Mon language

The Mon language (Mon: ဘာသာ မန်; Burmese: မွနဘ

် ာသာ) is an Austroasiatic
language spoken by the Mon people, who live in Myanmar. Mon, like the related
Mon
Khmer language, but unlike most languages in mainlandSoutheast Asia, is not tonal. ဘာသာ မန်
In recent years, usage of Mon has declined rapidly, especially among the younger Pronunciation [pʰesa mɑn]
generation.[4] Many ethnic Mon are monolingual in Burmese, and the language is Native to Mon state, Kayin
classified as "vulnerable" by UNESCO. The current number of speakers is State, Tanintharyi
approximately 800,000 in 2007. In Myanmar, the majority of speakers live in Mon Region
State, followed by Tanintharyi Region and Kayin State.[5] Region Irrawaddy Delta
and areas further
east
Ethnicity Mon
Contents
Native 851,000 (2007)[1]
History speakers
Dialects Language Austroasiatic
Alphabet family
Monic
Consonants
Vowels Mon
Main vowels and diphthongs Burmese script
Writing
Other vowels and diphthongs system
Punctuation
Official status
Phonology ဘာသာ မန်
Recognised Myanmar
Consonants minority
Vowels language in
Vocalic register Language codes
Syntax ISO 639-3 Either:
Verbs and verb phrases
mnw – Modern Mon
Nouns and noun phrases
omx – Old Mon
Singular and Plural
Adjectives Linguist List omx Old Mon
Demonstratives Glottolog monn1252
Classifiers Modern Mon[2]
Prepositions and prepositional phrases oldm1242
Sentences Old Mon[3]
Questions
Notes
Further reading
External links

History
Mon is an important language in Burmese history. Up until the 12th century, it was the lingua franca of the Irrawaddy valley—not
only in the Mon kingdoms of the lower Irrawaddy but also of the upriver Pagan Kingdom of the Bamar people. 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 Mon culture and the Mon language was patronized. The Mon script was adopted for Burmese
during his reign.
Kyanzittha left many inscriptions in Mon. During this period, theMyazedi inscription, which contains identical inscriptions of a story
in Pali, Pyu, Mon and Burmese on the four sides, was carved.[6]

However, after Kyansittha's death, usage of the Mon language declined among the Bamar and the Burmese language began to replace
Mon and Pyu as a lingua franca.[6]

Mon inscriptions from Dvaravati'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 kingdomslike Lavo were subservient to theKhmer Empire.

After the fall of Pagan, the Mon language again became the lingua franca of the Mon Hanthawaddy Kingdom (1287–1539) in
present-day Lower Burma. The language long continued to be prevalent in Lower Burma until the mid-19th century because the
region was still mainly populated by 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. Currently, according to scholars, the number of Mon speakers is relatively very small when
compared to the large numbers who identify themselves as Mon people. 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.

In 2013, it was announced that the Mawlamyine-based Thanlwin Times would begin to carry news in the Mon language, becoming
[7]
Myanmar's first Mon language publication since 1962.

Dialects
Mon has three primary dialects in Burma, coming from the various regions the Mon inhabit. They are the Central (areas surrounding
Mottama and Mawlamyine), Bago, and Ye dialects.[8] All are mutually intelligible. Thai Mon has some differences from the Burmese
dialects of Mon, but they are mutually intelligible.

Ethnologue lists Mon dialects as Martaban-Moulmein (Central Mon, Mon Te), Pegu (Mon Tang, Northern Mon), and Ye (Mon Nya,
Southern Mon), with high mutual intelligibility among them.

Alphabet

Consonants
The Old Mon script, which has been dated to the 6th century,[9] with the earliest inscriptions found in Nakhon Pathom and Saraburi
(in Thailand). It may be the ancestral script of the modern Mon (or Burma Mon) script although no one has shown a linkage between
the Old Mon script of Dvaravati and Burma Mon. The extant archaeological evidence shows that Burma Mon was derived from the
Burmese alphabet, not the other way around.[10] The modern Mon alphabet, however, utilizes several letters and diacritics that do not
.[11] (See Burmese script.)
exist in Burmese, such as the stacking diacritic for medial 'l', which is placed underneath the letter

