Mru language

Mru
Mro, Krama^[1]
Mru; Mro, Krama
Script type	alphabet
Time period	1980s — present
Languages	Mru
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Mroo (264), Mro, Mru
Unicode
Unicode alias	Mro
Unicode range	U+16A40–U+16A6F

Mru
Mru
𖩃𖩓𖩑
	'Mru' in the Mru script
Native to	Bangladesh, Myanmar
Ethnicity	Mru
Native speakers	(50,000 cited 1999–2007)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Mruic Mru; ; ;
Writing system	Mru script, Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mro
Glottolog	mruu1242
ELP	Mru

Map showing the expanse of the Mru people in Bangladesh

Mru, also known as Mrung (Murung), is a Sino-Tibetan language of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It is spoken by a community of Mrus (Mros) inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh with a population of 22,000 according to the 1991 census, and in Rakhine State, Myanmar. The Mrus are the second-largest tribal group in Bandarban District of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. A small group of Mros also live in Rangamati Hill District.

Classification

Mru forms the Mruic language branch with Hkongso and Anu, which are spoken in Paletwa Township, Chin State, Myanmar. The position of Mruic with Sino-Tibetan is unclear.

Distribution

Percentage Map of Mru people by Upazila in bandarban district

The Mros live in forest areas of Lama Upazila, Ruma Upazila, Alikadam Upazila, and Thanchi Upazila near Chimbuk Mountain of Bandarban District, Bangladesh (Rashel 2009). In Myanmar, they also live in Buthidaung Township and Ponnagyun Township in Sittwe District (Akiab), Rakhine State.

Subdivisions

Ethnologue (22nd edition) lists 3 main dialects as Anok, Dowpreng (Dopreng), and Sungma (Tshungma), as well as the 2 minor dialects of Domrong and Rumma.

Anok: largest and central
Tshungma: in the north
Domrong: in the lowlands north of the Matamuri
Dopreng: in far south and into Arakan
Rumma: in far south and into Arakan

There are five Mru dialects according to Ebersole (1996).

Anawk
Süngma
Dopreng
Tamsa
Rengmitsa

There are five major Mro clans (Rashel 2009).

Dengua
Premsang
Kongloi
Maizer
Ganaroo Gnar

Rashel (2009) also lists another classification scheme which lists ten Mro clans.

Yarua (subdivisions below)
- Khatpo
- Chimlung
- Zongnow
Sangkan
Chawla
Ngaringcha
Tang
Deng
Kough
Tam-tu-chah
Kanbak
Prenju
Naichah
Yomore
Rum/Rumthu

Grammar

Unlike the Kuki-Chin languages, Mru has SVO (subject-verb-object) word order (Ebersole 1996).

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tɕ	k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	tɕʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d
Fricative			s	(ʃ)		h
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w	l	j

/s/ can also be heard as [ʃ].^[3]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		ɯ	u
Mid	ɛ		ɤ	ɔ
Open		a

^[4]

Numerals

Rashel (2009:159) lists the following Mro numerals.

lok
pre
sum
tle
tnga
trok
rinit
riyat
tako
homod

Script

The Mru script is an indigenous, messianic script: In the 1980s Menlay Murang (also known as Manley Mro) created the religion of Khrama (or Crama) and with it a new script for the Mru language.^[5]^[6]

The script is written from left to right and has its own set of digits. It does not use tone marks.

The Mru language is written in both the Latin and Mru scripts.

Unicode

The Mru alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June, 2014 with the release of version 7.0.

The Unicode block for the Mru script, called Mro, is U+16A40–U+16A6F:

Mro^[1]^[2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
U+16A4x	𖩀‎	𖩁‎	𖩂‎	𖩃‎	𖩄‎	𖩅‎	𖩆‎	𖩇‎	𖩈‎	𖩉‎	𖩊‎	𖩋‎	𖩌‎	𖩍‎	𖩎‎	𖩏‎
U+16A5x	𖩐‎	𖩑‎	𖩒‎	𖩓‎	𖩔‎	𖩕‎	𖩖‎	𖩗‎	𖩘‎	𖩙‎	𖩚‎	𖩛‎	𖩜‎	𖩝‎	𖩞‎
U+16A6x	𖩠‎	𖩡‎	𖩢‎	𖩣‎	𖩤‎	𖩥‎	𖩦‎	𖩧‎	𖩨‎	𖩩‎					𖩮‎	𖩯‎
Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 16.0 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

References

^ ^a ^b Mru at Ethnologue (21st ed., 2018)
^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Mruic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
^ Williams, Nicholas J. (2008). Directionals in Mru. Dartmouth College.
^ Namkung, Ju (1996). Mru. Phonological Inventories of Tibeto-Burman Languages. (STEDT Monograph Series, 3.): Berkeley: Center for Southeast Asia Studies. p. 268.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^ Hosken, Martin; Everson, Michael (24 March 2009). "N3589R: Proposal for encoding the Mro script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF). Retrieved 2 August 2014.
^ Zaman, Mustafa (24 February 2006). "Mother Tongue at Stake". Star Weekend Magazine. 5 (83). The Daily Star.

Ebersole, Harold. 1996. The Mru Language: A preliminary grammatical sketch. Ms.
Peterson, David A., "Where does Mru fit into Tibeto-Burman?", The 42nd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL 42), November 2009, Payap University, Chiangmai, Thailand. Cf. p. 14.
Rashel, Md Mostafa (2009). "Morphosyntactic Analysis of Mro Language." Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics, Vol, 2, No, 3, February 2009, 141–160.