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83-608: The Sagaing Kingdom ( Burmese : စစ်ကိုင်းပြည် , [zəɡáɪɰ̃ nèpjìdɔ̀] ) was a small kingdom ruled by a junior branch of the Myinsaing dynasty from 1315 to 1365. Originally the northern province of Sagaing of the Pinya Kingdom , it became de facto independent after Prince Saw Yun successfully fought for autonomy from his father King Thihathu in 1315–17. Sagaing formally seceded from Pinya in 1325 after Thihathu's death. The northern petty state stayed independent for

166-565: 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

249-562: 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

332-408: A commoner queen ( Yadanabon ). Saw Yun felt the throne was his. He agitated his father for a viceroyship in the north. While Thihathu wavered, on 15 May 1315, Saw Yun took matters in his own hand, and left for Sagaing with a group of followers, a few miles west of Pinya, across the Irrawaddy. Saw Yun found support in a sect of forest dwelling monks and their followers. At first, Thihathu dismissed

415-673: A daughter. All of his sons became king of Sagaing. His only daughter was the mother of Thado Minbya , the founder of the Kingdom of Ava . Saw Yun was born to Thihathu, co-founder of Myinsaing Kingdom , and Yadanabon , daughter of the village head of Linyin, c. 1299. According to British colonial scholars, Saw Yun's mother was an ethnic Shan and his father half-Shan. But the royal chronicles do not mention his ethnicity at all. He grew up in Pinle , his father's capital alongside an elder step-brother Uzana , half younger brother Kyawswa , and

498-475: A deal that allowed the rebel leader Thawun Nge to remain in office in exchange for his nominal submission to Pinya. The deal with Toungoo proved to be the model for Sagaing as well. The king allowed Saw Yun to remain in office at Sagaing in exchange for his son's nominal submission. He was resigned to the fact that his kingdom would break apart once he died. The kingdom formally split into two right after Thihathu's death in 1325. Saw Yun (r. 1315–27) now controlled

581-402: A full force to reclaim Sagaing. He did order two small expeditions, the first led by Crown Prince Uzana and the second led by Prince Kyawswa. But by the end of 1316–17 dry season, both expeditions had failed to dislodge Saw Yun. Sagaing got a breather in 1317 when Toungoo and Taungdwin revolted. Thihathu bought peace with Taungdwin but Toungoo required an expedition. In the end, Pinya agreed to

664-550: 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

747-674: 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,

830-472: A new capital before choosing to build at Pinya in 1313. In 1365, Thado Minbya founded the Kingdom of Ava and declared Sagaing and Pinya constituent countries of Ava. Despite his proclamation, he still had no control over Pinya's southern vassals. He would spend the next three years on campaigns to gain control of former vassal states of Pinya. After Thado Minbya's sudden death from smallpox in 1367, his chief queen Saw Omma and Commander Nga Nu tried to seize

913-466: 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

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996-567: A younger half-sister Saw Pale. The family moved to Pinya in 1313 when Thihathu became the sole ruler of the Kingdom of Myinsaing–Pinya . Thihathu now officially considered himself the heir to Pagan kings. His chief queen was Mi Saw U , a daughter of Narathihapate. More importantly, he appointed his adopted son Uzana, the biological son of the fallen king Kyawswa and Mi Saw U, as his heir apparent. He also appointed Kyawswa , his first son by Mi Saw U, governor of Pinle. The appointments did not go down well with Saw Yun, his eldest biological son by

1079-481: 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: Saw Yun Athinhkaya Saw Yun ( Burmese : အသင်္ခယာ စောယွမ်း [ʔəθɪ̀ɰ̃ kʰəjà sɔ́ jʊ́ɰ̃] ; also spelled Sawyun ; c. 1299 – 5 February 1327)

1162-442: 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

1245-584: 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

1328-638: 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/

1411-491: 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

1494-588: 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

1577-527: 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

1660-618: 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

1743-652: 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 is mutual intelligibility among Burmese dialects, as they share

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1826-723: 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

1909-534: 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

1992-614: 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

2075-753: 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 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

2158-413: 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

2241-457: 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

2324-977: The 15-year-old's thinly veiled insurrection, and did not take any action. But Saw Yun continued to consolidate his support in the north, and fortified Sagaing with a brick wall, completed on 26 March 1316. Even then, Thihathu's response was halfhearted. He sent two small expeditions, each led by Uzana and Kyawswa respectively, to retake the city. Both attempts failed. Thihathu, who never liked rivals even with his own brothers, now decided to leave his eldest biological son alone. Saw Yun's position may also have been helped by an open rebellion in Toungoo (Taungoo) in 1317–18, and subsequent instabilities in Taungdwin . Thihathu got both Toungoo and Taungdwin under control but essentially ceded control of northern Upper Burma to Saw Yun. For his part, Saw Yun never formally renounced his allegiance to his father. Thihathu had to be satisfied with

