| Mon | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ဘာသာ မန် | ||||
| Pronunciation | [pʰesa mɑn] | |||
| Spoken in | Burma (Myanmar), Thailand | |||
| Region | Southeast Asia | |||
| Native speakers | Burma: 742,900, Total: 850,530[1] (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Austro-Asiatic
|
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| Writing system | Burmese alphabet (itself derived from the Old Mon Indic-based script) | |||
| Recognised minority language in | Burma (Myanmar), Thailand | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | mnw | |||
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The Mon language (Mon: ဘာသာ မန်; Burmese: မွန်ဘာသာ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Mon, who live in Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. Mon, like the related language Cambodian—but unlike most languages in Mainland Southeast Asia—is not tonal. Mon is spoken by more than a million people today.[1] In recent years, usage of Mon has declined rapidly, especially among the younger generation.[1] Many ethnic Mon are monolingual in Burmese. In Burma, the majority of speakers live in Mon State, followed by Tanintharyi Division and Kayin State.[2]
The Mon script is derived from Indian Brahmi script and is the source of the Burmese script.
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Mon is an important language in Burmese history. Up until the 12th century AD, it was the lingua franca of the Irrawaddy valley—not only in the Mon kingdoms of the lower Irrawaddy valley but also of upriver Burman kingdom of Pagan (Bagan). Mon, especially written Mon, continued to be the primary language even after the fall of the Mon kingdom of Thaton to Pagan in 1057. Pagan king Kyansittha (r. 1084–1113) admired the Mon culture, and the Mon language was patronized. The Mon script was the source of the Burmese script created during his reign. Kyanzittha left many inscriptions in Mon. During this period, the Myazedi inscription, which contains identical inscriptions of a story in Pali, Pyu, Mon, and Burmese on the four sides was carved.[3] However, after Kyansittha's death, usage of the Mon language declined among the Burmans. Old Burmese began to replace Mon and Pyu as lingua franca.[3]
Mon inscriptions from the Dvaravati kingdom's ruins also litter Thailand. However it is not clear if the inhabitants were Mon, a mix of Mon and Malay, or Khmer. Later inscriptions and kingdoms like Lavo were subservient to the Khmer.
After the fall of Pagan, the Mon language again became the lingua franca of independent Mon kingdom of Hanthawaddy Bago (1287–1539) in the present day Lower Burma. The language long continued to be prevalent in Lower Burma until the mid-19th century for the region was still mainly populated by the Mon. This changed after the British captured Lower Burma in 1852, and encouraged immigration to develop Irrawaddy delta for farming. The ensuing mass migration of peoples into the region from other areas of Burma as well as India and China relegated the Mon language to a tertiary status.
The language languished during British colonial rule, and has experienced a rapid decline in the number of speakers since the Burmese independence in 1948. With little or no support from successive Burmese governments, the Mon language (especially written Mon) continues to be propagated mostly by Mon monks. The Mon language instruction survives in the Thai-Burmese border inside the Mon rebel controlled areas.
Mon has three primary dialects in Burma, coming from the various regions the Mon inhabit. They are the Central (areas surrounding Mottama and Mawlamyaing), Bago, and Ye dialects.[4] All are mutually intelligible. Thai Mon has some differences from the Burmese dialects of Mon, but they are mutually intelligible.
The Old Mon script, which has been dated to the 6th century, with the earliest inscriptions found in Nakhon Pathom and Saraburi (in Thailand), is ancestral to the Burmese script and the Tai Tham script, a liturgical script used in Northern Thailand and Laos.[5] The modern Mon script, however, utilises several different letters and diacritics that represent phonemes that do not exist in Burmese, such as the diacritic of the simplified medial 'l', which is placed underneath the letter.[6] Furthermore, there is a great discrepancy between the written and spoken forms of Mon, with a single pronunciation capable of having several multiple spellings.[7] The Mon script also makes prominent use of consonant stacking, to represent consonant clusters found in the language.
