| Rakhine | |
|---|---|
| Arakanese | |
| ရက္ခိုင်ဘာသာ | |
| Pronunciation | IPA:[ɹəkʰàɪɴbàθà] |
| Native to | Myanmar,Bangladesh,India |
| Region |
|
| Ethnicity | Rakhine,Marma,Kamein |
Native speakers | 1 million (2011–2013)[1] 1 millionsecond language speakers in Myanmar (2013) |
| Dialects |
|
| Burmese script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:rki – Rakhine ("Arakanese")rmz – Marma |
| Glottolog | arak1255 |
 Map of where the Rakhine language is spoken | |
Rakhine (/rəˈkaɪn/;Rakhine:ရခိုင်ဘာသာ,MLCTS:ra.hkuing bathaBurmese pronunciation:[ɹəkʰàɪɴbàθà]), also known asArakanese, is aTibeto-Burman language spoken in westernMyanmar, primarily in theRakhine State, parts of south-easternBangladesh and parts of southernTripura in India. Closely related toBurmese, the language is spoken by theRakhine andMarma peoples; it is estimated to have around one million native speakers and it is spoken as asecond language by a further million.
Though Arakanese has some similarity with standard Burmese, Burmese speakers find it difficult to communicate with Arakanese speakers. Thus, it is often considered to be a dialect orvariety of Burmese. As there are no universally acceptedcriteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Arakanese.[2] There are three dialects of Arakanese:Sittwe–Marma (about two thirds of speakers),Ramree, andThandwe.[3]
While Arakanese and Standard Burmese share the majority of lexicon, Arakanese has numerous vocabulary differences. Some are native words with no cognates in Standard Burmese, like 'sarong' (လုံခြည် in Standard Burmese,ဒယော in Arakanese). Others are loan words fromBengali,English, andHindi, not found in Standard Burmese. An example is 'hospital', which is calledဆေးရုံ in Standard Burmese, but is calledသိပ်လှိုင် (pronounced[θeɪʔl̥àɪɴ]/[ʃeɪʔl̥àɪɴ]) in Arakanese, from Englishsick lines. Other words simply have different meanings (e.g., 'afternoon',ညစ in Arakanese andညနေ in Standard Burmese). Moreover, some archaic words in Standard Burmese are preferred in Arakanese. An example is the first person pronoun, which isအကျွန် in Arakanese (notကျွန်တော်, as in Standard Burmese). A more unique difference is the 'Hra' sound which is not found in Burmese: only in Arakanese. eg. ဟြာ(Hra/Seek) and Hraa(ဟြား/exceptional/excellent/very good/smart).
A gloss of vocabulary differences between Standard Burmese and Arakanese is below:[4]
| English | Standard Burmese | Arakanese | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| thirsty | ရေဆာ | ရီမွတ် | |
| go | သွား | လား | Arakanese for 'go' was historically used in Standard Burmese. |
| kick a ball | ဘောလုံးကန် | ဘောလုံးကျောက် | |
| stomach ache | ဗိုက်နာ | ဝမ်းနာ | Arakanese prefersဝမ်း to Standard Burmeseဗိုက် for 'stomach'. |
| guava | မာလကာသီး | ဂိုယံသီး | Standard Burmese for 'guava' is derived from the wordMalacca, whereas Arakanese for 'guava' is fromSpanishguayaba, fromTaino:guayaba. |
| papaya | သင်္ဘောသီး | ပဒကာသီး | Standard Burmese for 'papaya' literally means 'boat'. |
| soap | ဆပ်ပြာ | သူပုန် | From Portuguese "sabão". In Standard Burmese, 'သူပုန်' means 'rebel' or 'insurgent'. |
| superficial | အပေါ်ယံ | အထက်ပေါ်ရီ[5] | |
| blanket | စောင် | ပုဆိုး[5] | ပုဆိုး in Standard Burmese refers to the men'slongyi (sarong). |
| dark | မှောင် | မိုက် | The compound wordမှောင်မိုက် ('pitch dark') is used in both Standard Burmese and Arakanese. |
| pick a flower | ပန်းခူး | ပန်းဆွတ်[5] | The compound wordဆွတ်ခူး ('pick') is used in both Standard Burmese and Arakanese. |
| wash [clothes] | လျှော် | ဖွပ်[5] | The compound wordလျှော်ဖွပ် ('wash') is used in both Standard Burmese and Arakanese. |
The phonological system described here is the inventory of sounds, represented using theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
The consonants of Arakanese are:
