Rakhine
Arakanese
ရက္ခိုင်ဘာသာ
PronunciationIPA: [ɹəkʰàɪɴbàθà]
Native toMyanmar, Bangladesh, India
Region
EthnicityRakhine, Kamein
Native speakers
1 million (2011–2013)[1]
1 million second language speakers in Myanmar (2013)
Dialects
Burmese script
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
rki – Rakhine ("Arakanese")
rmz – Marma ("Burmese")
Glottologarak1255
Rakhine State shown within Myanmar

Rakhine (/rəˈkaɪn/; Burmese: ရခိုင်ဘာသာ, MLCTS: ra.hkuing bhasa [ɹəkʰàɪɴ bàθà]), also known as Arakanese, is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in western Myanmar, primarily in the Rakhine State. Closely related to Burmese, the language is spoken by the Rakhine and Marma peoples; it is estimated to have around one million native speakers and it is spoken as a second language by a further million.

Though Arakanese has some similarity with standard Burmese, Burmese find it difficult to communicate with Arakanese. Thus, it is often considered to be a dialect or variety of Burmese. As there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Arakanese.[2] There are three dialects of Arakanese: Sittwe–Marma (about two thirds of speakers), Ramree, and Thandwe.[3]

Vocabulary

While Arakanese and Standard Burmese share the majority of lexicon, Arakanese has numerous vocabulary differences. Some are native words with no cognates in Standard Burmese, like 'sarong' (လုံခြည် in Standard Burmese, ဒယော in Arakanese). Others are loan words from Bengali, English, and Hindi, not found in Standard Burmese. An example is 'hospital', which is called ဆေးရုံ in Standard Burmese, but is called သိပ်လှိုင် (pronounced [θeɪʔ l̥àɪɴ]/[ʃeɪʔ l̥àɪɴ]) in Arakanese, from English sick lines. Other words simply have different meanings (e.g., 'afternoon', ညစ in Arakanese and ညနေ in Standard Burmese). Moreover, some archaic words in Standard Burmese are preferred in Arakanese. An example is the first person pronoun, which is အကျွန် in Arakanese (not ကျွန်တော်, as in Standard Burmese). Unique Difference is Hra sound which is not found in Burmese: only in Arakanese. eg. ဟြာ(Hra/Seek) and Hraa(ဟြား/very good/smart).

Comparison

A gloss of vocabulary differences between Standard Burmese and Arakanese is below:[4]

English Standard Burmese Arakanese Notes
thirstyရေဆာရီမွတ်
goသွားလားArakanese for 'go' was historically used in Standard Burmese.
kick a ballဘောလုံးကန်ဘောလုံးကျောက်
stomach acheဗိုက်နာဝမ်းနာArakanese prefers ဝမ်း to Standard Burmese ဗိုက် for 'stomach'.
guavaမာလကာသီးဂိုယံသီးStandard Burmese for 'guava' is derived from the word Malacca, whereas Arakanese for 'guava' is from Spanish guayaba, from Taino: guayaba.
papayaသင်္ဘောသီးပဒကာသီးStandard Burmese for 'papaya' literally means 'boat'.
soapဆပ်ပြာသူပုန်From Portuguese "sabão". In Standard Burmese, 'သူပုန်' means 'rebel' or 'insurgent'.
superficialအပေါ်ယံအထက်ပေါ်ရီ[5]
blanketစောင်ပုဆိုး[5]ပုဆိုး in Standard Burmese refers to the men's longyi (sarong).
darkမှောင်မိုက်The compound word မှောင်မိုက် ('pitch dark') is used in both Standard Burmese and Arakanese.
pick a flowerပန်းခူးပန်းဆွတ်[5]The compound word ဆွတ်ခူး ('pick') is used in both Standard Burmese and Arakanese.
wash [clothes]လျှော်ဖွပ်[5]The compound word လျှော်ဖွပ် ('wash') is used in both Standard Burmese and Arakanese.

Phonology

The phonological system described here is the inventory of sounds, represented using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Consonants

The consonants of Arakanese are:

Consonant phonemes
Bilabial Dental/Alveolar Post-al./
Palatal		 Velar Glottal
central sibilant
Nasal voiced m n ɲ ŋ
voiceless m̥ n̥ ɲ̊ ŋ̊
Plosive voiced b d dʒ ɡ
plain p t tʃ k ʔ
aspirated pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʰ
Fricative voiced z
voiceless θ s ʃ h
aspirated sʰ
Lateral voiced l
voiceless l̥
Approximant voiced ɹ j w
voiceless ɹ̥ ʍ

