# Shan alphabet

The Shan script is a Brahmic abugida, used for writing the Shan language, which was derived from the Burmese script. Due to its recent reforms, the Shan alphabet is more phonetic than other Burmese-derived scripts.

## History

Around the 15th or 16th centuries, the Mon–Burmese script was borrowed and adapted to write a Tai language of northern Burma. This adaptation eventually resulted in the Shan alphabet, as well as the Tai Le script, Ahom script and Khamti script. This group of scripts has been called the "Lik Tai" scripts or "Lik" scripts, and are used by various Tai peoples in northeastern India, northern Myanmar, southwestern Yunnan, and northwestern Laos.According to the scholar Warthon, evidence suggests that the ancestral Lik-Tai script was borrowed from the Mon–Burmese script in the fifteenth century, most probably in the polity of Mong Mao. However, it is believed that the Ahom people had already adopted their script before migrating to the Brahmaputra Valley in the 13th century. Furthermore, the scholar Daniels describes a Lik Tai script featured on a 1407 Ming dynasty scroll, which shows greater similarity to the Ahom script than to the Lik Tho Ngok (Tai Le) script.
Until the 1960s, Shan alphabet utilised vowel symbols and tone marks used in the Burmese script, which did not sufficiently distinguish all the phonemic distinctions in Shan. The alphabet was reformed to incorporate vowel signs, and additional tone markers to represent the high-falling creaky (ႉ), high-level (း), low (ႇ), and mid-level, mid-falling tones (ႈ) and the addition of the Thai visarga (ႊ) to represent the sixth tone used in northern Shan dialects.

## Characteristics

The Shan alphabet is characterised by the circular letter forms of the Mon-Burmese script. It is an abugida, all letters having an inherent vowel /a/. Vowels are represented in the form of diacritics placed around the consonants. It is written left to right

### Vowels

The representation of the vowels depends partly on whether the syllable has a final consonant. They are typically arranged in the manner below to show the logical relationships between the medial and the final forms and between the individual vowels and the vowel clusters they help form.
Vowels :
| Medial | ◌aunmarked | ၢaaIPA: ɑː | ိiIPA: i | ဵeIPA: e | ႅaeIPA: æ | ုuIPA: u | ူoIPA: o | ွaw/oIPA: ɔ | ိုeuIPA: ɯ | ိူoeIPA: ə |
| Final | | ႃaaIPA: ɑː | ီiiIPA: iː | ေeIPA: e | ႄaeIPA: æ | ူuuIPA: uː | ူဝ်oIPA: o | ေႃaw/oIPA: ɔ | ိုဝ်euIPA: ɯ | ိူဝ်oeIPA: ə |
| Final | ႆaiIPA: ai | ၢႆaaiIPA: aːi | | | | ုၺ်uiIPA: ui | ူၺ်ohi/uaiIPA: oi | ွႆoi/oyIPA: ɔi | ိုၺ်uei/ueyIPA: ɨi | ိူၺ်oei/oeyIPA: əi |
| Final | ဝ်awIPA: au | ၢဝ်aawIPA: aːu | ိဝ်iuIPA: iu | ဵဝ်eoIPA: eu | ႅဝ်aeoIPA: æu | | | | ႂ်aɨIPA: aɯ | |

