According to Dr. Min Nwe Soe, Mon State’s Minister of Planning and Economics, the weekly publication will be published in Mon as well as Pa-o and the two major Karen languages in the region, S’gaw and Pwo. Myanma Alinn Daily Newspaper will translate stories into these languages, and there will be about one page of news for each ethnic language.

“It will start on August 3rd. At first, it will be [published] weekly, with one page of Mon, one page of Pa-O, and two pages of Karen. Then, when it gets better it can be done daily. The pages published in ethnic languages will be in color,” said Dr. Min Nwe Soe.

The office of Mon State’s edition of Myanma Alinn is located in Moulmein Township‘s Kyar-inn Village, and the office is planning to distribute 30,000 copies of its new edition containing ethnic languages in Mon State and another 20,000 in Karen State.

Employees will translate news stories from the government’s Ministry of Information into the four ethnic languages. According to Mi Mon Kyae, who will work on the Mon language section, the newspaper plans to assign four staff members to each ethnic language section—two staff members to translate the news; one to type the news; and another to supervise. If a full-time staff isn’t available, then volunteers will fill vacant positions.

“We will help publish the Mon language section if they cannot find employees for that. We will [also] translate information from government state news and help with typing and layout,” said Mi Mon Kyae.

Since President Thein Sein took office in 2011, the government has expanded access to news media, and the Mon State edition of Myanma Alinn will be the first state-run publication containing news in the Mon language.