Diachronic Study on Myanmar and Neighboring Minority Languages Based on the Corpus of Inscriptions

缅语是东南亚的主要语言，也是藏缅支缅甸族的主要语言，有丰富的文字资料，可以追溯到公元12年。在本研究项目中，我们建立了缅甸及其邻近语言碑文的语料库，将这些碑文的罗马文字文本数字化，并根据需要参考缅甸田野调查获得的碑文数字图像进行校对。在此语料库的基础上，我们对缅语语音、语法和缅甸文字系统的历时进行了研究。在语料库和田野调查的基础上，对缅甸语文字与邻近少数民族语言文字之间的相互影响进行了研究，并对缅甸语族马里亚族的重建进行了研究。现在我们正在为语料库的在线出版做准备。

Burmese is a major language in Southeast Asia, the principal language of Burmish group in Tibeto-Burman branch, and has ample written material which can be traced back to 12cAD. In this research project we made a corpus of the inscriptions of Burmese and adjacent languages, by digitizing the texts of these inscriptions in roman transcription and checking them by reference to the digital images of inscriptions acquired through the fieldworks in Myanmar as necessary.Based on the corpus we conducted the research on some topics on the diachrony of Burmese phonology, grammar and the system of Burmese script. We also conducted the research on the mutual influence between Burmese language/script and adjacent minority languages/scripts, and the research toward the reconstruction of Maruic sub-group of Burmish group, based on the corpus as well as data from fieldwork. Now we are preparing for the on-line publication of the corpus.