Tai Dón language
| Tai Dón | |
|---|---|
| ꪼꪕ ꪒꪮꪙꫀ[1] | |
 Tai Dón as written in SyyDai font | |
| Pronunciation | /taj˦.dɔn˦˥/ |
| Native to | Laos, Vietnam, China (Mengla Township of Jinping) |
| Ethnicity | White Tai |
Native speakers | (500,000 cited 1995–2002)[2] |
Kra–Dai
| |
| Tai Viet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | twh |
| Glottolog | taid1250 |
Tai Dón (ꪼꪕ ꪒꪮꪙꫀ, /taj˦.dɔn˦˥/[1]), also known as Tai Khao or White Tai, is a Tai language of northern Vietnam, Laos and China.
Classification[edit]
Tai Dón is classified as belonging to the Tai-Kadai language group, located in the Tai languages and Southwestern Tai languages subgroups.
Geographical distribution[edit]
In China, White Tai (Tai Khaw 傣皓) people are located in the following townships of Yunnan province, with about 40,000 people (Gao 1999).[3]
- Jinping County 金平县: Mengla Township 勐拉乡 and Zhemi Township 者米乡 (along the banks of the Zhemi River 者米河 and Tengtiao River 藤条)
- Malipo County 麻栗坡县: Nanwenhe Township 南温河乡
- Maguan County 马关县: Dulong Town 都龙镇
- Jiangcheng County 江城县: Qushui Township 曲水乡 (along the banks of the Tuka River 土卡河)
Phonology[edit]
Each syllable has at least one onset, one nucleus, and one tone.[4] The following sections present the consonants, vowels, and tones in Tai Dón.
Consonants[edit]
Initial consonants[edit]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop/Affricate | voiced | b | d | |||
| voiceless unaspirated | p | t | t͡ɕ[a] | k | ʔ | |
| voiceless aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | t͡ɕʰ | kʰ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | voiced | v[b] | ||||
| voiceless | f | s | x | h | ||
| Approximant | l | j[c] | ||||
- ^ "Hudak (2008)[4]: 9 likely used <c> to transcribe /t͡ɕ/. Fippinger and Fippinger (1970) used <c> to transcribe /t͡ɕ/, by writing "/c/ [č] alveopalatal affricate", for /t͡ɕ/ in Tai Dam, a language closely related to Tai Dón, in an article that compares Tai Dam phonemes to Tai Dón phonemes.[5]: 85
- ^ /v/ is likely a sonorant because of its sonority and low level of friction.[4]: 10 It is also in complementary distribution with [w] which occurs only at the end of a syllable.[4]: 10
- ^ /j/ is often pronounced as [z] in initial position due to the influence of Vietnamese phonology.[4]: 10
The following table presents the above consonant phonemes in words reported in Hudak's (2008) book.[4]: 9–10
| Phoneme | Example | Phoneme | Example | Phoneme | Example | Phoneme | Example | Phoneme | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /b/ | /bɤn˨˨/ ꪚꪷꪙ "moon" | /d/ | /dɔn˦˥/ ꪒꪮꪙꫀ "white" | ||||||
| /p/ | /pɔ˦˥˦/ ꪝ꪿ꪮ "father" | /t/ | /tu˨˨/ ꪔꪴ "door" | /t͡ɕ/ | /t͡ɕɔn˧˩ʔ/ ꪋꪮꪙꫂ "spoon" | /k/ | /kaːŋ˨˨/ ꪀꪱꪉ "middle" | /ʔ/ | /ʔaːŋ˦˥/ ꪮꪱꪉꫀ "basin" |
| /pʰ/ | /pʰaː˨˦ʔ/ ꪞꪱꫂ "cloth" | /tʰ/ | /tʰiw˨˨/ ꪖꪲꪫ "to whistle" | /t͡ɕʰ/ | /t͡ɕʰaj˦˥/ ꪼꪌꫀ "egg" | /kʰ/ | /kʰo˨˦ʔ/ ꪂꪺꫂ "to cook" | ||
| /m/ | /mɯŋ˦˦/ ꪣꪳꪉ "you" | /n/ | /naː˨˦ʔ/ ꪘꪱꫂ "face" | /ɲ/ | /ɲuŋ˦˦/ ꪶꪑꪉ "mosquito" | /ŋ/ | /ŋaːj˦˥˦/ ꪉꪱꪥꫀ "easy" | ||
| /v/ | /vaːn˨˨/ ꪪꪱꪙ "sweet" | ||||||||
| /f/ | /faː˨˨/ ꪠꪱ "lid" | /s/ | /sɔŋ˨˨/ ꪎꪮꪉ "two" | /x/ | /xaj˨˨/ ꪼꪄ "tallow" | /h/ | /hɤ˦˥/ ꪬꪷꫀ "sweat" | ||
| /l/ | /loŋ˦˦/ ꪩꪺꪉ "dragon" | /j/ | /jɔj˧˩ʔ/ ꪥꪮꪥꫂ "to drool" |
There are four consonant clusters that occur at the beginning of a syllable.
