This page brings together basic information about the Myanmar script and its use for the Shan language. It doesn't address use of the orthography for writing Pali. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Shan using Unicode.
Shan is the native language of the Shan people and is mostly spoken in Shan State, Burma, but also in pockets of the Burmese Kachin State, and in Northern Thailand. Due to the civil war in Burma, few Shan today can read or write in Shan script.wsl,#Dialects
ၵႂၢမ်းတႆးkwáːm.tájShan language
Shan is written in the Myanmar script, a descendant of the Brahmi script, via Pallava and Old Mon, which dates back to around the 10th century. Two older orthographies were also used, and are still used to some extent.
The Shan script prior to the 1960s was difficult to read because it didn't clearly distinguish between sounds and tones. The reforms transformed the orthography to make it very readable.
The Shan orthography is an abugida. Consonants carry an inherent vowel which can be modified by appending vowel signs to the consonant. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the modern orthography.
Shan text runs left to right in horizontal lines. Spaces separate phrases, rather than words.
The script is syllable based. Syllables are regular in construction, and easy to parse.
This orthography is an abugida and has one inherent vowel, pronounced a. Other post-consonant vowels are written using 12 dedicated combining marks (vowel signs), and composite vowel signs use 3 other diacritics and 2 consonant letters. There are no dedicated vowel letters.
Unlike Burmese, the pronunciation of the vowel sign doesn't depend on whether it appears in an open or closed syllable. Shan generally uses different symbols for vowels in open and closed syllables. In some cases, the closed syllable vowel is a smaller version of the glyph used for open syllables, positioned over the consonant. Open syllables typically have long vowel sounds, while closed syllables have short vowels.
The Shan orthography has 2 pre-base glyphs, but no circumgraphs. This page lists 18 composite vowel signs, which can involve up to 4 glyphs, and surround the base consonant(s) on up to 3 sides. These composite vowel signs represent simple vowel sounds as well as diphthongs.
Shan is tonal, but indication of tones in the orthography is very simple, unlike Thai. Explicit tone marks occur after each syllable, except when the first tone is applied.
Shan has native digits, but may also uses Myanmar or ASCII digits.
Notable features
has an always visible vowel killer mark, but unlike Burmese, no virama or consonant stacks
no independent vowels
different symbols used for vowels in open and closed syllables
tones are written using a combination of vowel and tone mark
combining marks for medial consonants and breathy consonants
Click on the sounds to reveal locations in this document where they are mentioned.
Phones in a lighter colour are non-native or allophones. Source Wikipedia.
Vowel sounds
Plain vowels
Diphthongs
All but 1 of the diphthongs in Shan end in j or u/w.
Consonant sounds
labial
dental
alveolar
post-
alveolar
palatal
velar
glottal
stops
pb
td
kɡ
ʔ
aspirated
pʰ
tʰ
kʰ
affricates
t͡ɕ
fricatives
f
θ
sz
h
nasals
m
n
ɲ
ŋ
approximants
w
l
j
trills/flaps
r
f is only found initially in eastern dialects, and is pronounced pʰ elsewhere.wsl,#Consonants
ʔ appears before standalone vowels, and after open syllables.wsl,#Consonants
r is very rare and mainly used in Pali and some English loan words, sometimes as a glide in initial consonant clusters. Many Shan speakers pronounce it as l.wsl,#Consonants
Shan doesn't natively have voiced stops or fricatives, however the following sounds may appear in loan or foreign words, and have dedicated consonant letters: b d g f θ z.
See also the dialectal differences described in Wikipedia.
Syllable-final
labial
dental
alveolar
post-
alveolar
palatal
velar
glottal
stop
p
t
k
ʔ
nasal
m
n
ŋ
approximant
w
j
Tone
Unchecked syllables can have 5 or 6 tones. The sixth tone, 108A, is treated as a standard tone in the north; elsewhere it is only used for emphasis.wsl,#Tones The following examples illustrate usage.
rising ၼႃ
low ၼႃႇ
mid ၼႃႈ
high ၼႃး
creaky ၼႃႉ
Checked syllables can have one of the following four tones.
