March 2014 to August 2018, SNSF Project 100012_150136
Mathias Jenny, Patrick McCormick, André Müller
This project is a cross-disciplinary study of what we call the ‘Greater Burma Zone’, combining linguistics with anthropological and historical studies. The Greater Burma Zone forms something of a loose transitional area between the South and Southeast Asian linguistic areas, as historically-situated linguistic evidence suggests. Present day Burma (Myanmar) consists of an extensive plain stretching along the Chindwin and Irrawaddy rivers in the north to the Irrawaddy delta and Salween plain in the south and southeast. This lowland area is surrounded by mountains on three sides and the Bay of Bengal in the south. The area has been home to different peoples, states and kingdoms, mostly unstable and with shifting boundaries, since at least the early centuries AD. Political power in general spread much faster and more thoroughly in the plains than in the less accessible retreat zones in mountainous and densely forested regions, a phenomenon that recently received some attention in anthropological and historical studies. From what we know in other parts of the world this dichotomy is expected also to leave signals also in linguistic structures, signals that may be be leveled or disappear in the course of increasing communication and transport facilities between the areas. Over 100 languages belonging to six different language families (Sino-Tibetan, Austroasiatic, Tai-Kadai, as well as smaller communities of Hmong-Mien, Indo-European, and Austronesian) are spoken in the area. In a few of these there are written documents going back over a thousand years, while in most cases only recent, if any, material is available. Initial investigations have shown that the languages of the zone can be read as ‘palimpsests’: for example, many of the varieties of Tai languages, while reflecting their eastern Mainland Southeast Asian origins, have come to take on more firmly Greater Burma features as speakers have moved west. Khamti (Tai) has a ‘genetic’ typological profile written further east, over which has been written a set of features acquired through contact over many centuries with surrounding languages in north and northeast Burma. Karenic languages (Tibeto-Burman), on the other hand, have restructured their syntax to the more typical Southeast Asian verb-medial type, but still retain a number of features usually associated with the verb-final Tibeto-Burman languages.
This project takes a fundamentally diachronic approach to the investigation of the language convergence, determining the social and political processes over the centuries that have brought speakers of languages into and across the region, and at other times have forced them out, leading to the present distribution of languages and linguistic features. This project will investigate a representative selection of languages of the Greater Burma Zone to establish an areal typological profile, looking at the distribution of features covering all linguistic domains, from phonetics-phonology to pragmatics and the lexicon. Burmese as the national language naturally occupies an important position in the linguistic landscape of the area, which is marked by wide-spread bi- and multi-lingualism, in most cases asymmetrical, leading to different contact situations. The extent and kind of these influences in small-scale contact scenarios can give important insight in establishing the linguistic landscape of the Greater Burma Zone. The results also feed back into anthropological and historical studies of the area, a field of research becoming ever more important, and now possible, with the recent political,and ensuing social and cultural, changes in Burma.
The basic questions to be answered are ‘what linguistic features are found where in the area, and why are they found where they are’. To achieve this goal, the project will make use of different sources, including published language material such as grammatical descriptions, texts, and inscriptions, which will be complemented by original material to be collected in punctual fieldwork. The analysis will be done by application of methodological tools from general linguistics, especially areal and contact linguistics and linguistic typology, and history, combining the two fields to achieve viable results.
1. Report on activities
During the four years of the project, we have made contacts with local academics and people at local universities, and we have built several networks among speakers of local languages including Kachin languages, Burmese dialects, Shan, Karenic languages, and Palaung. At the same time, we extended and intensified our already-established contacts in the Burmese and Mon communities. Unexpectedly, we came across Gorakha communities of Nepali speakers in Myanmar, which adds a further perspective to our understanding of language contact in the area. Overall, our project has benefited enormously from the political thaw in Myanmar in recent years, which has allowed us to travel and observe more widely than would have been possible some years ago. We were able to conduct several field trips in Myanmar, some in close cooperation with Mandalay University. This increased the data volume we could collect in several languages, and resulted in descriptions of previously undescribed languages, such as Rumai (Palaung, fieldwork mostly by Rachel Weymuth) and Pa-O (Karenic, fieldwork mostly by Alys Boote-Cooper).
