Talk:Mon alphabet

Necessity of this page

@Kwamikagami, Lancepark, and Htawmonzel: Back in 2017 user Kwamikagami merged this page together with Old Mon script as they were duplicate articles. In 2021 user Lancepark recreated this article by shifting content from Mon language. The articles overlap heavily, however, and the premise that the modern Mon script is merely an adaption from the Burmese script (as this page stated before user Hwtamonzel's edits) is concluded from a Unicode document without this document directly stating so. Meaning that this page has little reason to exist on its own. To my understanding and knowledge, the Old Mon/Mon script was probably the source of the Burmese script, but was brought under Burmese influence later on, and now Unicode encoded these scripts as one character set. The same thing happened to the Shan script. These scripts growing closer together over time does not mean that they were not originally seperate developments, and we should now call them variants of Modern Burmese script. So, what should happen to this page? I propose merging it back to Old Mon script. Glennznl (talk) 12:45, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

If we had an orthography section at Mon language, then this would be redundant. But we should have that info somewhere.

I'm not sure Old Mon and Burmese script are distinct. Appears to be different stages of the same script, though I really should get a decent ref before saying so. — kwami (talk) 12:51, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

The earliest Mon inscriptions have been dated to the 6th century CE. Its are found both in Thailand and Burma/Myanmar. The earliest Burmese inscription is Myazedi inscription. It inscribed in 1113 CE (12th century). Myazadi inscription is written in four languages, Pyu, Pali, Mon and Burmese.In Pyu is written in Pyu script and In Pali, Mon and Burmese are written in Old Mon script/Mon script. There also have Mon inscriptions in Burma from early 11th century CE and some can be dated about 8th century. There are extant evidence linking the Old Dvaravati Mon script and the Old Mon script from 11th century to the mordern script that Mons and Burmese using today. Htawmonzel (talk) 16:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: We could restore the alphabet section of Mon language (which was spun-off to create this page) and then merge this page with Old Mon script. Although I think the name Mon script should be the title as there is no "New Mon script". --Glennznl (talk) 10:10, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Agreed on both points. We should have a hat note at top for the modern Mon alphabet. — kwami (talk) 10:18, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@Glennznl agreed on your both points. From 6th to 8th centuries CE the Mon used Granth script (Pallava and Kadamba script). About 8th century the Mons developed its own script. It finds in lower and central Burma and in Thailand it has only been found in Lamphun. From this time until nowadays Mon script it is not so much change. What I want to say it the Mons doesn't have New Mon script. They always use the same script from ca. 8th century until now. Htawmonzel (talk) 08:20, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami and Htawmonzel: How should we go about doing this? I think to preserve the page history, we should merge Mon script to Old Mon script, and then request Old Mon script to be renamed to Mon script. --Glennznl (talk) 15:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, if that's the direction we want to go.

If user Htawmonzel is correct, then the Burmese and Mon scripts are the same, and we should call it one or the other, or perhaps "Mon-Burmese script", and the article should be at "Old Mon alphabet".

But if the genealogy diagram someone shared on another page (I forget where) is correct, then we don't actually know that Burmese descends from Mon and that the modern Mon alphabet is a direct continuation of the old Mon script. In that case we should do as you suggest.

I often fall back on Daniels & Bright. They're not the best source in many cases (at least, their coverage of the Asian scripts I'm familiar with is rather amateurish), but they're reasonably complete.

[TBC when I can access them] — kwami (talk) 19:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

We can also call Mon-Burmese script. Because Burmese and Mon had been sharing the same script since 12th century. But I know most of (Burmese) will not like it. It is the best if the page Old Mon script to be renamed to Mon script. Htawmonzel (talk) 19:57, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

But then we'd need to delete Burmese script. We can't have two articles on the same topic under different names. That's a WP:content fork. So you need to choose: is it the Mon script, the Burmese script, or the Mon-Burmese script? But that's pending RS confirmation that what you say is correct. — kwami (talk) 19:58, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Glennznl: Daniels & Bright supports @Htawmonzel:, but are contradicted by that other chart we saw.