low လၢၵ်ႇ
mid လၢၵ်ႈ
high လၵ်း
creaky လၵ်ႉ
Structure
Typical Shan words are monosyllabic. Multisyllabic words are mostly Pali loanwords, or Burmese words with the initial weak syllable /ə/.wsl,#Syllable_structure
The basic syllable structure is:wsl,#Syllable_structure
C(m)v(C)
The initial consonant may be followed by one of -w-, -y- and -r-, for which special characters are available.wsl,#Syllable_structure
In closed syllables (ie. those ending with a consonant) the vowel is a monophthong. In open syllables, it can be either a monophthong or a diphthong.wsl,#Syllable_structure
Syllable-final consonants are p̚ t̚ k̚ m n ŋ.wsl,#Syllable_structure
Vowels
Vowel summary table
This table summarises basic vowel to character assignments.
ⓘ represents the inherent vowel. Dashes are used to indicate whether the character represents a vowel sound in a closed or an open syllable.
The inherent vowel for Shan is pronounced a, so ka is written by simply using the consonant letter, eg.
ႁတရႃႉ
ႁ␣တ␣ရ␣ႃ␣ႉ
The inherent vowel occurs in both open and closed syllables, and is always short. The second syllable of the following example is closed with the inherent vowel.
ၵရမ်ႇ
Inherent vowel suppression
်
Shan uses 103A to kill the inherent vowel after a final consonant, eg. ၵ် explicitly represents just the sound k. It is always visible, and it never causes stacking.
Most closed syllables end with this character, eg.
ႁိၼ်
Codas written using combining marks don't have the asat. And, unlike Burmese, there is no virama and no consonant stacks.
Post-consonant vowels
ၵိ
kiU+1075 LETTER SHAN KA, U+102D VOWEL SIGN I
Vowels other than the inherent vowel that follow a consonant are written using 12 dedicated combining marks (vowel signs), and composite vowel signs use these and 3 other diacritics and 2 consonant letters. There are no dedicated vowel letters.
Unlike Burmese, the pronunciation of the vowel sign doesn't depend on whether it appears in an open or closed syllable. Shan, instead, generally uses different symbols for vowels in open and closed syllables. In some cases, the closed syllable vowel is a smaller version of the glyph used for open syllables that is positioned over the consonant, eg. compare မႄႈမႅင်ႇ
With one exception, the vowel in closed syllables (ie. those ending with a consonant) is a short monophthong. In open syllables it is either a long monophthong or a diphthong.
Many monophthongs are written using a single combining mark, but many others have to be written using multiple characters (see compositeV).
Four vowel signs are spacing marks, meaning that they consume horizontal space when added to a base consonant.
All vowel signs are typed and stored after the base consonant, whether or not they precede it when displayed. The glyph rendering system takes care of the glyph positioning at display time. Some input systems may allow the user to type the pre-base vowel before the base consonant, but it is still stored after.
The set of characters used to write plain vowels, diphthongs, and composite vowel signs is as follows:
ၺ␣ဝ␣ိ␣ီ␣ု␣ူ␣ေ␣ဵ␣်␣ွ␣ၢ␣ႂ␣ႃ␣ႄ␣ႅ␣ႆ
Plain vowels
The following panel lists monophthongs in open syllables.
ီ␣ိုဝ်␣ူ␣ေ␣ိူဝ်␣ူဝ်␣ႄ␣ေႃ␣ႃ
In closed syllables, the vowels are written as follows.
ိ␣ို␣ု␣ဵ␣ိူ␣ူ␣ႅ␣ွ␣ၢ
ူ is used alone for both open and closed syllables, but the vowel quality is different.
ၢ-aː is the only long vowel in closed syllables. The short version of that sound is provided by the inherent vowel, which can occur in both open and closed syllables.
103A is generally used above consonants to indicate that they are syllable-final. It can be found in the combination 101D 103A to indicate a final -w sound in a diphthong. Here, however, it is an integral part of the composite vowel sign grapheme.
103D alone in closed syllables represents the sound -ɔ-. If followed by a vowel sign it reverts to being a medial consonant.
Diphthongs
With one exception, diphthongs are vowels terminated by a j~i̯ or a w~u̯ glide. With the exception of ႆaɰ, which uses the inherent vowel, they are all composite vowel signs. They only appear in open syllables.