There is a great deal of discrepancy between the written and spoken forms of Mon, with a single pronunciation capable of having
several spellings.[12] 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 a zero consonant), as follows, with consonants belonging to the breathy register
indicated in gray:[13][14]
 က ခ ဂ ဃ ၚ
k (/kaˀ/) kh (/kʰaˀ/) g (/kɛ̀ˀ/) gh (/kʰɛ̀ˀ/) ṅ (/ŋɛ̀ˀ/)

စ ဆ ဇ ၛ ဉ/ည
c (/caˀ/) ch (/cʰaˀ/) j (/cɛ̀ˀ/) jh (/cʰɛ̀ˀ/) ñ (/ɲɛ̀ˀ/)

ဋ ဌ ဍ ဎ ဏ
ṭ (/taˀ/) ṭh (/tʰaˀ/) ḍ (/ɗaˀ/) ḍh (/tʰɛ̀ˀ/) ṇ (/naˀ/)

တ ထ ဒ ဓ န
t (/taˀ/) th (/tʰaˀ/) d (/tɛ̀ˀ/) dh (/tʰɛ̀ˀ/) n (/nɛ̀ˀ/)

ပ ဖ ဗ ဘ မ
p (/paˀ/) ph (/pʰaˀ/) b (/pɛ̀ˀ/) bh (/pʰɛ̀ˀ/) m (/mɛ̀ˀ/)

ယ ရ လ ဝ သ
y (/jɛ̀ˀ/) r (/rɛ̀ˀ/) l (/lɛ̀ˀ/) w (/wɛ̀ˀ/) s (/saˀ/)

ဟ ဠ ၜ အ ၝ
h (/haˀ/) ḷ (/laˀ/) b (/ɓaˀ/) a (/ʔaˀ/) mb (/ɓɛ̀ˀ/)

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 /kɛ̀ˀ/, to accommodate the vowel complexity of the Mon phonology.[15] 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:

က+◌
ဳ → ကဳ, pronounced /kɔe/
ဂ+◌
ဳ → ဂဳ, pronounced /kì/
က + ◌→ က, pronounced /kao/
ဂ + ◌→ ဂ, pronounced /kù/

The Mon language has 8 medials, as follows:◌(/-ŋ-/), ◌

ၞ (/-n-/), ◌
ၟ (/-m-/), ◌ျ (/-j-/), ြ◌ (/-r-/), ◌
ၠ (/-l-/), ◌
ွ (/-w-/), and ◌
ှ (/-hn-/).

်), as in Burmese: however, instead of being pronounced as glottal stops as in

Consonantal finals are indicated with a virama (◌
Burmese, final consonants usually keep their respective pronunciations. Furthermore, consonant stacking is possible in Mon
spellings, particularly forPali and Sanskrit-derived vocabulary.

Vowels
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 ◌ ိ represents /ìˀ/.[16] Also, ဨ (/e/) is used instead of ဧ, as in
ဳ (/i/), since the diacritic ◌
Burmese.

Main vowels and diphthongs

 Initial or independent
diacritic Transcription and notes[17][18]
symbol

အ none, inherent
a or e - /a/, /ɛ̀/ after some consonants
vowel

အာ ◌ာ ā - spelled as ◌ါ to avoid confusion with certain letters

ဣ ိ ◌ i

ဣဳ ဳ ◌ ī or oe - /ì/, /ɔe/ after some consonants

ဥ ◌ u

ဥူ ◌ ū or ao - /ù/, /ao/ after some consonants

ဨ ေ◌ e

အဲ ဲ ◌ ai

o - spelled as ေ◌ါ to avoid confusion with certain

ေအာ ေ◌ာ
consonants.

အဴ ဴ ◌ āi/oi

အံ ံ ◌ òm

အး ◌း ah

Other vowels and diphthongs

Diacritic Transcription and notes[19][20]

ိ ◌ iu

◌ာံ āṃ

ံ ◌ uṃ

ေ◌ံ eṃ

ေ◌ာံ oṃ

ီ ◌ aṁ

ီ ◌ uṁ

◌ာဲ āai

ဲ ◌ uai

ေ◌ဲ eai

ေ◌ာဲ oai

◌ iuai

ဵ ◌ uew

Punctuation
၊ is used for a comma, and ။ is used for a period.
Phonology ဘာသာ မန်

Consonants

Bilabial Dental Palatal Velar Glottal

Stops p pʰ ɓ t tʰ ɗ c cʰ k kʰ ʔ

Fricatives s ç1 h

Nasals m n ɲ ŋ
Sonorants w l, r j

1/ç/ is only found in Burmese loans.

