Tai Nuea language


Tai Nuea or Tai Nüa or, , 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.

Names

Most Tai Nuea people call themselves Tai Le, which means 'Upper Tai' or 'Northern Tai'. However, it is not related to Tai Lue, which is pronounced in Tai Nuea. This similarity occurs as the result of a merger between and on initial position in the Mangshi dialect of Tai Nuea. It is pronounced Tai Ne in Menglian dialect.
Another autonym is , where means 'bottom, under, the lower part ' and means 'the Hong River'. Dehong is a transliteration of the term. It should not be confused with the term 'Lower Tai' which is a term used by the Tai Nuea people to refer to Shan people.
The language is also known as Tai Mau, Tai Kong and Tai Na.

Dialects

Zhou classifies Tai Nuea into the Dehong and Menggeng dialects. Together, they add up to a total of 541,000 speakers.
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 dialect but not in Menglian dialect.
3. The consonant and merged to in Menglian dialect but not in Mangshi dialect.

Finals

Vowels

Tai Nuea has ten vowels and 13 diphthongs:
FrontCentral-BackBack
High
Mid
Low ~
~

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 Dialect or four tones in Menglian Dialect.
DescriptionContourTai LeTai Le Number
rising35 ◌ᥴ◌́7
high falling53 ◌ᥳ◌̇8
high falling53 ◌◌8
low11 or 21 ◌ᥱ◌̌9

In Mangshi Dialect, the high falling tone mark is usually left unmarked.
DescriptionContourTai LeTai Le Number
high55 ◌ᥴ◌́7
low falling31 ◌ᥳ◌̇8
rising35 ◌ᥱ◌̌9
mid33 ◌◌10

Comparison

Tai LeMangshi Menglian English
fa4pʰa4sky
laːu6lau6star
lam4nɑm4water
xai5xɑi5egg
la2na2field
fon1pʰon1rain
moi1məi1frost
pa3 taɯ3pɑ3 tɑ3under

Checked syllable

Due to the irregular checked tones correspondence, the Tai Le used will be written in Mangshi dialect.
Tai LeMangshi Menglian English
tap7tɑp7liver
lok8lok8bird
hak8hɑk8love
mɔk9mɔk9flower
sop9sop9mouth
pʰak7pʰɑk10vegetable
ŋək8ŋək10dragon
tsək8tsək10rope
tsep9tsep10pain
pʰet9pʰet10spicy
pet9pet10duck
luk7luk9bone
hut7hut9inhale
kaːp8kap9bite

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 /.

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 for each tone.
Tone marks were presented via the third reform as diacritics. Then the fourth reform changed them into tone letters. The tone letter is placed at the end of syllable. Examples in the table show the syllable in different tones.
NumberNew Old Pitch
1.mid rise
2.high fall
3.low
4.low fall
5.mid fall
6.mid

Only three tones occur in checked syllables . The sixth tone is not written in open syllables, and the third is not written in checked syllables.

Grammar

Pronouns

MangshiMenglian
Reflexiveᥙᥪᥴ ᥓᥝᥲ ᥐᥩᥭᥰ ᥘᥥᥝ
Interrogativeᥚᥬᥴ ᥙᥧᥱ ᥘᥬ
Everyoneᥙᥫᥝ ᥙᥫᥝ
Other peopleᥖᥒᥰ ᥘᥣᥭᥴ ᥖᥒᥰ ᥘᥣᥭᥴ

Syntax

Tai Nuea word order is usually subject–verb–object ; modifiers follow nouns.

Demonstrative

Adverb

Numeral

Text sample

Language use

Tai Nuea has official status in some parts of Yunnan, where it is used on signs and in education. Yunnan People's Radio Station 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.