2407-410: 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

2490-527: The Ava throne, and when they failed, they fled to Sagaing to revive the old Sagaing Kingdom. Saw Omma's brother and Thado Minbya's brother-in-law Swa Saw Ke (r. 1367–1400) put down the rebellion. Swa went on to restore the former Myinsaing Kingdom, and would ultimately attempt to restore the Pagan Empire in the following decades. Sagaing kings employed Pagan's administrative model of solar polities in which

2573-526: 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

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2656-557: 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

2739-688: 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

2822-469: 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

2905-497: 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

2988-506: The Irrawaddy valley. In 1313, Thihathu , the last surviving brother, founded Pinya as the de jure successor state of Pagan. He kept his newly built capital Pinya in the Kyaukse granary instead of the historical capital Pagan (Bagan) probably because Pinya was closer to the Mu valley. For the first time since the 1280s, the entire Irrawaddy between Prome (Pyay) in the south and Tagaung in

3071-479: 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

3154-403: The Pagan Empire since the 1280s. The Mongols launched another invasion in 1300–01 but could not break through and quit northern Burma altogether in 1303. Myinsaing's rulers— Athinkhaya , Yazathingyan and Thihathu —raced to regain northern Burma but got no further than Tagaung. Various Shan states , nominal Mongol vassals, now dominated the entire northwestern-to-southeastern arc surrounding

3237-467: The Shan state of Kalay in the upper Chindwin region or anything beyond Tagaung , 225 km from Sagaing, the northernmost fort mentioned in the chronicles.) Unlike with its larger neighbor to the south, Sagaing, according to the chronicles, did not have any governor-level rulers in districts (except for Tagaung). The kings may have dealt with local headmen of the districts directly. The landlocked Sagaing

3320-491: 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

3403-708: The arrangement although he must have known that Pinya and Sagaing would become bitter rivals after his death. After Thihathu's death in 1325, the two kingdoms formally went separate ways, with Pinya controlling southern Upper Burma and Sagaing northern Upper Burma. ( Zatadawbon Yazawin and Maha Yazawin chronicles count Saw Yun's official reign at Sagaing only after the death of Thihathu whereas later chronicles Yazawin Thit and Hmannan Yazawin count his reign from his first insurrection in 1315.) Early on, Pinya's new rulers still had designs on Sagaing. Pinya's attempt to assassinate Saw Yun nearly succeeded, stopped only by

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3486-456: The assassin Khin Nyo 's conscience at the last minute. Saw Yun was remembered in Burmese chronicles as powerful, kindly and popular. He also contributed to Burmese military. In 1318, Saw Yun formed a cavalry regiment called Sagaing Htaungthin ( စစ်ကိုင်း ထောင်သင်း [zəɡáɪɴ tʰàʊɴ ɵɪ́ɴ] ; lit. "Thousand-strong Regiment of Sagaing", although the numbers added up to only 830), which

3569-525: 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

3652-604: 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

3735-481: The early 1340s, and had successfully fought off three Mongol campaigns (1342–48). Maw troops also breached northern Sagaing territory in 1342 but they were driven back. By 1355, the Maw Shans had effectively achieved independence, and gazed southward to the Irrawaddy valley. In 1356−57, Maw troops again raided northern Sagaing territory. While Sagaing defenses held this time, both Sagaing and Pinya leadership recognized

3818-669: 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

3901-506: The eminent danger. The agreed to an alliance through a marriage of state between Princess Shin Saw Gyi of Sagaing and King Kyawswa II of Pinya (r. 1350–59). The alliance yielded no discernible benefit. Kyawswa II simply did not command enough manpower to assist Sagaing and hold his southern vassals at the same time. When the next Maw raid came in 1358−59, Pinya's southern vassal Toungoo (Taungoo) promptly revolted, and attacked Pinya from

3984-696: The end of the 13th century, Sagaing was the northernmost vassal state of Myinsaing , the polity that succeeded Pagan in Central Burma. The northern province included the Mu valley , one of the three main granaries of the Irrawaddy valley. To the north of Sagaing lay the Province of Zhengmian of the Mongol Empire —present-day northern Burma and southwestern Yunnan , which the Mongols had wrested away from

4067-543: The fall of Burmese monarchy. During Saw Yun's reign, Sagaing's military included the forest dwelling monks. The royal chronicles treat Sagaing as a junior branch of the Myinsaing dynasty. Burmese language Burmese is a tonal , pitch-register , and syllable-timed language , largely monosyllabic and agglutinative with a subject–object–verb word order. It is a member of the Lolo-Burmese grouping of

