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Pyu language (Sino-Tibetan)

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Pyu
Tircul
Pyu alphabet
RegionPyu city-states, Pagan Kingdom
Extinct13th century
Pyu script
Language codes
ISO 639-3pyx
pyx
Glottologburm1262

The Pyu language (Pyu: ; Burmese: ပျူ ဘာသာ, IPA: [pjù bàðà]; also Tircul language) is an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was mainly spoken in what is now Myanmar in the first millennium CE. It was the vernacular of the Pyu city-states, which thrived between the second century BCE and the ninth century CE. Its usage declined starting in the late ninth century when the Bamar people of Nanzhao began to overtake the Pyu city-states. The language was still in use, at least in royal inscriptions of the Pagan Kingdom if not in popular vernacular, until the late twelfth century. It became extinct in the thirteenth century, completing the rise of the Burmese language, the language of the Pagan Kingdom, in Upper Burma, the former Pyu realm.[1]

The language is principally known from inscriptions on four stone urns (7th and 8th centuries) found near the Payagyi pagoda (in the modern Bago Township) and the multi-lingual Myazedi inscription (early 12th century).[2][3] These were first deciphered by Charles Otto Blagden in the early 1910s.[3]

The Pyu script was a Brahmic script. Recent scholarship suggests the Pyu script may have been the source of the Burmese script.[4]

Classification

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Pyu Inscription from Hanlin
Pyu city-states, c. 8th century

Blagden (1911: 382) was the first scholar to recognize Pyu as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan.[5] Miyake (2021, 2022) argues that Pyu forms a branch of its own within the Sino-Tibetan language phylum due to its divergent phonological and lexical characteristics. Pyu is not a particularly conservative Sino-Tibetan language, as it displays many phonological and lexical innovations as has lost much of the original Proto-Sino-Tibetan morphology.[6][7] Miyake (2022) suggests that this may be due to a possible creoloid origin of Pyu.[8]

Pyu was tentatively classified within the Lolo-Burmese languages by Matisoff and thought to most likely be Luish by Bradley, although Miyake later showed that neither of these hypotheses are plausible. Van Driem also tentatively classified Pyu as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan.[9]

Phonology

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Marc Miyake reconstructs the syllable structure of Pyu as:[6]

(C.)CV(C)(H)
(preinitial) + syllable

7 vowels are reconstructed.[6]

front mid back
high i u
mid e ə o
low æ a

Miyake reconstructs 43-44 onsets, depending on whether or not the initial glottal stop is included. Innovative onsets are:[6]

  • fricatives: /h ɣ ç ʝ ð v/
  • liquids: /R̥ R L̥ L/
  • implosive: /ɓ/

10 codas are reconstructed, which are -k, -t, -p, -m, -n, -ŋ, -j, -r, -l, -w. Pyu is apparently isolating, with no inflection morphology observed.[6]

List of Pyu inscriptions

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Location Inventory number
Halin 01[10]
Śrī Kṣetra 04[11]
Pagan 07[12]
Pagan 08[13]
Śrī Kṣetra 10[14]
Pagan 11[15]
Śrī Kṣetra 12[16]
Śrī Kṣetra 22[17]
Śrī Kṣetra 25[18]
Śrī Kṣetra 28[19]
Śrī Kṣetra 29[20]
Myittha 32[21]
Myittha 39[22]
Śrī Kṣetra 42[23]
Śrī Kṣetra 55[24]
Śrī Kṣetra 56[25]
Śrī Kṣetra 57[26]
Halin 60[27]
Halin 61[28]
??? 63[29]
Śrī Kṣetra 105[30]
Śrī Kṣetra 160[31]
??? 163[32]
Śrī Kṣetra 164[33]
Śrī Kṣetra 167[34]

Vocabulary

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Below are selected Pyu basic vocabulary items from Gordon Luce and Marc Miyake.

