S'gaw Karen
ကညီကျိာ်,K'nyaw
Pronunciation	[sɣɔʔ]
Native to	Myanmar,Thailand
Region	Kayin State,Myanmar Thailand Andaman and Nicobar Islands,India Malaysia
Ethnicity	Karen
Native speakers	2.2 million (2010–2017)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Karenic S'gaw Karen
Writing system	Mon–Burmese (S'gaw Karen alphabet) Latin script Karen Braille
Official status
Official language in	Myanmar (Kayin State)
Recognised minority language in	Thailand
Language codes
ISO 639-2	kar
ISO 639-3	ksw – inclusive code Individual codes: ksw – S'gaw jkp – Paku jkm – Mopwa wea – Wewaw
Glottolog	sout1554
Karen languages
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S'gaw Karen orS'gaw K'nyaw, commonly known simply asKaren, is aSino-Tibetan language spoken by theS'gaw Karen people ofMyanmar andThailand. AKarenic branch of theSino-Tibetan language family, S'gaw Karen is spoken by over 2 million people inTanintharyi Region,Ayeyarwady Region,Yangon Region, andBago Region in Myanmar, and about 200,000 in northern and western Thailand along the border near Kayin State.^[1] It is written using theS'gaw Karen alphabet, derived from theBurmese script, although a Latin-based script is also in use among the S'gaw Karen in northwestern Thailand.^[2] Additionally, theKwekor script is used inHlaingbwe Township.^[3]

Various divergent dialects are sometimes seen as separate languages: Paku in the northeast, Mopwa (Mobwa) in the northwest, Wewew, and Monnepwa.^[4]

S'gaw belongs to theKarenic branch of theSino-Tibetan language family. The S'gaw language has been used as the official language in theKayin State ofMyanmar and of theKaren National Union (KNU) organization who havewaged a war against the Burmese government since early 1949. A Bible translation was published in 1853. The first issue of the Karen-language monthly periodical,The Morning Star (Hsa Too Ghaw), was published in 1842.^[5]

Christian missionaries, from the 19th century onward, have had a profound and lasting impact on the S'gaw Karen language, especially in the areas of literacy, orthography, and education.^[5]Jonathan Wade, an American Baptist missionary, is credited with developing the first writtenscript for the S'gaw Karen language in 1831–1832, adapting theMon–Burmese script to fit S'gaw Karen phonology.^[6][7] Another American Baptist missionary,Francis Mason, led the work of producing the first translation of the Bible into S'gaw Karen. The full S'gaw Karen Bible was completed in 1853, becoming one of the earliest and most widely read texts in the language.^[6] The Bible and other texts helped standardize vocabulary and orthography and provided a basis for literacy instruction. With a newly-devised script and a growing body of texts, missionaries established schools and seminaries that taught reading and writing in S'gaw Karen, often alongside English and Burmese. As a result, literacy rates among Christian Karen rose, and S'gaw Karen gained prestige as a language of education and religion.^[7] Additionally, they compiled grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks, documenting the S'gaw Karen language in ways that were previously nonexistent. These linguistic resources continue to be used today in both academic research and community-based education. Missionaries working particularly on the S'gaw Karen language includeJonathan Wade,Francis Mason, andEmilie Ballard.

S'gaw is spoken in the Ayeyarwady delta area, in the Ayeyarwady, Bago, Kayin, and Rangon Regions. S'gaw speakers are frequently interspersed with Pwo Karen speakers.

S'gaw dialects are:

• Eastern dialect of S'gaw (Pa'an)
• Southern dialect of Western Kayah (Dawei)
• Delta dialect of S'gaw

Paku is spoken in:^[8]

• northernKayin State: hills southeast ofTaungoo in easternBago Region, borderingKayin State
• southernKayah State (also known as Karenni State).

Paku dialects are Shwe Kyin, Mawchi, Kyauk Gyi, Bawgali, the names of which are based on villages.

• Kyauk Gyi and Shwe Kyin are spoken inTaungoo District, easternBago Region, near theKayin State border.
• Mawchi is spoken inKayah State.
• Bawgali is spoken in northKayin State.

Mobwa is spoken in 9 villages at the western foot of the Thandaung Mountains inThandaung township,Kayin State.^[8] There are also some inTaungoo township,Bago Region.

Mobwa dialects are Palaychi (Southern Mobwa) and Dermuha (Southern Mobwa).

Karen people in the Andaman Islands: S'gaw Karen is also spoken in theAndaman and Nicobar Islands, Union Territory ofIndia.^[9][10] The total population in the Andamans is about 2000 people, living in eight villages in theMayabunder andDiglipurtehsils of theNorth and Middle Andaman district:

• Mayabunder tehsil – Webi, Deopur, Lataw, Lucknow (Burmadera), Karmatang-9 and 10
• Diglipur tehsil – Borang, Chipon

The S'gaw Karen language has at least 3 dialects. They aremutually intelligible to each other; however, there may be words that sound unfamiliar to one another.