There are two relevant chapters in D&B: 41, the Spread of Brahmi Script into Southeast Asia, and 42, Burmese Writing.

Chapt. 41 has a genealogy of SE Asian Brahmic scripts, descending from Pallava script. There is a regional Mon variety by 650 CE, that at least for ⟨ta⟩ is almost identical in shape to the Indian prototype. By 800 CE, Mon script is a little blockier; by 1200 CE it's lost its top stroke. By 1550, Burmese script (a direct, linear descendant of Mon) looks modern. At bottom is modern Mon/Burmese. The only mention of this branch of the family in the text is a quotation of Damais (1955) who says that Pallava is found "in the Mon country", which the editor explains is "in the Chaophraya River basin in Thailand".

Chap. 42 says,

The Burmese script, attested in stone inscriptions at least as far back as the early twelfth century C.E., is a phonologically based script, adapted from Mon, and ultimately based on an Indian (Brahmi) prototype. [...] Traditionally, it is thought that Mon scribes, brought to the city of Pagan after the sack of their capital by the Burmese king Anawrahta in 1057 C.E., provided the stimulus for adapting the Mon script to the writing of Burmese. There have been some changes since the inscriptional period, most notably: consistent use of the "rounded" rather than the "square" style of letters, changes in permissible combinations of vowel and final consonant signs, and the stabilization of the system for marking tones.

That's all consistent with what Htawmonzel says, in other words that the Burmese alphabet is an instantiation of Mon script. Of course, Latin is an instantiation of Etruscan script, but we nonetheless call it "Latin". The difference is that Mon is still written, and it's written with the same letter forms as Burmese, without anything I've read suggesting that they ever switched scripts. If this is accurate, then the modern Mon alphabet is Mon script, but so is the Burmese alphabet. I don't know if Htawmonzel's suspicions are correct, that if we classified the Burmese alphabet as Mon script there would be outrage / edit-warring, but if Bengali/Assamese is any guide, it might be best to call the script "Mon-Burmese". The Old Mon article would then be the historical stage of the script before its adoption by the Burmese, not a separate script.

So Glennznl, I wouldn't move Old Mon script to "Mon script", because that article already exists at Burmese script. Rather, I'd argue, based on D&B, that it's Burmese script that needs to be moved, either to "Mon script" or to "Mon-Burmese script". That's assuming that the preponderance of modern RS's confirm D&B. — kwami (talk) 20:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I agreed with Kwami. So I think the page "Burmese script" need to be renamed as "Mon-Burmese script". Htawmonzel (talk) 21:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Thank you for citing Daniels & Bright. Do you mean the chart found on Shan script? Atleast some parts of that are no longer considered accurate ("early Shan"/Lik Tho Ngok is now held to be derived from Burmese script).

[Yes, that's what I was thinking of. — kwami (talk)]

So now we have to consider 4 pages, Mon script (the modern variant), Old Mon script (the old variant), Burmese script (the Burmese script family) and Burmese alphabet (the alphabet used for Burmese specifically). The last page title does not need any changing, so only the first three need sorting out. In my opinion, Old Mon script and Burmese script more or less describe the same thing, the Mon/Burmese script (family) which was adopted for use by other languages. Old Mon script nicely adds what Burmese script lacks, a history section. I think these two pages should thus be merged. To my surprise both "Mon-Burmese script" and "Burmese-Mon script" are already existing terms, when searching on Google Scholar and Google. "Mon-Burmese script" seems to be a bit more common and I prefer this name myself, so the merged page would be Mon-Burmese script. Then we still have Mon script left. In my opinion this should describe (like it already does), the modern alphabet (based on the Mon-Burmese script) for the Mon language, similar to the way Burmese alphabet is named. Thus, I propose renaming Mon script to Mon alphabet, for the sake of consistency. I hope you can agree to these points. --Glennznl (talk) 21:35, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Glennznl: Yes, I agree with all of that. I also prefer the "Mon-Burmese" order, because Mon has historical precedence. The other order would be POV, prioritizing Burmese because of its cultural dominance. That would be like claiming that the Romans wrote in the English script.

