Mru, also known as Mrung (Murung), is a Sino-Tibetan language of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is spoken by a community of Mrus (Mros) inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh with a population of 22,000 according to the 1991 census, and in Rakhine State, Myanmar. The Mrus are the second-largest tribal group in Bandarban District of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. A small group of Mros also live in Rangamati Hill District.
Classification
Mru forms the Mruic language branch with Hkongso and Anu, which are spoken in Paletwa Township, Chin State, Myanmar. The position of Mruic with Sino-Tibetan is unclear.
Distribution
The Mros live in forest areas of Lama Upazila, Ruma Upazila, Alikadam Upazila, and Thanchi Upazila near Chimbuk Mountain of Bandarban District, Bangladesh (Rashel 2009). In Myanmar, they also live in Buthidaung Township and Ponnagyun Township in Sittwe District (Akiab), Rakhine State.
Subdivisions
Ethnologue (22nd edition) lists 3 main dialects as Anok, Dowpreng (Dopreng), and Sungma (Tshungma), as well as the 2 minor dialects of Domrong and Rumma.
- Anok: largest and central
- Tshungma: in the north
- Domrong: in the lowlands north of the Matamuri
- Dopreng: in far south and into Arakan
- Rumma: in far south and into Arakan
There are five Mru dialects according to Ebersole (1996).
- Anawk
- Süngma
- Dopreng
- Tamsa
- Rengmitsa
There are five major Mro clans (Rashel 2009).
- Dengua
- Premsang
- Kongloi
- Maizer
- Ganaroo Gnar
Rashel (2009) also lists another classification scheme which lists ten Mro clans.
- Yarua (subdivisions below)
- Khatpo
- Chimlung
- Zongnow
- Sangkan
- Chawla
- Ngaringcha
- Tang
- Deng
- Kough
- Tam-tu-chah
- Kanbak
- Prenju
- Naichah
- Yomore
- Rum/Rumthu
Grammar
Unlike the Kuki-Chin languages, Mru has SVO (subject-verb-object) word order (Ebersole 1996).
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Plosive/Affricate | voiceless | p | t | tɕ | k | ʔ |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | tɕʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d | ||||
| Fricative | s | (ʃ) | h | |||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
/s/ can also be heard as [ʃ].1
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɯ | u | |
| Mid | ɛ | ɤ | ɔ | |
| Open | a | |||
Numerals
Rashel (2009:159) lists the following Mro numerals.
- lok
- pre
- sum
- tle
- tnga
- trok
- rinit
- riyat
- tako
- homod
Script
Main article: Mru script
The Mru script is an indigenous, messianic script: In the 1980s Menlay Murang (also known as Manley Mro) created the religion of Khrama (or Crama) and with it a new script for the Mru language.34
The script is written from left to right and has its own set of digits. It does not use tone marks.
The Mru language is written in both the Latin and Mru scripts.
Unicode
Main article: Mro (Unicode block)
The Mru alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0.
The Unicode block for the Mru script, called Mro, is U+16A40–U+16A6F:
| Mro[1][2]Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) | ||||||||||||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
| U+16A4x | 𖩀 | 𖩁 | 𖩂 | 𖩃 | 𖩄 | 𖩅 | 𖩆 | 𖩇 | 𖩈 | 𖩉 | 𖩊 | 𖩋 | 𖩌 | 𖩍 | 𖩎 | 𖩏 |
| U+16A5x | 𖩐 | 𖩑 | 𖩒 | 𖩓 | 𖩔 | 𖩕 | 𖩖 | 𖩗 | 𖩘 | 𖩙 | 𖩚 | 𖩛 | 𖩜 | 𖩝 | 𖩞 | |
| U+16A6x | 𖩠 | 𖩡 | 𖩢 | 𖩣 | 𖩤 | 𖩥 | 𖩦 | 𖩧 | 𖩨 | 𖩩 | 𖩮 | 𖩯 | ||||
| Notes1.^ As of Unicode version 16.02.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points | ||||||||||||||||
See also
- Mru word list (Wiktionary)
- Ebersole, Harold. 1996. The Mru Language: A preliminary grammatical sketch. Ms.
- Peterson, David A., "Where does Mru fit into Tibeto-Burman?", The 42nd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL 42), November 2009, Payap University, Chiangmai, Thailand. Cf. p. 14.
- Rashel, Md Mostafa (2009). "Morphosyntactic Analysis of Mro Language." Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics, Vol, 2, No, 3, February 2009, 141–160.
Further reading
- Clifton, John M. 2009. "Orthography development as an ongoing collaborative process: lessons from Bangladesh". 1st International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC)
- Mru word list (Luce 1985)
- Mru word list (Matisoff 1987)
- https://aksharamukha.appspot.com/describe/Mro Many languages able translate to Mro language.
- https://keymanweb.com/?_ga=2.244017925.1829076129.1590300131-764973306.1590300131 Used to example for Mro keyboard font.
References
Williams, Nicholas J. (2008). Directionals in Mru. Dartmouth College. ↩
Namkung, Ju (1996). Mru. Phonological Inventories of Tibeto-Burman Languages. (STEDT Monograph Series, 3.): Berkeley: Center for Southeast Asia Studies. p. 268.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) /wiki/Template:Cite_book ↩
Hosken, Martin; Everson, Michael (24 March 2009). "N3589R: Proposal for encoding the Mro script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF). Retrieved 2 August 2014. /wiki/Michael_Everson ↩
Zaman, Mustafa (24 February 2006). "Mother Tongue at Stake". Star Weekend Magazine. 5 (83). The Daily Star. ↩