Tai Nuea language

Tai Nuea or Tai Nüa (ᥖᥭᥰ ᥘᥫᥴ, pronounced [tai˥.lə˧˥] (Mangshi) or ᥖᥭᥰ ᥢᥫᥴ, [tɑi˥˧.nə˥] (Menglian); Chinese: 傣那语; pinyin: Dǎinàyǔ; တႆးၼိူဝ်; Burmese: တိုင်းနေ; Thai: ภาษาไทเหนือ, pronounced [pʰāːsǎː tʰāj nɯ̌a]), also called Dehong Tai (Chinese: 德宏傣语; pinyin: Déhóng Dǎiyǔ; Thai: ภาษาไทใต้คง, pronounced [pʰāːsǎː tʰāj tâːj.kʰōŋ]) 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 (Xishuangbanna Dai).

Most Tai Nuea people call themselves Tai Le (ᥖᥭᥰ ᥘᥫᥴ, Tai Nüa pronunciation: [tai˥.lə˧]), which means 'Upper Tai' or 'Northern Tai'. However, it is not related to Tai Lue, which is pronounced [tai˥.lɯ˥˧] in Tai Nuea. This similarity occurs as the result of a merger between [l] and [n] on initial position in the Mangshi dialect of Tai Nuea. It is pronounced Tai Ne (ᥖᥭᥰ ᥢᥫᥴ, [tɑi˥˧.nə˥]) in Menglian dialect.

Another autonym is [tai˥ taɯ˧˩ xoŋ˥] (ᥖᥭᥰ ᥖᥬᥲ ᥑᥨᥒᥰ), where [taɯ˧˩] means 'bottom, under, the lower part (of)' and [xoŋ˥] means 'the Hong River' (Luo 1998). Dehong is a transliteration of the term [taɯ˧˩ xoŋ˥]. It should not be confused with the term ᥖᥭᥰ ᥖᥬᥲ ([tai˥ taɯ˧˩] or [tɑi˥˧ tɑ˩]) '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 (傣那语).

Zhou (2001:13) classifies Tai Nuea into the Dehong (德宏) and Menggeng (孟耿) 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.

Notes:

1. *(kʰ) and (tsʰ) occur in loanwords.