| Shan | |
| Also Known As: | Tai Yai |
| Nativename: | Shan: ၵႂၢမ်းတႆး, Shan: လိၵ်ႈတႆး |
| Pronunciation: | pronounced as /shn/ pronounced as /shn/ |
| States: | Myanmar |
| Region: | Shan State |
| Ethnicity: | Shan, Dai, Kula |
| Speakers: | million |
| Date: | 2017 |
| Ref: | e25 |
| Familycolor: | Kradai |
| Fam2: | Tai |
| Fam3: | Southwestern |
| Fam4: | Northwestern (Shan) |
| Dia1: | Standard (Eastern) |
| Dia2: | Khün |
| Dia3: | Tai Nuea |
| Dia4: | Khamti |
| Dia5: | Tai Laing |
| Dia6: | Aiton |
| Dia7: | Phake |
| Dia8: | Khamyang |
| Dia9: | Turung |
| Listclass: | hlist |
| Iso2: | shn |
| Iso3: | shn |
| Script: | Mon–Burmese (Shan alphabet) |
| Glotto: | shan1277 |
| Glottorefname: | Shan |
| Notice: | IPA |
The Shan language is the native language of the Shan people and is mostly spoken in Shan State, Myanmar. It is also spoken in pockets in other parts of Myanmar, in Northern Thailand, in Yunnan, in Laos, in Cambodia, in Vietnam and decreasingly in Assam and Meghalaya. Shan is a member of the Kra–Dai language family and is related to Thai. It has five tones, which do not correspond exactly to Thai tones, plus a sixth tone used for emphasis. The term Shan is also used for related Northwestern Tai languages, and it is called Tai Yai or Tai Long in other Tai languages. Standard Shan, which is also known as Tachileik Shan, is based on the dialect of the city of Tachileik.
The number of Shan speakers is not known in part because the Shan population is unknown. Estimates of Shan people range from four million to 30 million, with about half speaking the Shan language. Ethnologue estimates that there are million Shan speakers in Myanmar; the Mahidol University Institute for Language and Culture gave the number of Shan speakers in Thailand as 95,000 in 2006, though including refugees from Burma they now total about one million.[1] Many Shan speak local dialects as well as the language of their trading partners.
The Shan language has a number of names in different Tai languages and Burmese.
The Shan dialects spoken in Shan State can be divided into three groups, roughly coinciding with geographical and modern administrative boundaries, namely the northern, southern, and eastern dialects. Dialects differ to a certain extent in vocabulary and pronunciation, but are generally mutually intelligible.
While the southern dialect has borrowed more Burmese words, eastern Shan is somewhat closer to Northern Thai language and Lao in vocabulary and pronunciation, and the northern so-called "Chinese Shan" is much influenced by the Yunnan-Chinese dialect.
A number of words differ in initial consonants. In the north, initial pronounced as //k/, /kʰ// and pronounced as //m//, when combined with certain vowels and final consonants, are pronounced pronounced as //tʃ// (written ky), pronounced as //tʃʰ// (written khy) and pronounced as //mj// (written my). In Chinese Shan, initial pronounced as //n// becomes pronounced as //l//. In southwestern regions pronounced as //m// is often pronounced as pronounced as //w//. Initial pronounced as //f// only appears in the east, while in the other two dialects it merges with pronounced as //pʰ//.
J. Marvin Brown divides the three dialects of Shan State as follows:[2]
Prominent divergent dialects are considered separate languages, such as Khün (called Kon Shan by the Burmese), which is spoken in Kengtung valley. Chinese Shan is also called Tai Mao, referring to the old Shan State of Mong Mao. Tai Long is used to refer to the Southern Shan State dialect spoken in southern and central regions west of the Salween River,[3] the Northern Shan State dialect,[4] and the dialect spoken in Laos. There are also dialects still spoken by a small number of people in Kachin State, such as Tai Laing, and Khamti spoken in northern Sagaing Region.
Shan has 19 consonants.Unlike Thai and Lao (Isan) there are no voiced plosives /d/ and /b/.
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | (Alveolo-) Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Plosive | unaspirated | 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/ | ||||
| Fricative | (pronounced as /link/) | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Trill | (pronounced as /link/) | ||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
Shan has ten vowels and 13 diphthongs:
| Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as //i// | pronounced as //ɨ/~/ɯ// | pronounced as //u/ / | |
| pronounced as //e// | pronounced as //ə/~/ɤ// | pronounced as //o/ / | |
| pronounced as //ɛ// | pronounced as //a/ /aː// | pronounced as //ɔ// |
pronounced as /[iw], [ew], [ɛw]; [uj], [oj], [ɯj], [ɔj], [ɤj]; [aj], [aɯ], [aw]; [aːj], [aːw]/
Shan has less vowel complexity than Thai, and Shan people learning Thai have difficulties with sounds such as "ia," "ua," and "uea" pronounced as /[ɯa]/. Triphthongs are absent. Shan has no systematic distinction between long and short vowels characteristic of Thai.
