Tai Le language

Tai Nuea or Tai Nüa (; ; , ), also called Dehong Tai (; , ) and Chinese Shan, is one of the languages spoken by the Dai people in China, especially in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in the southwest of Yunnan Province. It is closely related to the other Tai languages and could be considered a dialect of Shan. It should not be confused with Tai Lü (Xishuangbanna Dai).

Names

Most Tai Nuea people call themselves Tai Le (, ), which means 'Upper Tai' or 'Northern Tai'. Note that this is different from Tai Lue, which is pronounced in Tai Nuea.

Another autonym is (), where means 'bottom, under, the lower part (of)' and means 'the Hong River' (Luo 1998). Dehong is a transliteration of the term .

The language is also known as Tai Mau, Tai Kong and Tai Na.

Dialects

Zhou (2001:13) classifies Tai Nuea into the Dehong () and Menggeng () dialects. Together, they add up to a total of 541,000 speakers.

*Dehong dialect : 332,000 speakers
** Dehong Prefecture : Mangshi , Yingjiang , Lianghe , Longchuan , Ruili , Wanding
** Baoshan District : Baoshan , Tengchong , Longling , Shidian
*Menggeng dialect : 209,000 speakers
**Pu'er City / Simao District : Menglian , Jinggu , Lancang , Zhenyuan , Ximeng , Jingdong , Simao , Pu'er , Mojiang
** Baoshan District : Changning
** Lincang District : Gengma , Lincang , Shuangjiang , Cangyuan , Yongde , Zhenkang , Yunxian , Fengqing . A separate traditional script has been developed in Mengding Township , Lincang , and is different from the one used in the Dehong area — see Zhou (2001:371).

Phonology

Tai Nuea is a tonal language with a very limited inventory of syllables with no consonant clusters. 16 syllable-initial consonants can be combined with 84 syllable finals and six tones.

Consonants

Initials

Notes:

1. * occur in loanwords.

2. The consonant and merged to in the initial position in Mangshi (芒市) dialect but not in Menglian (孟连) dialect.

3. The consonant ʰand merged to ʰin Menglian (孟连) dialect but not in Mangshi (芒市) dialect.

Finals

Vowels

Tai Nuea has ten vowels and 13 diphthongs:

Diphthong

* Only in Mangshi dialect.

Tones

Unchecked syllables

Tai Nuea has six tones:

Checked syllables

Syllables with , and final can have only one of three tones in Mangshi (芒市) Dialect or four tones in Menglian (孟连) Dialect.

In Mangshi (芒市) Dialect, the high falling tone mark (◌ᥳ) is usually left unmarked.

Comparison

Checked syllable

Due to the irregular checked tones correspondence, the Tai Le used will be written in Mangshi dialect.

Writing system

The Tai Le script is part of the Mon-Burmese family of writing systems and is closely related to the Ahom script. The script is thought to date back to the 14th century.

The original Tai Nuea spelling did not generally mark tones and failed to distinguish several vowels. It was reformed to make these distinctions, and diacritics were introduced to mark tones. The resulting writing system was officially introduced in 1956. In 1988, the spelling of tones was reformed; special tone letters were introduced instead of the earlier Latin diacritics.

The modern script has a total of 35 letters, including the five tone letters.

The transcription below is given according to the Unicode tables.

Consonants

Vowels and diphthongs

Consonants that are not followed by a vowel letter are pronounced with the inherent vowel Other vowels are indicated with the following letters:

Diphthongs are formed by combining some vowel letters with the consonant and some vowel letters with ᥭ i

Tones

In the Thai and Tai Lü writing systems, the tone value in the pronunciation of a written syllable depends on the tone class of the initial consonant, vowel length and syllable structure. In contrast, the Tai Nuea writing system has a very straightforward spelling of tones, with one letter (or diacritic) for each tone.

Tone marks were presented via the third reform (1963) as diacritics. Then the fourth reform (1988) changed them into tone letters. A tone mark is put at the end of syllable whatever it is consonant or vowel. Examples in the table show the syllable ain different tones.

The sixth tone (mid level) is not marked. And if a syllable with -p, -t, -k finals have the fifth tone, the tone mark is not written.

Grammar

Pronouns

Syntax

Tai Nuea word order is usually subject–verb–object (SVO); modifiers (e.g. adjectives) follow nouns.

Demonstrative

Adverb

Numeral

Text sample

Language use

Tai Nuea has official status in some parts of Yunnan (China), where it is used on signs and in education. Yunnan People's Radio Station (''Yúnnán rénmín guǎngbō diàntái'' 云南人民广播电台) broadcasts in Tai Nuea. On the other hand, however, very little printed material is published in Tai Nuea in China. However, many signs of roads and stores in Mangshi are in Tai Nuea.

In Thailand, a collection of 108 proverbs was published with translations into Thai and English.Thawi Swangpanyangkoon and Edward Robinson. 1994. (2537 Thai). Dehong Tai proverbs. Sathaban Thai Suksa, Chulalankorn Mahawitayalai.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Tai Dehong


(''Introduction to Dehong Dai with examples''; in Chinese)

Daiyu, Daiwen 傣语、傣文
(in Chinese)

Yunnan sheng yuyan wenzi wang 云南省语言文字网
(''Yunnan province language and writing web''; in Chinese)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tai Nua Language
Southwestern Tai languages
Brahmic scripts
Languages of Yunnan
Languages of Myanmar
Languages of Thailand