Rakhine
Arakanese
ရက္ခိုင်ဘာသာ
Pronunciation	IPA: [ɹəkʰàɪɴbàθà]Category:Pages with Burmese IPA
Native to	Myanmar, Bangladesh[1], India[2]
Region	Rakhine State and other parts of Myanmar Chittagong Hill Tracts, Patuakhali, Cox Bazar (Bangladesh) Tripura (India)
Ethnicity	Rakhine, Marma, Kamein
Native speakers	1 million (2011–2013)[3] 1 million second language speakers in Myanmar (2013)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Lolo-Burmese Burmish Burmese Rakhine
Dialects	Ramree Marma
Writing system	Burmese script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: rki – Rakhine ("Arakanese") rmz – Marma
Glottolog	arak1255
Map of where the Rakhine language is spoken

Rakhine (/rəˈkaɪn/; Rakhine: ရခိုင်ဘာသာCategory:Articles containing Rakhine-language text, MLCTS: ra.hkuing bathaCategory:Articles containing Burmese-language text Burmese pronunciation: [ɹəkʰàɪɴ bàθà]Category:Pages with Burmese IPA), also known as Arakanese, is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in western Myanmar, primarily in the Rakhine State, parts of south-eastern Bangladesh and parts of southern Tripura in India. 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 speakers find it difficult to communicate with Arakanese speakers. 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.^[4] There are three dialects of Arakanese: Sittwe–Marma (about two thirds of speakers), Ramree, and Thandwe.^[5]

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' (လုံခြည်Category:Articles containing Burmese-language text in Standard Burmese, ဒယောCategory:Articles containing Burmese-language text in Arakanese). Others are loan words from Bengali, English, and Hindi, not found in Standard Burmese. An example is 'hospital', which is called ဆေးရုံCategory:Articles containing Burmese-language text in Standard Burmese, but is called သိပ်လှိုင်Category:Articles containing Burmese-language text (pronounced [θeɪʔ l̥àɪɴ]/[ʃeɪʔ l̥àɪɴ]Category:Pages with plain IPA) in Arakanese, from English sick lines. Other words simply have different meanings (e.g., 'afternoon', ညစCategory:Articles containing Burmese-language text in Arakanese and ညနေCategory:Articles containing Burmese-language text in Standard Burmese). Moreover, some archaic words in Standard Burmese are preferred in Arakanese. An example is the first person pronoun, which is အကျွန်Category:Articles containing Burmese-language text in Arakanese (not ကျွန်တော်Category:Articles containing Burmese-language text, as in Standard Burmese). A more unique difference is the 'Hra' sound which is not found in Burmese: only in Arakanese. e.g. ဟြာ(Hra/Seek) and Hraa(ဟြား/exceptional/excellent/very good/smart).

Phonology

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

Differences from standard Burmese

The following is a summary of consonantal, vowel and rhyme differences from Standard Burmese found in the Arakanese dialect:^[10][11]

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.^[12]

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.^[13] 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.^[13] This coincided with developments in Arakanese literature, which was stimulated by the rise of Mrauk U during the 1400s.^[1]

What is now Rakhine State is home to Sanskrit inscriptions that date from the first millennium to the 1000s.^[13] These inscriptions were written in Northern Brahmic scripts (namely Siddham or Gaudi), which are ancestral to the Bengali script.^[13] However, these inscriptions are not ancestral to Arakanese epigraphy, which uses the Mon–Burmese script.^[13] 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.^[1]

Dialect variations

Contemporary Rakhine exhibits considerable regional variation. Dialects differ across areas such as Sittwe (southern), Kula-taung, Myit Wa, Chaungtha (upper river), and among historical Rakhine populations in present-day Bangladesh and India. Even within Rakhine State, towns such as Kyaukphyu, Ramree, Mrauk-U, Thandwe, Ann, and Pauktaw show geographical dialectal variation. Coastal areas closer to central Burma, including Thandwe and Taungup, tend to exhibit softer tones and pronunciations influenced by proximity to Burmese-speaking regions.^[13][7]

Rakhine is often described in literature as a "purer" or "more ancient" form of Burmese. This claim is based on certain phonological features retained in Rakhine but lost in Standard Burmese, such as distinctions between Written Burmese r and y, and between aŋ and añ. Rakhine also merges rhymes such as at and an with wat and wan, and exhibits less extensive voicing.^[10][13]

Conversely, Standard Burmese preserves distinctions—such as between ac, añ and uik, uir, or wa and o—that have been lost in Rakhine. It also tends to preserve vowel clarity and shows less phonetic weakening.^[10]

References

External links

Arakanese edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia