Tai Nüa language

Tai Nüa
ᥖᥭᥰᥖᥬᥳᥑᥨᥒᥰ
Pronunciation	[tai taɯ xoŋ]
Spoken in	China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos
Region	Southwest China
Native speakers	650,000  (1983–2001)
Language family	Tai–Kadai Tai Southwestern (Thai) Northwestern Tai Nüa
Official status
Official language in	co-official in Dehong, China
Regulated by	No official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tdd

Note: To view Tai Nüa letters, you will have to download a Unicode font that contains Tai Nüa glyphs.

Tai Nüa (also called Tai Nɯa, Dehong Dai, or Chinese Shan; own name: [tai2 lə6], which means "upper Tai" or "northern Tai", or ᥖᥭᥰᥖᥬᥳᥑᥨᥒᥰ [tai taɯ xoŋ]; Chinese: Dǎinǎyǔ 傣哪语 or Déhóng Dǎiyǔ 德宏傣语; Thai: ภาษาไทยเหนือ [pʰaːsǎː tʰaj nɯːa] or ภาษาไทใต้คง [pʰaːsǎː tʰaj tâjkʰoŋ]) 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. Speakers of this language across the border in Myanmar are known as Shan.^{[citation needed]} It should not be confused with Tai Lü (Xishuangbanna Dai). There are also Tai Nüa speakers in Thailand.

Names

Most Tai Nüa people call themselves tai2 lə6, which means 'upper Tai' or 'northern Tai'. Note that this is different from Tai Lue, which is pronounced 'tai2 lɪ5 in Tai Nüa.

Dehond is a transliteration of the term taɨ4 xoŋ2, where taɨ4 means 'bottom, under, the lower part (of)', and xoŋ2 means 'the Hong River' (more widely known as the Salween River or Nujiang 怒江 in Chinese) (Luo 1998).

Phonology

Tai Nüa 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

Tai Nüa has 17 consonants:

p, pʰ, f, m

t, tʰ, ts, s, n

k, x, ŋ

ʔ, h, l, j, w

All consonants except for n can occur at the beginning of a syllable. Only the following consonants can occur at the end of a syllable: /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ/.

Vowels and diphthongs

Tai Nüa has ten vowels and 13 diphthongs:

a, aː, ɛ, e, i, ɯ, ə, ɔ, o, u

iu, eu, ɛu; ui, oi, ɔi; əi, əu; ai, aɯ, au; aːi, aːu

Tones

Tai Nüa has six tones:

• 1. rising (24)
• 2. high falling (53) or high level (55)
• 3. low level (11)
• 4. low falling (31)
• 5. mid falling (43) or high falling (53)
• 6. mid level (33)

(1 is the lowest, 5 the highest pitch)

Syllables with p, t, k as final consonants can have only one of three tones (1., 3., or 5.).

Writing system

Tai Le script is closely related to other Southeast-Asian writing systems such as the Thai alphabet and is thought to date back to the 14th century.

The original Tai Nüa 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 alphabet has a total of 35 letters, including the five tone letters. It is encoded under the name "Tai Le" in the Basic Multilingual Plane of Unicode at U+1950-U+1974.

The Tai Nüa numerals are similar to Myanmar numerals; they are in fact unified with Myanmar's numerals in Unicode (U+1040-U+1049) despite some glyph variations.

The transcription below is given according to the Unicode tables.

Consonants

Letter	Transcription	IPA	Letter	Transcription	IPA	Letter	Transcription	IPA
ᥐ	k	[k]	ᥑ	x	[x]	ᥒ	ng	[ŋ]
ᥓ	ts	[ts]	ᥔ	s	[s]	ᥕ	y	[j]
ᥖ	t	[t]	ᥗ	th	[tʰ]	ᥘ	l	[l]
ᥙ	p	[p]	ᥚ	ph	[pʰ]	ᥛ	m	[m]
ᥜ	f	[f]	ᥝ	v	[w]
ᥞ	h	[h]	ᥟ	q	[ʔ]
ᥠ	kh	[kʰ]	ᥡ	tsh	[tsʰ]	ᥢ	n	[n]

Vowels and diphthongs

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

Letter	Transcription	IPA	Letter	Transcription	IPA
ᥣ	a	[aː]
ᥤ	i	[i]	ᥧ	u	[u]
ᥥ	ee	[e]	ᥨ	oo	[o]
ᥦ	eh	[ɛ]	ᥩ	o	[ɔ]
ᥪ	ue	[ɯ]	ᥫ	e	[ə]
ᥬ	aue	[aɯ]	ᥭ	ai	[ai]

Diphthongs are formed by combining some vowel letters with the consonant ᥝ [w] and some vowel letters with ᥭ [ai]/[j].

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 Nüa writing system has a very straightforward spelling of tones, with one letter (or diacritic) for each tone. The first tone is not marked.

Examples in the table show the syllable [ta] in different tones, in old (1956) and new (1988) spellings.

Number	New	Old
1.	ᥖ	ᥖ
2.	ᥖᥰ	ᥖ̈
3.	ᥖᥱ	ᥖ̌
4.	ᥖᥲ	ᥖ̀
5.	ᥖᥳ	ᥖ̈
6.	ᥖᥴ	ᥖ́

Language use

Tai Nüa 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 Nüa. On the other hand, however, very little printed material is published in Tai Nüa in China.

References

• Luo Yongxian. 1998. A dictionary of Dehong, Southwest China. Pacific Linguistics Series C, no. 145. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Roong-a-roon Teekhachunhatean รุ่งอรุณ ทีฆชุณหเถียร: Reflections on Tai Dehong Society from Language Point of View. In: Journal of Language and Linguistics 18.2 (January–June 2000), pp. 71–82.
• Zhōu Yàowén 周耀文, Fāng Bólóng 方伯龙, Mèng Zūnxiàn 孟尊贤: Déhóng Dǎiwén 德宏傣文 (Dehong Dai). In: Mínzú yǔwén 《民族语文》 1981.3.
• Zhāng Gōngjǐn 张公瑾: Dǎiwén jí qí wénxiàn 傣文及其文献 (The Dai language and Dai documents). In: Zhōngguóshǐ yánjiū dòngtài 《中国史研究动态》 1981.6.
• Neua (Na) in Yunnan (PRC) and the LPDR: a minority and a "non-minority" in the Chinese and Lao political systems, Jean A. Berlie, School of Oriental and African Studies editor, University of London, London, United Kingdom 1993.

External links

• Tai Dehong
• Ethnologue report for Tai Nüa
• Dehong Daiwen jianjie ji zifuji 德宏傣文简介及字符集 (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)
• Neua (Na) in Yunnan ([PRC) and the LPDR: a minority and a "non-minority" in the Chinese and Lao political systems, Jean A. Berlie, School of Oriental and African Studies editor, University of London, London, United Kingdom, published in 1993.