4150-598: 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

4233-476: The half-brothers maintaining their own military units. The best Pinya could muster was Kyawswa's ordering of an attempt on Saw Yun's life . Pinya's entrenched power struggle gave Sagaing just enough room to survive. After Saw Yun's sudden death in 1327, his half-brother Tarabya I (r. 1327–36) succeeded, perhaps as a regent. Though he was a commoner stepson of Thihathu, Tarabya ruled for the next nine years until his son Shwetaungtet (r. 1336−39) overthrew him. But

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4316-421: The high king ruled the core while semi-independent tributaries, autonomous viceroys, and governors actually controlled day-to-day administration and manpower. To be sure, Sagaing used the system in a far smaller scale than Pagan as its effective territory was small. (Although Sagaing claimed all the way to the border of Manipur , its effective control may have been no more than half today's Sagaing Region , without

4399-522: 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

4482-551: The late 13th and much of the 14th centuries" in Upper Burma forced large migrations from the established granaries ( Kyaukse , Minbu , and Mu valley) "to better watered districts farther south". To compound the problem, Pinya was hit with a dynastic feud from the start. So eager was Thihathu, a commoner, to be seen as a legitimate king of Pagan, he made his adopted stepson Uzana, biological son of King Kyawswa of Pagan and Queen Mi Saw U , his heir-apparent. He also appointed Kyawswa I , his biological son by Mi Saw U, governor of Pinle ,

4565-515: 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

4648-477: The monks tilled the land on their own, and had become a political force that reported lent support to Saw Yun's insurrection in 1315. The sect remained a powerful force in the Ava period, and their power declined only in the 16th century. Sagaing did not possess a large military. It did maintain special military units, founded by Saw Yun. One cavalry regiment he founded in 1318, named Sagaing Htaungthin ("Thousand-strong Regiment of Sagaing") would be maintained until

4731-463: The monks who had been endowed the land had to till the land themselves because of the scarcity of lay cultivators. While Theravada Buddhism was the official religion of the royal family, other sects flourished. One particular powerful sect was that of the forest-dwelling monks. The sect was influenced by Ari Buddhism and was founded in Sagaing district in 1169/70. By the early 14th century, many of

4814-571: The next four decades mainly due to Pinya's internal divisions. Sagaing itself was full of palace intrigues, and the court led by Nanda Pakyan came to control a string of weak monarchs from the mid-1330s to the 1350s. In the 1350s, Princess Soe Min successfully repaired Sagaing's long-strained relationship with Pinya in order to defend against the northern Shan state of Maw . Sagaing bore the brunt of repeated Maw invasions of Upper Myanmar (Burma) (1356–64). Maw forces broke through in 1364, sacking both capitals of Sagaing and Pinya in succession. In

4897-497: The north was under a single ruler. But the trouble was brewing from the start. First, the Myinsaing-Pinya rulers had inherited the longstanding problem that had existed since the late Pagan period: between one and two-thirds of Upper Burma's cultivated land had been donated to religion, and the crown had lost resources needed to retain the loyalty of courtiers and military servicemen. Furthermore, "markedly drier weather during

4980-475: The northern country to Tagaung while Uzana I (r. 1325–40) became king of the southern country to Prome and Toungoo. Since the end of the last war, Saw Yun had been preparing for another war against Pinya, which was much larger and more populous than Sagaing by founding special military battalions, most notably the Sagaing Cavalry. King Uzana I's authority was openly contested by Crown Prince Kyawswa I with

5063-649: 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

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5146-452: The powerful chief minister actually put down a palace coup by Tarabya's loyalists who had assassinated Shwetaungtet, ordered the execution of Tarabya, and placed Saw Yun's eldest son Kyaswa (r. 1339–49) on the throne. Kyaswa duly appointed Nanda Pakyan chief minister and commander-in-chief. The minister ran the country. He also placed the next two kings Anawrahta II (r. 1349), Tarabya II (r. 1349−52), and possibly Thihapate (r. 1352−64) on

5229-425: 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

5312-510: 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,

5395-481: The second most coveted position. On the other hand, the king did not appoint Saw Yun , his eldest biological son by a commoner queen, Yadanabon , or Tarabya his stepson by Yadanabon, to any meaningful positions. He appointed Saw Yun governor of Sagaing in 1314 only after the eldest son's repeated protestations. Saw Yun remained deeply unhappy for he still did not command an army as did Uzana and Kyawswa. The simmering resentment led to Saw Yun's insurrection. In 1315,

5478-483: The self-proclaimed king, styled as Anawrahta, could not eliminate Saw Yun's young children. The dowager Queen Saw Hnaung with the help of Chief Minister Nanda Pakyan hid the children in Mindon inside Pinya territory. Nanda Pakyan became the power behind the throne. He ran the day-to-day affairs for the inexperienced usurper while regularly taking bribes from the dowager queen to keep the royal children hidden. In 1339,