Vowels

Front Central Back

Close i u
Close-mid e ə o
Open-mid ɛ ɐ ɔ
Open æ a

Vocalic register
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:

1. Clear (modal) voice, analyzed by various linguists as ranging from ordinary to

creaky
2. Breathy voice, vowels have a distinct breathy quality
One study involving speakers of a Mon dialect in Thailand found that in some syllabic environments, words with a breathy voice
vowel are significantly lower in pitch than similar words with a clear vowel counterpart.[21] While difference in pitch in certain
environments was found to be significant, there are no minimal pairs that are distinguished solely by pitch. The contrastive
mechanism is the vowel phonation.

In the examples below, breathy voice is marked with a grave accent.

Syntax

Verbs and verb phrases

Mon verbs do not inflect for [Link] is shown through particles.

ə-/ prefix (Pan Hla 1989:29):

Some verbs have a morphological causative, which is most frequently a /p
 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

Nouns and noun phrases

Singular and Plural

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
Adjectives follow the noun (Pan Hla p. 24):

prɛa ce
woman beautiful
'beautiful woman'

Demonstratives
Demonstratives follow the noun:

ŋoa nɔʔ
day this
this day

Classifiers
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'

Prepositions and prepositional phrases

Mon is a prepositional language.

ɗoa əma
in lake
'in the lake'

Sentences
The ordinary word order for sentences in Mon is subject–verb–object, as in the following examples

Mon အဲ ရာန် သု တဲ ယျ
IPA ʔoa ran hau toa ya.
Gloss I buy rice completive affirmative
'I bought rice.'

Mon ညး တံ ေဗာန် ကဵ အဲ ဘာသာ အဂလိက်

IPA Nyeh tɔʔ paton kɒ ʔua pàsa ʔengloit
Gloss 3rd plur teach to 1st language English
'They taught me English.'

Questions
Yes-no questions are shown with a final particleha

Mon ေဗှ် စ ပင် တဲ ယျ ဟာ

IPA ɓè shea pəng toa ya har?
Gloss you eat rice com aff q
‘Have you eaten rice?’

Mon အပါ အာ ဟာ
IPA əpa 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 တၠ အဲ ကာတ် ကဴ မ ေရာ

IPA Tala oa kratkraw mu raw?
Gloss You wash what wh:q
'What did you wash?'
Notes
1. Modern Mon ([Link] at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Old Mon ([Link] at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017)."Modern Mon" ([Link]
languoid/id/monn1252). Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
.
3. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Old Mon" ([Link]
uoid/id/oldm1242). Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History .
4. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (2005). "Mon: A language of Myanmar"([Link]
ode=mnw). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition
. SIL International. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
5. "The Mon Language" ([Link] .[Link]/mon__language.htm).
Monland Restoration Council. Archived fromthe original ([Link] on 2006-06-
22.
6. Strachan, Paul (1990).Imperial Pagan: Art and Architecture of Burma
. University of Hawaii Press. p. 66. ISBN 0-
8248-1325-1.
7. Kun Chan (2013-02-13)."First Mon language newspaper in 50 years to be published"([Link]
news/inside-burma/[Link]). Retrieved 2013-02-16.
8. South, Ashley (2003). Mon Nationalism and Civil War in Burma: The Golden Sheldrake. Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-
1609-2.
9. Bauer, Christian (1991). "Notes on Mon Epigraphy". Journal of the Siam Society. 79 (1): 35.
10. Aung-Thwin 2005: 177–178
11. "Proposal for encoding characters for Myanmar minority languages in the UCS" ([Link]
23083627/[Link] (PDF). International Organization for
Standardization. 2006-04-02. Archived fromthe original ([Link]
pdf) (PDF) on 2006-07-23. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
12. Jenny, Mathias (2001). "A Short Introduction to the Mon Language"([Link]
s/mon_language_intro1.pdf)(PDF). Mon Culture and Literature Survival Project (MCL).
13. Dho-ong Jhaan (2010-05-09)."Mon Consonants Characters"([Link]
ts-Characters). Retrieved 12 September 2010.
14. Dho-ong Jhaan (2009-10-01)."Romanization for Mon Script by Transliteration Method" ([Link]
20473584/Romanization-for-Mon-Script-by-T
ransliteration-Method). Retrieved 12 September 2010.
15. "Mon". Concise encyclopedia of languages of the world
. Elsevier. 2009. pp. 719–20. ISBN 978-0-08-087774-7.
16. Dho-ong Jhaan (2010-05-10)."Mon Vowels Characters" ([Link]
ters). Retrieved 12 September 2010.
17. Omniglot ([Link]
18. Dho-ong Jhaan (2010-05-10)."Mon Vowels Characters" ([Link]
ters). Retrieved 12 September 2010.
19. Omniglot ([Link]
20. Dho-ong Jhaan (2010-05-10)."Mon Vowels Characters" ([Link]
ters). Retrieved 12 September 2010.
21. Thongkum, Theraphan L. 1988. The interaction between pitch and phonation type in Mon: phonetic implications for a
theory of tonogenesis. Mon-Khmer Studies 16-17:11-24.

