Pyu language (Sino-Tibetan)

The Pyu language (Pyu: ; , ; also Tircul) 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.

History

Documentation 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). These were first deciphered by Charles Otto Blagden in the early 1910s.

List of Pyu inscriptions Location Inventory number Halin 01Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU001) held at the Archaeological Museum at Halin [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 04Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU004) around a funerary urn held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Pagan 07Miles, 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. Pagan 08Miles, 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. Śrī Kṣetra 10Miles, 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. Pagan 11Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a bilingual Pyu inscription (PYU011) held at the Pagan museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 12Miles, 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. Śrī Kṣetra 22Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU022) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 25Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU025) on the base of a funerary urn held at the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 28Miles, 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. Śrī Kṣetra 29Miles, 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. Myittha 32Miles, 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. Myittha 39Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU039) kept in an inscription shed on the grounds of a monastery in Myittha [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 42Miles, 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. Śrī Kṣetra 55Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU055) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 56Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU056) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 57Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU057) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Halin 60Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscriptions (PYU060) kept in the inscription shed outside the Archaeological Museum at Halin [Data set]. Zenodo. Halin 61Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscriptions (PYU061) held at the Archaeological Museum at Halin [Data set]. Zenodo. ??? 63Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU063) held at the National Museum (Burmese: အမျိုးသား ပြတိုက်) in Rangoon [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/ Śrī Kṣetra 105Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription on a gold ring (PYU105) held by the Śrī Kṣetra museum [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 160Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU160) discovered in Śrī Kṣetra [Data set]. Zenodo. ??? 163Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU163) [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 164Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU164) [Data set]. Zenodo. Śrī Kṣetra 167Miles, James. (2016). Documentation of a Pyu inscription (PYU167) [Data set]. Zenodo.

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

Classification

Blagden (1911: 382) was the first scholar to recognize Pyu as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan. 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 and has lost much of the original Proto-Sino-Tibetan morphology. Miyake (2022) suggests that this may be due to a possible creoloid origin of Pyu.

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.

Sound changes Pyu displays the following sound changes from Proto-Tibeto-Burman.

sibilant chain shift: *c > *s > /h/ denasalization: *m > /ɓ/ and possibly *ŋ > /g/ *e-lowering: *e > /ä/ *sC-cluster compression: *sk, *st, *sp > /kʰ, tʰ, pʰ/

Phonology Marc Miyake reconstructs the syllable structure of Pyu as:

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

7 vowels are reconstructed.

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:

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.

Writing system The Pyu script was a Brahmic script. Recent scholarship suggests the Pyu script may have been the source of the Burmese script.

Vocabulary Below are selected Pyu basic vocabulary items from Gordon Luce and Marc Miyake. Gloss Luce (1985)Luce, George. 1985. Phases of Pre-Pagan Burma: languages and history (volume 2). Oxford University Press. . pp. 66–69. Miyake (2016)Miyake, Marc. 2016. Pyu numerals in comparative perspective. Presentation given at SEALS 26. Miyake (2021) 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/

Sample texts 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 slaves. When the Queen had died the King gave the Queen's goods and the three villages of slaves, to the noble Queen's son 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 slaves 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 a 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." Pyu PaliBurmese PaliTranslation (Pyu alphabet AD 500 to 600 Writings)ဣတိပိ သော ဘဂဝါ အရဟံ သမ္မာသမ္ဗုဒ္ဓော ဝိဇ္ဇာစရဏသမ္ပန္နောThus, 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)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

References

Pyu language (Sino-Tibetan)

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