ိဝ်␣ိုၺ်␣ုၺ်␣ဵဝ်␣ူၺ်␣ိူၺ်␣ႅဝ်␣ွႆ␣ႆ␣ႂ်␣ဝ်␣ၢႆ␣ၢဝ်
103A can be found in the combination 101D 103A to indicate a final -w sound in a diphthong.
107A 103A is likewise used to produce diphthongs ending with -j, although several use 1086 instead.
1082 103A creates the sound -aɰ in open syllables.
Composite vowel signs
ၵိုၺ်
kɨjU+1075 LETTER SHAN KA, U+102D VOWEL SIGN I, U+102F VOWEL SIGN U, U+107A LETTER SHAN NYA, U+103A SIGN ASAT
This section lists vowel sounds represented by combinations of the above characters. There are no circumgraphs in the Shan orthography, but several composite vowel signs surround the base on more than one side. For instance, the vowel ɤj is written using 4 code points (shown between angle brackets) in the following example:
ၵိူၺ်း
ၵ␣ိ␣ူ␣ၺ␣်␣း
Simple vowels that require multiple code points:
ို␣ိုဝ်␣ူဝ်␣ိူ␣ိူဝ်␣ေႃ
Diphthongs ending with a glide:
ိဝ်␣ိုၺ်␣ုၺ်␣ဵဝ်␣ူၺ်␣ိူၺ်␣ႅဝ်␣ွႆ␣ၢႆ␣ၢဝ်␣ႂ်␣ဝ်Show which combinations contain a given character:
Two vowel signs appear before the base consonant letter or cluster, eg. မေး
This is a combining marks that is always stored after the base consonant or conjunct, ie. the code points follow the order in which the items are pronounced. The rendering process places the glyph before the base consonant without changing the order of the code points. The following shows the sequence of code points that make up the word just above.
မ␣ေ␣း
A consonant cluster is treated as a unit when it comes to vowel signs, for example in the following word the pre-base vowel sign is displayed to the left of the kj cluster, although it appears after the cluster in memory.
ၵျေႃင်း
ၵ␣ျ␣ေႃ␣င်း
Some input methods may allow the user to type this vowel before the consonant, whereas others will expect it to be typed after, per the stored order.
Standalone vowels
Shan standalone vowels all begin with a glottal stop.
The Shan orthography uses no independent vowel letters. Instead, standalone vowel sounds are written by attaching vowel signs to the letter ဢ, eg.
ဢူၺ်းၵေႃႉသူင်ႇဢွၵ်ႇ
On it's own, SHAN A represents the standalone version of the inherent vowel, ?a.
ဢပုမ်ႇ
Shan adds vowel signs to the glottal stop consonant to indicate standalone vowels.show composition
ဢၢၼ်ႇ
Tones
Tones in Shan are much easier to manage than those in Thai or Burmese. Apart from the first tone, each syllable is followed by a tone marker which explicitly indicates the tone to be applied to the syllable.
Tones 2-6 are marked using the following combining marks.
ႇ␣ႈ␣း␣ႉ␣ႊ
The tone mark for the 6th tone is promoted for use in a few words in northern usage.
Observation: It doesn't appear in any of the 2,500+ terms from Wiktionary or the Swadesh list used in the term list.
Vowel sounds mapped to characters
This section maps Shan vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Myanmar orthography.
Vowels are used in open syllables (marked 'rhyme'), or closed syllables (marked 'medial'). In open syllables the vowels are long. They are short in closed syllables. Tonal variations are not taken into account.
Plain vowels
iː
rhymeီ
i
medialိ
ɯː
rhymeိုဝ်
ɯ
medialို
uː
rhymeူ
u
medialု
eː
rhymeေ
e
medialဵ
ɤː
rhymeိူဝ်
ɤ
medialိူ
oː
rhymeူဝ်
o
medialူ
ə
rhymeိူဝ်ဝ်
ɛː
rhymeႄ
ɛ
medialႅ
ɔː
rhymeေႃ
ɔ
medialွ
rhymeေႃ်(check this!)
ʔa
inherent voweleg. ႁတရႃႉ ha˨˦.ta˨˦.raː˦˨ˀheart
standaloneဢThis is also the carrier for other standalone vowels.
