Official press release of 140th Karenni Nation Day regarding Karenni literature
In light of a constant misunderstanding, we, representatives from respective Karenni communities, believe that standardization — of some historically important terminologies and its correct spellings — has become of urgency, particularly in this day and age when Karenni population is scattered around the continents for good reasons.
In retrospect, families had always been living in a close proximity of one another. Therefore, thanks to a few good leaders, the spelling of some words at every celebration has never become an issue until recently.
For close to a decade or so, we have seen a surge of Karenni communities developing around the world for good. Along with it, however, comes an unprecedented lack of uniformity in several aspects of our lives, in particular Karenni literature — in this case, the widespread differentiated spellings of some Karenni-historic words. For instance, different state representatives prefer to write the spelling of “Pole Festival” slightly different, possibly resulting in unnecessary confusion for not only new Karenni generations but also Karenni enthusiasts.
With the deep understanding that Karenni state itself has multiple sub-languages and consonants, we firmly believe, however, that it has never been a better time than this 140th Karenni National Day to embark on the important task of standardizing the spellings of such iconic words, ensuring the commonality of those meaningful celebrations among our Karenni lives.
Therefore, taking into account that some Karenni people are still unaware of such urgency, we announce on this auspicious occasion, with the clear goals of creating a real sense of unity among Karenni people and formalizing the coining of such words in our endless history, that “Pole Festival” is to be written in three English words as “Kay Htoe Boe” and “Sticky Rice Festival” is to be written in one English word as “Deeku.”