differing Tibeto-Burman languages which incorporates some languages of the North-eastern India group. The northern Burmish group languages are found within the modern-day Kachin
State of the north and in the Shan State of northeast Myanmar. These languages—Langwa Maru, Zaiwa Atsi, Lachi Lashi, Hpon, are popularly known in Myanmar as ethnically
Kachin but are not closely related genetically to “Kachin,” that is, the Jinghpaw language at all. In some respects this set of languages is close to an older form of Burmese represented by
orthographic Burmese from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries CE.
The linguistic distinction between Burmese “dialect” versus “language” is not a clear, fixed one but is mostly left to pragmatic, political factors in Myanmar. What is clear is that
apart from bilingualism a speaker of modern standard Burmese in many cases would not understand the speech of the other Burmese languages. These languages have only recently
been linguistically documented Okell 1995. Phonological features of languages like Arakanese and Tavoy are well known for their retention of Old Burmese medial -r and -l,
which are evidenced in inscriptional Burmese of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Contemporary speakers of standard Burmese generally fail to recognize and respect this
antiquity, attributing humorous irrelevance to such speech.
The languages of the northern group of Burmish, retain yet older features which the more southern Burmese dialects have lost, such as differentiation of syllable-final oral and
nasal consonants. Such consonants are attested in written Burmese, but have been reduced in most Burmese dialects to glottal stop from oral stops, and nasalization of the preceding vowel
from final nasal stops. Vowel quality changes have also been triggered by the erosion of the final consonants, providing a playground for linguists who have in the ancient written
language, still in use today, a solid baseline for reconstruction.
2.2 Diglossia
Written Burmese has had a very long history of almost a thousand years—since 1044 CE. The written form of Burmese tends to be highly conservative in spelling, preserving over the
centuries forms that no one ever reads “as written,” rather new rules of pronunciation have necessitated a consistent set of subconscious reading rules that the literate person can
blissfully ignore. The spoken language has diverged phonologically from the older written form via syllable reduction, initial consonant cluster coalescence, degrading of final
consonants, the shifting and gliding of vowels in specific environments, and a unique type of tonal development from the reorganization of proto syllables. Lexically, the modern spoken
language diverges from the older written form by the introduction of a vast array of new vocabulary and terminology. Grammatically, the difference between the two forms of
Burmese spoken and written is demonstrated best by the postpositional particles. A completely different set of particles is employed if writing in “spoken” Burmese versus
writing in “written” or Formal Burmese. With such extensive differences between the two languages, one might ask why someone would think they are the same language. Indeed,
some of Burmas finest linguists have called for educational and social reform by promoting the use of “spoken” Burmese for all domains of modern language use Minn Latt 1966, but
the mainstream in Burmese government and educational institutions prefers the maintenance of Formal written Burmese. Such a conservative position actually can work even though the
difference between a “written” text and the same text in “spoken” Burmese can be as much as
75 percent in lexical and grammatical particles. The reason the written language can be used successfully to the extent it has, is because the same basic, underlying template is employed
for both languages. This grammatical framework, particularly the phrase structure and the functions of postpositional particles, has remained quite stable over time. The surface forms
may be quite different, but the arrangement of information between the two “languages” is basically the same. Thus, the exercise of switching between the two codes is principally a
matter of lexical and particle substitution. This would be like the language learners dream where, knowing one language, all one needed was to learn word forms to refill the structural
positions in another language. The regularity of pattern keeps the two languages “together” and usable as “one” social communicative form, called Burmese.
The result is that technically one rarely, if ever, pronounces words the way they are written as they were written hundreds of years ago, but this is not noticed by native speakers
since everyone reads the written form with basically the same pronunciation. The modern speaker is unaware that long ago the same spelling sounded different, perhaps as different as
local vernacular forms of Burmese or its northern language cousins. Native speakers are aware of lexical changes. They can simply substitute the Formal Burmese particle for the
Colloquial Burmese particle through a process of lexical-functional equivalence, change nominal and verbal lexical variants to a higher speech-register lexicon, increase the number
of word pairs as a kind of elegant doubling, and smooth over the whole operation for consistency, coherence, and overall naturalness.
This summary is an over-simplification, nevertheless, the transformation between Formal written Burmese FB and Colloquial spoken Burmese CB occurs primarily in
the lexicon. The difference in usage between written and spoken Burmese is one of appropriateness of social context. It is quite likely that there is a gradient quality to the
transition from “written” to “spoken” Burmese.
Since the phonology, lexicon, and postpositional markers all have shifted over time between the two forms of Burmese, modern linguists utilize Burmese for historical linguistic
purposes to compare dialects of modern Tibeto-Burman spoken languages focusing on the changes. Also profitable are studies which examine the historical rules for changes in
modern CB as compared to FB. By comparing and contrasting the underlying system that has held it all together over time, a system is displayed that promotes the subconscious view that
these two languages are the “same.” This study will explicate a portion of that underlying template.
2.3 Modern Burmese
