Mon language in the context of "Mawlamyine"

The Khmer people (Khmer: ជនជាតិខ្មែរ, UNGEGN: Chônchéatĕ Khmêr, ALA-LC: Janajāti Khmaer [cɔn.ciət kʰmae]) are an ethnic group native to Cambodia. They comprise over 95% of Cambodia's population of 17 million. They speak the Khmer language, which is part of the larger Austroasiatic language family alongside Mon and Vietnamese.

The majority of Khmer people follow Theravada Buddhism. Significant populations of Khmers reside in neighboring regions, including Northern Khmer communities in adjacent areas of Thailand and Khmer Krom communities in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. There are nearly one million Khmers in other diaspora communities, living mainly in the United States, France, and Australia.

The Austroasiatic languages (/ˌɒstroʊ.eɪʒiˈætɪk, ˌɔː-/ OSS-troh-ay-zhee-AT-ik, AWSS-) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority populations scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China. Approximately 117 million people speak an Austroasiatic language, of which more than two-thirds are Vietnamese speakers. Of the Austroasiatic languages, only Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon have lengthy, established presences in the historical record. Only two are presently considered to be the national languages of sovereign states: Vietnamese in Vietnam, and Khmer in Cambodia. The Mon language is a recognized indigenous language in Myanmar and Thailand, while the Wa language is a "recognized national language" in the de facto autonomous Wa State within Myanmar. Santali is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. The remainder of the family's languages are spoken by minority groups and have no official status.

Ethnologue identifies 168 Austroasiatic languages. These form thirteen established families (plus perhaps Shompen, which is poorly attested, as a fourteenth) that have traditionally been grouped into two, as Mon–Khmer, and Munda. However, one recent classification posits three groups (Munda, Mon-Khmer, and Khasi–Khmuic), while another has abandoned Mon–Khmer as a taxon altogether, making it synonymous with the larger family.

Thai, or Central Thai (historically Siamese; Thai: ภาษาไทย), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai, Mon, Lao Wiang, and Phuan people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand.

Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao, Isan, and some fellow Thai topolects. These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.

The Mon (Mon: ဂကူမန်listen; Thai Mon: ဂကူမည်; Burmese: မွန်လူမျိုး‌, pronounced [mʊ̀ɰ̃ lù mjó]; Thai: มอญ, pronounced [mɔ̄ːn] listen) are an ethnic group who inhabit Lower Myanmar's Mon State, Kayin State, Kayah State, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Region, the Irrawaddy Delta, and several areas in Thailand (mostly in Pathum Thani province, Phra Pradaeng and Nong Ya Plong). The native language is Mon, which belongs to the Monic branch of the Austroasiatic language family and shares a common origin with the Nyah Kur language, which is spoken by the people of the same name that live in Northeastern Thailand. A number of languages in Mainland Southeast Asia are influenced by the Mon language, which is also in turn influenced by those languages.

The Mon were one of the earliest to reside in Southeast Asia, and were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Mainland Southeast Asia. The civilizations founded by the Mon were some of the earliest in Thailand as well as Myanmar and Laos. The Mon are regarded as a large exporter of Southeast Asian culture. Historically, many cities in Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos today, including Yangon, Pathum Thani, Lamphun, Lampang, and Vientiane were founded either by the Mon people or Mon rulers.

Mon kingdoms were polities established by the Mon-speaking people in parts of present-day Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. The polities ranged from Dvaravati and Haripuñjaya in present-day northern Thailand to Thaton, Hanthawaddy (1287–1539), and the Restored Hanthawaddy (1740–1757) in southern Myanmar.

The Hanthawaddy kingdom (Mon: ဍုၚ် ဟံသာဝတဳ, [hɔŋsawətɔe]listen; Burmese: ဟံသာဝတီ နေပြည်တော်; also Rone Hongsarwatoi or simply Pegu) was the polity that ruled lower Burma (Myanmar) from 1287 to 1539 and from 1550 to 1552. The Mon-speaking kingdom was founded as Ramaññadesa (Mon: ရးမည, Burmese: ရာမည ဒေသ) by King Wareru following the collapse of the Pagan kingdom in 1287 as a nominal vassal state of the Sukhothai kingdom and of the Mongol Yuan dynasty. The kingdom became formally independent of Sukhothai in 1330 but remained a loose federation of three major regional power centres: the Irrawaddy Delta, Bago, and Mottama. Its kings had little or no authority over the vassals. Mottama was in open rebellion from 1363 to 1388.

Mon State (Burmese: မွန်ပြည်နယ်, pronounced [mʊ̀ɴ pjìnɛ̀]; Mon: တွဵုရးဍုင်မန်) is an administrative division of Myanmar. It lies between Kayin State to the east, the Andaman Sea to the west, Bago Region to the north and Tanintharyi Region to the south, also having a short border with Thailand's Kanchanaburi Province at its south-eastern tip. The land area is 12,155 km (4,693 sq mi). The Dawna Range, running along the eastern side of the state in a NNW–SSE direction, forms a natural border with Kayin State. Mon State includes some small islands, such as Kalegauk, Wa Kyun and Kyungyi Island, along its 566 km (352 mi) of coastline. The state's capital is Mawlamyine.

Myeik (Burmese: မြိတ်, MLCTS: mrit, pronounced [mjeɪʔ] or [beɪʔ]; Mon: ဗိက်, [pòik]; Thai: มะริด, RTGS: Marit, [má(ʔ).rít]; formerly Mergui, /mɜːrˈɡwiː/) is a rural city in Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar, located in the extreme south of the country on the coast of the Andaman Sea. As of 2010, the estimated population was over 209,000. Myeik is the largest city in Tanintharyi Region, and serves as the regional headquarters of the Myanmar Navy's Tanintharyi Regional Command. The area inland from the city is a major smuggling corridor into Thailand. The Singkhon Pass, also known as the Maw-daung Pass, has an international cross-border checkpoint.