| Palaung | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Burma, China, Thailand |
| Ethnicity | Palaung |
| Native speakers | unknown (ca. 560,000 cited 1982–2000) |
| Language family |
Austro-Asiatic
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | variously: ktv – Shwe kuf – Ruching ktv – Rumai |
Palaung is a Mon–Khmer language, or actually a dialect cluster, spoken by over half a million people in Burma and neighboring countries. There are three distinct varieties, Shwe (Gold Palaung, De'ang), Ruching (Pale, Silver Palaung), and Rumai, each with their own dialects. A total number of speakers is uncertain; there were 150,000 Shwe speakers in 1982, 272,000 Ruching speakers in 2000, and 139,000 Rumai speakers at an unrecorded date (Ethnologue).