Tai Leng (, ; variously spelt Tai Laing, Tai Leng or Tai Nine), also known as Shan-Ni (, ), is a Tai language of Burma, closely related to Khamti and Shan. It is written in its own variant of Burmese script, and though not taught in schools, is experiencing a cultural revival, albeit still small. There is no census of speakers, but they are estimated to number around 100,000. Alternate names for Tai Leng are Shan-Bamar, Shan Kalay, Myaybyan Shan, Tai Nine, Tai Dine and Tai Chaung.

Distribution and dialects

Tai Leng is spoken in Homalin Township, Sagaing Region, along the Chindwin, Irrawaddy, and Uru rivers. It is also spoken in

Kachin State Kachin State (; Jingpho language, Kachin: ) is the northernmost administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. It is bordered by China to the north and east (Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibet and Yunnan, respectively), Shan State to the sou ...

from Bhamo to

Myitkyina Myitkyina (, ; Jingpho language, Jinghpaw: ''Myitkyina'', ; , ''Sèna'') is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), located from Yangon, and from Mandalay. In Burmese language, Burmese it means "near the big river", and Myitkyina i ...

townships. There are two subgroups of Tai Leng, namely Tai Nine and Tai Leng. The Tai Nine live along the Chindwin river and Uru river. And the Tai Leng live along the railway line between

and Mandalay and along the Ayeyarwady river from the upper of Mandalay.

History

The Tai Leng settled in the Indawgyi Lake valley, in modern-day

, Myanmar, establishing city-states including Mongyang, Mogaung, Wuntho, Kale, Khamti, Tsaung Tsu and

Momeik Momeik (), also known as Möng Mit (), is a town situated on the Shweli River in northern Shan State. It is the capital of Mongmit District and the principal town of Mongmit Township, Myanmar. Transport It is connected by road to Mogok and its r ...

. Tai Leng has had long-term close contact with several

Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spe ...

, including Burmese speakers to the south, Lolo-Burmese, Nungish, and Jingpho-Luish languages to the east and north and Naga languages to the west. These languages have influenced the phonology and grammar of Tai Leng, including the frequency of disyllabic words and presence of different grammatical markers, and variation in word order. Following the 1962 Burmese coup d'état, restrictive language policies were promulgated by the military regime. The Kachin Independence Organization also repressed Tai Leng speakers, who lived in contested territory. In the 1990s, a military ceasefire enabled the Tai Leng to recover manuscripts, publish literacy books, and teach the language in summer schools. During the 2011–2015 Myanmar political reforms, Khin Pyone Yee was appointed Kachin State's Minister of Shan Affairs. She spearheaded a program to institutionalize Tai Leng education materials and curricula. While Tai Leng is experiencing a linguistic revival driven by youth, many Tai Leng are now bilingual or monolingual in Burmese, due to assimilation and intermarriage with Burmese speakers.

Writing system

Tai Laing is written using a modified version of the Mon-Burmese script. The alphabet and

IAST The International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration (IAST) is a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Brahmic family, Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages. It is based on a scheme that ...

equivalents are provided below. Letters in gold are used to transcribe Pali.

References

Languages of Myanmar Southwestern Tai languages {{tk-lang-stub