Eastern Pwo language
| Eastern Pwo | |
|---|---|
| Southern Pwo | |
| Eastern Phlou | |
| Native to | Burma, Thailand |
| Ethnicity | Kayah people |
Native speakers | (one million cited 1998)[1] |
Sino-Tibetan
| |
| Burmese script (various alphabets) Leke script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kjp |
| Glottolog | pwoe1235 |
Eastern Pwo, or Phlou, is a Karen language spoken by over a million people in Burma and by about 50,000 in Thailand, where it has been called Southern Pwo. It is not intelligible with other varieties of Pwo.
A script called Leke was developed between 1830 and 1860 and is used by members of the millenarian Leke sect of Buddhism. Otherwise a variety of Burmese alphabets are used, and refugees in Thailand have created a Thai alphabet which is in limited use.
Distribution
- Kayin State and Tanintharyi Region: long contiguous area near Thai border
- Bago Region: Bago and Toungoo townships
Dialects
- Pa’an (Inland Eastern Pwo Karen, Moulmein)
- Kawkareik (Eastern Border Pwo Karen)
- Tavoy (Southern Pwo Karen)
References
- ^ Eastern Pwo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)