### Consonants

The Shan alphabet is much less complex than those of related Tai-Kadai languages like Thai. Having been reformed recently, Shan lacks many of the historical spelling remnants in Thai and Burmese. Compared to the Thai alphabet, it lacks the notions of high-class, mid-class and low-class consonants, distinctions which help the Thai script to number 44 consonants. Shan has only 19 consonants.
The number of consonants in a textbook may vary: there are 19 universally accepted Shan consonants (ၵ ၶ င ၸ သ ၺ တ ထ ၼ ပ ၽ ၾ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ ႁ ဢ) and five more which represent sounds not found in Shan, g, z, b, d and th [θ]. These five (ၷ ၹ ၿ ၻ ႀ) are quite rare. The consonant ရ occurs only in loanwords, as the consonant has otherwise merged ႁ in Shan. In addition, most editors include a dummy consonant (ဢ) used in words with a vowel onset. A textbook may therefore present 18-24 consonants.
Like other Brahmi scripts, Shan consonants are typically arranged in rows based on place of articulation with columns based on aspiration and voicing.
| ၵkaIPA: ka | ၶkhaIPA: kʰa | ငngaIPA: ŋa |
| ၸtsaIPA: t͡ɕa | သsaIPA: sa | ၺnyaIPA: ɲa |
| တtaIPA: ta | ထthaIPA: tʰa | ၼnaIPA: na |
| ပpaIPA: pa | ၽphaIPA: pʰa | ၾfaIPA: fa |
| မmaIPA: ma | ယyaIPA: ja | ရraIPA: ra |
| လlaIPA: la | ဝwaIPA: wa | ႁhaIPA: ha |
| | ဢaIPA: ʔa | |
Consonants used primarily in loan words :
| ၷgǎIPA: /ɡa˨˦/ | ႀxǎIPA: /θa˨˦/ | ၻdǎIPA: /da˨˦/ | ၿbǎIPA: /ba˨˦/ |
Final consonants and other symbols :
| မ်IPA: m | ၼ်IPA: n | င်IPA: ŋ | ပ်IPA: p | တ်IPA: t | ၵ်IPA: k | ျIPA: ʃa | ြIPA: pʰra |

### Tones

The tones are indicated by tone markers at the end of the syllable. Shan tonal markers are mostly unambiguous and phonetic. In the absence of any marker, the default is the rising tone.
Tone markers :
| 1◌rising | 2ႇlow | 3ႈmid-falling | 4းhigh | 5ႉhigh-falling and creaky | 6ႊemphatic or middle |
While the reformed script originally used only four diacritic tone markers, equivalent to the five tones spoken in the southern dialect, the Lashio-based Shan Literature and Culture Association now, for a number of words, promotes the use of the 'yak khuen' (Shan: ယၵ်းၶိုၼ်ႈ) to denote the sixth tone as pronounced in the north.

## Numerals

There are differences between the numerals used by the Shan script in China and Myanmar. The numerals used by Shan in China are similar to the numbers in Tham script and Tai Le script in China and the numbers in Burmese, while the Shan numerals in Myanmar form their own system, similar to the Burmese Tai Le numerals.
| Burmese Shan and Tai Le | 0႐ | 1႑ | 2႒ | 3႓ | 4႔ | 5႕ | 6႖ | 7႗ | 8႘ | 9႙ |
| Chinese Shan and Tai Le | ᧐ | ᧑ | ᥨ | ၃ | ၄ | ၅ | ᧖ | ၇ | ᧘ | ᧙ |

## Punctuation

There are three main punctuation marks in Shan script with an addition mark for letter reduplication, typically as shorthand.
| ၊comma | ။full stop | ႟exclamation | ꧦletter reduplication |

