ABSTRACT
This language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of the large Sino-Tibetan family. From South-West China, where its close relative Yi is still spoken, Burmese was carried southwards to reach its present habitat by the ninth century ad. Here it came into contact with the Mon language and the Pali scriptures of Buddhism. The result was an amalgam: Tibeto-Burman stock with a Mon-Khmer substratum and writing system, plus a Pali-Buddhist ideological super-structure. The earliest written records in Burmese date from the eleventh century. By the twelfth century Burmese had replaced Mon as the literary language of the court.
