File:Shans at home. With two chapters on Shan history and literature (1910) (14577667089).jpg

Identifier: shansathomewitht00miln (find matches)
Title: Shans at home. With two chapters on Shan history and literature
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Milne, Leslie, Mrs., 1860-1952 Cochrane, Wilbur Willis
Subjects: Shan (Asian people)
Publisher: London : John Murray
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library

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ugh theKhmers of Cambodia, and the early inhabitants ofSiam, before the Laos founded Ayuthia,^ and throughthe Mons^ of what is now Lower Burma. Pali letterswere introduced into all this Mon country more thansixteen hundred years ago, by Buddhists from EasternIndia. According to Dr. Dodd, Lao chronicles give aconnected account of the people whom they call Yoan,from the time they founded Chieng-sen. They camefrom the Ngai-Lao country,^ and had twenty-foursuccessive rulers before Mong-Rai and the Buddhistmonk conquered the Wah of Keng-tung. The Cam-bodians—after they had adopted the Pali alphabet—once ruled as far north as Chieng-sen, and forcenturies were in contact with these Ngai-Lao(shortened to Lao) and the Yoan or Yon. Possiblythe earliest elements of the Lao alphabet camedirectly from the Cambodian (the latter is still used 1 A branch of the Lao tribe. * Talaings. * In the Southern Shan States. • The Shans of Chieng-mai. » The ancient capital of Siam. • Tali and Yiin-nan.
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THE LAO ALPHABET 211 by the Siamese in sacred writings). Dr. Dodd main-tains that the configuration of some of the lettersindicates this, but the major part of the Lao alphabetwas derived from the Mon (or Talaing) of LowerBurma. Through the influence of these pre-existingletters, and Lao ingenuity, their alphabet was per-fected—it was not borrowed complete from any onesource. There is no evidence that the Laos adoptedthe Cambodian letters as a whole. Only a few lettersare traced to a possible or probable Cambodiansource. Talaing is the chief source. The statement made by Dr. A. Bastian that thechief and almost only difference between the spokentongues of the Laos and of the Siamese consists inthe circumstance that the former know nothing of thetones—the artificial display of which constitutes thedelight of a Siamese speaker, is wrong; and Terriende Lacouperie is mistaken in saying: ** Should theGerman scholar refer only to the written Laociancharacters, he would be right. On the c

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