| Bilabial | Dental/Alveolar | Post-al./ Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | sibilant | ||||||
| Nasal | voiced | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ɲ̊ | ŋ̊ | |||
| Plosive | voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ | ||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | |||
| Fricative | voiced | z | |||||
| voiceless | θ | s | ʃ | h | |||
| aspirated | sʰ | ||||||
| Lateral | voiced | l | |||||
| voiceless | l̥ | ||||||
| Approximant | voiced | ɹ | j | w | |||
| voiceless | ɹ̥ | ʍ | |||||
Arakanese largely shares the same set of consonant phonemes as standard Burmese, though Arakanese more prominently uses/ɹ/, which has largely merged to/j/ in standard Burmese (with some exceptions). Because Arakanese has preserved the/ɹ/ sound, the/-ɹ-/ medial (which is preserved in writing in Standard Burmese with the diacriticြ) is still distinguished in the following Arakanese consonant clusters:/ɡɹ-kɹ-kʰɹ-ŋɹ-pɹ-pʰɹ-bɹ-mɹ-m̥ɹ-hɹ-/. For example, the word "blue," speltပြာ, is pronounced/pjà/ in standard Burmese, but pronounced/pɹà/ in Arakanese. Moreover, there is less voicing in Arakanese than in Standard Burmese, occurring only when the consonant is unaspirated.[6] Unlike in Burmese, voicing never shifts from[θ] to[ð].[7]
The vowels of Arakanese are:
| Monophthongs | Diphthongs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Central | Back | Front offglide | Back offglide | |
| Close | i | u | |||
| Close-mid | e | ə | o | ei | ou |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | |||
| Open | a | ai | au | ||
While Arakanese shares the same set of vowels as Burmese, Arakanese rhymes also diverge from Standard Burmese for a number of open syllables and closed syllables. For instance, Arakanese has also merged various vowel sounds, such asဧ ([e]) to ဣ ([i]). Hence, a word like 'blood', which is speltသွေး, pronounced ([θwé]) in standard Burmese, is pronounced[θwí] in Arakanese. Similarly, Arakanese has a number of closed syllable rhymes that do not exist in Standard Burmese, including/-ɛɴ-ɔɴ-ɛʔ-ɔʔ/.
The Arakanese dialect also has a higher frequency of open vowels weakening to/ə/ than Standard Burmese. An example is the word for 'salary', (လခ), which is[la̰ɡa̰] in standard Burmese, but[ləkha̰] in Arakanese.
The following is a summary ofconsonantal,vowel andrhyme differences from Standard Burmese found in the Arakanesedialect:[8][9]
| Written Burmese | Standard Burmese | Arakanese | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| -စ် | /-ɪʔ/ | /-aɪʔ/ | e.g.စစ် 'genuine' andစိုက် 'plant' are both pronounced[saɪʔ] in Arakanese |
| ိုက် | /-aɪʔ/ | ||
| -က် | -ɛʔ | -ɔʔ | |
| -ဉ် | /-ɪɴ/ | /-aɪɴ/ | e.g.ဥယျာဉ် 'garden', from Standard Burmese[ṵjɪ̀ɴ] →[wəjàɪɴ]. Irregular rhyme, with various pronunciations. In some words, it is/-ɛɴ/ (e.g.ဝိညာဉ် 'soul', from Standard Burmese[wèɪɴɲɪ̀ɴ] →[wḭɲɛ̀ɴ]). In a few words, it is/-i-e/ (e.g.ညှဉ်း 'to oppress', from Standard Burmese[ɲ̥ɪ́ɴ] →[ɲ̥í,ɲ̥é]). |
| ိုင် | /-aɪɴ/ | ||
| -င် | /-ɪɴ/ | /-ɔɴ/ | |
| -န် ွန် | /-aɴ-ʊɴ/ | ွန် is/-wɔɴ/ | |
| -ည် | /-i,-e,-ɛ/ | /-e/ | A few exceptions are pronounced/-aɪɴ/, likeကြည် 'clear', pronounced[kɹàɪɴ] |
| -ေ | /-e/ | /-i/ | e.g.ချီ 'carry' andချေ 'cancel' are pronounced[tɕʰì] and[tɕʰè] respectively in Standard Burmese, but merged to[tɕʰì] in Arakanese |
| -တ် ွတ် | /-aʔ-ʊʔ/ | /-aʔ/ | |
| ိန် | /-eɪɴ/ | /-ɪɴ/ | |
| -ုန် | /-oʊɴ/ | /-ʊɴ/ | |
| Nasal initial +-ီ Nasal initial +-ေ | /-i/ | /-eɪɴ/ | e.g.နီ 'red' is[nì] in Standard Burmese, but[nèɪɴ] in Arakanese In some words, the rhyme is unchanged from the standard rhyme (e.g.မြေ 'land', usually pronounced[mɹì], not[mɹèɪɴ], orအမိ 'mother', usually pronounced[əmḭ], not[əmḛɪɴ] There are few exceptions where the nasal rhyme is/-eɪɴ-/ even without a nasal initial (e.g.သီ 'thread', from Standard Burmese[θì] →[θèɪɴ]). |
