Tày language

Not to be confused with Thổ language or Tày Tac language.

Tày or Thổ (a name shared with the unrelated Thổ and Cuoi languages) is the major Tai language of Vietnam, spoken by more than a million Tày people in Northeastern Vietnam.

Tày
Tiểng Tày, Thổ
Native to	Vietnam
Ethnicity	Tày
Native speakers	1.63 million (2009)[1]
Language family	Kra–Dai Tai Central Tai Tày
Writing system	Latin (modified Vietnamese alphabet) Chữ Nôm Tày (archaic)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tyz
Glottolog	tayy1238
This 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.

Distribution

• 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.

Varieties

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.

Phonology

Consonants

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/.

Vowels

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]

Tones

Six tones are present in Cao Bẳng Tày:

Tày tones

a̋	˥
a᷄	˦˥
á	˦
ā	˧
à	˨
a᷆	˨˩

Writing systems

Chữ Nôm Tày

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 2nd century CE,^[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.

Tày-Nùng orthography (1961)

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]

Consonants

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	/t͡ɕ/	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")

1. Only used in Vietnamese loanwords

Vowels

Tày vowels

Phoneme	IPA	Examples
A a	/a/	xam ("to ask")
Ă ă	/ă/	ăn ("the")
 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")

Tones

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")
lươ̲ng	˩ (11)	low level	◌̲	ma̲ ("blur")

Vocabulary

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