## Syllables

Below are charts with syllables showcasing how of Shan script vowels and consonants are combined.
Monophthongs combined with the consonant ⟨ၵ⟩, ka. :
| ၵ + ◌◌ၵkǎIPA: /ʔa˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ႃၵႃkǎaIPA: /ʔaː˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ိၵိkǐIPA: /ʔi˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ီၵီkǐiIPA: /ʔiː˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ေၵေkǎeIPA: /ʔeː˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ႄၵႄkěIPA: /ʔɛː˨˦/ |
| ၵ + ◌ုၵုkǔIPA: /ʔu˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ ူၵူkǔuIPA: /ʔuː˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ူဝ်ၵူဝ်kǒIPA: /ʔoː˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ေႃၵေႃkǎuIPA: /ʔɔː˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ိုဝ်ၵိုဝ်kǔeIPA: /ʔɯː˨˦/ | ၵ + ◌ိူဝ်ၵိူဝ်kǒeIPA: /ʔɤː˨˦/ |
Diphthongs combined with the consonant ⟨ၵ⟩, ka. :
| ၵ + ႆၵႆkǎiIPA: /ʔaj˨˦/ | ၵ + ၢႆၵၢႆkǎaiIPA: /ʔaːj˨˦/ | ၵ + ွႆၵွႆkǎuiIPA: /ʔɔj˨˦/ | ၵ + ုၺ်ၵုၺ်kǔiIPA: /ʔuj˨˦/ | ၵ + ူၺ်ၵူၺ်kǒiIPA: /ʔoj˨˦/ | ၵ + ိုၺ်ၵိုၺ်kǔeiIPA: /ʔɯj˨˦/ | ၵ + ိူၺ်ၵိူၺ်kǒeiIPA: /ʔɤj˨˦/ |
| ၵ + ဝ်ၵဝ်kǎoIPA: /ʔaw˨˦/ | ၵ + ၢဝ်ၵၢဝ်kǎaoIPA: /ʔaːw˨˦/ | ၵ + ိဝ်ၵိဝ်kǐoIPA: /ʔiw˨˦/ | ၵ + ဵဝ်ၵဵဝ်kǎeiIPA: /ʔew˨˦/ | ၵ + ႅဝ်ၵႅဝ်kěoIPA: /ʔɛw˨˦/ | ၵ + ႂ်ၵႂ်ʼǎueIPA: /ʔaɰ˨˦/ | |
Tones with the syllable ⟨ပႃ⟩, paa. :
| ပႃpǎaIPA: /paː˨˦/ | ပႃႇpàaIPA: /paː˩/ | ပႃႈpāaIPA: /paː˧˧˨/ | ပႃးpáaIPA: /paː˥/ | ပႃႉpâ̰aIPA: /paː˦˨ˀ/ | ပႃႊpa᷈aIPA: /paː˧˦˧/ |

## Unicode

The Shan script has been encoded as a part of the Myanmar block with the release version of Unicode 3.0.
Myanmar Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF) :
| | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F |
| U+100x | က | ခ | ဂ | ဃ | င | စ | ဆ | ဇ | ဈ | ဉ | ည | ဋ | ဌ | ဍ | ဎ | ဏ |
| U+101x | တ | ထ | ဒ | ဓ | န | ပ | ဖ | ဗ | ဘ | မ | ယ | ရ | လ | ဝ | သ | ဟ |
| U+102x | ဠ | အ | ဢ | ဣ | ဤ | ဥ | ဦ | ဧ | ဨ | ဩ | ဪ | ါ | ာ | ိ | ီ | ု |
| U+103x | ူ | ေ | ဲ | ဳ | ဴ | ဵ | ံ | ့ | း | ္ | ် | ျ | ြ | ွ | ှ | ဿ |
| U+104x | ၀ | ၁ | ၂ | ၃ | ၄ | ၅ | ၆ | ၇ | ၈ | ၉ | ၊ | ။ | ၌ | ၍ | ၎ | ၏ |
| U+105x | ၐ | ၑ | ၒ | ၓ | ၔ | ၕ | ၖ | ၗ | ၘ | ၙ | ၚ | ၛ | ၜ | ၝ | ၞ | ၟ |
| U+106x | ၠ | ၡ | ၢ | ၣ | ၤ | ၥ | ၦ | ၧ | ၨ | ၩ | ၪ | ၫ | ၬ | ၭ | ၮ | ၯ |
| U+107x | ၰ | ၱ | ၲ | ၳ | ၴ | ၵ | ၶ | ၷ | ၸ | ၹ | ၺ | ၻ | ၼ | ၽ | ၾ | ၿ |
| U+108x | ႀ | ႁ | ႂ | ႃ | ႄ | ႅ | ႆ | ႇ | ႈ | ႉ | ႊ | ႋ | ႌ | ႍ | ႎ | ႏ |
| U+109x | ႐ | ႑ | ႒ | ႓ | ႔ | ႕ | ႖ | ႗ | ႘ | ႙ | ႚ | ႛ | ႜ | ႝ | ႞ | ႟ |
| Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0 |||||||||||||||||

## Gallery

* A sign written in Shan along with other languages in Chiang Mai, Thailand
* A sign written in Shan in Chiang Mai, Thailand