Karen (Sgaw)

Karen (Sgaw Karen) is spoken in southeastern Myanmar, in Kayin (Karen) State and the Irrawaddy Delta, and in western Thailand. Refugee communities live in the United States, Australia, and Canada.
Sgaw is the largest of the Karen languages, a branch of Tibeto-Burman, with about 2 million or more speakers. It is written in a script adapted from Burmese by American missionaries in the 1830s. Many Karen fled to Thailand during the long conflict with the Burmese government.