ကညီကျိာ်

Sgaw Karen

Sino-Tibetan (Karenic)

FamilySino-Tibetan (Karenic) Speakers~1.5M ScriptKaren script (modified Burmese) CountriesMyanmar, Thailand Official inKaren State (Myanmar) Vitalitysafe ISO 639-3ksw

Sgaw Karen is the largest Karen language. The Karen script is a modified version of Burmese script developed by missionaries. Karen languages have an unusual SVO order despite being part of the otherwise SOV Tibeto-Burman family.

Where it is spoken

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87 core words in Sgaw Karen

Water

ထံ

tʰi

Fire

မ့ၣ်

mèʔ

Sun

မုၢ်

mɨ˧˩

Moon

လါ

la

Star

ဆၣ်

sʰâˀ

Night

မုၢ်နၤ

mu˧na˧

Rain

တၢ်စူၤ

tasu

Snow

မူခိၣ်ဖီ

mukʰopʰɔ

Wind

ကလံၤ

kali

Earth

ဟီၣ်ခိၣ်

hɔkʰo

Stone

လၢၢ်

lɛ

Mountain

ကစၢၢ်

ka̰sɛ̀

Sea

ပီၣ်လဲၣ်

pɔ̀lɛ̀

Mother

မိၢ်

mo

Father

ပၢ်

pa

Daughter

ဖိမုၣ်

pʰo˥mṵ

I

ယၤ

jā

You

နၤ

na̤˨˩

We

ပှၤ

pɣa˨˩

Name

မံၤ

mĩ˧

Person

ပှၤ

pɣa

Head

ခိၣ်

kʰo

Eye

မဲာ်ချံ

mɛ tʃʰa

Ear

နၢ်

na

Nose

နါဒ့

nade

Mouth

ထးခိၣ်

tʰakʰo

Tooth

မဲ

mɛ́

Tongue

ပျ့ၤ

ple̤˧˧

Hand

စု

su

Foot

ခီၣ်

kʰɔ́ˀ

Heart

သး

θa

Bone

တၢ်ဃံ

tâxi

Blood

သွံၣ်

θwi˥

Poop

အ့ၣ်

ʔe

Love

အဲၣ်

ʔɛ

Tree

သ့ၣ်

θêˀ

Dog

ထွံၣ်

tʰwi˥˨ˀ

Cat

သိမံၣ်

θomi

Fish

ညၣ်

ɲaʔ

Bird

ထိၣ်

tʰo

Butterfly

ဆီကပ့ၤ

so̰ka̰pè

Egg

ဒံၣ်

di

Horse

ကသ့ၣ်

kaθe

House

ဟံၣ်

hi

Milk

တၢ်နုၢ်ထံ

tanutʰi

Honey

ကနဲစီ

kanɛsɔ

Salt

အံသၣ်

ʔiθa

Rice

ဟု

hu

Chocolate

ခၠီကလဲး

tɕʰɔ̰ka̰lɛʔ

Iron

ထး

tʰa

Wheel

လ့ၣ်ဖံဘၣ်

lepʰiba

Silk

သတိၢ်

θato

Book

လံာ်

li

Eat

အီၣ်

ʔɔ˨˩ˀ

Drink

အီ

ʔɔ˧˧

Sleep

မံ

mi

One

တ

tə̄

Two

ခံ

kʰiː˧

Three

သၢ

θə˧˧

Four

လွံၢ်

lwi

Five

ယဲၢ်

jɛ

Hundred

တကယၤ

takaja

Hello

ဘၣ်တၢ်ဆၢ

ba ta sa

Thank you

တၢ်ဘျုး

ta bju

Good

ဂ့ၤ

ɣɛ

New

သီ

θɔ

Red

ဂီၤ

ɣɔ

White

ဝါ

wa

Black

သူ

θu

Green

လါဟ့

lahe

Cuckoo

ထိၣ်မိၢ်ဧူ

tʰò mò ʔù

Sugar

အံသၣ်ဆၢ

ʔíθàsʰɛ́

Ninety-nine

ခွံဆံခွံ

kʰwi sʰi kʰwi

Sources

Words compared

Compared with languages in the same classification: Sino-Tibetan (Karenic)

Meaning Sgaw KarenWestern Pwo KarenPwo KarenPa'OTshanglaTibetanLisu
Water ထံ /tʰi/ ထံၫ /tʰi/ ထီ့ /tʰî/ ထီ /tʰi̤˧˩/ ri /ɾi/ ཆུ /tɕʰu˥/ yi /ji/
Fire မ့ၣ် /mèʔ/ မ့ၪ /mɪ/ မ့ၣ် /mɪ́/ မေႏ /me˥˥/ mi /mi/ མེ /me˩˧/ a-to /ɑ˥˥to˥˥/
Sun မုၢ် /mɨ˧˩/ မုၢ် /mə/ မုန် /mu˧/ မွူး /mɨ˥˧/ ngam /ŋam/ ཉི་མ /ɲima/ mei-lo /mejlo/
Moon လါ /la/ လၩ /la/ လာ /là/ လာ /la̤˧˩/ lanyingam /laɲiŋam/ ཟླ་བ /tawa˩˧/ ha-ba /haba/
Star ဆၣ် /sʰâˀ/ ၡၪ /ɕa/ ယှး /ʃá/ ဆာႏ /cʰa˥˥/ karma /kaɾma/ སྐར་མ /karma˥/ akw /a˧˧ kwɿ˧˧/
Night မုၢ်နၤ /mu˧na˧/ နၤ /na/ နၤ /na˧/ — /—/ binang /binaŋ/ མཚན་མོ /tsʰɛ̃˥mo˥/ sakhua /sa˦˦kʰua˧˧/
Rain တၢ်စူၤ /tasu/ ဆၧဆၧၩ့ /sʰə sʰəɴ/ — ခမ်း /kʰam˥˧/ ngamsu /ŋamsu/ ཆར་པ /tɕʰaː˥pa˥/ muha /mɯ˧˩hɑ˧˧/
Snow မူခိၣ်ဖီ /mukʰopʰɔ/ မူၭခိၪဖီၫ /mouʔ kʰo pʰau/ — — /—/ phom /pʰom/ ཁ་བ /kʰawa˥/ wa /wɑ˧˩/
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