Burmese is the official language of Myanmar and a member of the Sino-Tibetan language family, making it a distant relative of Mandarin Chinese and Tibetan. It is spoken natively by the Bamar (Burman) ethnic majority and as a second language by much of the country's diverse population. The Burmese script, derived from the ancient Mon script and ultimately from the Brahmi writing system of India, dates to the 11th century CE. The Pagan Empire (9th–13th centuries) was the first major Bamar polity, and its flourishing of Burmese literacy and Buddhist scholarship laid the foundations of the modern written language. Burmese is a tonal language with three main tones plus a checked tone, and sentences follow a Subject-Object-Verb word order, unusual among its neighbours. Myanmar has over 100 ethnic languages, including Shan (Tai-Kadai family), Karen, Kachin, and Mon.