Apart from spending time collecting primary data, we also had the opportunity to closely collaborate with local universities in Myanmar and Thailand and share our experience and expertise with staff and students. Mathias Jenny taught several courses on linguistic methods and theory at the University of Mawlamyine and Mandalay University, and more recently also at the Yangon University of Foreign Languages, a new cooperation partner of the University of Zurich (Department of Comparative Linguistics) in Myanmar. Special lectures on project related topics were given by Mathias Jenny and Patrick McCormick at the University of Mandalay and Chiang Mai University. Through these channels we could establish sustainable and ongoing research bases in Myanmar and Thailand.
In terms of research results, the project has brought forward a deeper understanding of the workings of social and linguistic contact and the interaction of “Central populations” with “Peripheral Populations”. Overall, we have been gratified to see that the collected data has confirmed some of our initial formulations, but also made us rethink and reformulate others. The most salient results from the project are:
1. Several linguistic features, some shared with Southeast Asia, others with South Asia, still other with both or neither of them, define the Greater Burma Zone (GBZ) as a convergence area, even if only loosely and without clear boundaries. Languages within the GBZ behave in many ways more similar to each other than to related languages outside the GBZ. One case in point is Shan, which is closely related to Thai, but shares many features with Burmese, rather than with Thai. Similarly, Mon spoken in Thailand is diverging from Myanmar Mon, moving typologically closer to Thai, while Myanmar Mon is converging with Burmese. Both Mathias Jenny and Patrick McCormick have been conducting in-depth research in the Shan-Thai and Mon-Thai area, with a first summary of the situation of Shan published in the IIAS Newsletter by Mathias Jenny, and a longer piece being under review for publication (expected in 2019).
2. The dichotomy between “central” and “peripheral” societies and languages, as well as their interaction, plays an important role in the GBZ. This can be seen for example in the pronoun systems, as described in a publication by André Müller and Rachel Weymuth. Central languages tend to have large sets of pronouns, based on social hierarchies and relations, while peripheral languages maintain grammatical pronoun systems. These linguistic differences go together with different societal structures in most cases.
3. Since the 1950s, the Kachin have been a focus of interest of anthropologists and linguists thanks to the work of the British anthropologist, Edmund Leach, who describes Kachin society as a society with open boundaries and fluctuating membership. Research done mostly by André Müller has shown that Kachin is in fact an ethnolinguistic area, covering several languages, some belonging to different linguistic subgroups, converging on the model of Jinghpaw in a way that cannot be accounted for just by assuming general areal contact. André Müller is in the final stages of preparing a paper on the “Kachin ethnolinguistic area”.
4. One of the most important determinants to the outcome of language contact in the Greater Burma Zone is where a speech community stands in a hierarchy. Within the Zone, Burmese is (or at times was historically) at the top of the hierarchy, with other languages being ranked primarily along the axis of location/geography (Buddhist lowland being more prestigious than animist/Christian upland), with the further addition of a local axis of prestige. Speakers (with a few exceptions) learn the languages of, and replicate the patterns of, languages higher up. Speakers of languages higher on the hierarchy do not learn languages lower down. In the widest terms, speakers of Burmese learn no local languages, whereas speakers of other languages learn Burmese. On the other hand, languages higher on the hierarchy may be structurally influenced by languages lower on the hierarchy through large numbers of (imperfect) second-language speakers. Speakers of all Burmese varieties occupy nearly the same status in their sphere as that of standard Burmese, though they may be seen or see themselves as distinct groups. Patrick McCormick and Mathias Jenny have been working on Burmese varieties and dialects, with a first summary published by Patrick McCormick in the IIAS Newsletter, and a couple of longer papers being prepared or under review.
