Pwo Karen languages

The Pwo Karen languages are the second largest group of the Karen languages

Karen languages

The Karen languages are tonal languages spoken by some three million Karen people. They are of unclear affiliation within the Tibeto-Burman languages. The Karen languages are written using the Burmese script. The three main branches are Sgaw, Pwo, and Pa'o. Karenni and Kayan are related to the...

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There are four languages in this branch: Eastern Pwo Karen, Northern Pwo Karen, Western Pwo Karen, and Phrae Pwo Karen. They are not mutually intelligible

Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...

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The people who speak these languages are referred to by many names, including "Pwo Karen". The Pwo Karen people have lived in the eastern part of Burma for centuries, and in the western and northern parts of Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 for at least seven or eight centuries.

The endonym is Phlou [phʰou̯] or Ka Phlou [ka pʰlou̯], meaning "human" or "human beings".