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Language Lineage

Karenic

S'gaw, Pwo, Kayah (Karenni) and Pa'o, the only Tibeto-Burman languages to put the verb before the object, probably under the influence of Mon and Tai neighbours.

c. 1st millennium CE – presentEastern Myanmar and western Thailand
On this page
  1. A Different Word Order
  2. Missions and War
  3. Where it's spoken
  4. Turning points

01

A Different Word Order

The Karen languages are spoken in the hills along the Myanmar–Thailand border. Almost all other Tibeto-Burman languages are verb-final, but Karen puts the object after the verb, like its Mon and Tai neighbours, and this long made scholars unsure whether Karen belonged to Tibeto-Burman at all. It is now generally seen as a Tibeto-Burman branch reshaped by contact.

02

Missions and War

American Baptist missionaries arrived among the Karen in the 1820s. Jonathan Wade created a Karen script based on the Burmese alphabet in the 1830s, and many Karen became Christian. Since 1949 Karen nationalists have fought the Myanmar state in one of the world's longest-running civil conflicts. Hundreds of thousands of Karen have lived in refugee camps on the Thai border or resettled abroad, where Karen communities now maintain the language.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Myanmarc. 4 million
  2. Thailandc. 0.4 million

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Contact1st – 2nd millennium CEContested

    Verb before object

    Karen adopts verb–object order, probably through long contact with Mon and Tai. It is the only branch of Tibeto-Burman to do so. The timing and mechanism are debated.

    Sources (1)
    • Thurgood, Graham & Randy J. LaPolla, eds. 2017. The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  2. Writing1830s

    A Karen script

    The Baptist missionary Jonathan Wade adapts the Burmese alphabet for S'gaw and Pwo Karen, and Karen literacy spreads through mission schools and the church.

    Sources (1)
    • Thurgood, Graham & Randy J. LaPolla, eds. 2017. The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  3. Contact1949 onward

    Conflict and refuge

    Decades of armed conflict in eastern Myanmar drive large numbers of Karen into camps in Thailand and then to resettlement in the US, Australia and elsewhere, where the language is carried into diaspora.

    Sources (1)
    • Thurgood, Graham & Randy J. LaPolla, eds. 2017. The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.