Tavoyan dialects

Tavoyan
Tavoyan
Dawei
ထားဝယ်စကား
Region	Southeast
Ethnicity	Taungyo
Native speakers	(ca. 1.1 M cited 2000)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Lolo–Burmese Burmish Southern Burmese Tavoyan; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either:; tvn – Tavoyan proper; tco – Dawei (Tavoyan)
Glottolog	tavo1242 Tavoyan; taun1248 Tavoyan

Tavoyan or Dawei (ထားဝယ်စကား, abbreviated ဝယ်စကား) is a divergent dialect of Burmese is spoken in Dawei (Tavoy), in the coastal Tanintharyi Region of southern Myanmar (Burma). Tavoyan speakers self-identify as Bamar, and are classified by the Burmese government as a subgroup of the Bamar.^[2]^[3] Approximately 400,000 people speak Tavoyan. Burmese speakers further south speak the Palaw and Myeik dialects.^[3] Tavoyan and Burmese have 87% lexical similarity.^[3]

Distinct phonological features of Tavoyan have been strengthened by language contact with the Karenic languages.^[3] Tavoyan prosody is markedly different from Standard Burmese, especially with respect to rhythm and intonation.^[3] Similar to Karen speakers, Tavoyan speakers do not draw out their vowels like Standard Burmese speakers.^[3] Tavoyan retains an /-l-/ medial that has since merged into the /-j-/ medial in standard Burmese.^[2] Also, voicing can only occur with unaspirated consonants in Tavoyan, whereas in standard Burmese, voicing can occur with both aspirated and unaspirated consonants.

Also, Tavoyan has many loan words from Malay and Thai not found in Standard Burmese.^[4] In the Tavoyan dialect, terms of endearment, as well as family terms, are considerably different from Standard Burmese.

History

According to Michael Aung-Thwin, the Tavoyan dialect of Burmese preserved the "spelling (and presumably pronunciation)" of the Old Burmese from the Bagan era. As a result, he suggests that it diverged from other Burmese varieties sometime after the Burmese settlement of Lower Burma under the Bagan era, between the 11th and 13th centuries. He attributes this divergence to a migration of Mon speakers into the area north of Dawei in the late 13th century, which would have cut off Dawei from the main Burmese speaking areas.^[5]^: 112–3 To this day, the Bamar are called gantha (ဂံသား, lit. 'children of Pagan') in Tavoyan.^[2]^[3]

Phonology

Medials

Tavoyan has preserved the /-l-/ medial, which is only extant to Old Burmese, which was likely strengthened through language contact with the Karenic languages, which also feature this medial.^[3] Tavoyan can form the following consonant clusters: /ɡl-/, /kl-/, /kʰl-/, /bl-/, /pl-/, /pʰl-/, /ml-/, /m̥l-/. Examples include:

မ္လေ (/mlè/ → Standard Burmese /mjè/) for "ground"^[6]
က္လောင်း (/kláʊɴ/ → Standard Burmese /tʃáʊɴ/) for "school"^[6]

က္လ (/kla̰/ → Standard Burmese /tʃa̰/) for "ground"^[3]

Nasalisation

In Standard Burmese, the final nasals /-ŋ, -n, -m/ have merged into a nasal vowel.^[3] Nasalisation is even weaker in Tavoyan (similar to Myeik), and disappears altogether for some words:^[3]

နောင် (/nàʊ/ → Standard Burmese /nàʊɰ̃/) for "elder brother"^[3]

Phonemes

Tavoyan possesses a 'voiced glottal fricative' /ɦ/ that does not exist in Standard Burmese.^[3] The phoneme appears in functor particles:

က (/ɦa̰/ → Standard Burmese /ga̰/) for the subject marker^[3]

ကို (/ɦò/ → Standard Burmese /gò/) for the subject marker^[3]

Rhymes

The following is a list of rhyme correspondences unique to the Tavoyan dialect^[7]

Written Burmese	Standard Burmese	Tavoyan dialect	Notes
-င် -န် -မ်	/-ɪɴ -aɴ -aɴ/	/-aɴ/
-ဉ် -ျင်	/-ɪɴ -jɪɴ/	/-ɪɴ -jɪɴ/
ောင်	/-aʊɴ/	/-ɔɴ/
ုန်	/-oʊɴ/	/-uːɴ/
ုမ်	/-oʊɴ/	/-aoɴ/
ိမ်	/-eɪɴ/	/-iːɴ/
ုတ်	/-oʊʔ/	/-ṵ/
ုပ်	/-oʊʔ/	/-aoʔ/
-က် -တ် -ပ်	/-ɛʔ -aʔ -aʔ/	/-aʔ/
-ိတ် -ိပ်	/-eɪʔ/	/-ḭ/
-ည်	/-ɛ, -e, -i//	/-ɛ/
-စ် -ျက်	/-ɪʔ -jɛʔ/	/-ɪʔ -jɪʔ/
ေွ	/-we/	/-i/	ေ is pronounced as in standard Burmese