The move would also have the benefit of making it clear that the "script" and "alphabet" articles deal with different topics, something that isn't clear if you're not familiar with WP's in-house script/alphabet distinction.

I think this current article is perhaps well enough developed to continue to stand on its own, and I think it might be a bit too much per WP:WEIGHT to merge it back into Mon language. But I don't have a strong opinion on that, and wouldn't object to merging it. Assuming we keep it separate, then yes, we should move it to "Mon alphabet". But following WP conventions, the rd should then be changed tothe article on Mon-Burmese script (after fixing any double redirects). — kwami (talk) 21:45, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: Good, then we should start doing that. The mentioned articles often use Aung-Thwin as a source and rely too much on it, while some critical responses have been written regardings Aung-Thwin's conclusions, for example by Donald M. Stadtner. After the mergers and moves we should add some different sources to correct this. --Glennznl (talk) 11:19, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Glennznl: Okay. I moved the script article to 'Mon-Burmese'. You seemed interested in merging Old Mon into the history section. Do you want to take care of that? — kwami (talk) 20:03, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The file labeled "Old Mon script 35 characters" and the 2nd table of characters look quite recent, so I deleted them -- I think we can safely omit them when copying the section over. — kwami (talk) 20:28, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I performed the merger. The resulting history section looks a bit messy still and might need some work. --Glennznl (talk) 21:14, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it should get better over time.

I tagged 'Mon alphabet' for quick deletion so we can move this article there. — kwami (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

What should we do with sporadic claims in info boxes that MB derives from Pyu script? E.g. ref'd to Aung-Thwin, Michael A. (2005). The Mon Paradigm and the Origins of the Burma Script. University of Hawai'i Press. pp. 154–178. ISBN 9780824828868. JSTOR j.ctt1wn0qs1.10.. We're inconsistent, and should probably follow the preponderance of RS's as worked out on the MB page. — kwami (talk) 21:28, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I've tried looking for other authors that attribute the Mon-Burmese script to Pyu (that aren't citing Aung-Thwin), and so far I have not found any. I have found many more examples of the opposite, there being no direct connection between the Pyu and Mon scripts. Diringer says quite strongly: "The Pyu character is not connected with the Mon script or its offshoots; it seems to have derived from another South Indian variety, namely from the Kadamba script of Vanavasi in northern Kanara, to the west of South India." We could mention "alternative views", citing Aung-Thwin in one sentence, instead of dedicating half the article to the Pyu debate. --Glennznl (talk) 22:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I have suspicions that nationalism might be involved here. That may be unfair to Aung-Thwin -- I don't know anything about them -- but that would appear to be an idiosyncratic view. I suggest we remove mentions of Pyu ancestry from all but the main script article, where we present it as the view of a single scholar who is refuted by others. — kwami (talk) 22:37, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Someone certainly seemed interested in repeating that claim on as many articles as possible. — kwami (talk) 22:46, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

It's a delight to see how simple things can be. Kwami, Glennznl, nice job! And btw, "Mon-Burmese" has a precedent in a couple of scholarly articles, so your arrangement stands on established ground. –Austronesier (talk) 20:50, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Good cleanup. I have a couple questions:

1. Should Old Shan script redirect to Mon-Burmese script?
2. Should it be Mon–Burmese script, with a dash instead of a hyphen?