Further reading
Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005).The mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma(illustrated ed.). Honolulu:
University of Hawai'i [Link] 9780824828868.
Bauer, Christian. 1982. Morphology and syntax of spoken Mon. Ph.D. thesis, University of London (SOAS).
Bauer, Christian. 1984. A guide to Mon studies. Working Papers, Monash U.
Bauer, Christian. 1986. The verb in spoken Mon. Mon–Khmer Studies 15.
 Bauer, Christian. 1986. Questions in Mon: Addenda and Corrigenda. Linguistics of the T
ibeto-Burman Area v. 9, no.
1, pp. 22–26.
Diffloth, Gerard. 1984. The Dvarati Old Mon anguage
l and Nyah Kur. Monic Language Studies I, Chulalongkorn
University, Bangkok. ISBN 974-563-783-1
Diffloth, Gerard. 1985. The registers of Mon vs. the spectrographist's tones. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics
60:55-58.
Ferlus, Michel. 1984. Essai de phonetique historique du môn. Mon–Khmer Studies, 9:1-90.
Guillon, Emmanuel. 1976. Some aspects of Mon syntax. in Jenner
, Thompson, and Starosta, eds. Austroasiatic
Studies. Oceanic linguistics special publication no. 13.
Halliday, Robert. 1922. A Mon–English dictionary. Bangkok: Siam society.
Haswell, James M. 1874. Grammatical notes and vocabulary of the Peguan language. Rangoon: American Baptist
Mission Press.[1]
Huffman, Franklin. 1987–1988. Burmese Mon, Thai Mon, and Nyah Kur: a synchronic comparison. Mon–Khmer
Studies 16-17.
Jenny, Mathias. 2005. The Verb System of Mon. Arbeiten des Seminars für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft der
Universität Zürich, Nr 19. Zürich: Universität Zü[Link] 3-9522954-1-8
Lee, Thomas. 1983. An acoustical study of the register distinction in Mon. UCLA W
orking Papers in Phonetics 57:79-
96.
Pan Hla, Nai. 1986. Remnant of a lost nation and their cognate words to Old Mon Epigraph. Journal of the Siam
Society 7:122-155
Pan Hla, Nai. 1989. An introduction to Mon language Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
.
Pan Hla, Nai. 1992. The Significant Role of the Mon Language and Culture in Southeast [Link],
T Japan: Institute
for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa.
Shorto, H.L. 1962. A dictionary of modern spoken Mon. Oxford University Press.
Shorto, H.L.; Judith M. Jacob; and E.H.S. Simonds. 1963. Bibliographies of Mon–Khmer andaiTlinguistics. Oxford
University Press.
Shorto, H.L. 1966. Mon vowel systems: a problem in phonological statement. in Bazell, Catford, Halliday
, and
Robins, eds. In memory of J.R. Firth, pp. 398–409.
Shorto, H.L. 1971. A dictionary of the Mon inscriptions from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries. Oxford University
Press.
Thongkum, Therapan L. 1987. Another look at the register distinction in Mon. UCLA o
Wrking Papers in Phonetics.
67:132-165

External links
A hypertext grammar of the Mon language
SEAlang Project: Mon–Khmer languages: The Monic Branch
Old Mon inscriptions
Mon-language Swadesh vocabulary list of basic words(from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
Mon Language Project
Mon Language in Thailand: The endangered heritage
"Monic". Archived from the original (lecture) on 2007-09-15. Retrieved 2007-09-21.

Retrieved from "[Link]

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