Pa'O language explained

Pa'O
Also Known As:	Taungthu
Nativename:	ပအိုဝ်ႏ
Imagealt:	Pa'O manuscript
States:	Myanmar
Ethnicity:	Pa'O people
Date:	2000–2017
Ref:	e26
Familycolor:	Sino-Tibetan
Fam3:	Karenic
Script:	Burmese script (Pa'O alphabet) Karen Braille
Iso3:	blk
Glotto:	paok1235
Glottorefname:	Pa'o Karen
Minority:	Myanmar

The Pa'O language (also spelled Pa-O or Pa-oh; ပအိုဝ်ႏဘာႏသာႏ,); Burmese: ပအိုဝ်းဘာသာ), sometimes called Taungthu, is a Karen language spoken by close to 900,000 Pa'O people in Myanmar.

The language is primarily written using a Burmese script alphabet devised by Christian missionaries,^{[1] [2]} and many of the materials now available for it on the Internet derive from Christian missionary involvement, although most of the Pa'O are generally reported to be Buddhists (without real statistics, etc.).

The language is also referred to by the exonyms "Black Karen" and "White Karen", both of which are terms used in contrast to "Red Karen" (Karenni), also of Myanmar.

Dialects include Taunggyi and Thaton.^[3]

Phonology

The following displays the phonological features of the Pa'O (Taungthu) language:^[4]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	voiceless	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
	aspirated	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
	voiced	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Fricative			pronounced as /link/			pronounced as /link/
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Trill			pronounced as /link/
Approximant	lateral		pronounced as /link/
	central	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/

• /p, t, k, ʔ/ and /m, n, ŋ/ can occur as final consonants. Stops may also be heard as unreleased [p̚, t̚, k̚].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
High-mid	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Mid		pronounced as /link/
Low-mid	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Low		pronounced as /link/
Glided	pronounced as /aⁱ/		pronounced as /aᵘ/

Notes and References

1. Web site: Pa-oh ပအိုဝ်း - Word List. https://web.archive.org/web/20151003124835/http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/ldtc/languages/paoh/wordlist.html. dead. 3 October 2015. 3 October 2015. Language Documentation Training Center. 21 March 2019.
2. Web site: Pa-oh ပအိုဝ်း - Writing System. https://web.archive.org/web/20151009193317/http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/ldtc/languages/paoh/orthography.html. dead. 9 October 2015. 9 October 2015. Language Documentation Training Center. 21 March 2019.
3. Shintani, Tadahiko. 2020. The Pao language: its Taunggyi and Kokareit dialects. Linguistic survey of Tay cultural area (LSTCA) no. 131. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA).
4. Book: Thanamteun, Orranat. A phonological study of Pa-O (Taungthu) at Ban Huay Salop, Tambon Huay Pha, Muang district, Mae Hong Son province. Mahidol University. 2000.