Burmish languages explained

Burmish
Region:	Myanmar, Bangladesh, India
Familycolor:	Sino-Tibetan
Fam2:	Tibeto-Burman
Fam3:	Burmo-Qiangic?
Fam4:	Lolo-Burmese
Child1:	Northern Burmish
Child2:	Southern Burmish
Glotto:	burm1266
Glottorefname:	Burmish

The Burmish languages are a subgroup of the Sino-Tibetan languages consisting of Burmese (including Standard Burmese, Arakanese, and other Burmese dialects such as the Tavoyan dialects) as well as non-literary languages spoken across Myanmar and South China such as Achang, Lhao Vo, Lashi, and Zaiwa.

The various Burmish languages have a total of 35 million native speakers.^[1]

Names

Many Burmish names are known by various names in different languages (Bradley 1997).

Autonym!c=02
Jinghpaw name	c=03	Burmese name	c=04	Chinese name
c=01	Lawngwaw	c=02	Maru	c=03	မရူ	c=04	Làngsù 浪速
c=01	Tsaiwa	c=02	Atsi	c=03	ဇိုင်ဝါး/အဇီး	c=04	Zǎiwǎ 载瓦
c=01	Lachik	c=02	Lashi	c=03	လရှီ	c=04	Lāqí 喇期, Lèqí 勒期
c=01	Ngochang	c=02	-	c=03	မိုင်သာ/အာချန်	c=04	Āchāng 阿昌
c=01	Pela	c=02	-	c=03	ပေါ်လာ	c=04	Bōlā 波拉

In China, the Zaiwa ဇိုင်ဝါး/အဇီး 载瓦 (local Chinese exonym: Xiaoshan ရှောင့်ရှန် 小山), Lhao Vo 浪速 (local Chinese exonym: Lang'e 浪峨), Lashi 勒期 (local Chinese exonym: Chashan 茶山), and Pela 波拉 are officially classified as Jingpo people (Bolayu Yanjiu). The local Chinese exonym for the Jingpho proper is Dashan 大山.

Dai Qingxia (2005:3) lists the following autonyms and exonyms for the various Burmish groups as well as for Jingpho which is not a Burmish language, with both Chinese character and IPA transcriptions (given in square brackets).^[2]

Burmish autonyms and exonyms! Language !! Lhao Vo people 浪速
လော်ဝေါ်လူမျိုး!Jingpho people景颇

ဂျိန်းဖောလူမျိုး!Zaiwa people载瓦

အဇီး/ဇိုင်းဝါး

လူမျိုး

!Lashi people 勒期

လချိတ်

လူမျိုး!Pela people波拉

ပေါ်လာလူမျိုး
Lhao Vo name 浪速语 လော်ဝေါ်အမည်	Lang'e 浪峨 pronounced as /[lɔ̃˥˩ vɔ˧˩]/ လော်‌ဝေါ်	Bowo 波沃 pronounced as /[pʰauk˥ vɔ˧˩]/ ပေါက်ဝေါ	Zha'e 杂蛾 pronounced as /[tsa˧˥ vɔ˧˩]/ ဇိုင်ဝါး/အဇီး	Lashi 勒期 pronounced as /[lă˧˩ tʃʰik˧˥]/ လချိတ်	Buluo 布洛 pronounced as /[pă˧˩ lɔ˧˩]/ ပါ့လော်
Jingpho name 景颇语 ဂျိန်းဖောအမည်	Moru 默汝 pronounced as /[mă˧˩ ʒu˧˩]/ မိုရူ	Jingpho 景颇 pronounced as /[tʃiŋ˧˩ pʰoʔ˧˩]/ ဂျိန်းဖော	Aji 阿纪 pronounced as /[a˧˩ tsi˥]/ အကျိ	Leshi 勒施 pronounced as /[lă˧˩ ʃi˥]/ လေရှီ	Boluo 波洛 pronounced as /[po˧˩ lo˧˩]/ ပေါလော်
Zaiwa name 载瓦语 ဇိုင်ဝါး/အဇီးအမည်	Lelang 勒浪pronounced as /[lă˨˩ la̠ŋ˥˩]/ လက်လင်	Shidong 石东 pronounced as /[ʃi˥ tu̠ŋ˥]/ ရှီထုင်	Zaiwa 载瓦 pronounced as /[tsai˧˩ va˥˩]/ဇိုင်ဝ	Lashi 勒期 pronounced as /[lă˨˩ tʃʰi˥]/ လချိ	Buluo 布洛 pronounced as /[pă˨˩ lo˨˩]/ ပါ့လော်
Lashi name 勒期语 လရှီအမည်	Langwu 浪悟 pronounced as /[laŋ˧˩ vu˥˩]/ လင်ဝူ	Puwu 铺悟 pronounced as /[pʰuk˥ vu˥˩]/ ပေ ပါက်ဝူ	Zaiwu 载悟 pronounced as /[tsai˧˩ vu˥˩]/ ဇိုင်ဝု	Lashi 勒期 pronounced as /[lă˧˩ tʃʰi˥˩]/ လချိတ်	Buluo 布洛 pronounced as /[pă˧˩ lɔ˥˩]/ ပါလော်
Pela name 波拉语 ပေါ်လာအမည်	Longwa 龙瓦 pronounced as /[lõ˧˩ va˧˩]/ လုင်းငွာ	Baowa 泡瓦 pronounced as /[pʰauk˧˩ va˧˩]/ ပေါက်ဝါ	Diwa 氐瓦 pronounced as /[ti˧˩ va˧˩]/တိဝါ	Lashi 勒期 pronounced as /[lă˧˩ tʃʰi˥]/ လချိတ်	Pela 波拉 pronounced as /[po˧˩ la˧˩]/ ပေါ်လာ

Autonyms are:^[2]

Lhao Vo လန့်စု 浪速 (Lang'e 浪峨): lɔ̃˥˩ vɔ˧˩
Jingpho ဂျိန်းဖော 景颇: tʃiŋ˧˩ pʰoʔ˧˩
Zaiwa အဇီး 载瓦: tsai˧˩ va˥˩
Lashi လချိတ် 勒期: lă˧˩ tʃʰi˥˩
Pela ပေါ်လာ 波拉: po˧˩ la˧˩

The Chashan refer to themselves as ŋɔ˧˩ tʃʰaŋ˥ (Echang 峨昌), the Jingpho as phuk˥, the Lashi as tsai˧wu˧˩ (tsai˧ wu˥ [商务印书馆].)

