ကိးယါံ်
ko yaw
The English phrase "shut up" is translated into Karen as ကိးယါံ် (ko yaw).
ကိးယါံ် is used to command someone to stop talking.
Meaning: "Stop talking." (intj)
How do you pronounce it?
ko yaw
Did you know?
- The script used to write ကိးယါံ် was developed in the 19th century by missionaries to preserve Karen-speaking communities, making the written form much younger than the spoken language.
- In some Karen communities, addressing an elder with a command like ကိးယါံ် is considered a significant breach of etiquette that goes far beyond being 'rude' in English.
- The Karen language is not a single language but a family of dialects, meaning a phrase used to tell someone to 'shut up' in S'gaw Karen might be completely unrecognizable to a person speaking Pwo Karen.
Example conversation
Two siblings are arguing in the living room.
- စောဘေ Saw Baeနုနု, နၤစံးတၢ်တမ့ၢ်တမ့ၢ်!Nu Nu, na sae ta ta mae ta mae!Nu Nu, you are talking nonsense!
- နုနု Nu Nuစောဘေ, ကိးယါံ်!Saw Boe, kee yan!Saw Boe, shut up!
- စောဘေ Saw Baeဘာလဲ, နၤတအိၣ်ဘျုးတဂီၤ!Ba lae, na ta oe byue ta gee!What, you are being useless!
- နုနု Nu Nuယဲၤတၢ်စံးန့ၢ်နၤ!Yae ta sae na na!I am tired of your talking!
