was hunted to extinction between the late 1940s and the 1960s. It was considered extinct in the Koshi River since 1970. In

5192-669: 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

5280-627: The event is that when the Anawrahta visited Nanzhao in quest of the Buddha's tooth while returning, married Sao-Môn-la, a daughter of the Mong Mao king. But there is nothing to show that the Mong Mao king ever had to acknowledge the overlordship of the Pagan monarch. The fall of the kingdom of Bagan in the 13th century, however, saw a resurgence of Shan power, although King Bayinnaung (1551–1581) of

5368-481: The family Crocodilini. Rhamphostoma was proposed by Johann Georg Wagler in 1830 who considered this genus to contain two species, Crocodilus gangeticus and C. tenuirostris . The family name Gavialidae was proposed by Arthur Adams in 1854 with Gavialis as the only genus in this family. Gavialis gangetica was the scientific name used by Albert Günther in 1864 who considered L. gangetica , C. longirostris and C. tenuirostris as synonyms and Gavialis

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5456-480: The finest foliage and flowers ranging in colour from white to white flushed pink or pink, sometimes with a yellow blotch, was part of a collection made in 1997 on the Shweli – Salween divide on the Yunnan border with Burma. White-winged wood duck ( Cairina scutulata ), an endangered species of forest duck, and the sarus crane ( Grus antigone ) are native to the Shweli river. The gharial ( Gavialis gangeticus ),

5544-598: 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

5632-583: The gharial and false gharial in the Eocene about 38  million years ago . The genus Gavialis probably originated in the region of India and Pakistan in the Early Miocene . Fossil gharial remains excavated in the Sivalik Hills of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are dated to between the Pliocene and the Early Pleistocene . Fossil gharial remains were also found at two sites in

5720-402: The global population was estimated to comprise at maximum 900 individuals, including about 600 mature adults in six major subpopulations along 1,100 km (680 mi) of river courses and another 50 mature adults in eight minor subpopulations along 1,200 km (750 mi) of river courses. In Nepal, small populations are present and slowly recovering in tributaries of the Ganges, such as

5808-696: The hypothesis of gharial dispersal through riverine systems. It represents the only valid extinct Gavialis species. The below cladogram of the major extant crocodile groups is based on the latest molecular studies and shows the gharial's close relationship to the false gharial, and how the gavialids and crocodiles are more closely related than the alligatoroids : Caiman [REDACTED] Melanosuchus [REDACTED] Paleosuchus [REDACTED] Alligator [REDACTED] Crocodylus [REDACTED] Mecistops [REDACTED] Osteolaemus [REDACTED] Gavialis [REDACTED] Tomistoma [REDACTED] Here

5896-459: 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

5984-515: 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

6072-525: 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

6160-425: 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

6248-458: 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,

6336-489: The species of Cyprinidae are dominant, which have 26 species accounting for 43.3% of the total number of species. In the next place, Sisoridae has 11 species, accounting for 18.3% of the total. Muse is connected to Ruili on the Chinese side, there is a roaring trade in goods and services across the "Gun Bridge", so called because of the armaments transported from China to the military government of Burma. The old bridge

6424-764: 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

6512-448: 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

6600-425: 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,

6688-406: The upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River between Kaziranga National Park and Dibru-Saikhowa National Park . This population had declined due to commercial fishing, poaching , encroachment by local people in gharial breeding grounds and siltation of river beds following deforestation . In 1998, it was not considered to be viable. About 30 gharials were observed in small lakes and tributaries of

6776-462: 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

6864-448: The water only for basking and building nests on moist sandbanks. Adults mate at the end of the cold season. Females congregate in spring to dig nests, in which they lay 20–95 eggs. They guard the nests and the young, which hatch before the onset of the monsoon . The hatchlings stay and forage in shallow water during their first year, but move to sites with deeper water as they grow. The wild gharial population has declined drastically since

6952-702: The west, was under the control of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) from 1968 to 1986. The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) controlled the area north of the Shweli, and the Shan State Army (SSA) and the Palaung State Liberation Army (PSLA) farther south. The Shweli river valley and the hills around Momeik (Mong Mit) and Mogok with its ruby mines had been old CPB strongholds since the 1950s. Momeik itself

7040-466: 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,

7128-410: 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

7216-468: Was based on a fossil skull from the Sivalik Hills that was larger than gharial fossil skulls known at the time. This name is considered to be a junior synonym of Gavialis gangeticus . The evolution of the gharial and its relationship with and divergence from other crocodilians have been a subject of controversy. Some authors assumed that the gharial evolved earlier than the other crocodilians because of its distinct skull shape and dentition, indicating

7304-534: Was captured by the Communists in 1977. The Burmese Army recaptured the territory in early 1987, and subsequently opened up border trade with China . The region is inhabited mainly by Shan people, some Kachin and Palaung and a few Chinese . There are extensive marshes along both banks of the Shweli at the confluence with the Ayeyarwady. Hills are covered with broad-leaved species of Terminalia and Shorea trees. Rhododendron edgeworthii , of

7392-577: Was claimed to have been killed in the Ghaghara River in Faizabad in August 1920, though no reliable measurements were taken. Male gharials with an alleged length of 7.16 to 9.14 m (23 ft 6 in – 30 ft 0 in) were sighted around the turn of the 20th century in Indian rivers. Overall, the gharial is less massive when compared to other crocodilians of similar length;

7480-549: Was put into operation on the river in 2008. It is the first of three planned dams on the main stem in Myanmar. The upper river in China has abundant hydropower reserves; 18 hydroelectric power stations have been built, mostly in Tengchong . The biggest one in China is Longjiang Dam at Zhefang , Mangshi which became operational in 2010. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with

7568-423: Was replaced by a new wider one in 2005. Gems especially jade and produce , and illicit heroin , are exported in exchange for cheap motorcycles and household goods from China. More recently, Chinese hybrid rice called sinn shweli has been introduced by the military authorities to the local farmers as part of the opium eradication drive, most of the crop is to be exported back to China. The Shweli I Dam

7656-444: Was the scientific name proposed by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1789. Gmelin followed Carl Linnaeus who proposed Lacerta in 1758 to include other crocodiles and various lizards known at the time. The gharial was placed in the genus Crocodilus by subsequent naturalists: The generic name Gavialis was proposed by Nicolaus Michael Oppel in 1811 for crocodiles with a cylindrical-shaped back. He placed this genus in

7744-839: 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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