Shan has phonemic contrasts among the tones of syllables. There are five to six tonemes in Shan, depending on the dialect. The sixth tone is only spoken in the north; in other parts it is only used for emphasis.
The table below presents six phonemic tones in unchecked syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in sonorant sounds such as [m], [n], [ŋ], [w], and [j] and open syllables.
| No. | Description | IPA | Description | Transcription* | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | rising (24) | pronounced as /˨˦/ | Starting rather low and rising pitch | pronounced as /ǎ/ | a (not marked) | |
| 2 | low (11) | pronounced as /˩/ | Low, even pitch | pronounced as /à/ | a, | |
| 3 | mid-falling (32) | pronounced as /˧˨/ | Medium level pitch, slightly falling in the end | pronounced as /a/ (not marked) | a; | |
| 4 | high (55) | pronounced as /˥/ | High, even pitch | pronounced as /á/ | a: | |
| 5 | high-falling and creaky (42) | pronounced as /˦˨ˀ/ | Short, creaky, strongly falling with lax final glottal stop | pronounced as /âʔ/, pronounced as /â̰/ | a. | |
| 6 | emphatic (343) or middle (33) | pronounced as /˧˦˧/ / pronounced as /˧/ | Starting mid level, then slightly rising, with a drop at the end (similar to tones 3 and 5) | pronounced as /a᷈/ | a- | |
The following table shows an example of the phonemic tones:
| Tone | Shan | IPA | Transliteration | English | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rising | pronounced as //nǎː// | na | thick | ||
| low | pronounced as //nàː// | na, | very | ||
| mid-falling | pronounced as //nà̱ː// | na; | face | ||
| high | pronounced as //náː// | na: | paddy field | ||
| high-falling and creaky | pronounced as //nâ̰(ː)// | na. | aunt, uncle | ||
| emphatic or middle | pronounced as //nāː// | na- | (for interjection / transcription) |
The Shan tones correspond to Thai tones as follows:
The table below presents four phonemic tones in checked syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in a glottal stop [ʔ] and obstruent sounds such as [p], [t], and [k].
| Tone | Shan | Phonemic | Phonetic | Transliteration | English | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| high | pronounced as //lák// | pronounced as /[lak˥]/ | lak: | post | ||
| creaky | pronounced as //la̰k// | pronounced as /[la̰k˦˨ˀ]/ | lak. | steal | ||
| low | pronounced as //làːk// | pronounced as /[laːk˩]/ | laak, | differ from others | ||
| mid | pronounced as //lāːk// | pronounced as /[laːk˧˨]/ | laak; | drag |
The syllable structure of Shan is C(G)V((V)/(C)), which is to say the onset consists of a consonant optionally followed by a glide, and the rhyme consists of a monophthong alone, a monophthong with a consonant, or a diphthong alone. (Only in some dialects, a diphthong may also be followed by a consonant.) The glides are: -w-, -y- and -r-.There are seven possible final consonants: pronounced as //ŋ//, pronounced as //n//, pronounced as //m//, pronounced as //k//, pronounced as //t//, pronounced as //p//, and pronounced as //ʔ//.
Some representative words are:
Typical Shan words are monosyllabic. Multisyllabic words are mostly Pali loanwords, or Burmese words with the initial weak syllable pronounced as //ə//.
| Person | Pronoun | Meaning[5] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| first | pronounced as /[kǎw]/ | I/me (informal) | |
| pronounced as /[tǔ]/ | I/me (informal) | ||
| pronounced as /[kʰaː]/ | I/me (formal) "servant, slave" | ||
| pronounced as /[háː]/ | we/us two (familiar/dual) | ||
| pronounced as /[háw]/ | we/us (general) | ||
| pronounced as /[háw.kʰaː]/ | we/us (formal) "we servants, we slaves" | ||
| second | pronounced as /[máɰ]/ | you (informal/familiar) | |
| pronounced as /[tɕaw]/ | you (formal) "master, lord" | ||
| pronounced as /[kʰɤ̂]/ | you two (familiar/dual) | ||
| pronounced as /[sǔ]/ | you (formal/singular, general/plural) | ||
| pronounced as /[sǔ.tɕaw]/ | you (formal/singular, general/plural) "you masters, you lords" | ||
| third | pronounced as /[mán]/ | he/she/it (informal/familiar) | |
| pronounced as /[kʰǎː]/ | they/them two (familiar/dual) | ||
| pronounced as /[kʰǎw]/ | he/she/it (formal), or they/them (general) | ||
| pronounced as /[kʰǎw.tɕaw]/ | he/she/it (formal), or they/them (formal) "they masters, they lords" | ||
| pronounced as /[pɤn]/ | they/them, others |
Given the present instabilities in Burma, one choice for scholars is to study the Shan people and their language in Thailand, where estimates of Shan refugees run as high as two million, and Mae Hong Son Province is home to a Shan majority. The major source for information about the Shan language in English is Dunwoody Press's Shan for English Speakers. They also publish a Shan-English dictionary. Aside from this, the language is almost completely undescribed in English.