De'ang - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Palaung are a Mon–Khmer ethnic minority found in Shan State

Shan State

Shan State is a state of Burma . Shan State borders China to the north, Laos to the east, and Thailand to the south, and five administrative divisions of Burma in the west. Largest of the 14 administrative divisions by land area, Shan State covers 155,800 km², almost a quarter of the total...

of Burma, Yunnan province of China and northern Thailand. They live mainly in the northern parts of Shan State in the Pa Laung Self-Administered Zone

Pa Laung Self-Administered Zone

Palaung Self-Administered Zone , is an autonomous zone in Burma , consisting of Namhsan Township and Mantong Township in Shan State. It was created as a separately administered unit by the 2008 Constitution. Its official name was announced by decree on 20 August 2010. The zone is to be...

, with the capital at Namhsan. There are three main subgroups of Palaung: the Palé, Shwe and Rumai. The Palaung State Liberation Army was a rebel group which fought against the Burmese government starting from January 1963 but entered a cease-fire agreement with the Burmese government in April 1991.

In China, they are referred to as the De'ang ( also spelt Deang) people. The Chinese government groups together the Palé, Riang, Rumai and Shwe peoples as the De'ang ethnic nationality. The group also includes the Danau (Danaw) who may no longer have a separate identity from the Palé.

Language

There are several distinct Palaung languages. Depending on their subgroup, the Palaung speak Palé, Riang, Rumai or Shwe. Ethnologue lists three Palaung languages (Rumai, Ruching, and Shwe. Related to Palaung, but forming a separate group are two Riang languages, Riang and Yinchia. All of these languages belong to the Palaungic ("Palaung" or "Ta-ang")

Palaungic languages

The nearly thirty Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages form a branch of the Austro-Asiatic languages.Most of the Palaungic languages lost the contrastive voicing of the ancestral Austro-Asiatic consonants, with the distinction often shifting to the following vowel...

sub-group of the Mon–Khmer language family. The Riang languages are reported to be unintelligible or only understood with great difficulty by native speakers of the other Palaung languages.

Phonology

Shorto (1960) lists the following consonants for Palaung:

Labials	Dentals	Palatals	Velars	Glottal
p	t	t͡ɕ	k	ʔ
b	d	d͡ʑ	g
m	n	ɲ	ŋ
v	s
	r,l	j

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɯ	u
Mid tense	e		o
Mid lax	ɛ	ə	ɔ
Low			a

According to Shorto (1960), /ə/ does not occur alone in primary stressed syllable, but only in an unstressed syllable or as the second member of a diphthong. There are also a large number of diphthongs, including /eo/, /eə/, /aə/, /ɔə/, /oə/, /uə/, and /iə/.

Although Milne (1921) includes the vowels /ü, ö, ɪ/ in her transcriptions, Shorto (1960) did not find these as vowel phonemes in his work.

(Note that the words cited below in the Syntax section come from Milne (1921), so their phonetic representations may need revision.)

Nouns and noun phrases

The order of elements in the noun phrase is
N - (possessor) - (demonstrative)

Consider the following examples:

kwɔɔn	ai	öö
child	we two	this
this child of ours

Prepositions and prepositional phrases

Rumai Palaung has prepositions, as in the following example:

ta	khuun	hɔɔkhəm
to	great	king
to the great king

Sentences

Clauses in Rumai are generally in subject–verb–object (SVO) order:

əən	dii	d͡ʒüür	gaaŋ
he	future	buy	house
He will buy a house

Text sample

The following part of a story in Rumai Palaung is from Milne (1921:146-147)

Naaŋ̩	rashööh,	naaŋ	jü	grai	ta	khuun	hɔɔkhəm	naaŋ	daah,
lady	awake	lady	narrative:past	said	to	great	king	lady	say
The queen awoke and said to the king

öö	ka	tööm	rɪɪnpoo	hlai	uu	lööh	khənjaa	öö	ai	lɔh	shoktee	haa	öö
oh	neg	ever	dream	even	one	time	ruler	oh	we two	come	fast	place	this
'Oh, I never dreamed (like this) before, oh Ruler, (since) we two came to this place to fast

Phadiiu	nɔ	la	puur	shəŋii,	ɔɔ	rɪɪnpoo	khuun	phii	leeh
today	full	good	seven	day	I	dream	great	spirit	come down
seven days ago. I dreamed that the great spirit came down

dɛh	ɔɔ	hɔɔm	makmon	kəəm	ŋaam	hnjo hnjo
give	me	eat	long mango	gold	sweet	very
and gave me long mangoes of gold to eat. They were very sweet.'

Religion

Most De'ang are adherents of Theravada Buddhism

Theravada

Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...

and Buddhist temples can be found in most of their towns. Buddhism is present in all of the daily activities of this ethnic group. At the age of 10, many children are sent to the monasteries, primarily for education. Most of them return to lay life in later years.

The Riang are the only one of the four groups who have never converted to Buddhism. The majority of the Riang are animists

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....