5. The central vs. peripheral dichotomy may be replicated at local level, resulting in intermediate languages. For example, Shan speakers, although inhabitants of the highlands, are generally Buddhists practicing wet rice cultivation, and so stand at the top of local upland systems. Shans learn Burmese but are much less likely to learn upland languages, whereas historically, upland peoples learned Shan. Within the Kachin group, Jinghpaw speakers have the highest prestige, and so are less likely to learn other languages of the group unless for specific reasons of marriage and kinship. Speakers of other Kachin languages are likely to learn Jinghpaw. A principle of this system is that the lower a person is on the societal hierarchy, the more languages they speak.
6. Our findings have led us to question the discourse which equates language with ethnicity, or perhaps, with difference, which can be understood as the social construction of boundaries. One line of inquiry is the time depth of this sense of separateness - our readings of evidence (interviews, secondary scholarship) suggests that this sense has been built mostly in the twentieth century, through an ongoing process of ethnic formation in a context of politicized ethnicity. This apparently holds true for most, if not all ethnic groups in the GBZ, as well as speakers of different Burmese varieties (including the Marma of Bangladesh).
In summary, the Greater Burma Zone is an ethnolinguistic-cultural convergence area, at least partly created by centuries of Burmese dominance. At the same time the Zone has several centers, with intermediate languages attracting second language speakers and spreading linguistic features at a more local level, as in the case of Shan, Mon, and Jinghpaw. The spread of linguistic features always goes from the (local or global) dominant language to the subordinate languages, but in the case of pattern replication can also go the other way round, that is, peripheral languages can influence intermediate languages, which in turn influence dominant languages. This makes for the complex network of relations and connections that is today characteristic of the Greater Burma Zone.
From the scientific point of view, including new findings and the building up of sustainable research networks in Myanmar and in the international academic community, the project has been very successful. Not all planned publications have been completed yet, but they are all in the final stages and are expected to be published by the end of 2019 (see below). The post-doc researcher Patrick McCormick is well established in the Myanmar-related academic community and continues working for in the field with different project positions and other organizations.
The project members worked together to improve and refine the field guides used for eliciting information such as language use attitude surveys, and strategies for eliciting various kinds of specific semantic and morphosyntactic information directly relevant to our research, but which can also be used by and serve as a model for future studies, not only in the Burma Zone.
Two student assistants continue to do research in their respective fields. Rachel Weymuth has completed her MA thesis on “Negation in Palaung languages” and is currently working on her PhD dissertation, a descriptive grammar of Rumai. Alys Boote Cooper is in the final stages of writing her MA thesis on “Complex verbal predicates in Pa-O”.
One point that could not be completed yet is the cumulative dissertation by the PhD candidate André Müller, who still needs one additional published paper to fulfill the quota for the cumulative dissertation. Several factors, both personal and structural, delayed his writing, though not his research. We are confident that he will be able to complete his degree within 2019.
2 Publications
The results of our research have been continuously published either in the form of numerous conference presentations around the world, both by the whole team and individual members (including the student assistants), as well as publications in various international journals. This helped to expand our international networks of professionals in the fields of linguistics, including other scholars pursuing similar research projects in and around Myanmar, and those working in language preservation and conservation, history, and anthropology. An initial outcome of this synergy has been the IIAS publication (October 2016), which combines our work in the Greater Burma Zone with that of scholars from Japan.
During the duration of the project, Mathias Jenny could complete and write a number of publications directly and indirectly related to the project. Data collected and analyzed in the project contributed to all these publications. Most prominent among these are the edition of the Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages (Brill 2015) together with Paul Sidwell, and Burmese - a Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge 2016) together with San San Hnin Tun, as well as an areal study of grammatical uses of verbs basically meaning ‘give’ and ‘get’ in languages of the Greater Burma Zone, published in an edited volume on The Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia by Enfield & Comrie (2015, de Gruyter Mouton). He also completed his habilitation at the University of Zurich with the publication of collected papers on “Typology and language contact in Southeast Asia”.
