Tày language

TàyTiểng Tày, ThổNative toVietnamEthnicityTày1.63 million (2009)[1]Latin (modified Vietnamese alphabet)Chữ Nôm Tày (archaic)Language codesISO 639-3tyzGlottologtayy1238This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Tày is the major Tai language of Vietnam, spoken by more than a million Tày people in Northeastern Vietnam. It was formerly known as Thổ, a name now shared with the Cuối language.

• Vietnam: northern provinces (including Cao Bang Province and Quang Ninh Province)
• Laos: northern region.

Tày is also spoken by emigrants in the Central highlands region of Vietnam (such as in Lam Dong Province).

There are also some Tày speakers in western countries. The region of Vietnam where Tày is spoken is bordered by China.

Tày linguistic varieties include the following:[2][3]

• Tày Bảo Lạc - spoken in Bảo Lạc District, western Cao Bang province.
• Tày Trùng Khánh - spoken in Trùng Khánh District, northeastern Cao Bang province.
• Thu Lao or Dai Zhuang varieties are considered to be a different language.

Tày consonants Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal plain pal. Plosive voiceless p pʲ t c k aspirated pʰ pʰʲ tʰ kʰ voiced b bʲ d implosive ɓ ɓʲ ɗ Fricative voiceless f s x h voiced v z ɣ lateral ɬ Nasal m n ɲ ŋ Trill r Approximant w l j

• The Cao Bẳng Tày dialect is the only variety to have the sounds /j w r ɣ b d bʲ/.

Tày vowels Front Central Back High i ɯ u High-mid e o Mid ə əː Low-mid ɛ ɐ ɔ Low a Tày diphthongs Front Back Close ie ɯə uo

• There are also three semivowels [u̯ i̯ ɯ̯] that mainly occur in syllable-coda position in combination with other vowel sounds. [u̯ i̯] are typically realized as consonant sounds [w j]. [u̯] follows front vowels /i e ɛ/ and central vowels /ə a ɐ/. [i̯] follows back vowels /u o ɔ/ as well as central vowels /ə a ɐ/. However, [ɯ̯] only follows /ə/.[4]

Six tones are present in Cao Bẳng Tày:

Tày tones a̋ ˥ a᷄ ˦˥ á ˦ ā ˧ à ˨ a᷆ ˨˩

The Tày people used to write their ritual texts and then songs with the logographic script, known as chữ Nôm Tày. The script is similar to sawndip[5] and was created during the reign of Mạc dynasty,[6] based on Chinese characters. Some of the characters, like Vietnamese Nôm, are borrowed directly from Han characters, while others are created locally from Chinese components.

The current Tày-Nùng orthography was created in 1961 on the basis of chữ Quốc ngữ, and then was approved by the government of Vietnam following the Decree 206-CP.[7][8] Its alphabet consists of 31 letters as follows:

• A a, Ă ă, Â â, B b, C c, D d, Đ đ, E e, Ê ê, F f, G g, H h, I i, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o, Ô ô, Ơ ơ, P p, Q q, R r, S s, T t, U u, Ư ư, V v, X x, Y y.

Their pronunciation along with the multigraphs are listed in the tables below:

Tày consonants Phoneme IPA Examples B b /ɓ/ bươn ("month") Bj bj /ɓʲ/ bjoóc ("flower") C c/K k/Q q /k/ cần ("human") Ch ch /c/ châư ("breath") D d /z ~ j/ dú ("in, at") Đ đ /ɗ/ đeng ("red") F f /f/ fạ ("sky") G g[a] /ɣ/ gương ("mirror") H h /h/ hả ("five") Kh kh /kʰ ~ x/ khao ("white") L l /l/ lình ("monkey") M m /m/ mường ("place") Mj mj /mʲ/ mjề ("wife") N n /n/ nặm ("water") Ng ng /ŋ/ ngườm ("cave") Nh nh /ɲ/ nhả ("grass") P p /p/ pi ("year") Pj pj /pʲ/ pja ("fish") Ph ph /pʰ/ phân ("rain") Phj phj /pʰʲ/ phja ("mountain") R r /r/ rườn ("house") Sl sl /ɬ/ slao ("girl") T t /t/ ta̱ ("river") Th th /tʰ/ tha ("eye") V v /v/ vằn ("day") X x /s/ xao ("spider")

The letters tʼ, w, z are only used in some dialects.

Tày vowels Phoneme IPA Examples A a /a/ xam ("to ask") Ă ă /ă/ ăn ("the") Â â /ə̆/ bân ("sky") E e /ɛ/ te ("he/she/it") Ê ê /e/ bên ("to fly") I i /i/ mi ("bear") O o /ɔ/ co ("tree") Ô ô /o/ tối ("to change") Ơ ơ /ə/ nớ ("okay?") U u /u/ tu ("door") Ư ư /ɯ/ mừ ("hand") Tày tones[9] Tone name Chao tone contour Description Diacritic Example with "ma" khoang ˧ (33) mid level ◌ ma ("dog") pàn ˧˨ (32) falling ◌̀ mà ("to come") thỏi ˨˩˧ (213) low rising ◌̉ mả ("tomb") pắc ˧˥ (35) high rising ◌́ má ("to soak") lộm/chặm ˧˨ˀ (32ʔ) falling, glottalized ◌̣ mạ ("horse") lươ̱ng ˩ (11) low level ◌̱ ma̱ ("blur") English Tày Zhuang Thai Vietnamese Middle Chinese Proto Tai one nâng, đeo, êt it nueng หนึ่ง, -et -เอ็ด nừng (obsolete word meaning few)[10] ʔiɪt̚ *nɯːŋᴮ two sloong, nhỉ ngeih song สอง ȵiɪH *soːŋᴬ, from Middle Chinese 雙 (MC ʃˠʌŋ, "two") three slam sam sam สาม sɑm *saːm (“three”), from Middle Chinese 三 (MC sɑm, "three") four slí seiq si สี่ siɪH *siːᴮ (“four”), from Middle Chinese 四 (MC siɪH, "four") five hả haj ha ห้า ŋuoX *haːꟲ (“five”), from Old Chinese 五 (OC *ŋaːʔ, "five") six hốc, hôc, xốc loek hok หก lɨuk̚ *krokᴰ (“six”), from Old Chinese 六 (OC *ruɡ, "six") seven chêt caet chet เจ็ด t͡sʰiɪt̚ *cetᴰ (“seven”), from Middle Chinese 七 (MC t͡sʰiɪt̚, "seven") eight pet bed paet แปด pˠɛt̚ *peːtᴰ (“eight”), from Middle Chinese 八 (MC pˠat̚, "eight") nine cẩu giuj kao เก้า kɨuX *kɤwꟲ (“nine”), from Middle Chinese 九 (MC kɨuX, "nine") ten slip cib sip สิบ d͡ʑiɪp̚ From Middle Chinese 十 (MC d͡ʑiɪp̚, "ten") hundred pac bak roi ร้อย pˠæk̚ *roːjꟲ hundred and one pac lình êt bak lingz it nueng roi et หนึ่งร้อยเอ็ด thousand xiên cien phan พัน t͡sʰen ten thousand fản fanh muen หมื่น mʉɐnH From Middle Chinese 萬 (MC mʉɐnH) language tiểng siang เสียง (sound) tiếng ɕiᴇŋ