5561-443: The situation by sending his sister Princess Soe Min and her husband Gov. Thado Hsinhtein of Tagaung to seek a truce with Kyawswa II. The embassy was successful, and the peace between the two Burmese-speaking kingdoms was maintained. One main reason for the truce may have been the northern Shan state of Maw (Mong Mao). The large Shan state led by Tho Chi-Bwa (Si Kefa; r. 1340–71) had been in revolt of its Mongol overlords since

5644-502: The situation. In September 1364, Thado Minbya seized Pinya, and claimed himself king of Sagaing and Pinya. He built a new citadel at Ava (Inwa) at a more strategic location the confluence of the Irrawaddy and the Myitnge . It was directly across the Irrawaddy from Sagaing, roughly between Sagaing and Pinya and located in the all important Kyaukse granary. It was the very site that his great grandfather Thihathu initially had wanted to build

5727-425: The south. This allowed the Shan forces to overrun Sagaing and Pinya territories from the north. Kyawswa II died during the raids in 1359. So devastating were the raids that Pinya's new king Narathu (r. 1359–64) withdrew from the alliance. Sagaing was now on its own. The next raid in 1362–63 overran the entire Sagaing countryside, and reached as far south as Pinya. Subsequently, Pinya pursued an alliance with Maw, and

5810-764: 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

5893-557: The teenage prince walked out of the Pinya Palace, never to return. He found support among a sect of forest-dwelling monks and their followers who had become politically powerful during the chaotic conditions of the upcountry. The young prince went on to upgrade Sagaing's timber walls to brick without his father's permission, and completed it in 1316. Thihathu seemed conflicted about punishing his teenage son. The king, who had never liked to share power—even with his own brothers—never sent

5976-432: The throne. Throughout the years, Sagaing had largely stayed out of the affairs of its larger neighbor to the south. One exception was Shwetaungtet's 1339 expedition to Mindon that brought back the children of Saw Yun to Sagaing. Pinya never responded to the transgression possibly because Shwetaungtet died right after the expedition, and because it was conducted near the climax of Pinya's internal power struggles. At any rate,

6059-448: 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

6142-416: The two kingdoms made peace through a marriage of state between the new king Kyaswa and Uzana I's daughter Saw Pa Oh . But the situation turned cold again in 1340 when Uzana I lost his long power struggle with Kyawswa I, and abdicated the throne. Sagaing readily gave sanctuary to Pinya's prominent defectors—Gov. Nawrahta of Pinle in 1349 and Gov. Saw Ke of Yamethin in 1351. But Tarabya II tried to cool

6225-477: The two kingdoms that had been split since 1315. He benefited from Maw troops having sacked Pinya and leaving Central Burma in chaos in their wake. (Deeply dissatisfied with the porous blockade of Sagaing and what he deemed insufficient contribution by Pinya to the siege, the Maw leader ordered an attack on Pinya itself, and took away Narathu and the loot.) The new king of Pinya, Uzana II (r. 1364), never gained control of

6308-443: The two states agreed to a joint attack on Sagaing. In 1363–64, Maw forces again invaded, laying siege to Sagaing in early 1364, with Pinya forces enacting a naval blockade. In April 1364, Maw forces broke through, and entered the city. Thihapate escaped through the porous blockade but subsequently put to death by his stepson Thado Minbya (r. 1364–67) who seized the throne. Thado Minbya , great grandson of Thihathu, went on to reunite

6391-425: 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,

6474-462: 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

6557-540: The wake of the latest Maw raid, Saw Yun's grandson Prince Thado Minbya seized both devastated capitals in 1364, and founded the Ava Kingdom in 1365. Sagaing, like its bigger cousin Pinya, was a microcosm of the fractious small kingdoms period (1287–1555). The small kingdom is remembered in Burmese history as the polity that gave birth to Ava, the dominant power of Upper Myanmar from the 14th to 16th centuries. At

6640-466: 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,

6723-410: 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

6806-413: Was an agrarian state. It possessed the largest granary, Mu valley, of the Irrawaddy valley that covered 93,000 hectares of irrigated lands at its peak in the late Pagan period. However, the agriculture during the Sagaing period never reached its potential. Cultivators had been migrating to the south since the late 13th century as much of the land had been donated to religion by the crown. By the 14th century,

6889-633: Was the founder of the Sagaing Kingdom of Myanmar (Burma). The eldest son of King Thihathu set up a rival kingdom in 1315 after Thihathu appointed Uzana I as heir-apparent. Saw Yun successfully resisted two small expeditions by Pinya by 1317. While Saw Yun nominally remained loyal to his father, he was the de facto king of the area roughly corresponding to present-day Sagaing Region and northern Mandalay Region . After Thihathu's death, Sagaing and Pinya formally went separately ways. Saw Yun died in 1327. Saw Yun had four children, three sons and

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