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 multipart vowels 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 multipart vowels, which can involve up to 4 glyphs, and surround the base consonant(s) on up to 3 sides. These multipart vowels 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.
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
Dashes are used to indicate whether the character represents a vowel sound in a closed or an open syllable.
Vowel summary table
The following table summarises the main vowel to character assigments.
ⓘ represents the inherent vowel. Open syllable vowels appear on the left, and closed syllable vowels to the right.
Below is the full set of characters needed to represent the vowels of the Shan language.
ဝ␣ဢ␣ၺိ␣ီ␣ု␣ူ␣ေ␣ဵ␣း␣်␣ွ␣ၢ␣ႂ␣ႃ␣ႄ␣ႅ␣ႆ␣ႇ␣ႈ␣ႉ␣ႊ
Inherent vowel
ၵ
kaU+1075 LETTER SHAN KA
a following a consonant is not written, but is seen as an inherent part of the consonant letter, so ka is written by simply using the consonant letter. The first 2 syllables of the following word are inherent vowels.
ႁတရႃႉ
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
Other vowels following consonants
ၵိ
kiU+1075 LETTER SHAN KA, U+102D VOWEL SIGN I
Post-consonant vowels are written using 12 dedicated combining marks (vowel signs), and multipart vowels 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.
An orthography that uses vowel signs is different from one that uses simple diacritics or letters for vowels, in that the vowel signs are generally attached to an orthographic syllable, rather than just applied to the letter of the immediately preceding consonant. This means that pre-base vowel signs and the left glyph of circumgraphs appear before a whole consonant cluster if it is rendered as a conjunct (see prebase).
Monophthongs
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 multipart vowel 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 multipart vowels. 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.
Multipart vowels
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 multipart vowels surround the base on more than one side.
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
These are combining marks that are always stored after the base consonant. The glyph rendering system places the glyph before the base consonant.
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
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, that character 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.
Consonants with no following vowel
်
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
Vowel sounds mapped to characters
This section maps Shan vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Myanmar orthography.
The left column shows vowels in open syllables, and the right column closed syllables. In open syllables the vowels are long. They are short in closed syllables. Tonal variations are not taken into account.
Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
The following letters are rare and used for non-native sounds.
ၿ␣ၻ␣ၷ␣ႀ␣ၹ
Onsets
Unicode has the following, dedicated combining characters for the second letter in a syllable-onset cluster. The virama should not be used with ordinary letters to produce these. Both of the first two letters appear to be used mostly for loan words.
ျ␣ြ␣ႂ
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.
ၽၵ်းၵၢတ်ႇမွၵ်ႇ
Consonant sounds mapped to characters
This section maps Shan consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Myanmar orthography. Sounds listed as 'infrequent' are allophones, or sounds used for foreign words, etc.
Click on a grapheme to find other mentions on this page (links appear at the bottom of the page). Click on the character name to see examples and for detailed descriptions of the character(s) shown.
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.