| Nasal initial +-ု -ူ -ူး | /-u/ | /-oʊɴ/ | e.g.နု 'tender' is[nṵ] in Standard Burmese, but[no̰ʊɴ] in Arakanese |
| ွား | /-wá/ | /-ɔ́/ | e.g.ဝါး 'bamboo' is[wá] in Standard Burmese, but[wɔ́] in Arakanese |
| ြွ | /-w-/ | /-ɹw-/ | Occurs in some words (e.g.မြွေ 'snake' is[mwè] in Standard Burmese, but[mɹwèɪɴ] in Arakanese) |
| ရှ- | /ʃ-/ | /hɹ-/ | |
| ချ- | /tɕʰ-/ | /ʃ-/ | Occasionally occurs (e.g.ချင် 'to want' is[tɕʰɪ̀ɴ] in Standard Burmese, but[ʃɔ̀ɴ]~[tɕʰɔ̀ɴ] in Arakanese) |
| တ- →ရ- | /t-d-/ | /ɹ-/ | e.g. The present tense particleတယ် ([dɛ̀]) corresponds withရယ် ([ɹɛ̀]) in Arakanese e.g. The plural particleတို့ ([do̰]) corresponds withရို့ ([ɹo̰]) in Arakanese |
| ရှ- ယှ- ယျှ- | /ʃ-/ | /h-/ | Found in some words only |
| -ယ် ဲ | -ɛ | -e |
| Written | အမေက | သင်္ကြန်ပွဲတွင် | ဝတ်ရန် | ထဘီ | ရှစ်ထည် | ပေးလိုက်ပါ | ဆိုသည်။ | |
| Standard Burmese | ʔəmè ɡa̰ | ðədʒàɴ pwɛ́ dwɪ̀ɴ | wʊʔ jàɴ | tʰəmèɪɴ | ʃɪʔ tʰɛ̀ | pé laɪʔ pà | sʰò dɛ̀ | |
| Arakanese | ʔəmì ɡa̰ | θɔ́ɴkràɴ pwé hmà | waʔ pʰo̰ | dəjɔ̀ | ʃaɪʔ tʰè | pí laʔ pà | sʰò ɹì | |
| Arakanese (written) | အမိက | သင်္ကြန်ပွဲမှာ | ဝတ်ဖို့ | ဒယော | ရှစ်ထည် | ပီးလတ်ပါ | ဆိုရယ်။ | |
| Gloss | ||||||||
| English | Mother says "Give me eight pasos for wearing during the Thingyan festival." | |||||||
Arakanese is written using theBurmese script, which descends fromSouthern Brahmi. Rakhine speakers are taught Rakhine pronunciations using written Burmese, while most Marma speakers are only literate in Bengali.[10]
The first extant Arakanese inscriptions, the Launggrak Taung Maw inscription and the Mahathi Crocodile Rock inscription (1356), date to the 1300s, and the epigraphic record of Arakanese inscriptions is unevenly distributed between the 1400s to 1800s.[11] In the early 1400s, Arakanese inscriptions began to transition from the square letters associated with stone inscriptions (kyauksa), to rounder letters that is now standard for the Burmese script.[11] This coincided with developments in Arakanese literature, which was stimulated by the rise ofMrauk U during the 1400s.[12]
What is now Rakhine State is home to Sanskrit inscriptions that date from the first millennium to the 1000s.[11] These inscriptions were written inNorthern Brahmic scripts (namelySiddham orGaudi), which are ancestral to theBengali script.[11] However, these inscriptions are not ancestral to Arakanese epigraphy, which uses theMon–Burmese script.[11] While some Arakanese have coined the term "Rakkhawunna" (Rakkhavaṇṇa) to describe a script that predates the usage of written Burmese, there is no contemporary lithic evidence to support the existence of such a script.[12]
Contemporary Rakhine exhibits considerable regional variation. Dialects differ across areas such as Sittwe (southern), Kula-taung, Myit Wa, Chaungtha (upper river), and among historical Rakhine populations in present-day Bangladesh and India. Even within Rakhine State, towns such as Kyaukphyu, Ramree, Mrauk-U, Thandwe, Ann, and Pauktaw show geographical dialectal variation. Coastal areas closer to central Burma, including Thandwe and Taungup, tend to exhibit softer tones and pronunciations influenced by proximity to Burmese-speaking regions.[11][5]
Rakhine is often described in literature as a “purer” or “more ancient” form of Burmese. This claim is based on certain phonological features retained in Rakhine but lost in Standard Burmese, such as distinctions between Written Burmese r and y, and between aŋ and añ. Rakhine also merges rhymes such as at and an with wat and wan, and exhibits less extensive voicing.[8][11]
Conversely, Standard Burmese preserves distinctions—such as between ac, añ and uik, uir, or wa and o—that have been lost in Rakhine. It also tends to preserve vowel clarity and shows less phonetic weakening.[8]
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