Various divergent dialects are sometimes seen as separate languages: Paku in the northeast, Mopwa (Mobwa) in the northwest, Wewew, and Monnepwa.[3]
History
The S’gaw, commonly known as the Karen language belongs to the Karenic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The S'gaw language has been used as the official language in the Kayin State of Myanmar and of the Karen National Union (KNU) organization who have waged a war against the Burmese government since early 1949. A Bible translation was published in 1853.
S'gaw is spoken in Ayeyarwady delta area, in the Ayeyarwady, Bago, Kayin, and Rangon Regions. S’gaw speakers are frequently interspersed with Pwo Karen speakers.
Mobwa is spoken in 9 villages at the western foot of the Thandaung Mountains in Thandaung township, Kayin State.[4] There are also some in Taungoo township, Bago Region.
Mobwa dialects are Palaychi (Southern Mobwa) and Dermuha (Southern Mobwa).
The S'gaw Karen language has at least 3 dialects. They are mutually intelligible to each other; however, there may be words that sound unfamiliar to one another.
Northern dialect – also known as southern dialect of Kayah State is the S'gaw dialect that does not have the th sound in their language or dialect. They replace the southern and eastern dialects th with s. For example: while the southern and eastern would say moe tha boe, the northern dialect would say moe sa boe. This dialect used the Roman alphabet for their writing system.
Southern dialect and Eastern (Pa'an) dialect – these two dialects are very similar but there may be words that each may not understand due to regional location which allowed the dialects to grow apart. These two dialects use the Myanmar script as their writing system.
There are also different accents in the Karen language.
Phonology
The following displays the phonological features of present S'gaw Karen:[7]
The Karen alphabet consist of 25 consonants, 9 vowels, 5 tones and 5 medials. The Karen alphabet was derived from the Burmese script as created by the help of the English missionaries around the early 1860s.[citation needed] The Karen alphabet was created for the purpose of translating the Bible into the Karen language. Karen script is written from left to right and requires no spaces between words, although modern writing usually contains spaces after each clause to enhance readability.
Grouped consonants
က k (kaˀ)
ခ kh (kʰaˀ)
ဂ gh (ɣ)
ဃ x (x)
င ng (ŋ)
စ s (s)
ဆ hs (sʰ)
ၡ sh (ʃ)
ည ny (ɲ)
တ t (t)
ထ hṭ (tʰ)
ဒ d (d)
န n (n)
ပ p (p)
ဖ hp (pʰ)
ဘ b (b)
မ m (m)
Miscellaneous consonants
ယ y (ʝ)
ရ r (r)
လ l (l)
ဝ w (w)
သ th (θ)
ဟ h (h)
အ vowel holder (ʔ)
ဧ ahh (ɦ)
က has a sound intermediate between k and g; as in g for good
ခ is the aspirate of က. It is pronounced like kh as heard in the word camp.
Vowels can never stand alone and if a word starts with a vowel syllable, use the vowel carrier "အ" which is silent in order to write words that start with vowel.
Vowels
ါ ah (a)
ံ ee (i)
ၢ uh (ɨ)
ု u (ɯ)
ူ oo (u)
့ ae or ay (e)
ဲ eh (ɛ)
ိ oh (o)
ီ aw (ɔ)
အ – a in quota
အါ – a in bad
အံ – i in mean
အၢ – German ö in Göthe
အု – German ü in Glück and Korean Hangul character "ㅡ"
အူ – u in rule, oo in moon
အ့ – a in rate
အဲ – e in met
အိ – o in note
အီ – aw in raw
Tones
In Shraw Karen, every syllable consists of a vowel, either alone, or preceded by a single or double consonant. A syllable always ends in a vowel. Every syllable may be pronounced in six different tones of voice, the meaning varying according to the tone in which it is pronounced.
Tones
Description
ၢ်(အၢသံ)
is pronounced with a heavy falling inflection
ာ်(အးသံ)
is pronounced abruptly, at a low pitch
း(ဖျၢၣ်ဆံး)
is pronounced abruptly at an ordinary pitch
ၣ်(ဟးသံ)
is pronounced with a falling circumflex inflection
ၤ(က့ၣ်ဖိ)
is pronounced with a prolonged
even tone
Where no tone is marked, the syllable is pronounced with a rising inflection.
Double consonants
When one consonant follows another with no vowel sound intervening, the second consonant is represented by a symbol,
which is joined to the character representing the first consonant.
Medials
S'gaw Karen
ှ (hg)
ဂ
ၠ (y)
ယ
ြ (r)
ရ
ျ (l)
လ
ွ (w)
ဝ
The examples of writing the Karen alphabet are:
ခ + ံ → ခံ, pronounced /ki/
လ + ံ + း → လံး, pronounced /li/
က + ၠ +ိ → ကၠိ, pronounced /kʝo/
က + ျ +ိ + ၣ် → ကျိၣ်, pronounced /klo/
Tones
Ken Manson (2009) proposed a Karen tone box to help understand Karenic tonal diversity and classify Karenic languages.[8] It is similar to William Gedney's Tai tone box (see Proto-Tai language#Tones). The tone box contains diagnostic words for use during field elicitation.