Karenic

Karenic is a tonal branch of the Sino-Tibetan family spoken by the Karen peoples across southern and southeastern Myanmar and western Thailand. Its chief languages are Sgaw, Pwo and Pa'O, with Karenni and Kayan forming further branches. Karenic puts the object after the verb, an order usually attributed to long contact with Mon and Tai speakers.

Karen oral tradition traces the people to a migration from a river of sand, likely far to the north. By the Konbaung era they were settled in the eastern hills and delta under Burmese rule, the lowland Pwo living among the Mon while Sgaw communities kept to the highlands.

The languages had no script until the early 1830s, when Baptist missionaries, at work among the Karen from 1830, created the Sgaw alphabet from Burmese letters and began translating and printing in the language.