Shan

See also: shan, shán, shàn, shān, shǎn, and s'han

English

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ʃɑn/, /ʃæn/

Etymology 1
Several Shan people participate in a deer ceremony.

From Burmese ရှမ်း (hram:), from Thai สยาม (sà-yǎam). Doublet of Siam.

Noun

Shan (plural Shans or Shan)

  1. A member of a people living primarily in the Shan State of Myanmar (also known as Burma), and in adjacent areas of China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, with about 6 million people.
    • 1956, Theodore Shabad, China's Changing Map: A Political and Economic Geography of The Chinese People's Republic‎, Frederick A. Praeger, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 42:
      The Thai proper are related to the Shans of Burma, the Siamese of Thailand and the Lao of Indochina. The Chinese segment of the Thai ethnic group is settled in Yünnan Province, where it numbers 580,000. It constitutes the Hsi-shuang-pan-na Autonomous Chou in the southern part of the province and shares the Tehung Autonomous Chou in the west with the Chingpo (Kachin). The Thai of the Hsi-shuang-pan-na Chou speak the Lü dialect, those of the Tehung Chou are more closely related to the Shans of northern Burma.
    • 1968, “SHAN”, in Encyclopedia Britannica‎, volume 20, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 344, column 2:
      Although holding mainly high upland territory in Burma, the Shan themselves live only in the valleys and in stretches of plain. The surrounding hill country is occupied by relatively primitive hill peoples living in economic symbiosis with the Shan, but there is no clear genetic distinction between the Shan and their neighbours. With minor exceptions modern Shan communities are Buddhist. Most Shan are cultivators of rice; they have a characteristic species of feudal political structure. Shan culture probably diffused southward and westward from west-central China from Han times (c. 200 B.C.) onward.
Translations
  • Note: These are translations for the plural.

Proper noun

Shan

  1. The language of this people, of the Kra-Dai language family.
  2. A state of Myanmar.
Translations

Adjective

Shan (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to the Shan people or the Shan language.

Further reading

Etymology 2

From the pinyin romanization of Mandarin 陝／陕 (shǎn).

Proper noun

Shan

  1. The Shan Pass: a mountain pass in Shanzhou, Henan, through which the Yellow River flows into the North China Plain.

Anagrams
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