Michael Aung-Thwin is a reputable historian. Hybernator may have an idea of how "mainstream" his more revisionist opinions are or are not. Srnec (talk) 20:53, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

• Michael Aung-Thwin, who recently passed, was probably the preeminent expert on the Pagan period. He was not a fringe historian. He was known for his hard-data-driven analyses. As far as I'm aware, his research and views on the Pagan period have largely been accepted by the majority, if not most of the modern Burma/Myanmar/SEAsia historians like Victor Lieberman, Kenneth Hall, Martin Ricklefs, Geok Yian Goh, etc. He collaborated and published books throughout the 2000s and the 2010s. Easy to look them up. Donald M. Stadtner, AFAIK, is an art historian. He was defending how certain inscriptions (without a date) could be dated to an era; because the 6th century date of Siam Mon is purely conjectural. After all, the earliest securely dated Siam Mon is in the 16th century; while Burma Mon is 1093. The earliest extant instance of Burmese script is 1035/36; while an 18th century recast inscription says 984/985. (The claim that the Myazedi inscription is the earliest Burmese inscription is stupendously just wrong. Even colonial era historians didn't make the claim. (Harvey 1925) gives 1058 for example.) Anyway, I'll follow up on this when I have a bit more time. Hybernator (talk) 04:40, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

  I look forward to it.

I changed the link in your response to the article on the inscription, and tagged the claim there as dubious. — kwami (talk) 05:52, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

@Hybernator: Thank you for your input. I hope you can clarify the acceptance of Aung-Thwin's Pyu hypothesis, which as written above, I did not find much evidence of. --Glennznl (talk) 06:24, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Response

This is my long response to the above. My apologies for the long winded answer.

• First, that the Mon script was the source of the Burmese script isn't settled science; it's a colonial period conjecture. Victor Lieberman in Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1 (Lieberman 2003: 114) acknowledges that much: there exists a debate about the parent of the Burmese script (the candidates are: Mon, Pyu, direct Indian) in Burmese publications. To be sure, Lieberman did not pick a side.
• Nor was Pyu being the source of the Burmese script Aung-Thwin's hypothesis either. Tha Myat first proposed it in his papers in Burmese in the late 1950s.
• Nor was Aung-Thwin the first to acknowledge that there was an active debate in an international (English language) publication. (Lieberman 2003) is one; there may be earlier ones. But AFAIK, Aung-Thwin was the first one to articulate the counter arguments in English in a substantive way. (Aung-Thwin 2005) devotes an entire chapter on the origins of the Burmese script pp. 154–178, and another Chapter pp. 179–200 on the evidence of Old Burmese and Old Mon inscriptions. The publication was an important step because the paucity of English language articles on the topic had meant most international publications were still stuck on colonial period conjectures. (It shouldn't be that just because something hasn't been published in English, it's a fringe idea. But the reality is availability in English does substantially open up the conversation and research to international researchers.)
• Before you accuse Aung-Thwin of being a Burmese/Burman nationalist, as some of his critics have reflexively done, AFAIK, he wasn't an ethnic Burman/Bamar (the main ethnic group); his father Moses Aung-Thwin was an ethnic Mon, and his mother Margaret, an Anglo-Karen; his family was of Christian background. That's not to say that a non-Burman / non-Buddhist Burmese-American couldn't be a Burmese nationalist, not at all. But looking for supporting evidence for colonial period conjectures shouldn't automatically earn anyone the nationalist moniker. FWIW, (Lieberman 2003: 95) calls Aung-Thwin "the leading scholar of Pagan's political economy".

Aung-Thwin's arguments

Now, I'll try to sum up some of the key points in (Aung-Thwin 2005: 154–178). If you have a chance to read the chapter, do so, and decide for yourself. The chapter is well cited. You can read the book here.

1. The Mon script as the source of the Burmese script is a conjecture first proposed by a colonial period linguist that has become the mainstream view by default.

