| Tavoyan | |
|---|---|
| Dawei | |
| ထားဝယ်စကား | |
| Region | Southeast |
| Ethnicity | Taungyo |
Native speakers | (ca. 1.1 M cited 2000)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:tvn – Tavoyan propertco – Dawei (Tavoyan) |
| Glottolog | tavo1242 Tavoyantaun1248 Tavoyan |
Tavoyan orDawei (ထားဝယ်စကား, abbreviatedဝယ်စကား) is a divergent dialect ofBurmese is spoken inDawei (Tavoy), in the coastalTanintharyi Region of southernMyanmar (Burma). Tavoyan speakers self-identify asBamar, and are classified by the Burmese government as a subgroup of the Bamar.[2][3] Approximately 400,000 people speak Tavoyan. Burmese speakers further south speak the Palaw andMyeik dialects.[3] Tavoyan and Burmese have 87%lexical similarity.[3]
Distinct phonological features of Tavoyan have been strengthened by language contact with theKarenic languages.[3] Tavoyanprosody is markedly different from Standard Burmese, especially with respect to rhythm and intonation.[3] Similar to Karen speakers, Tavoyan speakers do not draw out their vowels like Standard Burmese speakers.[3] Tavoyan retains an/-l-/ medial that has since merged into the/-j-/ medial in standard Burmese.[2] Also, voicing can only occur with unaspirated consonants in Tavoyan, whereas in standard Burmese, voicing can occur with both aspirated and unaspirated consonants.
Also, Tavoyan has many loan words fromMalay andThai not found in Standard Burmese.[4] In the Tavoyan dialect,terms of endearment, as well as family terms, are considerably different from Standard Burmese.
According toMichael Aung-Thwin, the Tavoyan dialect of Burmese preserved the "spelling (and presumably pronunciation)" of theOld Burmese from theBagan era. As a result, he suggests that it diverged from other Burmese varieties sometime after the Burmese settlement of Lower Burma under the Bagan era, between the 11th and 13th centuries. He attributes this divergence to a migration of Mon speakers into the area north of Dawei in the late 13th century, which would have cut off Dawei from the main Burmese speaking areas.[5]: 112–3 To this day, theBamar are calledgantha (ဂံသား,lit. 'children of Pagan') in Tavoyan.[2][3]
Tavoyan has preserved the/-l-/ medial, which is only extant toOld Burmese, which was likely strengthened through language contact with the Karenic languages, which also feature this medial.[3] Tavoyan can form the following consonant clusters:/ɡl-/,/kl-/,/kʰl-/,/bl-/,/pl-/,/pʰl-/,/ml-/,/m̥l-/. Examples include:
မ္လေ (/mlè/ → Standard Burmese/mjè/) for "ground"[6]
က္လောင်း (/kláʊɴ/ → Standard Burmese/tʃáʊɴ/) for "school"[6]
က္လ (/kla̰/ → Standard Burmese/tʃa̰/) for "ground"[3]
In Standard Burmese, the final nasals/-ŋ,-n,-m/ have merged into anasal vowel.[3] Nasalisation is even weaker in Tavoyan (similar to Myeik), and disappears altogether for some words:[3]
နောင် (/nàʊ/ → Standard Burmese/nàʊɰ̃/) for "elder brother"[3]
Tavoyan possesses a 'voiced glottal fricative'/ɦ/ that does not exist in Standard Burmese.[3] The phoneme appears infunctor particles:
The following is a list of rhyme correspondences unique to the Tavoyan dialect[7]
| Written Burmese | Standard Burmese | Tavoyan dialect | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| -င် -န် -မ် | /-ɪɴ-aɴ-aɴ/ | /-aɴ/ | |
| -ဉ် -ျင် | /-ɪɴ-jɪɴ/ | /-ɪɴ-jɪɴ/ | |
| ောင် | /-aʊɴ/ | /-ɔɴ/ | |
| ုန် | /-oʊɴ/ | /-uːɴ/ | |
| ုမ် | /-aoɴ/ | ||
| ိမ် | /-eɪɴ/ | /-iːɴ/ | |
| ုတ် | /-oʊʔ/ | /-ṵ/ | |
| ုပ် | /-aoʔ/ | ||
| -က် -တ် -ပ် | /-ɛʔ-aʔ-aʔ/ | /-aʔ/ | |
| -ိတ် -ိပ် | /-eɪʔ/ | /-ḭ/ | |
| -ည် | /-ɛ,-e,-i// | /-ɛ/ | |
| -စ် -ျက် | /-ɪʔ-jɛʔ/ | /-ɪʔ-jɪʔ/ | |
| ေွ | /-we/ | /-i/ | ေ is pronounced as in standard Burmese |
| Open syllables | weak = ə full = i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u |
| Closed syllables | nasal = iːɴ, ɪɴ, aɪɴ, an, ɔɴ, ʊɴ, uːɴ, aoɴ stop = ɪʔ, aɪʔ, aʔ, ɔʔ, ʊʔ, aoʔ |
Due to language contact with Malay and Thai, Tavoyan vocabulary has adopted many loanwords that are not otherwise present in standard Burmese. Certain lexical terms, such as kinship terms, differ from standard Burmese.
| Gloss | Tavoyan | Standard Burmese | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 'goat' | ဘဲ့bê | ဆိတ်hseit | Mon/həbeˀ/ (ဗၜေံ) orThai/pʰɛ́ʔ/ (แพะ) |
| 'axe' | ကတ်ပkatpa | ပုဆိန်pasein | Malaykapak |
| 'grandfather' | ဖအို (/pʰa̰ʔò/) | အဖိုးapho | Tavoyan prefers the Burmese augmentative အို |
| 'grandfather' | မိအို (/mḭʔò/) | အဖွားaphwa | Tavoyan prefers the Burmese augmentative အို |
| 'son' | ဖစု (/pʰa̰sṵ/)[8] | သားtha | Tavoyan prefers the Burmese diminutive စု |
| 'daughter' | မိစု (/mḭsṵ/)[8] | သမီးthami | Tavoyan prefers the Burmese diminutive စု |
| honorific for younger males | နောင်naung[8] | မောင်maung | နောင် refers to the elder brother (of a male) in standard Burmese |
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East andSoutheast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||