Mon

Mon is an Austroasiatic language of the Mon people, spoken chiefly in the lower Irrawaddy valley and along the Tenasserim coast in present-day Myanmar. Old Mon inscriptions from the Mon kingdom of Dvaravati in central Thailand date from the sixth to eighth centuries; Mon writing in lower Burma became the parent of the Burmese alphabet.

Until the twelfth century Mon was the lingua franca of the Irrawaddy valley, even at the Bamar court of Pagan, where King Kyansittha patronized it and the Myazedi inscription of 1112 was carved in Pali, Pyu, Mon and Burmese.

After Pagan fell in 1287 it again served as the court language of the Hanthawaddy kingdom at Pegu; the fall of the restored Hanthawaddy kingdom in 1757 drove many Mon speakers into Siam, and by 1830 most of lower Burma had shifted to Burmese.