• Charles Duroiselle was the first one to write in 1919 that Mon and Burmese scripts were very similar and that "one of the two nations borrowed its alphabet from the other". "All the evidence shows that the Burmese received their alphabet from the Mons about AD 1057." "No inscriptions whatsoever in Burmese or Pali have been found at Pagan antedating Anorata [Anawrahta]." According to Aung-Thwin, Duroiselle provided no proof as to why the Mon script was earlier except to say that "the greater antiquity of Talaing [Mon] civilisation is accepted on every hand, I think the rational conclusion is that the Burmese borrowed their alphabet from the Talaings."
• p. 157: But two years later, in 1921, Duroiselle published 19 Burmese and Pali inscriptions that predated King Anawrahta's reign (1044–1077). He didn't outright retract his earlier 1919 statement but softened it (Aung-Thwin called "obfuscated") by saying the "principal alphabets" of Burma (Pyu, Burmese, Mon, Shan) were derived from Old Telegu-Carnarese alphabets of South India, and the Burmese and Shan alphabets were derived "indirectly" from Mon.
• p. 159: Yet, Duroiselle never provided any evidence as to how the indirect borrowing could have happened. The earliest instances of Burma Mon were dated to 1093 and 1098 whereas Duroiselle himself had supplied Burmese inscriptions that predated the start of Anawrahta's reign. The earliest extant instance of Burmese in situ is 1035 (found at the Mahabodhi temple in India; 984 CE, according an 18th century recast inscription.
• p. 160: G. H. Luce addressed the lack of evidence issue in 1924 by stating that the Burma Mon script was derived from the script of the Mon kingdom of Dvaravati, which may have existed as early as the 7th century. Per Aung-Thwin, Luce, not a linguist like Duroiselle, never explained "how and when that might have happened" or provided "any convincing linguistic evidence for his assertion. That is, he [Luce] did not even illustrate paleographically how the two scripts might have been related."
• p. 161–162: Luce based his thesis on the paleographic dating of the Dvaravati (Lopburi) script. None of the Lopburi inscriptions contains any dates, and therefore are paleographically dated to the 7th to the 9th centuries. "Of the total of 25 Mon inscriptions recovered in what is now Thailand, only one is securely dated to 1504."
• p. 164: Yet, there is no evidence of the Lopburi script in Burma. "... not a single Old Mon language inscription written in the Dvaravati (Lopburi) script that has yet been found in Burma. Had this script been the progenitor of the Pagan script and somehow gone over to Burma prior to the first appearance of Old Mon in the Pagan script, where is it?"
• p. 167: The linkage between the two Old Mon scripts Dvaravati Mon and Old Burma Mon hasn't been proven.

Aung-Thwin's proposal

• Aung-Thwin backs the idea that Pyu was the likely source.

• p. 168: Tha Myat was the first scholar to propose the thesis in 1958 in Burmese but it never got the attention of western scholars. His papers showed how Old Burmese was an adaptation of the Pyu script; how it evolved from Pyu. :* p. 169–170: The evidence of the Pyu script exists, and is dated to the first millenium CE. The earliest radiocarbon dated inscription is the 4th century CE (at Hanlin in central Burma), two centuries earlier than paleographically dated Dvaravati Mon inscriptions (in present-day Thailand). Other Pyu inscriptions are dated to between the 6th and 8th centuries CE.
• p. 171: Tha Myat "made an attempt to graphically demonstrate the evolution of the Burmese script from known samples, something neither Duroiselle nor Luce did." Tha Myat illustrated the evolution as: Brahmi, Kusana, Gupta, Grantha, Kadamba, Maung Kan Pyu (6th century Sri Ksetra), Khinba Pyu (7th to 8th century Sri Ksetra), Myazedi Pyu (12th century Pagan), the Burma script (Burmese and Mon).
• pp. 172–177 advance Tha Myat's thesis further.

