Bamar
.jpg) |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 30,000,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, United States, United Kingdom, Australia | |
 Myanmar
|
28,950,000 |
 Thailand
|
1,000,000 |
 Singapore
|
50,000 |
| Languages | |
| Burmese | |
| Religion | |
| Theravada Buddhism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Rakhine, Marma, Chakma, Yi, Nakhi, Tibetans, Meithei | |
The Bamar (Burmese: ဗမာလူမျိုး; MLCTS: ba. ma lu myui:; IPA: [bəmà lùmjó]) are the dominant ethnic group in Myanmar. Bamar people live primarily in the Irrawaddy River basin and speak the Burmese language, which is the official language of Myanmar. Bamar customs and identity are closely intertwined with the broader Burmese culture. The Bamar people are often imprecisely called "Burmese", though this term in contemporary usage can refer to any citizen of Myanmar, regardless of ethnicity.
The Bamar are of East Asian descent and speak a Sino-Tibetan language (related to Tibetan and more distantly to Chinese). They migrated from the north and China-India borderlands into the Irrawaddy River valley in Upper Burma about 1200–1500 years ago. Over the last millennium, they have largely replaced/absorbed the Austroasiatic-speaking Mon and the Sino-Tibetan-speaking people of the Pyu city-states, ethnic groups that formerly dominated the region.
Burmese, the official language of Myanmar, is spoken by the majority Bamar but is also widely spoken by many of the ethnic minorities. Its core vocabulary consists of Sino-Tibetan words, but many terms associated with Buddhism, arts, sciences, and government have derived from the Indo-European languages of Pali and English. The Rakhine, although culturally distinct from the Bamar, are ethnically related to them and speak a dialect of Burmese that includes retention of the /r/ sound, which has coalesced into the /j/ sound in standard Burmese (although it is still present in orthography). Additional dialects come from coastal areas of Tanintharyi Region (including Myeik (Beik) and Dawei (Tavoyan)) as well as inland and isolated areas, like Yaw. Other dialects are Taungyoe, Danu, and Intha in Shan State. English was introduced in the 1800s when the Bamar first came into contact with the British as a trading nation and continued to flourish under subsequent colonial rule.
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