Arakanese largely shares the same set of consonant phonemes as standard Burmese, though Arakanese more prominently uses /ɹ/, which has largely merged to /j/ in standard Burmese (with some exceptions). Because Arakanese has preserved the /ɹ/ sound, the /-ɹ-/ medial (which is preserved in writing in Standard Burmese with the diacritic ြ) is still distinguished in the following Arakanese consonant clusters: /ɡɹ- kɹ- kʰɹ- ŋɹ- pɹ- pʰɹ- bɹ- mɹ- m̥ɹ- hɹ-/. For example, the word "blue," spelt ပြာ, is pronounced /pjà/ in standard Burmese, but pronounced /pɹà/ in Arakanese. Moreover, there is less voicing in Arakanese than in Standard Burmese, occurring only when the consonant is unaspirated.[6] Unlike in Burmese, voicing never shifts from [θ] to [ð].[7]

Vowels

The vowels of Arakanese are:

Monophthongs Diphthongs
Front Central Back Front offglide Back offglide
Close i u
Close-mid e ə o ei ou
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open a ai au

While Arakanese shares the same set of vowels as Burmese, Arakanese rhymes also diverge from Standard Burmese for a number of open syllables and closed syllables. For instance, Arakanese has also merged various vowel sounds, such as ဧ ([e]) to ဣ ([i]). Hence, a word like 'blood', which is spelt သွေး, pronounced ([θwé]) in standard Burmese, is pronounced [θwí] in Arakanese. Similarly, Arakanese has a number of closed syllable rhymes that do not exist in Standard Burmese, including /-ɛɴ -ɔɴ -ɛʔ -ɔʔ/.

The Arakanese dialect also has a higher frequency of open vowels weakening to /ə/ than Standard Burmese. An example is the word for 'salary', (လခ), which is [la̰ɡa̰] in standard Burmese, but [ləkha̰] in Arakanese.

Differences from standard Burmese

The following is a summary of consonantal, vowel and rhyme differences from Standard Burmese found in the Arakanese dialect:[8][9]

Written BurmeseStandard BurmeseArakaneseNotes
-စ်/-ɪʔ//-aɪʔ/e.g. စစ် 'genuine' and စိုက် 'plant' are both pronounced [saɪʔ] in Arakanese
ိုက်/-aɪʔ/
-က်-ɛʔ-ɔʔ
-ဉ်/-ɪɴ//-aɪɴ/e.g. ဥယျာဉ် 'garden', from Standard Burmese [ṵ jɪ̀ɴ] → [wəjàɪɴ].
Irregular rhyme, with various pronunciations.
In some words, it is /-ɛɴ/ (e.g. ဝိညာဉ် 'soul', from Standard Burmese [wèɪɴ ɲɪ̀ɴ] → [wḭ ɲɛ̀ɴ]).
In a few words, it is /-i -e/ (e.g. ညှဉ်း 'to oppress', from Standard Burmese [ɲ̥ɪ́ɴ] → [ɲ̥í, ɲ̥é]).
ိုင်/-aɪɴ/
-င်/-ɪɴ//-ɔɴ/
-န် ွန်/-aɴ -ʊɴ/ွန် is /-wɔɴ/
-ည်/-i, -e, -ɛ//-e/A few exceptions are pronounced /-aɪɴ/, like ကြည် 'clear', pronounced [kɹàɪɴ]
-ေ/-e//-i/e.g. ချီ 'carry' and ချေ 'cancel' are pronounced [tɕʰì] and [tɕʰè] respectively in Standard Burmese, but merged to [tɕʰì] in Arakanese
-တ် ွတ်/-aʔ -ʊʔ//-aʔ/
ိန်/-eɪɴ//-ɪɴ/
-ုန်/-oʊɴ//-ʊɴ/
Nasal initial + -ီ
Nasal initial + -ေ		/-i//-eɪɴ/e.g. နီ 'red' is [nì] in Standard Burmese, but [nèɪɴ] in Arakanese
In some words, the rhyme is unchanged from the standard rhyme (e.g. မြေ 'land', usually pronounced [mɹì], not [mɹèɪɴ], or အမိ 'mother', usually pronounced [əmḭ], not [əmḛɪɴ]
There are few exceptions where the nasal rhyme is /-eɪɴ-/ even without a nasal initial (e.g. သီ 'thread', from Standard Burmese [θì] → [θèɪɴ]).
Nasal initial + -ု -ူ -ူး/-u//-oʊɴ/e.g. နု 'tender' is [nṵ] in Standard Burmese, but [no̰ʊɴ] in Arakanese
ွား/-wá//-ɔ́/e.g. ဝါး 'bamboo' is [wá] in Standard Burmese, but [wɔ́] in Arakanese
ြွ/-w-//-ɹw-/Occurs in some words (e.g. မြွေ 'snake' is [mwè] in Standard Burmese, but [mɹwèɪɴ] in Arakanese)
ရှ-/ʃ-//hɹ-/
ချ-/tɕʰ-//ʃ-/Occasionally occurs (e.g. ချင် 'to want' is [tɕʰɪ̀ɴ] in Standard Burmese, but [ʃɔ̀ɴ]~[tɕʰɔ̀ɴ] in Arakanese)
တ- → ရ-/t- d-//ɹ-/e.g. The present tense particle တယ် ([dɛ̀]) corresponds with ရယ် ([ɹɛ̀]) in Arakanese