Myazedi inscription Myazedi inscription translation
Prosperity! One thousand six hundred and twenty-eight years after Lord Buddha had attained Nibbana, this city was named Arimaddanapur. The King was named Sri Tribhuvanditya Dhammaraja. The King's queen consort was called Trilokavatamsakadevi. Her son was named Rajakumer. The King gave her three villages of salves. When the Queen had died the King gave the Queen's goods and the three villages of salves, to the noble Queen's song Rajakumar. After the noble King had enjoyed royal splendour for twenty-eight years, he was sick nigh unto death. That noble Queen's son was called Rajakumar. The Queen's son being mindful of the King's beneficence in bringing him up, caused a golden statue to be made in the likeness of the lord Buddha and, giving the golden Buddha, to the King, said thus: "On behalf on my lord (father) I consecrate this golden Buddha. I now give the three villages of salves to my lord. May my lord give them to the noble golden Buddha. "There upon the King smiled and said, "Well done! Well done!" Then, in the presence of the noble disciples Maha-thera, Moggliputatissa-thera, Sumedha the Leamed, Brahma-pala, Brahmadiv, Sona, Sanghadena the very Learned, the noble King poured water (onto the ground in dedication). Thereafter, Rajakumar the Queen's son, had the golden Buddha enshrined in a cave for which a golden spire was made. In consecrating the cave-pagoda, the villages from the three villages namely Sakmunalun, one village; Rabai, one village, were assembled and assigned to the pagoda. The Queen's son Rajakumar, in pouring the (libation) water said thus: "May this my deed, help me to attain Ommiscience and wisdom (like Buddha). If any harm be done to any of these slaves, or to anything that I now dedicate to this pagoda, or if any violence done against them be not deterred, be it, my own son, be it my grandson, be it my own kinsman be it any stranger, let him never see the noble Arimettaya Buddha."
Gloss Luce (1985)[35] Miyake (2016)[36] Miyake (2021)[6]
one tå ta(k·)ṁ /tæk/
two hni° kni
three ho:, hau: hoḥ /n.homH/ < *n.sumH < *məsumH
four pḷå plaṁ
five pi°ŋa (piṁ/miṁ) ṅa /pəŋa/
six tru tru(k·?)
seven kni hni(t·?)ṁ
eight hrå hra(t·)ṁ
nine tko tko /t.ko/
ten sū, sau su
twenty tpū
bone, relic ru
water tdu̱- /t.du/
gold tha
day phru̱
month de [ḷe ?]
year sni:
village o
good; well ha
to be in pain, ill hni°:
nearness mtu
name mi /r.miŋ/
I ga°:
my gi
wife maya:
consort, wife [u] vo̱:
child, son sa: /saH/
grandchild pli, pli°
give /pæH/

Sound changes

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Pyu displays the following sound changes from Proto-Tibeto-Burman.[6]

Usage

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The language was the vernacular of the Pyu states. However, Sanskrit and Pali appeared to have co-existed alongside Pyu as the court language. The Chinese records state that the 35 musicians that accompanied the Pyu embassy to the Tang court in 800–802 played music and sang in the Fàn (梵 "Sanskrit") language.[37]

Pyu Pali Burmese Pali Thai Pali Translation[38]

(Pyu alphabet AD 500 to 600 Writings) 		ဣတိပိ သော ဘဂဝါ အရဟံ
သမ္မာသမ္ဗုဒ္ဓော ဝိဇ္ဇာစရဏသမ္ပန္နော 		อิติปิ โส ภควา อรหํ สมฺมาสมฺพุทฺโธ วิชฺชาจรณสมฺปนฺโน Thus, indeed is that Gracious One: The Worthy One, fully enlightened, endowed with clear vision and virtuous conduct,
သုဂတော လောကဝိဒူ အနုတ္တရော ပုရိသဒမ္မ သာရထိ သတ္ထာ ဒေဝမနုသာနံ ဗုဒ္ဓေါ ဘဂဝါ(တိ) สุคโต โลกวิทู อนุตฺตโร ปุริสทมฺมสารถิ สตฺถาเทวมนุสฺสานํ พุทฺโธ ภควา(ติ) sublime, the Knower of the worlds, the unsurpassed guide of those who need taming, the Teacher of gods and men, the Buddha and the Gracious One.

