Tai Lue language


Tai Lue or Tai Lɯ, Tai Lü, Thai Lue, Tai Le, Xishuangbanna Dai is a Tai language of the Lu people, spoken by about 700,000 people in Southeast Asia. This includes 280,000 people in China, 200,000 in Burma, 134,000 in Laos, 83,000 in Thailand, and 4,960 in Vietnam. The language is similar to other Tai languages and is closely related to Kham Mueang or Tai Yuan, which is also known as Northern Thai language. In Yunnan, it is spoken in all of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, as well as Jiangcheng Hani and Yi Autonomous County in Pu'er City.
In Vietnam, Tai Lue speakers are officially recognised as the Lự ethnic minority, although in China they are classified as part of the Dai people, along with speakers of the other Tai languages apart from Zhuang.

Phonology

Tai Lue has 21 syllable-initial consonants, 9 syllable finals and six tones.

Consonants

Initials

The initials - and - are palatalized before front vowels, and become and, respectively. For example, "hard" and "ten" are pronounced as and respectively..

Finals

Vowels

Generally, vowels in open syllables become long whereas ones in closed syllables become short.

Tones

Contrastive tones in unchecked syllables

The table below presents six phonemic tones in unchecked syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in sonorant sounds such as, and and open syllables.
There are six tones for unchecked syllables, although only three are allowed in checked syllables.
DescriptionContourTranscriptionExampleNew Tai Lue scriptMeaning
high55ácrow
high rising35to go
low rising13rice shoots
falling51âto be stuck
mid33a price
low11àto do business

Contrastive tones in checked syllables

The table below presents two phonemic tones in checked syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in a glottal stop and obstruent sounds which are, and.
ToneExamplePhonemicgloss
high-risinɡpost
midsteal
high-risinɡdiffer from others
middraɡ, pull

Grammar

Word order is usually subject–verb–object; modifiers follow nouns.

Vocabulary

As in Thai and Lao, Tai Lue has borrowed many Sanskrit and Pali words and affixes. Among the Tai languages in general, Tai Lue has limited intelligibility with Shan and Tai Nua and shares much vocabulary with, the other Southwestern Tai languages. Tai Lue has 95% lexical similarity with Northern Thai, 86% with Central Thai, 93% with Shan, and 95% with Khun.
Below, some Thai Lue words are given with standard Central Thai equivalents for comparison. Thai words are shown on the left and Tai Lue words, written in New Tai Lue script, are shown on the right.

Different words

Many words differ from Thai greatly:
Some words differ in tone only:
Some words differ in a single sound and associated tone. In many words, the initial ร in Thai is ฮ in Tai Lue, as is also the case in Lao and Tai Yuan:
Aspirated consonants in the low-class consonant group become unaspirated:
Though many aspirated consonants often become unaspirated, when an unaspirated consonant is followed by ร the unaspirated consonant becomes aspirated:
Other differences:
1234567891010010,000100,0001,000,000
ᦓᦹᧂᧈᦉᦸᧂᦉᦱᧄᦉᦲᧈᦠᦱᧉᦷᦠᧅᦵᦈᧆᦶᦔᧆᧉᦂᧁᧉᦉᦲᧇᦣᦾᧉᦖᦹᧃᦶᦉᧃᦟᧃᧉ

Writing systems

Tai Lue is written in three different alphabets. One is Fak Kham script, a variety of Thai script of Sukhothai. The second is Tham script and was reformed in the 1950s, but is still in use and has recently regained government support. The new alphabet is a simplified version of the old script.

Fak Kham

An ancient script, also used in Kengtung, Northern Thailand and Northern Laos centuries ago.

Tham

Tham script is called :zh:老傣文|老傣文 lao dai wen in China. Readable by the most people and used in Burma, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

New Tai Lue

is a modernization of the Lanna alphabet, which is similar to the Thai alphabet, and consists of 42 initial consonant signs, seven final consonant signs, 16 vowel signs, two tone letters and one vowel shortening letter. Vowels signs can be placed before or after the syllable initial consonant.
Similar to the Thai alphabet, the pronunciation of the tone of a syllable depends on the class the initial consonant belongs to, syllable structure and vowel length, and the tone mark.
Unicode range : U+1980 – U+19DF

Related varieties

The Bajia people, who number 1,106 individuals in Mengkang Village, Meng'a Town, Menghai County, Yunnan, speak a language closely related to Tai Lue. There are 225 Bajia people living in Jingbo Township 景播乡, Menghai County. The Bajia are also known as the Chinese Dai :zh:傣那|汉傣.