Talk:Shan language

Language box
Need help with language box. Badagnani 07:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

"The term "Shan" is believed to be a Burmese variation on "Siam," which surely indicates that the ethnic Burmese believed that the "Shan" were a Thai (Tai) people."

Incorrect : The term Siam comes from the Khmer term Siem which refers to the original inhabitants of what is now central Thailand. The Bama do not see the Shan as being the same as central Thais who are known as Yodaya ( from Ayutthaya ). The term Shan most likely derives from the Chinese word mountain.

"It is written in what may be called a pseudo-Burmese script, which appears to be Burmese to the casual observer but is in fact entirely different, just as the Shan language has no relation to the Burmese language (a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages)."

Both scripts were derived from the original Mon script via Pyu and are therefore variations of the same script ( like the Roman script ). It is likely that Pyu script came from Mon, Burmese from Pyu and Shan from Burmese ( the migrations came in that order ). Just because a spoken language has no relation does not mean the script may not be shared and from the same source. Ultimately most SE Asian scripts come from the same Indian source. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bayinnaung (talk • contribs)

REPLY: Bayinnaung writes, "The term Siam comes from the Khmer term Siem which refers to the original      inhabitants of what is now central Thailand." This sounds possible, but from where does this information come? A source would help.richardtgreer (talk) 00:04, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Terminology
I consider the current Burmese government one of the worst on earth, and there are probably few who disagree with me, including the two million Shan who have voted with their feet and taken up residence in Thailand.

This influences some of my preferences in terminology. The horrible SLORC government renamed itself to something else, at about the same time that they declared that Burma was now Myanmar, and the Shan States of Burma were now to be called the Shan State of Myanmar. They also renamed all the major geographical points in the country.

The question is: does Wikipedia accept these actions from one of the world's worst dictatorships? After all, it is quite possible that in the future, a new reform government led by democratic forces, could reverse all these linguistic changes.

For me, SLORC remains SLORC remains SLORC. Burma remains Burma. And the Shan States remain the Shan States. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.147.1.1 (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC). In Myanmar the State is called Myanmar - that didn't change. I don't see a big problem with the name. 80.109.11.235 00:14, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Myanmar has always been the written term for Burma. The spoken is Bama. The problem that most people have with it has to do with who implemented the change. Likewise most Bama geographical points in the country now have more correct names ( eg Yangon has always been Yangon : Rangoon is likley to be a British interpretation of a Bengali / Hindi corruption )

What I object to is the Burmanisation of non Bama towns ( eg Keng Tung - Kyaing Tong ) -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bayinnaung (talk • contribs)

Structuring the Shan Language article
Hi, Since long I wanted to work on this article... As you can see, I have started adding some chapters about dialects, phonology and writing system. In this process I have incorporated some relevant text from the main article into these chapters. I have removed: "These all ["ia," "ua," and "uea."] collapse to a single vowel in Shan." and "While Shan does contain some long and short vowels, most of the Thai long-short differences can only be represented in Shan writing by the corresponding tone shifts." simply because they are not really true. In general, I think Shan should not be defined in terms of Thai. However, I agree that comparisons might be useful, as people might get interested in Shan from a Thai direction. Maybe one could add a chapter on Shan and Thai; that might be interesting.

I would be glad to have some fruitful discussion on Shan, in order to produce a good article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gukoye (talk • contribs) 22:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

how many?
"Estimates of Shan people range from four million to 30 million, though the true number is somewhere around six million" if that is known, they why bother with the estimates... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.14.173.51 (talk) 11:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Cool Kstrom34 (talk) 19:31, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Shan language materials
Shan and English dictionary (1914)

https://archive.org/details/shanenglishdicti00cushiala

Grammar of the Shan Language

https://archive.org/details/GrammarOfTheShanLanguage

Rajmaan (talk) 22:16, 6 March 2014 (UTC)