Mon (ဘာသာ မန်)
Mon is a member of the Monic branch of the Austroasiatic language family spoken in parts of Myanmar/Burma and Thailand. In 2004 there were 850,000 speakers, mainly in Mon State, and also in the Tanintharyi Region and Kayin State in southern Myanmar.
The language was widely spoken in southern Burma until the middle of the 19th century, when the area was taken over by the British. After then large numbers of people migrated to the area from India and China, and Mon became marginalized.
Mon was first written during the 6th century AD in two different scripts: one derived from the Grantha script, and one derived from the Kadamba or Grantha script. The Mon script first appeared in the Mayzedi inscriptions in 1113.
Mon script
Consonants
Notes
- There are two registers of consonants: clear and breathy. The consonants with an inherent /a/ above are clear, and their vowels are pronounced with a clear, high pitch. The consonants with an inherent /ɛ̀/ are breathy, and their vowels are pronouned with a breathy, lower pitch.
- The virama mutes the inherent vowel, and is used for consonants that appear the end of syllables
Vowels and vowel diacrtics
Numerals
Download an alphabet chart for Mon (Excel)
Sample text
ဇၟာပ်မၞိဟ်ဂှ် ကတဵုဒှ်ကၠုင်လဝ် နကဵု ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာကီု နကဵု အခေါင်အရာကီု တုပ်သၟဟ် ရေင်သကအ် သီုညးဖအိုတ်ရ၊၊ ကောန်မၞိဟ်တအ်ဂှ် ဟိုတ်မၞုံကဵုအစောံသတ္တိ မပါ်ပါဲ ဟိုတ်ဖိုလ် ကေုာံ ခိုဟ်ပရေအ်တအ်တုဲ ညးမွဲကေုာံညးမွဲ သ္ဒးဆက်ဆောံ နကဵု စိုတ်ကောဒေအ်ရ၊၊
(ပိုဒ် ၁၊ လလောင်တရး အခေါင်အရာမၞိဟ် ဂၠးကဝ်)
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Details of the Mon script provided by Michael Peter Füstumum, with corrections by Mattias Persson. Sample text translated by Bee Htaw Monzel
Sample videos in Mon
Information about Mon | Phrases | Numbers
Links
Information about the Mon language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mon_language
https://www.ethnologue.com/language/mnw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mon_script
http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:ffffffff-f914-30c6-ffff-ffffd45ca81c/Introduction_to_the_Mon_language.pdf
http://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/staff/mathiasjenny/download/TheMonLanguageInThailandAndMyanmarMJ2015.pdf
https://www.scribd.com/document/20473584/Romanization-for-Mon-Script-by-Transliteration-Method
Monic languages
Abugidas / Syllabic alphabets
Ahom, Aima, Arleng, Badagu, Badlit, Basahan, Balinese, Balti-A, Balti-B, Batak, Baybayin, Bengali, Bhaiksuki, Bhujimol, Bilang-bilang, Bima, Blackfoot, Brahmi, Buhid, Burmese, Carrier, Chakma, Cham, Cree, Dehong Dai, Devanagari, Dham Lipi, Dhankari / Sirmauri, Ditema, Dives Akuru, Dogra, Ethiopic, Evēla Akuru, Fox, Fraser, Gond, Goykanadi, Grantha, Gujarati, Gunjala Gondi, Gupta, Gurmukhi, Halbi Lipi, Hanifi, Hanuno'o, Hočąk, Ibalnan, Incung, Inuktitut, Jaunsari Takri, Javanese, Kaithi, Kadamba, Kamarupi, Kannada, Kawi, Kharosthi, Khema, Khe Prih, Khmer, Khojki, Khudabadi, Kirat Rai, Kōchi, Komering, Kulitan, Kurukh Banna, Lampung, Lanna, Lao, Lepcha, Limbu, Lontara/Makasar, Lota Ende, Magar Akkha, Mahajani, Malayalam, Meitei (Modern), Manpuri (Old), Marchen, Meetei Yelhou Mayek, Meroïtic, Masarm Gondi, Modi, Mon, Mongolian Horizontal Square Script, Multani, Nandinagari, Newa, New Tai Lue, Ojibwe, Odia, Ogan, Pahawh Hmong, Pallava, Phags-pa, Purva Licchavi, Qiang / Rma, Ranjana, Rejang (Kaganga), Sasak, Savara, Satera Jontal, Shan, Sharda, Siddham, Sinhala, Sorang Sompeng, Sourashtra, Soyombo, Sukhothai, Sundanese, Syloti Nagri, Tagbanwa, Takri, Tamil, Tanchangya (Ka-Pat), Tani, Thaana, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tigalari, Tikamuli, Tocharian, Tolong Siki, Vatteluttu, Warang Citi
Page last modified: 16.03.23
[top]
Why not share this page:
If you like this site and find it useful, you can support it by making a donation via PayPal or Patreon, or by contributing in other ways. Omniglot is how I make my living.
Note: all links on this site to Amazon.com
Get a 30-day Free Trial of Amazon Prime (UK)
If you're looking for home or car insurance in the UK, why not try Policy Expert?
[top]