• Northern dialect – also known as southern dialect ofKayah State is the S'gaw dialect that does not have theth sound in their language or dialect. They replace the southern and eastern dialectsth withs. For example: while the southern and eastern would saymoe tha boe, the northern dialect would saymoe sa boe. This dialect used theRoman alphabet for their writing system.
• Southern dialect andEastern (Pa'an) dialect – these two dialects are very similar but there may be words that each may not understand due to regional location which allowed the dialects to grow apart. These two dialects use theMyanmar script as their writing system.
• There are also different accents in the Karen language.

The following displays the phonological features of present S'gaw Karen:^[11]

• An aspirated fricative [sʰ] may be present among different accents and dialects.^[11]
• /θ/ (သ) is pronounced [θ] in most Myanmar varieties and [s] in northern Thailand.

• /ɨ/ varies between central[ɨ] and[ɯ], depending on the dialect.

Ken Manson (2009) proposed a Karen tone box to help understand Karenic tonal diversity and classify Karenic languages.^[12] It is similar to William Gedney'sTai tone box (seeProto-Tai language#Tones). The tone box contains diagnostic words for use during field elicitation.

TheS'gaw Karen alphabet consists of 25 consonants, 9 vowels, 5 tones and 5 medials. The Karen alphabet was derived from theBurmese script as created by the help of the American Baptist missionary Jonathan Wade in the early 1830s.^[13] The Karen alphabet was created for the purpose of translating the Bible into the Karen language. S'gaw Karen script is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability.

• က has a sound intermediate betweenk andg; as in g forgood
• ခ is the aspirate ofက. It is pronounced likekh as heard in the wordcamp.
• ဂ has no analogue in English or German. See:voiced velar fricative
• ဃ is pronounced likech in theGerman bach, or theScottish loch.
• င is pronounced likeng as heard in sing
• စ has a sound intermediate between s and z.
• ဆ is the aspirate ofစ. It has the sound ofssh, as heard in the phrase hiss him.
• ၡ is pronounced likesh as heard inshell
• ည is pronounced likeny as heard in canyon
• တ has a sound intermediate betweent andd; sayt without air coming out
• ထ is the aspirate ofတ. It is pronounced likeht as heard in the word hot
• ဒ is pronounced liked as heard inday
• န is pronounced liken as heard innet
• ပ has a sound intermediate betweenb andp; sayp without air coming out
• ဖ is pronounced likep as heard inpool
• ဘ is pronounced likeb inball
• မ is pronounced likem as heard inmall
• ယ is pronounced likey as heard in backyard
• ရ is pronounced liker as heard inroom
• လ is pronounced likel as heard in school
• ဝ is pronounced likew as heard inwonderful
• သ is pronounced liketh as heard inthin
• ဟ is pronounced likeh as heard inhouse
• အ as a consonant, has no sound of its own; it is a mere stem to which vowel signs are attached. Vowel carrier
• ဧ is pronounced as aɦ sound. See:breathy-voiced glottal approximant

Vowels can never stand alone and if a word starts with a vowel syllable, use the vowel carrier "အ" which is silent in order to write words that start with vowel.

• အ –a in quota
• အါ –a in bad
• အံ –i in mean
• အၢ – Germanö in Göthe
• အု – Germanü in Glück and KoreanHangul character "ㅡ"
• အူ –u in rule,oo in moon
• အ့ –a inrate
• အဲ –e in met
• အိ –o innote
• အီ –aw in raw

In S'gaw Karen, every syllable consists of avowel, either alone, or preceded by a single or doubleconsonant. A syllable always ends in a vowel. Every syllable may be pronounced in six differenttones, the meaning varying according to the tone in which it is pronounced.

The number of tones and their pronunciation varies depending on the dialect. Below are the pronunciations of the tones in S'gaw Karen according to Gilmore (1898).

• Where no tone is marked, the syllable is pronounced with a rising inflection.

When one consonant follows another with no vowel sound intervening, the second consonant is represented by a symbol,which is joined to the character representing the first consonant.

The examples of writing the Karen alphabet are:

• ခ +ံ →ခံ, pronounced/kʰi/
• လ +ံ +း →လံး, pronounced/li/
• က +ၠ +ိ →ကၠိ, pronounced/kʝo/
• က +ျ +ိ +ၣ် →ကျိၣ်, pronounced/klo/

The Karen Latin alphabet has 24 consonants, 9 vowels and 5 tones. The tones are written with alphabetic letters.^{[citation needed]}

