| Mru | |
|---|---|
| 𖩃𖩓𖩑 | |
 'Mru' in theMru script | |
| Native to | Bangladesh,Myanmar |
| Ethnicity | Mru |
Native speakers | (50,000 cited 1999–2007)[1] |
| Mru script,Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mro |
| Glottolog | mruu1242 |
| ELP | Mru |
Mru, also known asMrung (Murung), is aSino-Tibetan language of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is spoken by a community ofMrus (Mros) inhabiting theChittagong Hill Tracts ofBangladesh with a population of 22,000 according to the 1991 census, and inRakhine State,Myanmar. The Mrus are the second-largest tribal group inBandarban District of theChittagong Hill Tracts. A small group of Mros also live inRangamati Hill District.
Mru forms theMruic language branch withHkongso and Anu, which are spoken inPaletwa Township,Chin State,Myanmar. The position of Mruic with Sino-Tibetan is unclear.
The Mros live in forest areas ofLama Upazila,Ruma Upazila,Alikadam Upazila, andThanchi Upazila near Chimbuk Mountain ofBandarban District,Bangladesh (Rashel 2009). InMyanmar, they also live inButhidaung Township andPonnagyun Township inSittwe District (Akiab),Rakhine State.
Ethnologue (22nd edition) lists 3 main dialects as Anok, Dowpreng (Dopreng), and Sungma (Tshungma), as well as the 2 minor dialects of Domrong and Rumma.
There are five Mru dialects according to Ebersole (1996).
There are five major Mro clans (Rashel 2009).
Rashel (2009) also lists another classification scheme which lists ten Mro clans.
Unlike theKuki-Chin languages, Mru has SVO (subject-verb-object) word order (Ebersole 1996).
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | tɕ | k | ʔ |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | tɕʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d | ||||
| Fricative | s | (ʃ) | h | |||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
/s/ can also be heard as [ʃ].[3]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɯ | u | |
| Mid | ɛ | ɤ | ɔ | |
| Open | a | |||
Rashel (2009:159) lists the following Mro numerals.
| Mru Mro, Krama[1] | |
|---|---|
| Script type | alphabet |
Period | 1980s — present |
| Languages | Mru |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Mroo(264), Mro, Mru |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Mro |
| U+16A40–U+16A6F | |
The Mru script is an indigenous, messianic script: In the 1980s Menlay Murang (also known as Manley Mro) created the religion of Khrama (or Crama) and with it a new script for the Mru language.[5][6]
The script is written from left to right and has its own set of digits. It does not use tone marks.
The Mru language is written in both the Latin and Mru scripts.
The Mru alphabet was added to theUnicode Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0.
The Unicode block for the Mru script, called Mro, is U+16A40–U+16A6F:
| Mro[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+16A4x | 𖩀 | 𖩁 | 𖩂 | 𖩃 | 𖩄 | 𖩅 | 𖩆 | 𖩇 | 𖩈 | 𖩉 | 𖩊 | 𖩋 | 𖩌 | 𖩍 | 𖩎 | 𖩏 |
| U+16A5x | 𖩐 | 𖩑 | 𖩒 | 𖩓 | 𖩔 | 𖩕 | 𖩖 | 𖩗 | 𖩘 | 𖩙 | 𖩚 | 𖩛 | 𖩜 | 𖩝 | 𖩞 | |
| U+16A6x | 𖩠 | 𖩡 | 𖩢 | 𖩣 | 𖩤 | 𖩥 | 𖩦 | 𖩧 | 𖩨 | 𖩩 | 𖩮 | 𖩯 | ||||
| Notes | ||||||||||||||||
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: publisher location (link)Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
| ||||
| East andSoutheast Asia |
| ||||
| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
| ||||
| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
