Pyu language (Sino-Tibetan)

The Pyu language was a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Pyu people, who dominated what is now central Myanmar (Burma) from roughly the 2nd century BCE to the 9th century CE. It is primarily known from inscriptions found on artifacts such as stone pillars, votive tablets, and funerary urns discovered at the Pyu city-states of Sri Ksetra, Beikthano-myo, and Halin.

The Pyu language is considered an ancestor of Burmese, belonging to the Burmish branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family within Sino-Tibetan. However, its exact position within Burmish and its relationship to other related languages remains an area of ongoing research. While Burmese eventually eclipsed Pyu in prominence, Pyu exerted considerable influence on the development of early Burmese, particularly in vocabulary and writing systems.

The inscriptions in Pyu are written in a script derived from the Brahmi script of India. This script shows features transitional between Kadamba and Telugu-Kannada scripts. The decipherment of Pyu inscriptions has been crucial in reconstructing aspects of Pyu culture, religion (primarily Buddhism), and political organization.

Our understanding of the Pyu language is limited due to the relatively small corpus of surviving texts. Furthermore, the inscriptions are often fragmentary or damaged, posing challenges to their interpretation. However, linguistic analysis of the available material continues to shed light on the grammar, phonology, and lexicon of this important early language of Myanmar.