Tai Dón (,
["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.]), also known as Tai Khao or White Tai, is a
Tai language
The Tai or Zhuang–Tai languages ( th, ภาษาไท or , transliteration: or ) are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including Standard Thai or S ...
of northern
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
,
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
The Southwestern Tai, Southwestern Thai or Thai languages are a branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. Its dialects include Siamese (Central Thai), Lanna, Lao, Shan and others.
Classification
The internal classification of the South ...
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).
[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).]
*
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
Malipo County (, vi, Ma Lật Pha) is under the administration of the Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, in the southeast of Yunnan province, China, bordering Ha Giang Province to the southeast.
Administrative divisions
In the presen ...
麻栗坡县: Nanwenhe Township 南温河乡
*
Maguan County
Maguan County (, vi, Mã Quan) is located in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, China, bordering Vietnam's Lào Cai
Lào Cai () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Lào Cai Provi ...
马关县: Dulong Town 都龙镇
*
Jiangcheng County
Jiangcheng Hani and Yi Autonomous County (; Hani: ) is an autonomous county under the jurisdiction of Pu'er City, in southern Yunnan, China, bordering Laos and Vietnam to the south, making it the only county in the province to border more than one ...
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
Onset may refer to:
*Onset (audio), the beginning of a musical note or sound
*Onset, Massachusetts
Onset is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Wareham, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,573 at the 2010 census.
Geog ...
, one
nucleus
Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to:
*Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom
* Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA
Nucl ...
, and one
tone.
[Hudak, T. J. (2008). ''William J. Gedney’s comparative Tai source book''. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.] The following sections present the consonants, vowels, and tones in Tai Dón.
Consonants
Initial consonants
The following table presents the above consonant phonemes in words reported in Hudak's (2008) book.
[
There are four consonant clusters that occur at the beginning of a syllable.
]
Final consonants
Vowels
Tai Dón has nine short vowels, and one long vowel. However, the short vowels are phonetically realized as long in final position[ (e.g., /e/ is phonetically ːin final position).
]
Tones
There are six tones on a smooth syllable (an open syllable or a closed syllable ending in a sonorant).[
Two of the six tones occur on a checked syllable (a syllable ending in a ]stop
Stop may refer to:
Places
* Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States
* Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Facilities
* Bus stop
* Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
).
References
External links
Preliminary proposal to encode the Tai Khao script in UCS
A response to Kushim Jiang, “Preliminary proposal to encode the Tai Khao script in UCS”
* https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2022/22098-tai-don.pdf
* https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2022/22099-tai-don-comment.pdf
Languages of Vietnam
Tai languages
{{tk-lang-stub