Reprint: Original date of publication 1799... "Francis Buchanan published his ?A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the Languages Spoken in the Burma Empire? in 1799, in the fifth volume of Asiatic Researches. This piece provides one of the first major Western surveys of the languages of Burma. But the article goes beyond this and provides important data on the ethno-cultural identities and identifications of the various population groups in the first half of B?-daw-hpay??s reign (1782-1819). For these reasons, the article is republished here. The article is reproduced in its entirety, with slight modifications as follows... The original citation for the article is as follows: Francis Buchanan. ?A Comparative Vocabulary of Some of the languages spoken in the Burma Empire.? Asiatic Researches 5 (1799): 219-240. M. W. C.