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The Sgaw Karen letters

All the Sgaw Karen letters, in the order they are most often taught: consonants, then vowels, then medials, then tone marks. Each one shows the Karen letter and a rough name in English letters. The Karen letters are what matter. The English-letter sounds are only a help to get you started.

These letters and their rough English-letter sounds are still being checked with a Karen speaker.

Consonants

Each Sgaw Karen consonant, with a word from the dictionary that uses it.
Letter	Rough name	Example word	Meaning
က	ka	ကဆီka hsaw	elephant
ခ	kha	ခ့khay	tiger
ဂ	ga	ဂီၤဖံးghāw hpëe	cow
ဃ	xa	ဃးသူxä thoo	gnat
င	nga	ငါန့ၢ်ngah nay	to rent
စ	sa	စွံၤsweē	beetle
ဆ	hsa	ဆံးစၢ်hsëe sa	to give birth
ၡ	sha	ၡူshoo	to lose
ည	nya	ညၣ်nyà	fish
တ	ta	တမၣ်ta mà	crocodile
ထ	hta	ထွံၣ်hṭweè	dog
ဒ	da	ဒးဘီdä baw	centipede
န	na	နိာ်noḥ	beak
ပ	pa	ပစိၤpa sōh	mosquito
ဖ	hpa	ဖျၢhpluh	wasp
ဘ	ba	ဘျါblah	bat
မ	ma	မဲာ်တဲးလဲးmẹh tëh lëh	goat
ယ	ya	ယိးyoḧ	bear (animal)
ရ	ra	ရံခိၣ်ree kòh	shelf
လ	la	လီၤကတၥ်	vulture
ဝ	wa	ဝးတရံးwä ta rëe	around
သ	tha	သကံၤtha kēe	cricket
ဟ	ha	ဟၢဖၢhuh hpuh	belly
အ	a	အဒံးa dëe	wing
ဧ	hha	ဧါah	(yes/no question particle)

Vowels

A vowel joins onto a consonant. Each one is shown here on the letter ka (က).
Letter	Rough name
ကါ	-a
ကံ	-i
ကု	-ü
ကူ	-u
က့	-e
ကဲ	-è
ကိ	-o
ကီ	-ò
ကၢ	-ö

Medials

A medial is an extra sound that fits inside a consonant. Shown here on ka (က).
Letter	Rough name
ကျ	-l-
ကြ	-r-
ကွ	-w-
ကှ	-gh-
ကၠ	-y-

Tone marks

These marks show that a sound has a tone. They are here so you can spot them when you read. Knyaw can't teach you how a tone sounds. That needs a speaker.
Letter	Rough name
ကၢ်	tone mark
ကာ်	tone mark
ကး	visarga
ကၣ်	Hathi
ကၤ	Ke Pho

Sgaw Karen is a tone language. These letters show the Karen letter and a rough sound. To say words the right way you need a Karen speaker and sound. That is why Knyaw helps you read and understand for now.

Learn to read Sgaw Karen, free