Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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90 REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
similarly one of the distinctive features of Palaung (No. 4). The Wa tongues
are spoken down almost the whole length of the eastern portion of the trans-Salween
Shan States. Mr. Stirling is responsible for the majority of the Wa
vocabularies given in the Upper Burma Gazetteer. His Wa, as spoken in Kengtung,
differs to a marked degree from that given elsewhere in the Gazetteer, which
is presumably a more northern variety. Two forms of Wa were returned at the
Census, Wa proper spoken by 7,667 persons, and the vernacular of the Tai L01
(12,762 speakers). Vocabularies of three varieties of Palaung have been printed in
that work, namely, (a) that spoken in the Shan States, {b) that spoken in the
neighbourhood of Manton, and (c) the variety known as Nam Hsan ;
but Sir George
Scott has no very exalted opinion of their utility, seeing that our knowledge of the
language has filtered to us through a Burmese or Shan medium, and has " inevitably
been coloured in the process." The speakers of Palaung numbered 5°j5°4
on the 1 st March 190 1.
138. I have already observed above that I should be inclined to treat the
tongue of the Danus or Danaws as a Mon-Annam lan-
D
guage. The Danus and Danaws have been looked
upon by some authorities as one and the same race. For my own part I am inclined
to think that this is not the case. The Danus, who inhabit the borderland between
the Shan States and Upper Burma, seem to have lost their speech and have degenerated
into a hybrid Shan-Burmese compound. This is the case in the neighbourhood
of Maymyo, where the last Danu-speaking elders are said to have died
three years ago. Among the Danaws however, a separate language still survives.
It is said to be a mixture of Burmese and Karen, in which the Burmese preponderates,
and has been placed in much the same category as Taungthu. The vocabulary
of Danaw given in the Upper Burma Gazetteer does not, to my mind, bear out
this description. I can find little in it that denotes either a Burmese or a Karen connection.
On the other hand, the tongue seems to contain a very considerable number
of words which mark it as related to Wa, Palaung and other members of the
Upper Middle Mekong group of languages. A few of the most striking of these
are given below. The Taungthu word is in each case given as well as the Danaw,
and will show how slight the reputed connection between the two is compared
with that existing between Danaw and the Mon-Annam varieties :
English.