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The Shan are an ethnic group of Southeast Asia. The Shan live primarily in the Shan State of Myanmar, and in adjacent parts of China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Shan number approximately 6 million, but a population census has not been taken. The Shan language is part of the Tai languages group of the Tai-Kadai language family, and is related to Thai and Lao. The southern Shan use an alphabetAn alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters—basic written symbols—each of which roughly represents or represented historically a phoneme of a spoken language. This as distinguished from other writing systems such as ideograms, in which symbols r based on the Burmese alphabetThe Burmese alphabet is a script in the Brahmic family used in Myanmar for writing in Burmese. The characters are rounded in appearance, because the traditional palm leaves used for writing would have been ripped by straight lines. Like English, it is wri.

The Shan dwell mostly on the plains of the Shan Plateau, which is drained by the Salween RiverThe Salween River (also spelt Salwin rises in Tibet, after which it flows through Yunnan, where it is known as ( pinyin nu4jiang1 . It then meanders through Myanmar and Thailand on its way to emptying in the Andaman Sea by Moulmein. For most of its route. The capital of Shan state is Taunggyi , which is a small city of perhaps 150,000 people.

The Shan are traditionally wet- riceRice Rice fields on Java Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Liliopsida Order: Poales Family: Poaceae Genus: Oryza Species Oryza barthii ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza latifolia ''Oryza longistaminata ''Oryza punctata ''O cultivators, shopkeepers, and artisans. Most Shan are Theravada Buddhists and/or observe their traditional religion.

The Shan have been engaged in an intermittant civil war within Myanmar for decades, however there is currently a peace agreement with the main Shan faction. During conflicts, the Shan are often burned out of their villages and forced to flee into Thailand. There, they are not given refugeeUnder international law, a refugee is a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political status, and often work as undocumented laborers. Their legal status in Thailand often leads to non-sustainable wages and unsafe work conditions.

His Royal Highness Prince Hso Khan PhaPrince Hso Khan Pha of Yawnghwe (aka Tiger), lives in exile in Canada. He is politically pressuring the government of Burma on behalf of the Shan people. He also works with Shan exiles abroad to help provide schooling for displaced Shan children whose par of Yawnghwe, lives in exile in the Canada, he pressuring politically the government of Burma to respect the tradional, culture and indegenious lands of the Shan people and he works with Shan exiles abroad helping to provide schooling for displaced Shan children because their parents are unable to provide this and we hope too to provide some training in life skills to fend for themselves and their families in the future.

The ISO language code for Shan is SHN; the SIL code is SJN.


陕, or Shǎn, is an abbreviation for the Shaanxi province of the People's Republic of China.



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