Khün, or Tai Khün (Tai Khün: , ; ), also known as Kengtung tai, Kengtung Shan, is the language of the Tai Khün people of Kengtung,

Shan State Shan State (, ; , ) is a administrative divisions of Myanmar, state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha Province, Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai Province, Chia ...

, Myanmar (Burma).bloggang.com (thai)
/ref> It is also spoken in

Chiang Rai Province Chiang Rai (, ; , ) is one of Thailand's seventy-six Provinces of Thailand, provinces that lies in Northern Thailand#Regional classification of northern Thailand, upper northern Thailand and is Thailand's northernmost province. It is bordered ...

, Thailand, and Yunnan Province, China. The Khün varieties share 93% to 100%

lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...

. Khun is closely related to other

Tai languages The Tai, Zhuang–Tai, or Daic languages (Ahom language, Ahom: 𑜁𑜪𑜨 𑜄𑜩 or 𑜁𑜨𑜉𑜫 𑜄𑜩 ; ; or , ; , ) are a branch of the Kra–Dai languages, Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spo ...

. Khün shares 90% to 95% lexical similarity with

Northern Thai language Northern Thai (), also called Kam Mueang (, กำเมือง) or Lanna, is the language spoken by the Northern Thai people of Thailand. It is a Southwestern Tai languages, Southwestern Tai language. The language has approximately six mill ...

, 92% to 95% with Lü, 93% to 97% with Shan, and 80% to 83% with standard Thai. Tai Khun is traditionally written using a variant of the Tai Tham script.

Geographical distribution

In China, there are about 10,000 Tai Khuen () people in the following areas of Yunnan province (Gao 1999). * Menglian County 孟连县: in Mengma Town 勐马镇, and in Meng'aba 勐阿坝 (12 villages total) * Ximeng County 西盟县: in Mengsuo 勐梭 * Lincang Prefecture (small, scattered population)

Phonology

Tones

There are contrastive five or six tones in Khün.Owen, R. W. (2012). A tonal analysis of contemporary Tai Khuen varieties. ''Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (JSEALS)'' 5:12–31. The varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Kat Fah have five tones, and the variety spoken in Murng Lang has six tones. Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Murng Lang are part of Kengtung Township.

Smooth syllables

The table below presents the tones in the varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, Kat Fah, and Murng Lang. These tones occur in smooth syllables which are open syllables or closed syllables ending in a sonorant sound, such as /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /w/, or /j/.

Checked syllables

Three of the five or six phonemic tones occur in checked syllables which are closed syllables ending in a

glottal stop The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic ...

(/ʔ/) or an obstruent sound, such as /p/, /t/, or /k/. The table below presents the three tones in the varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Kat Fah.

Sample text

The Article 1 of the UDHR in Khün: ᨾᨶᩩᩔ᩼ᨴ᩠ᨦᩢᩉᩖᩣ᩠ᨿᨠᩮ᩠ᨯᩨᨾᩣᨾᩦᨻ᩠ᨦᩈᩁᩓᩢᨹ᩠ᨿ᩵ᨦᨻ᩠ᨿᨦᨠ᩠ᨶᩢ ᨶᩱᨠᩥᨲ᩠ᨲᩥᩈ᩠ᨠᩢ ᩓᩢᩈᩥᨴ᩠ᨵᩥ ᨲ᩵ᩣ᩠ᨦᨣᩳ᩶ᨣᩢᨾᩦᨾᨶᩮᩣᨵᨾ᩠ᨾ᩼ᩓᩢ ᨣ᩠ᩅᩁᨷᨭᩥᨷ᩠ᨲᩢᨲᩳ᩵ᨠ᩠ᨶᩢᨯᩢ᩠ᩅ᩠ᨿᨣ᩠ᩅᩣ᩠ᨾᨹ᩠ᨿ᩵ᨦᨻ᩠ᨿᨦᨠ᩠ᨶᩢOmniglot

References

*Owen, R. Wyn. 2012.
A tonal analysis of contemporary Tai Khuen varieties
. ''Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (JSEALS)'' 5:12–31. *Petsuk, Rasi (1978). ''General characteristics of the Khün language''. Mahidol University MA thesis.

External links

Khün alphabet
Languages of Laos Languages of Thailand Languages of Myanmar Southwestern Tai languages {{tk-lang-stub