• K matches with the English wordguard
• Hk matches with the English wordcar
• G does not have a sound similar to the European languages but matches with the other Karen alphabet ofဂ^{[clarification needed]}
• Q matches with the German word bach
• Ng matches with the English word young
• C matches with the Englishch
• Hs has the same sound asS
• Ny matches with the Spanish letterñ
• T have similar sound with Englishd but say it without air coming out
• Ht matches with the English wordtool
• D have the same sound as Englishd
• N matches with EnglishN
• P have similar sound to Englishp but say it without air coming out
• Hp matches with Englishp
• B matches with Englishb
• M matches with Englishm
• Y matches with Englishy
• R matches with Englishr
• L matches with Englishl
• W matches with Englishw
• S matches with Englishs; same sound as Hs
• H matches with Englishh
• EH has no analogue in the European languages
• AH has no analogue in the European languages

• A matches with the Italiana
• E matches with the English word rust; uh
• I matches with the Italiani
• O matches with the Spanisho
• U matches with the Korean romanizationeu
• AI matches with the English word sell
• EI matches with the name Jay
• AU matches with the English word fault
• OO matches with the English word cool

• av or ă – high mid tone
• aj or à – middle of the sound
• ax or â – low tone; low voice in a short time
• af or ä – high-pitched tone
• az or ā – even tone

This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(December 2018)

In terms of linguistic typology, S'gaw Karen is anisolating language with scarce bound morphology and where most syllables can occur as independent words. Theword order issubject–verb–object, which differs from other Tibeto-Burman languages, most of which areverb final.^[14]

S'gaw Karen nouns are intrinsically neutral as tonumber,gender, anddefiniteness. Plural reference is achieved by using the plural markerတဖၣ် /təpʰà/.^[15]

Like many East and Southeast Asian languages, S'gaw Karen usesclassifiers to count objects expressed bycount nouns, andmeasure words to quantify substances expressed bymass nouns.^[16]

S'gaw Karen has twodemonstratives,အံၤ /ʔi/ 'this' andန့ၣ် /nè/ 'that', which follow the noun or the classifier phrase, if present.^[17]

S'gaw Karen distinguishes betweenintransitive,transitive, andditransitive verbs. Transitive and ditransitive verbs require one and twoobjects, respectively, while intransitive verbs do not take objects. As anisolating language, S'gaw Karen lackscase inflection in nouns. The function of a noun is determined by its position in the clause; generally,subjects precede the verb while objects follow it.

S'gaw Karen verbs do not inflect fortense oraspect; instead, thesegrammatical categories are expressed using separate words.^[15]

Perfect aspect is expressed by the particleလံ /lí/, which indicates a change in the situation.

Prospective aspect is indicated byက /kə-/, which precedes the verb. Sentences withက are often translated using thefuture tense in English.^[17]

Tonegate a verb, the verb prefixတ /tə-/ and the final particleဘၣ် /bà/ are used.^[17]

S'gaw Karen makes extensive use ofverb serialization to express various grammatical meanings, such ascausativity andbenefaction.^[18][19]

Causative events, where a subject causes an object to perform an action or be in a state, are expressed using one of the verbsမၤ /mā/ 'make, cause' orဒုး /dɨ/ 'let, have (someone do something)' before the main verb.^[18] Which verb to use depends on whether or not thecauser has direct and full control over the action; if not, and thecausee has some control,ဒုး is used (indirect causation), otherwiseမၤ is used (direct causation).^[18][20]

Benefaction refers to the performance of actions for someone's sake. In S'gaw Karen, benefactive clauses contain the verbန့ၢ် /ne/ 'get', which follows the main verb or verb compound.^[21]

S'gaw Karenpersonal pronouns are distinguished according toperson andnumber, except for the third person, which sometimes has the same form for the singular and the plural. Additionally, all pronouns are gender-neutral; for example, the third-person pronounအ /ʔə-/ has the meanings 'he, his', 'she, her', 'it, its', 'they, their'.^[15] Below is a table showing the subject/possessive forms (ယ 'I; my', etcetera) and object forms (ယၤ 'me', etcetera) of the pronouns.

* The formအဝဲ /ʔəwɛ́/ is also used.

** The formအဝဲသ့ၣ် /ʔəwɛ́θè/ is also used.

S'gaw Karen usesprepositions to indicate things such as the location, source, goal, or instrument of an action or situation. The most common S'gaw Karen prepositions areလၢ /lə/ 'at, to, from',ဖဲ /pʰɛ́/ 'at',ဆူ /sʰú/ 'to',ဒ် /di/ 'like, as', andဒီး /dɔ/ 'with'.

When the source or goal of an action is a person, the locational wordအိၣ် /ʔò/ is used.[19]

S'gaw Karen language test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• S'gaw Karen Grammar This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.
• S'gaw Karen Dictionary
• S'gaw Karen BibleArchived 2020-04-29 at theWayback Machine
• S'gaw Karen Picture Bible
• SEAlang Library S'gaw Karen Dictionary
• Drum Publication Group
• Free Anglo-Karen Dictionary
• Drum Publication Group—Online S'gaw Karen language materials. Includes an online English – S'gaw Karen Dictionary.
• Karen Teacher Working Group—Several Karen fonts available for download.

• Karen language
• Subject–verb–object languages
• Tonal languages

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