Language

Myanmar (Burma) is home to four major linguistic families:

• Sino-Tibetan (Burmese, Karen, Kachin, Chin, and Chinese)
• Austronesian (Mon, Palaung and Wa)
• Tai-Kadai (Shan)
• Indo-European (Pali, the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism, and English)

Burmese, the mother tongue of the Bamar and official language of Myanmar (Burma), is linguistically related to Tibetan and to the Chinese languages. It is written in a script consisting of circular and semi-circular letters, which comes from the Mon script. The earliest known inscriptions in the Burmese script date from the 1000s. The script is also used to write Pali, the sacred language of Theravada Buddhism and several ethnic minority languages, including Shan, several Karen dialects, and Kayah (Karenni), with the addition of specialised characters and diacritics for each language.