Rhymes
Open syllables	weak = ə full = i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u
Closed syllables	nasal = iːɴ, ɪɴ, aɪɴ, an, ɔɴ, ʊɴ, uːɴ, aoɴ stop = ɪʔ, aɪʔ, aʔ, ɔʔ, ʊʔ, aoʔ

Vocabulary

Due to language contact with Malay and Thai, Tavoyan vocabulary has adopted many loanwords that are not otherwise present in standard Burmese. Certain lexical terms, such as kinship terms, differ from standard Burmese.


Gloss	Tavoyan	Standard Burmese	Source
'goat'	ဘဲ့ bê	ဆိတ် hseit	Mon /həbeˀ/ (ဗၜေံ) or Thai /pʰɛ́ʔ/ (แพะ)
'axe'	ကတ်ပ katpa	ပုဆိန် pasein	Malay kapak
'grandfather'	ဖအို (/pʰa̰ʔò/)	အဖိုး apho	Tavoyan prefers the Burmese augmentative အို
'grandfather'	မိအို (/mḭʔò/)	အဖွား aphwa	Tavoyan prefers the Burmese augmentative အို
'son'	ဖစု (/pʰa̰sṵ/)^[8]	သား tha	Tavoyan prefers the Burmese diminutive စု
'daughter'	မိစု (/mḭsṵ/)^[8]	သမီး thami	Tavoyan prefers the Burmese diminutive စု
honorific for younger males	နောင် naung^[8]	မောင် maung	နောင် refers to the elder brother (of a male) in standard Burmese

References

^ Tavoyan proper at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Dawei (Tavoyan) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ ^a ^b ^c McCormick, Patrick (Autumn 2016). "Hierarchy and contact: re-evaluating the Burmese dialects". IIAS. Retrieved 2024-12-10.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o McCormick, Patrick (2025-04-07), Darquennes, Jeroen; Salmons, Joseph C.; Vandenbussche, Wim (eds.), "22. The development of the Tavoyan dialect of Burmese and the hidden role of language contact", Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science [HSK] 45/2, De Gruyter, pp. 389–407, doi:10.1515/9783110443011-022, ISBN 978-3-11-044301-1, retrieved 2025-05-10
^ Census of India, 1901 – Burma. Vol. XII. Burma: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. 1902. p. 76.
^ Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005). The mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma (PDF). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 0-8248-2886-0. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
^ ^a ^b "Htarrwaalhcakarr bamarhcakarr" ထားဝယ်စကား ဗမာစကား (in Burmese). BBC Burmese. 20 May 2011. Archived from the original on 23 October 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
^ 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.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Aalainkar pulellpaann htarrwaal hcakarr" အလင်္ကာပုလဲပန်း ထားဝယ်စကား (in Burmese). BBC Burmese. 10 June 2011. Archived from the original on 23 October 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2012.

Wang, Dayou 汪大年 (2007). "Miǎndiànyǔ Dōngyǒu fāngyán" 缅甸语东友方言 [The Taungyo Dialect of Burmese]. Mínzú yǔwén (in Chinese). 2007 (3): 66–80.

[e18-1] Tavoyan proper at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Dawei (Tavoyan) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[:0-2] McCormick, Patrick (Autumn 2016). "Hierarchy and contact: re-evaluating the Burmese dialects". IIAS. Retrieved 2024-12-10.

[:1-3] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o McCormick, Patrick (2025-04-07), Darquennes, Jeroen; Salmons, Joseph C.; Vandenbussche, Wim (eds.), "22. The development of the Tavoyan dialect of Burmese and the hidden role of language contact", Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science [HSK] 45/2, De Gruyter, pp. 389–407, doi:10.1515/9783110443011-022, ISBN 978-3-11-044301-1, retrieved 2025-05-10

[census-1901-4] Census of India, 1901 – Burma. Vol. XII. Burma: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. 1902. p. 76.

[Aung-Thwin_2005-5] Aung-Thwin, Michael (2005). The mists of Rāmañña: The Legend that was Lower Burma (PDF). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 0-8248-2886-0. Retrieved 14 January 2024.

[:2-6] "Htarrwaalhcakarr bamarhcakarr" ထားဝယ်စကား ဗမာစကား (in Burmese). BBC Burmese. 20 May 2011. Archived from the original on 23 October 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2012.

[7] 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.

[alin27-8] "Aalainkar pulellpaann htarrwaal hcakarr" အလင်္ကာပုလဲပန်း ထားဝယ်စကား (in Burmese). BBC Burmese. 10 June 2011. Archived from the original on 23 October 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2012.

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