Languages

Lama (2012)

Based on innovations in their tonal systems, Lama (2012: 177–179) classifies the languages as follows:

Burmish
- Burmese cluster (Southern Burmish)
- Achang–Zaiwa (Northern Burmish)
  - Achang cluster
    - Achang
  - Zaiwa cluster
    - Pela (Bola)
    - Leqi–Zaiwa
      - Lashi (Leqi)
      - Langsu (Maru), Zaiwa (Atsi)

Chashan, a recently discovered Northern Burmish language, is closely related to Lashi.

Maingtha is a Northern Burmish language whose speakers are classified as a Shan subgroup.^[3]

Nishi (1999)

Based on distinct treatment of the pre-glottalized initials of proto-Burmish, Nishi (1999: 68-70) divides the Burmish languages into two branches, Burmic and Maruic. The Burmic languages changed voiceless preglottalized stops into voiceless aspirate stops and preglottalized voiced sonorants into voiceless sonorants. The Maruic languages in contrast reflect voiceless preglottalized and affricate consonants as voiceless unaspirated and affricates with laryngealized vowels, and voiced preglottalized sonorants as voiced sonorants with laryngealized vowels. The Burmic languages include Burmese, Achang, and Xiandao. The Maruic languages include Atsi (Zaiwa), Lashi (Leqi), Maru (Langsu), and Bola. Nishi does not classify Hpon and Nusu.

BurmicThe Arakanese language retains r- separate from y-, whereas the two fall together in most Burmese dialects and indeed most Burmish languages. Tavoyan has kept kl- distinct. No dialect has kept ry- distinct from r-, but this may be an independent innovation in the various dialects. Merguiese is apparently the least well studied Burmese dialect.

Burmese language (incl. Standard Burmese and Arakanese)
Achang (Huang et al. 1992, Wannemacher 1995-7)
Xiandao (Huang et al. 1992)
?Hpon/Hpun (Luce 1985: Charts S, T, V; Henderson 1986)
Danu

Maruic

Atsi (Zaiwa) (Burling 1967, Dai 1981, Yabu 1982, Xu and Xu 1984, Luce 1985: Charts S, T, V; Dai 1986, Huang et al. 1992, Wannemacher 1995-7, Wannemacher 1998)
Bola (Dai et al.: 1991; Huang et al. 1992, Edmondson 1992)
Lashi (Luce 1985: Charts S, T, V; Huang et al. 1992; Wannemacher 1995-7)
Maru (Lhao Vo) (Clerk 1911, Burling 1967, Luce 1985: Charts S, T, V; Okell 1988; Dai et al.: 1991; Huang et al. 1992; Wannemacher 1995-7)
Chashan also goes here

Mann (1998)

Mann (1998: 16, 137) in contrast groups together Achang, Bela (by which he probably means Bola), Lashi, Maru, and Atsi together as North Burmic.

Bradley (1997)

David Bradley places aberrant Ugong with Burmish rather than with Loloish:

Ugong–Burmish
- Ugong
- Burmish
  - Burmese
  - Burmish
    - Hpun
    - Core Burmish
      - Maru, Atsi
      - Lashi, Achang; Bola; Chintau (= Xiandao)

References

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Dai, Qing-xia (1981). "Zai-wa-yu shi-dong fan-chou di xing-tai bian-hua" (Morphological changes in the Zaiwa causative-verb category), in Min-zu yu-wen 1981.4:36-41.
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Xu Xijian 徐悉艱 and Xu Guizhen 徐桂珍 (1984). 景頗族語言簡誌(載瓦語) / Jingpozu yuyan jianzhi (Zaiwa yu). Beijing: 民族出版社Minzu chubanshe, 1984.
Yabu Shirō 藪司郎 (1980). "ビルマ語ヨー方言の資料 Birumago Yō hōgen no shiryō / Linguistic Data of the Yaw Dialect of the Burmese Language." アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究 Ajia Afurika gengo bunka kenkyū / Journal of Asian and African Studies 19: 164-182.
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Yabu Shirō 藪司郎 (1981b). "ビルマ語ダヌ方言の会話テキスト Birumago Danu hōgen no kaiwa tekisuto / Conversational Texts of the Danu Dialect of Burmese." アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究 Ajia Afurika gengo bunka kenkyū / Journal of Asian and African Studies 22: 124-138.
Yabu Shirō 藪司郎 (1982). アツィ語基礎語彙集 / Atsigo kiso goishū / Classified dictionary of the Atsi or Zaiwa language (Sadon dialect) with Atsi, Japanese and English indexes. Tokyo: 東京外国語大学アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究所 Tōkyō Gaikokugo Daigaku Ajia Afurika Gengo Bunka Kenkyūjo.
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Notes and References

Web site: Burmish. Ethnologue. 3 December 2022.
Dai Qingxia (2005). A study of Langsu [浪速语研究]. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House.
Sawada, Hideo. 2017. Two Undescribed Dialects of Northern Burmish Sub-branch: Gyannoʔ and Thoʔlhang. Presented at ICSTLL 50, Beijing, China.