e.g. The plural particle တို့ ([do̰]) corresponds with ရို့ ([ɹo̰]) in Arakanese

ရှ- ယှ- ယျှ-/ʃ-//h-/Found in some words only
-ယ် ဲ-ɛ-e
Writtenအမေကသင်္ကြန်ပွဲတွင်ဝတ်ရန်ထဘီရှစ်ထည်ပေးလိုက်ပါဆိုသည်။
Standard Burmeseʔəmè ɡa̰ðədʒàɴ pwɛ́ dwɪ̀ɴwʊʔ jàɴtʰəmèɪɴʃɪʔ tʰɛ̀pé laɪʔ pàsʰò dɛ̀
Arakaneseʔəmì ɡa̰θɔ́ɴkràɴ pwé hmàwaʔ pʰo̰dəjɔ̀ʃaɪʔ tʰèpí laʔ pàsʰò ɹì
Arakanese (written)အမိကသင်္ကြန်ပွဲမှာဝတ်ဖို့ဒယောရှစ်ထည်ပီးလတ်ပါဆိုရယ်။
Gloss
EnglishMother says "Give me eight pasos for wearing during the Thingyan festival."

Writing system

Arakanese is written using the Burmese script, which descends from Southern Brahmi. Rakhine speakers are taught Rakhine pronunciations using written Burmese, while most Marma speakers are only literate in Bengali.[10]

The first extant Arakanese inscriptions, the Launggrak Taung Maw inscription and the Mahathi Crocodile Rock inscription (1356), date to the 1300s, and the epigraphic record of Arakanese inscriptions is unevenly distributed between the 1400s to 1800s.[11] In the early 1400s, Arakanese inscriptions began to transition from the square letters associated with stone inscriptions (kyauksa), to rounder letters that is now standard for the Burmese script.[11] This coincided with developments in Arakanese literature, which was stimulated by the rise of Mrauk U during the 1400s.[12]

What is now Rakhine State is home to Sanskrit inscriptions that date from the first millennium to the 1000s.[11] These inscriptions were written in Northern Brahmic scripts (namely Siddham or Gaudi), which are ancestral to the Bengali script.[11] However, these inscriptions are not ancestral to Arakanese epigraphy, which uses the Mon–Burmese script.[11] While some Arakanese have coined the term "Rakkhawunna" (Rakkhavaṇṇa) to describe a script that predates the usage of written Burmese, there is no contemporary lithic evidence to support the existence of such a script.[12]

References

  1. ↑ Rakhine ("Arakanese") at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Marma ("Burmese") at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ↑ "The Arakanese dialect". Fifty Viss. 2007-07-02. Retrieved 2023-04-01.
  3. ↑ Okell 1995, p. 3.
  4. ↑ "ရခိုင်စကားနဲ့ ဗမာစကား". BBC Burmese. 1 April 2011. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 အသျှင်စက္ကိန္ဒ (1994). ရခိုင်ဘာသာစကားလမ်းညွှန် (in Burmese). Burma – via Scribd.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ↑ Okell 1995, p. 4, 14.
  7. ↑ Okell 1995, p. 14.
  8. ↑ Okell 1995.
  9. ↑ Houghton 1897, pp. 453–61.
  10. ↑ Davis, Heidi A (2014). "Consonant correspondences of Burmese, Rakhine and Marma with initial implications for historical relationships". The University of North Dakota.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Minn Htin, Kyaw; Leider, Jacques (2018), Perret, Daniel (ed.), "The Epigraphic Archive of Arakan/Rakhine State (Myanmar): A Survey", Writing for Eternity: A Survey of Epigraphy in Southeast Asia, Etudes thématiques, Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, vol. 30, pp. 73–85, retrieved 2022-08-07
  12. 1 2 Singer, Noel F. (2008). Vaishali and the Indianization of Arakan. APH Publishing. ISBN 978-81-313-0405-1.

Bibliography

  • Houghton, Bernard (1897). "The Arakanese Dialect of the Burman Language". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland: 453–461. JSTOR 25207880.
  • Okell, John (1995). "Three Burmese Dialects" (PDF). Papers in Southeast Asian Linguistics. 13.
Rakhine language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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