ခိၣ်သူ

See also: ခိုးသူ

S'gaw Karen

Etymology

From ခိၣ် (khoh̀, “head”) +‎ သူ (thoo, “hair”). Cognate with Eastern Pwo ခေါဟ်သူ့ (khʊ́ θɯ̂). According to Luce (1985), the second syllable, သူ, is borrowed from Austroasiatic; compare Mon သော် (sok). Luangthongkum (2019) reconstructs Proto-Karen *khuᴮsluᴬ (“hair (head~)”), positing a connection with Pa'o ကလူꩻ (kəlū) and Western Kayah ꤋꤢꤨ꤬ꤜꤟꤌꤣ꤬ (hkùlṳ̀eoe).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kʰòθù/
• (Mae Hong Son) IPA^(key): /kʰo²¹ˀ.su⁵⁵/

Noun

ခိၣ်သူ • (khoh̀ thoo)

1. hair; the hair that grows on the top of your head.

References

• Luangthongkum, Theraphan (2019), “A view on proto-Karen phonology and lexicon”, in Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society‎^[1], volume 12, number 1
• Luce, Gordon. 1985. Phases of Pre-Pagan Burma: languages and history (volume 2). Oxford University Press. →ISBN