File:Shans at home. With two chapters on Shan history and literature (1910) (14761955544).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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esent day has been so modifiedby Burmese influence that the mistake referred tois a natural one, and safely corrected only by carefulcomparisons. That Lao is the mother-tongue of allknown Shan alphabets is now established beyondreasonable doubt. It is possible that the NorthernShans had adopted this alphabet before the conquest!of Assam, and took letters with them when theyfounded the Ahom kingdom. It is possible that theShans, beyond the borders of the old Lao provinceof Chieng-mai, adopted the Shan alphabet when itwas still in a primitive, incomplete form, and that thealphabet became further developed among the Laosfrom contact with the Talaings of Lower Burma.Whether the simpler forms of the Shan alphabet arejabridgements of the fully developed Lao, or a preser-vation of the latter in a more primitive form, is notyet definitely determined, but probabilities are stronglyin favour of the view that all of the shorter Northernforms are abridgments of the longer and richer Laojalphabet.
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U3 O o > o i4 (z«O H KHPi SHAN UTERAIURE 213 All known branches of the Shan family have a con-siderable literature. This literature began among theLaos. From them it extended by inter-communicationwith the other branches of the family, particularlyby the spread of Buddhism. This early literature isvery religious, and is written in metrical form: theBuddhist Pitagat (consisting of the * three baskets of the law), birth stories of Gautama, semi-religioushistory of the introduction of Buddhism among thepeople, ritualistic formulae, etc. Then came writings inboth prose and rhyme on secular history, the estab-lishment of States, and wars with aliens. Folk-lore,nursery tales—like Jack the Giant Killer—are byno means wanting. Love songs are of daily manu-facture, and are made to order. The Laos had lettersbefore the founding of Ayuthia, and undoubtedly tooktheir literature to the southward with them; but thepeople whom they vanquished were already Buddhistswith temples, an organised

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