Patrick McCormick completed a number of publications directly and indirectly related to the project. Most prominent among these were Colloquial Burmese: The Complete Course for Beginners, which is an introduction to the Burmese language written together with San San Hnin Tun, and a chapter on language policy in Myanmar. This second publication in particular represents a practical application of the fieldtrip research experience, because a central focus of this policy chapter is the current lack of, but possibilities for, policies which promote mother-tongue education over the exclusive use of the national language in primary education.
André Müller has completed two articles, one published in a Swiss journal for Asian studies, Asiatische Studien - Études Asiatiques, about the effect of social hierarchies on pronominal systems in the languages of the Greater Burma Zone, in cooperation with Rachel Weymuth, and one about the linguistic identity of the Kachin as a part of a larger issue on Burma in the IIAS Newsletter edited by Patrick McCormick.
Two special journal issues presenting the overall results of the project have been accepted, one focusing on the socio-historical perspective (Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, JSEAS), the other presenting the linguistic findings (Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, LTBA). The contributions to the JSEAS special issue are under review and is expected to be published in the first half of 2019. A number of contributions for the LTBA edition have been finalized or are in the final stages of the manuscripts, while a few more external contributions are being called for to complement the volume. Publication is expected in the second half of 2019. In both cases, Patrick McCormick acts as main editor and coordinator.
3 Databases
Team members have created several databases and have been filling them with materials from our project languages, including Jinghpaw, Maru, Old Mon, Middle Mon, Modern Mon, Palaung, Pa-o, Karen, Rumai, Shan, and Old Burmese, containing partly analyzed texts and sentences from spoken, written, and elicited sources. Importantly, the corpus of Old Mon inscriptions has been digitized and thus made accessible for structured analysis for the first time. We have created several parallel corpora which make it possible to compare the grammatical realization of given concepts in multiple languages. Other databases include comparative information about the lexicon, typological variables, the phoneme systems, sound changes, and pronominal systems of the languages of the Greater Burma Zone, including, but not restricted to, the languages mentioned above. These databases allow for comparison and a general overview on the languages of the area, as well as statistical analysis. The raw data have been compiled in YAML format by Alys Boote Cooper during the final six months of the project and are stored on the server of the Department of Comparative Linguistics, together with all original recordings, transcripts, and metadata. These materials are made available to other researchers in the department and beyond upon request.
Toolbox and text corpora (approximate numbers):
Corpus/text Lexicon
● Mon: 30,000 words 1,500 words
● Shan: 19,000 words 1,500 words
● Palaung: 18,000 words 1,400 words
● Jinghpaw: 12,500 words 1,300 words
● Old Mon: 9,000 words 600 words
● Pa-O: 6,000 words 800 words
● Wa: 6,000 words 850 words
● Middle Mon 5,000 words 800 words
● Sgaw Karen: 4,000 words 1,300 words
● Zaiwa: 3,000 words 500 words
● Maru: 600 words 120 words
● Bwe Karen: 400 words 130 words
● Burmese varieties: 5000 words text
● Gorakha (Nepali): 1500 words text
Audio recordings (approximate cumulative length of recordings):
● Palaung (all varieties): 105 hours
● Pa-O: 45 hours
● Jinghpaw: 30 hours
● Shan: 25 hours
● Mon: 23 hours
● Burmese dialects: 19 hours
● Lisu: 16 hours
● Zaiwa: 7 hours
● Nepali: 7 hours
● Lashi 7 hours
● Lahu: 6 hours
● Wa: 10 hours
● Lashi: 4 hours
● Maru: 4 hours
● Rawang: 4 hours
● Khamti: 2 hours
● Lao: 2 hours
● Meithei: 2 hours
● Pwo: 1 hour
● Ngochang: 1 hour
Databases (Excel and YAML)
● Database with extended Swadesh wordlist 11 languages
● Database with grammatical morphemes 13 languages
● Database with morphosyntactic features 26 languages
● Database with phonological systems 9 languages
● Database with pronominal systems 51 languages