Tai Nüa language
Encyclopedia
Tai Nüa 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. It should not be confused with Tai Lü
(Xishuangbanna Dai). There are also Tai Nüa speakers in Thailand
.
Note: To view Tai Nüa letters, you will have to download a Unicode font that contains Tai Nüa glyphs.
.
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/.
(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.).
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.
Diphthongs are formed by combining some vowel letters with the consonant ᥝ [w] and some vowel letters with ᥭ [ai]/[j].
Examples in the table show the syllable [ta] in different tones, in old (1956) and new (1988) spellings.
Dai people
The Dai peoples is one of several ethnic groups living in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture , but by extension can apply to groups in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma when Dai is used to mean specifically Tai Lue, Chinese Shan or even...
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, especially in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture
Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture
The Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture is located in Yunnan province, China.- Geography :...
in the southwest of Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
province. It is closely related to the other Tai languages. Speakers of this language across the border in Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
are known as Shan. It should not be confused with Tai Lü
Tai Lü language
Tai Lü is a language spoken by about 670,000 people in South East Asia. This includes 250,000 people in China, 200,000 in Burma, 134,000 in Thailand, and 5,000 in Vietnam...
(Xishuangbanna Dai). There are also Tai Nüa speakers in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
.
Note: To view Tai Nüa letters, you will have to download a Unicode font that contains Tai Nüa glyphs.
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 tonesTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
.
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 scriptTai Le script
Tai Le is the name of Tai Nüa script, the script used for the Tai Nüa language, given by Microsoft.-Unicode:Tai Le script was added to the Unicode Standard in April, 2003 with the release of version 4.0....
is closely related to other Southeast-Asian writing systems such as the Thai alphabet
Thai alphabet
Thai script , is used to write the Thai language and other, minority, languages in Thailand. It has forty-four consonants , fifteen vowel symbols that combine into at least twenty-eight vowel forms, and four tone marks ....
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
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
at U+1950-U+1974.
The Tai Nüa numerals are similar to Myanmar
Burmese alphabet
The Burmese script is an abugida in the Brahmic family used for writing Burmese. Furthermore, various other scripts share some aspect and letters of the Burmese script, though they should not be considered strictly Burmese, including Mon, Shan, S'gaw Karen, Eastern and Western Pwo Karen and Geba...
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 | ᥖ |
| 3. | ᥖᥱ | ᥖ |
| 4. | ᥖᥲ | ᥖ̀ |
| 5. | ᥖᥳ | ᥖ |
| 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.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. BerlieJean BerlieJean Berlie is a French socio-anthropologist specialising in Asia and China.-Background:...
, School of Oriental and African Studies editor, University of London, London, United Kingdom, published in 1993.