ɑː
rhymeႃ
ɑː
medialၢ
Diphthongs
iu̯
rhymeိဝ်
ɨj
rhymeိုၺ်
uj
rhymeုၺ်
eu̯
rhymeဵဝ်
ɤj
rhymeိူၺ်
oj
rhymeူၺ်
ɛw
rhymeႅဝ်
ɔi
rhymeွႆ
əi
rhymeိူၺ်
ai
rhymeႆwith the inherent vowel.
aːi
rhymeၢႆ
aɰ
rhymeႂ်
au̯
rhymeဝ်
aːw
rhymeၢဝ်
Tones
˩
low 11ႇ
˧˨
mid 32ႈ
˥
high 55း
˦˨ˀ
falling/creaky 42ႉ
˧˦˧
emphatic 343ႊA northern tone used in a number of words.
Consonants
Consonant summary table
This table summarises basic consonant to character assignments.
Click on each letter for more details and for examples of usage.
ပ␣ၽ␣တ␣ထ␣ၵ␣ၶ␣ၸ␣ၾ␣သ␣ႁ␣မ␣ၼ␣ၺ␣င␣ဝ␣ရ␣လ␣ယ
Foreign sounds
The following letters are rare and used for non-native sounds.
ၿ␣ၻ␣ၷ␣ႀ␣ၹ
Onsets
ျ␣ြ␣ႂ
Unicode has 3 dedicated combining characters for medial consonants in a syllable-onset cluster. The virama should not be used with ordinary letters to produce these. Both of the first two characters appear to be used mostly for loan words.
Examples:
ၵျၢမ်ႇမႃႇ
သြႃႇဝုၼ်ႇ
ၵႂၢႆး
Note that ြ is pronounced r, unlike Burmese, which pronounces it j. Note also how the width of the glyph for this character is adjusted to fit the surrounding context.
Finals
Syllable-final consonant sounds are indicated by ordinary consonant characters with a visible 103A character, eg.
တွင်
ၵူပ်း
Syllable-final consonant sounds are p̚ t̚ k̚ m n ŋ.wsl,#Syllable_structure
Consonant clusters
Consonant clusters in modern Shan are not stacked, as they would be in Burmese. Closed syllables in a multi-syllable word are typically followed by the asat and (apart from the first tone) a tone mark, eg.
You can experiment with examples using the Shan picker.
Context-based shaping & positioning
tbd
Typographic units
Word boundaries
Words are not separated by spaces, nontheless double-clicking or other selection methods are expected to identify word boundaries. There are 2 alternative approaches for managing this.
An application uses a dictionary or smart algorithm to parse the text and determine word boundaries.
The author uses 200B between words when creating the content.
Graphemes
tbd
Punctuation & inline features
Phrase & section boundaries
၊␣။␣?
Shan uses a mixture of ASCII and native punctuation.
phrase
0020
၊
sentence
။
?
Observation: The question mark can be seen in Wikipedia, eg. ၵူႈၵေႃႉ ၶဝ်ႈႁဵတ်းသၢင်ႈၼႂ်း wiki ႁင်းၶေႃ ၸွင်ႇလႆႈ?
Observation: Wikipedia also very rarely uses a comma in Shan text (maybe only once on a page). A comma was also seen in the middle of embedded Latin text. It's not clear whether this is typical usage.
Bracketed text
(␣)
Shan commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.
start
end
standard
(
)
Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition
tbd
Observation:ꧦ appears to produce repetitive sounds. Here are some examples of usage.
Shan uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.
Counters, lists, etc.
You can experiment with counter styles using the Counter styles converter. Patterns for using these styles in CSS can be found in Ready-made Counter Styles, and we use the names of those patterns here to refer to the various styles.
The Shan orthography uses numeric styles.
Numeric
The shan numeric style is decimal-based and uses these digits.rmcs
႐␣႑␣႒␣႓␣႔␣႕␣႖␣႗␣႘␣႙
Examples:
႑␣႒␣႓␣႔␣႑႑␣႒႒␣႓႓␣႔႔␣႑႑႑␣႒႒႒␣႓႓႓␣႔႔႔
Prefixes and suffixes
The most common approach to writing lists in Shan puts the counters in parentheses.
