Rakhine language

Rakhine
Arakanese
ရက္ခိုင်ဘာသာ
Pronunciation	IPA: [ɹəkʰàɪɴbàθà]
Native to	Myanmar, Bangladesh, India
Region	Rakhine State (Myanmar) Rangamati, Bandarban, Khagrachari, Patuakhali, Barguna (Bangladesh) Tripura (India)
Ethnicity	Rakhine, Kamein, Marma
Native speakers	1 million (2011–2013)[1] 1 million second language speakers in Myanmar (2013)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Lolo-Burmese Burmish Burmese Rakhine
Dialects	Ramree Marma
Writing system	Burmese script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: rki – Rakhine ("Arakanese") rmz – Marma ("Burmese")
Glottolog	arak1255
Rakhine State shown within Myanmar

Rakhine (/rəˈkaɪn/; Burmese: ရခိုင်ဘာသာ, MLCTS: ra.hkuing bhasa [ɹəkʰàɪɴ bàθà]), also known as Arakanese, is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in western Myanmar, primarily in the Rakhine State. Closely related to Burmese, the language is spoken by the Rakhine and Marma peoples; it is estimated to have around one million native speakers and it is spoken as a second language by a further million.

Though Arakanese has some similarity with standard Burmese, Burmese speakers find it difficult to communicate with Arakanese speakers. Thus, it is often considered to be a dialect or variety of Burmese. As there are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing a language from a dialect, scholars and other interested parties often disagree about the linguistic, historical and social status of Arakanese.^[2] There are three dialects of Arakanese: Sittwe–Marma (about two thirds of speakers), Ramree, and Thandwe.^[3]