| Cluster | Example |
|---|---|
| kw | /kwaː˦˥˦/ ꪁꪫꪱꫀ "to visit" |
| kʰw | /kʰwe˦˥/ ꪂꪫꪸꫀ "to dig" |
| ŋw | /ŋwaː˦˥˦/ ꪉꪫꪱꫀ "fig" |
| xw | /xwan˦˦/ ꪅꪫꪽ "smoke" |
Final consonants[edit]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
| Approximant | w | j | ɰ[a] |
Vowels[edit]
Tai Dón has nine short vowels, and one long vowel. However, the short vowels are phonetically realized as long in final position[4]: 10 (e.g., /e/ is phonetically [eː] in final position).
| Front | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||||
| High | i | ɯ | u | |||
| Mid | e | ɤ | o | |||
| Low | ɛ | a | aː | ɔ | ||
Tones[edit]
There are six tones on a smooth syllable (an open syllable or a closed syllable ending in a sonorant).[4]: 9
| Description | Tone letters | Example |
|---|---|---|
| level, slightly lower than mid | 22 (or ˨˨) | /kaː˨˨/ ꪀꪱ "crow" |
| high-rising | 45 (or ˦˥) | /kaː˦˥/ ꪀꪱꫀ "all the way to" |
| low-rising, glottalized | 24ʔ (or ˨˦ʔ) | /kaː˨˦ʔ/ ꪀꪱꫂ "young rice plant" |
| level, somewhat higher than mid | 44 (or ˦˦) | /kaː˦˦/ ꪁꪱ "stuck" |
| level, somewhat higher than mid with a rise and fall | 454 (or ˦˥˦) | /kaː˦˥˦/ ꪁꪱꫀ "price" |
| falling, glottalized | 31ʔ (or ˧˩ʔ) | /kaː˧˩ʔ/ ꪁꪱꫂ "to trade" |
Two of the six tones occur on a checked syllable (a syllable ending in a stop).
| Tone | Vowel length | Example |
|---|---|---|
| high-rising | short | /sat˦˥/ ꪎꪰꪒ "animal" |
| long | /ʔaːp˦˥/ ꪮꪱꪚ "to bathe" | |
| level, somewhat higher than mid | short | /mot˦˦/ ꪣꪺꪒ "ant" |
| long | /laːt˦˦/ ꪩꪱꪒ "to cover" |
References[edit]
- ^ a b "The White Tai refer to themselves and their language as tay⁴ dɔn², probably because of the white blouses worn by the women. The usual word for 'white' in White Tai is dɔn²" (p. 8). Hudak, T. J. (2008). William J. Gedney’s comparative Tai source book. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
- ^ Tai Dón at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Gao Lishi 高立士. 1999. 傣族支系探微. 中南民族学院学报 (哲学社会科学版). 1999 年第1 期 (总第96 期).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Hudak, T. J. (2008). William J. Gedney’s comparative Tai source book. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
- ^ Fippinger, J. & Fippinger, D. (1970). Black Tai Phonemes, with reference to White Tai. Anthropological Linguistics, 12(3). 83-97.
External links[edit]
- Preliminary proposal to encode the Tai Khao script in UCS
- A response to Kushim Jiang, “Preliminary proposal to encode the Tai Khao script in UCS”
- https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2022/22098-tai-don.pdf
- https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2022/22099-tai-don-comment.pdf