Notes

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  1. ^ Htin Aung (1967), pp. 51–52.
  2. ^ Blagden, C. Otto (1913–1914). "The 'Pyu' inscriptions". Epigraphia Indica. 12: 127–132.
  3. ^ a b Beckwith, Christopher I. (2002). "A glossary of Pyu". In Beckwith, Christopher I. (ed.). Medieval Tibeto-Burman languages. Brill. pp. 159–161. ISBN 978-90-04-12424-0.
  4. ^ Aung-Thwin (2005), pp. 167–177.
  5. ^ Blagden (1911).
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Miyake, Marc (June 1, 2021a). "The Prehistory of Pyu". doi:10.5281/zenodo.5778089.
     • "The Prehistory of Pyu - Marc Miyake - SEALS 2021 KEYNOTE TALK". Retrieved 2022-12-25 – via YouTube.
  7. ^ Miyake (2021), p. [page needed].
  8. ^ Miyake, Marc (2022-01-28). Alves, Mark; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). "The Prehistory of Pyu". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society: Papers from the 30th Conference of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (2021). 15 (3): 1–40. hdl:10524/52498. ISSN 1836-6821.[verification needed]
  9. ^ van Driem, George. "Trans-Himalayan Database". Archived from the original on January 24, 2012. Retrieved 7 November 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  10. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU001) held at the Archaeological Museum at Halin [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.579711
  11. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU004) around a funerary urn held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.581381
  12. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of the quadrilingual Pyu inscription (PYU007) kept in an inscription shed on the grounds of the Myazedi pagoda in Pagan [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.579873
  13. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of the quadrilingual Pyu inscription (PYU008) held at the Pagan museum, originally found in the grounds of the Myazedi pagoda [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.580158
  14. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU010) kept in one of two inscription sheds on the grounds of the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.580597
  15. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a bilingual Pyu inscription (PYU011) held at the Pagan museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.580282
  16. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Sanskrit-Pyu bilingual inscription (PYU012) around the base of a Buddha statue held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.581383
  17. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU022) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.581468
  18. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU025) on the base of a funerary urn held at the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.580777
  19. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU028) kept in one of two inscription sheds on the grounds of the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.580791
  20. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU029) kept in one of two inscription sheds on the grounds of the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.581217
  21. ^ Miles, James, & Hill, Nathan W. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscriptions (PYU032) kept in an inscription shed on the grounds of a pagoda in Myittha [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.579848
  22. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU039) kept in an inscription shed on the grounds of a monastery in Myittha [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.579725
  23. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU042) kept in one of two inscription sheds on the grounds of the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. . Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.581251
  24. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU055) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.806133
  25. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU056) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.806148
  26. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU057) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.806163
  27. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscriptions (PYU060) kept in the inscription shed outside the Archaeological Museum at Halin [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.579695
  28. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscriptions (PYU061) held at the Archaeological Museum at Halin [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.579710
  29. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU063) held at the National Museum (Burmese: အမျိုးသား ပြတိုက်) in Rangoon [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/ doi:10.5281/zenodo.806174
  30. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription on a gold ring (PYU105) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.806168
  31. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU160) discovered in Śrī Kṣetra [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.823725
  32. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU163) [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.825673
  33. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU164) [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.825685
  34. ^ Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU167) [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.823753
  35. ^ Luce, George. 1985. Phases of Pre-Pagan Burma: languages and history (volume 2). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-713595-1. pp. 66–69.
  36. ^ Miyake, Marc. 2016. Pyu numerals in comparative perspective. Presentation given at SEALS 26.
  37. ^ Aung-Thwin (2005), pp. 35–36.
  38. ^ "Pali chant with English translation" (PDF). Tufts University Chaplaincy. Retrieved Feb 8, 2022.

References

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Further reading

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