Tai Dón language

Tai Dón
Tai Dón
ꪼꪕ ꪒ꪿ꪮꪙ
	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)
Language family	Kra–Dai Tai Southwestern (Thai) Chiang Saen Tai Dón; ; ; ;
Writing system	Tai Viet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	twh
Glottolog	taid1250

Tai Dón (ꪼꪕ ꪒ꪿ꪮꪙ, /taj˦.dɔn˦˥/^[1]), also known as Tai Khao or White Tai, is a Tai language of northern Vietnam, Laos and China.

Classification

Tai Dón is classified as belonging to the Tai-Kadai language group, located in the Tai languages and Southwestern Tai languages subgroups.

Geographical distribution

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

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

Initial consonants

Initial consonants in Tai Dón^[4]^: 9–10
		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]
Fricative	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.

Initial consonant clusters in Tai Dón^[4]^: 10
Cluster	Example
kw	/kwaː˦˥˦/ ꪁꪫꪱꫀ "to visit"
kʰw	/kʰwe˦˥/ ꪂꪫꪸꫀ "to dig"
ŋw	/ŋwaː˦˥˦/ ꪉꪫꪱꫀ "fig"
xw	/xwan˦˦/ ꪅꪫꪽ "smoke"

Final consonants

Final consonants in Tai Dón^[4]^: 10–11
	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p	t		k	ʔ
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Approximant	w		j	ɰ^[a]

^ "/ɰ/ occurs after /a/ (e.g., /baɰ˨˨/ ꪻꪚ "leaf")^[4]^: 11

Vowels

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).

Vowels in Tai Dón^[4]^: 10
	Front			Back
	unrounded				rounded
High	i			ɯ	u
Mid	e			ɤ	o
Low	ɛ	a	aː		ɔ

Tones

There are six tones on a smooth syllable (an open syllable or a closed syllable ending in a sonorant).^[4]^: 9

Tai Dón tones in smooth syllables^[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).

Tai Dón tones in checked syllables^[4]^: 9
Tone	Vowel length	Example
high-rising	short	/sat˦˥/ ꪎꪰꪒ "animal"
high-rising	long	/ʔaːp˦˥/ ꪮꪱꪚ "to bathe"
level, somewhat higher than mid	short	/mot˦˦/ ꪣꪺꪒ "ant"
level, somewhat higher than mid	long	/laːt˦˦/ ꪩꪱꪒ "to cover"

References

^ ^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.