The Mon alphabet contains 35 consonants (including 1 vowel treated as a nominal consonant), as follows, with consonants belonging to the breathy register indicated in gray:[8][9]
| က k (/kaˀ/) |
ခ kh (/kʰaˀ/) |
ဂ g (/kɛ̀ˀ/) |
ဃ gh (/kʰɛ̀ˀ/) |
ၚ ṅ (/ŋɛ̀ˀ/) |
| စ c (/caˀ/) |
ဆ ch (/cʰaˀ/) |
ဇ j (/cɛ̀ˀ/) |
ၛ jh (/cʰɛ̀ˀ/) |
ည ñ (/ɲɛ̀ˀ/) |
| ဋ ṭ (/taˀ/) |
ဌ ṭh (/tʰaˀ/) |
ဍ ḍ (/ɗaˀ/) |
ဎ ḍ (/tʰaˀ/) |
ဏ ṇ (/naˀ/) |
| တ t (/taˀ/) |
ထ th (/tʰaˀ/) |
ဒ d (/tɛ̀ˀ/) |
ဓ dh (/tʰɛ̀ˀ/) |
န n (/nɛ̀ˀ/) |
| ပ p (/paˀ/) |
ဖ ph (/pʰaˀ/) |
ဗ b (/pɛ̀ˀ/) |
ဘ bh (/pʰɛ̀ˀ/) |
မ m (/mɛ̀ˀ/) |
| ယ y (/yɛ̀ˀ/) |
ရ r (/rɛ̀ˀ/) |
လ l (/lɛ̀ˀ/) |
ဝ w (/wɛ̀ˀ/) |
သ s (/saˀ/) |
| ဟ h (/haˀ/) |
ဠ ḷ (/laˀ/) |
ၜ b (/baˀ/) |
အ a (/aˀ/) |
ၝ mb (/bɛ̀ˀ/) |
In the Mon script, consonants belong to one of two registers: clear and breathy, each of which has different inherent vowels and pronunciations for the same set of diacritics. For instance, က, which belongs to the clear register, is pronounced /kaˀ/, while ဂ is pronounced /ɡɛ̀ˀ/, to accommodate the vowel complexity of the Mon phonology.[10] The addition of diacritics makes this obvious. Whereas in Burmese, spellings with the same diacritics are rhyming, in Mon, this depends on the consonant's inherent register. A few examples are listed below:
Mon uses the same diacritics and diacritic combinations as in Burmese to represent vowels, with the addition of a few diacritics unique to the Mon script, including ဴ (/ɛ̀a/), and ဳ (/i/), since the diacritic ိ represents /ìˀ/.[11] Also, ဨ (/e/) is used instead of ဧ, as in Burmese.
The Mon language has 8 medials, as follows: ္ၚ (/-ŋ-/), ၞ (/-n-/), ၟ (/-m-/), ျ (/-j-/), ြ (/-r-/), ၠ (/-l-/), ွ (/-w-/), and ှ (/-hn-/). Consonantal finals are indicated with a virama (်), as in Burmese. Furthermore, consonant stacking is possible in Mon spellings, particularly for Pali and Sanskrit-derived vocabulary.
| Bilabial | Dental | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | p pʰ ɓ | t tʰ ɗ | c cʰ | k kʰ | ʔ |
| Fricatives | s | ç 1 | h | ||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Sonorants | w | l, r | j |
1/ç/ is only found in Burmese loans.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | ə | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɐ | ɔ |
| Open | a |
Unlike the surrounding Burmese and Thai languages, Mon is not a tonal language. As in many Mon–Khmer languages, Mon uses a vowel-phonation or vowel-register system in which the quality of voice in pronouncing the vowel is phonemic. There are two registers in Mon:
In the examples below, breathy voice is marked with a grave accent.
Mon verbs do not inflect for person. Tense is shown through particles.
Some verbs have a morphological causative, which is most frequently a /pə-/ prefix (Pan Hla 1989:29):
| Underived verb | Gloss | Causative verb | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| chɒt | to die | kəcɒt | to kill |
| lɜm | to be ruined | pəlɒm | to destroy |
| khaɨŋ | to be firm | pəkhaɨŋ | to make firm |
| tɛm | to know | pətɛm | to inform |
Mon nouns do not inflect for number. That is, they do not have separate forms for singular and plural:
| ၁ | ||
| sɔt pakaw | mòa | mèa |
| apple | one | classifier |
'one apple'
| ၂ | ||
| sɔt pakaw | ɓa | mèa |
| apple | two | classifier |
'two apples'
Adjectives follow the noun (Pan Hla p. 24):
| prɛa | ce |
| woman | beautiful |
'beautiful woman'
Demonstratives follow the noun:
| ŋoa | nɔʔ |
| day | this |
| this day | |
Like many other Southeast Asian languages, Mon has classifiers which are used when a noun appears with a numeral. The choice of classifier depends on the semantics of the noun involved.
| IPA | kaneh | mòa | tanəng |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gloss | pen | one | classifier |
'one pen'
| IPA | chup | mòa | tanɒm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gloss | tree | one | classifier |
'one tree'
Mon is a prepositional language.
| ɗoa | əma |
| in | lake |
| 'in the lake' |
The ordinary word order for sentences in Mon is subject–verb–object, as in the following examples
| Mon | အဲ | ရာန် | သ္ၚု | ယဝ် | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | ʔoa | ran | hau | toa | ya. |
| Gloss | I | buy | rice | completive | affirmative |
'I bought rice.'
| Mon | ညး | တံ | ဗ္တောန် | အဲ | ဘာသာ | အၚ်ဂလိက် | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Nyeh | tɔʔ | paton | kɒ | ʔua | pàsa | ʔengloit |
| Gloss | 3rd | plur | teach | to | 1st | language | English |
'They taught me English.'
Yes-no questions are shown with a final particle ha
| Mon | ဗှေ် | စ | ပုၚ် | သ္ၚု | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | ɓè | ʃìa | pəng | toa | ya | ha? |
| Gloss | you | eat | rice | com | aff | q |
‘Have you eaten rice?’
| IPA | əha | a | ha? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gloss | father | go | q |
‘Will father go?’ (Pan Hla, p. 42)
Wh-questions show a different final particle, rau. The interrogative word does not undergo wh-movement. That is, it does not necessarily move to the front of the sentence:
| Mon | ကြာတ်ကြဴ | မူ | ရော | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Tala Ong | kratkraw | mu | ràu? |
| Gloss | Tala Ong | wash | what | wh:q |
'What did Tala Ong wash?'