• Aung-Thwin asks why wouldn't Burmese speakers who had lived amongst the Pyu at least since the 7th century CE (if not earlier) have adopted their script from Pyu and waited until after Pagan's conquest of Lower Burma in the 11th century, and took it from the Mon? Based on the existing evidence of inscriptions (Chapter 8, pp. 179–200), he argues that it was the Mon speakers of Lower Burma that adopted the Burmese script of Pagan, not the other way around. The Burmese script has been around since at least 1035 CE, and the earliest securely dated Mon, 1093. (Note: [https://thesiamsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/1991/03/JSS_079_1f_Bauer_MonEpigraphy.pdf Bauer 1993: 39) places the earliest Burma Mon to 1070.)

Counter arguments to Aung-Thwin

I'm aware of two counter arguments by two well-known respected historians.

• (Charney 2006) and (Stadtner 2008). Both were in response to the entire book and not a particular chapter. (Charney 2006) doesn't address the source of the Burmese alphabet; Stadtner, an art historian, (Stadtner 2008: 201–202), argues in support of Luce's 11th century conjectural dates for undated Mon inscriptions as plausible. He cites (Bauer 1993). (Here, I'm not sure it helps his cause that much since (Bauer 1993) places the evidence of Burma Mon to around 1070 -- after Pagan's conquest of Lower Burma.)

Summmary

• That said, to date, I'm not aware of any paper/book that challenges Aung-Thwin's points that the Mon script as the source is a conjecture by Duroiselle and later expanded by Luce, and that there is no proof as to how and when it came about. (Don't forget that the founder of the conjecture, Duroiselle himself later pivoted it to "indirect borrowing", and pointed the main borrowing source to South India.) At any rate, balanced Wiki articles should reflect that the matter is far from settled. Hybernator (talk) 01:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Hybernator: Thank you for your detailed analysis. I agree with you and believe that the Mon-Burmese script article should equally describe both theories in a neutral point of view, as neither has been proven or disproven without a doubt. I think the article is quite neutral now after your latest edits. --Glennznl (talk) 08:30, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

It seem that we made the wrong call when we merged Old Mon script into Burmese script, though. — kwami (talk) 08:48, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami: I wouldn't call it wrong per se. "Mon-Burmese script" is still found plenty in academic materials and the Mon origin for Burmese is still held by the vast majority of scholars, whether they are blindly copying colonial era scholarship or not. Like pointed out by Hybernator, Aung-Thwin is the first to start the debate in English language academia, and so far I haven't seen other scholars accepting or repeating Aung-Thwin's arguments after him. Since Wikipedia follows the majority view, I think the current solution works best, both Old Mon script and Burmese script were a bit scant on content before the merge. If the Pyu theory is ever broadly accepted we can always seperate the pages again. --Glennznl (talk) 15:12, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

We'll likely have to wait many years before further comprehensive research is done on the topic. I'm not sure it's a one-person's job. IMHO, it'll take a team of linguists and historians familiar with the languages and scripts involved (Old Burmese, Old Mon, Pyu, South Indian scripts). Until then, we're stuck with a conjecture by a colonial era non-linguist historian (Luce). As (Aung-Thwin 2005: 160) says: "there is no analytical or evidentiary basis on which to examine his theory, since he [Luce] merely asserted his conclusion and then left it for future generations to disprove."

For now, the fact that there's even a debate is hard to find in English language works. Outside of (Lieberman 2003) and (Aung-Thwin 2005), I found one: (Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World (2010), p. 719.

This is also another example of the sad state of general Burma/Myanmar studies where progress has been excruciatingly slow. Academic research hasn't been a priority of successive military governments. Few historians still laboring on Burma topics aren't linguists and simply report what is deemed to be the conventional wisdom. Even supposed linguists simply assume. (Sawada 2013) cited in this article is an example. (Sawada 2) simply says "Burmese script: Assumed to be the result of the application of Mon script to Burmese language". (Here, I must give credit to Charney and Stadtner in their criticisms of Aung-Thwin's book; as neither is a linguist, they never argued that the Mon script was the parent or vice versa.)

Anyway, it is what it is. I'll try to update the articles as time permits. Hybernator (talk) 02:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)