S'gaw Karen alphabet

The S'gaw Karen alphabet (S'gaw Karen: ကညီလံာ်ခီၣ်ထံး) is an abugida used for writing Karen. It was derived from the Burmese script in the early 19th century, and ultimately from either the Kadamba or Pallava alphabet of South India. The S'gaw Karen alphabet is also used for the liturgical languages of Pali and Sanskrit.

S'gaw Karen ကညီလံာ်ခီၣ်ထံး
Script type	Abugida
Time period	1830–present
Languages	S'gaw Karen language ksw
Related scripts
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Brahmi script Pallava script Mon-Burmese S'gaw Karen
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mymr (350), ​Myanmar (Burmese)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Myanmar
Unicode range	Myanmar-Karen-Sgaw
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Alphabet

The Karen alphabet was created by American missionary Jonathan Wade in the 1830s, based on the S'gaw Karen language; Wade was assisted by a Karen named Paulah.^[1] The consonants and most of the vowels are adopted from the Burmese alphabet; however, the Karen pronunciation of the letters is slightly different from that of the Burmese alphabet. Since Karen has more tones than Burmese, additional tonal markers were added.^[2]

The script is taught in the refugee camps in Thailand and in Kayin State.^[3]

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)

Vowels

ါ ah (a)	ံ ee (i)	ၢ uh (ɤ)	ု u (ɯ)	ူ oo (u)	့ ae or ay (e)	ဲ eh (æ)	ိ oh (o)	ီ aw (ɔ)

Tones	S'gaw Karen
rising	ၢ်
falling	ာ်
mid	း
high	ၣ်
low	ၤ

Medials	S'gaw Karen
ှ (hg)	ဟ
ၠ (y)	ယ
ြ (r)	ရ
ျ (l)	လ
ွ (w)	ဝ

Numerals

Arabic numerals	S'gaw Karen
	Numerals	Written	IPA	Pronounce
0	๐	ဝး	wa	wah
1	၁	တၢ	tɤ	tuh
2	၂	ခံ	kʰi	khee
3	၃	သၢ	θɤ	thuh
4	၄	လွံၢ်	lwi	lwee
5	၅	ယဲၢ်	wæ	yeh
6	၆	ဃု	xɯ	hku
7	၇	နွံ	nwi	nwee
8	၈	ဃိး	xo	hkaw
9	၉	ခွံ	kʰ i	kwee
10	၁၀	တၢဆံ	tsʰi	tsee

The number 1962 would be written as ၁၉၆၂.

References

Citations

1. Lieberman 2003, p. 136.
2. Asher & Simpson 1994, p. 1836.
3. Duran 2017, p. 51.

Bibliography

• Asher, R. E.; Simpson, J M. Y. (1994). The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Vol. 4. ISBN 978-0-08035-943-4.
• Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005). The mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma (illustrated ed.). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-82482-886-8.
• Bauer, Christian (1991). "Notes on Mon Epigraphy". Journal of the Siam Society. 79 (1): 35.
• Duran, Chatwara Suwannamai (2017). Language and Literacy in Refugee Families. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-13758-756-5.
• Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7.
• Stadtner, Donald M. (2008). "The Mon of Lower Burma". Journal of the Siam Society. 96: 198.
• Sawada, Hideo (2013). "Some Properties of Burmese Script" (PDF).
• Jenny, Mathias (2015). "Foreign Influence in the Burmese Language" (PDF).
• Wade, J. (1849). A Vocabulary of the Sgau Karen Language. Tavoy: Karen Mission Press.