Intha-Danu
Pronunciationdənuʔ
Native toBurma
RegionInle Lake, Shan State
EthnicityIntha, Danu
Native speakers
ca. 200,000 (2000–2007)[1]
Dialects
  • Danu
  • Intha
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
dnv – Danu
int – Intha
Glottologinth1238

Intha and Danu are southern Burmish languages of Shan State, Burma, spoken respectively by the Intha and Danu people, the latter of whom are Bamar descendants who migrated to Inle Lake in Shan State. Considered to be dialects of Burmese by the Government of Myanmar, Danu has 93% lexical similarity with standard Burmese, while Intha has 95% lexical similarity with standard Burmese.[2] Intha and Danu differ from standard Burmese with respect to pronunciation of certain phonemes, and few hundred local vocabulary terms.[3] Language contact has led to increasing convergence with standard Burmese.[3] Both are spoken by about 100,000 people each.[1]

Phonology

Both Danu and Intha are characterized by retention of the /-l-/ medial (for the following consonant clusters in Intha: /kl- kʰl- pl- pʰl- ml- hml-/). Examples include:*"full": Standard Burmese ပြည့် ([pjḛ]) → ပ္လည့် ([plḛ]), from old Burmese ပ္လည်

There is no voicing with the presence of either aspirated or unaspirated consonants. For instance, ဗုဒ္ဓ (Buddha) is pronounced [boʊʔda̰] in standard Burmese, but [poʊʔtʰa̰] in Intha. This is likely due to the influence of the Shan language.

Furthermore, သ (/θ/ in standard Burmese) has merged to /sʰ/ (ဆ) in Intha.

Rhymes

Rhyme correspondences to standard Burmese follow these patterns:[4]

Written Burmese Standard Burmese Intha Notes
-ျင် -င် /-ɪɴ/ /-ɛɴ/
-ဉ် /-ɪɴ/ /-ɪɴ/
ိမ် -ိန် ိုင် /-eɪɴ -eɪɴ -aɪɴ/ /-eɪɴ/
-ျက် -က် /-jɛʔ -ɛʔ/ /-aʔ/
-တ် -ပ် /-aʔ/ /-ɛʔ/
-ည် /-ɛ, -e, -i/ /-e/ /-i/ if initial is a palatal consonant
ိတ် ိပ် ိုက် /-eɪʔ -eɪʔ -aɪʔ/ /-aɪʔ/
Rhymes
Open syllables weak = ə
full = i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u
Closed nasal = ɪɴ, eɪɴ, ɛɴ, aɴ, ɔɴ, oʊɴ, ʊɴ
stop = ɪʔ, aɪʔ, ɛʔ, aʔ, ɔʔ, oʊʔ, ʊʔ

Vocabulary

Danu has noticeable vocabulary differences from standard Burmese, spanning areas such as kinship terms, food, flora and fauna, and daily objects.[5] For example, the Danu term for 'cat' is mi-nyaw (မိညော်), not kyaung (ကြောင်) as in standard Burmese.[5]

Kinship terms

Term Standard Burmese Danu
Father အဖေ အဘ
Grandfather အဘိုး ဘကြီး
Grandmother အဘွား မေကြီး
Mother အမေ အမေ
Stepmother မိထွေး အဒေါ်
Elder brother အစ်ကို ကိုရင်
Elder sister အစ်မ မမ
Brother-in-law[6] ခဲအို အနောင်
Uncle ဦးလေး အမင်း

Script

Danu and Intha are written using the Burmese alphabet.

Between 2013 and 2014, the Taunggyi branch of the Danu Literature and Culture Committee invented a new alphabet to transcribe the Danu language, taking inspiration from both the Pyu and Burmese scripts found on stone inscriptions.[7] Within the Danu Self-Administered Zone (SAZ), adoption of this script remains divisive, with other township branches of the committee and politicians firmly opposed to its usage, arguing that the need for a specific Danu script is unjustified since Danu is a Burmese dialect.[7][3] The script is currently not accepted by the Danu SAZ's administration.[3] These recent developments have also prompted some actors in the Intha community to invent their own scripts.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b Danu at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018) Closed access icon
    Intha at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Myanmar - Languages" (PDF). Ethnologue. 2016-07-24.
  3. ^ a b c d e Salem-Gervais, Nicolas; Raynaud, Mael (2020). Teaching ethnic minority languages in government schools and developing the local curriculum: Elements of decentralization in language-in-education policy (PDF). Yangon: Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung. pp. 144–146. ISBN 978-99971-0-558-5.
  4. ^ Barron, Sandy; John Okell; Saw Myat Yin; Kenneth VanBik; Arthur Swain; Emma Larkin; Anna J. Allott; Kirsten Ewers (2007). Refugees From Burma: Their Backgrounds and Refugee Experiences (PDF) (Report). Center for Applied Linguistics. pp. 16–17. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2010-08-20.
  5. ^ a b ခင်စန္ဒာတိုး (2018). "နောင်ချိုဒေသရှိ ဓနုဒေသိယစကားမှ နေ့စဉ်သုံးစကားများလေ့လာချက်" (PDF). Journal of the Myanmar Academy of Arts and Science (in Burmese). XVI (6B).
  6. ^ Elder sister's husband, or husband's elder brother
  7. ^ a b "Teaching Ethnic Languages, Cultures and Histories in Government Schools today: Great Opportunities, Giant Pitfalls? (Part II)". Tea Circle. 2018-10-02. Retrieved 2023-04-01.
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