Tai Dón language

Tai Dón (ꪼꪕ ꪒ꪿ꪮꪙ, /taj˦.dɔn˦˥/^[1]), also known as Tai Khao (/taj˦.xaːw˨/) or White Tai, is a Tai language of northern Vietnam, Laos and China.

Tai Dón
ꪼꪕ ꪒ꪿ꪮꪙ[1]
Tai Khao as written in Tai Viet from Jinping, China.
Pronunciation	/taj˦.dɔn˦˥/, /taj˦.xaːw˨/
Native to	Laos, Vietnam, China (Mengla Township of Jinping)
Ethnicity	White Tai
Native speakers	(500,000 cited 1995–2002)[2]
Language family	Kra–Dai Tai Southwestern (Thai) Chiang Saen Tai Dón
Writing system	Tai Viet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	twh
Glottolog	taid1250

Classification

Tai Dón is classified as belonging to the Tai-Kadai language group, located in the Tai languages and Southwestern Tai languages 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).^[3]

• 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 麻栗坡县: Nanwenhe Township 南温河乡
• Maguan County 马关县: Dulong Town 都龙镇
• Jiangcheng County 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, one nucleus, and one tone.^[4] The following sections present the consonants, vowels, and tones in Tai Dón.

Consonants

Initial consonants

Initial consonants in Tai Dón^{[4]: 9–10}

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop/Affricate	voiced	[b]	[d]
	voiceless unaspirated	[p]	[t]	[t͡ɕ][a]	[k]	[ʔ]
	voiceless aspirated	[pʰ]	[tʰ]	[t͡ɕʰ]	[kʰ]
Nasal		[m]	[n]	[ɲ]	[ŋ]
Fricative	voiced	[v][b]
	voiceless	[f]	[s]		[x]	[h]
Approximant			[l]	[j][c]

1. "Hudak (2008)^[4]: 9 likely used <c> to transcribe /t͡ɕ/. Fippinger and Fippinger (1970) used <c> to transcribe /t͡ɕ/, by writing "/c/ [č] alveopalatal affricate", for /t͡ɕ/ in Tai Dam, a language closely related to Tai Dón, in an article that compares Tai Dam phonemes to Tai Dón phonemes.^[5]: 85
2. /v/ is likely a sonorant because of its sonority and low level of friction.^[4]: 10 It is also in complementary distribution with [w] which occurs only at the end of a syllable.^[4]: 10
3. /j/ is often pronounced as [z] in initial position due to the influence of Vietnamese phonology.^[4]: 10

The following table presents the above consonant phonemes in words reported in Hudak's (2008) book.^{[4]: 9–10}

Phoneme	Example	Phoneme	Example	Phoneme	Example	Phoneme	Example	Phoneme	Example
/b/	/bɤn˨˨/ ꪚꪷꪙ "moon"	/d/	/dɔn˦˥/ ꪒꪮꪙꫀ "white"
/p/	/pɔ˦˥˦/ ꪝ꪿ꪮ "father"	/t/	/tu˨˨/ ꪔꪴ "door"	/t͡ɕ/	/t͡ɕɔn˧˩ʔ/ ꪋꪮꪙꫂ "spoon"	/k/	/kaːŋ˨˨/ ꪀꪱꪉ "middle"	/ʔ/	/ʔaːŋ˦˥/ ꪮꪱꪉꫀ "basin"
/pʰ/	/pʰaː˨˦ʔ/ ꪞꪱꫂ "cloth"	/tʰ/	/tʰiw˨˨/ ꪖꪲꪫ "to whistle"	/t͡ɕʰ/	/t͡ɕʰaj˦˥/ ꪼꪌꫀ "egg"	/kʰ/	/kʰo˨˦ʔ/ ꪂꪺꫂ "to cook"
/m/	/mɯŋ˦˦/ ꪣꪳꪉ "you"	/n/	/naː˨˦ʔ/ ꪘꪱꫂ "face"	/ɲ/	/ɲuŋ˦˦/ ꪶꪑꪉ "mosquito"	/ŋ/	/ŋaːj˦˥˦/ ꪉꪱꪥꫀ "easy"
/v/	/vaːn˨˨/ ꪪꪱꪙ "sweet"
/f/	/faː˨˨/ ꪠꪱ "lid"	/s/	/sɔŋ˨˨/ ꪎꪮꪉ "two"			/x/	/xaj˨˨/ ꪼꪄ "tallow"	/h/	/hɤ˦˥/ ꪬꪷꫀ "sweat"
		/l/	/loŋ˦˦/ ꪩꪺꪉ "dragon"	/j/	/jɔj˧˩ʔ/ ꪥꪮꪥꫂ "to drool"

There are four consonant clusters that occur at the beginning of a syllable.

Initial consonant clusters in Tai Dón^[4]: 10

Cluster	Example
kw	/kwaː˦˥˦/ ꪁꪫꪱꫀ "to visit"
kʰw	/kʰwe˦˥/ ꪂꪫꪸꫀ "to dig"
ŋw	/ŋwaː˦˥˦/ ꪉꪫꪱꫀ "fig"
xw	/xwan˦˦/ ꪅꪫꪽ "smoke"

Final consonants

Final consonants in Tai Dón^{[4]: 10–11}

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p	t		k	ʔ
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Approximant	w		j	ɰ[a]

1. "/ɰ/ occurs after /a/ (e.g., /baɰ˨˨/ ꪻꪚ "leaf")^[4]: 11

Vowels

Tai Dón has nine short vowels, and one long vowel. However, the short vowels are phonetically realized as long in final position^[4]: 10 (e.g., /e/ is phonetically [eː] in final position).

Vowels in Tai Dón^[4]: 10

	Front			Back
	unrounded				rounded
High	i			ɯ	u
Mid	e			ɤ	o
Low	ɛ	a	aː		ɔ

Tones

There are six tones on a smooth syllable (an open syllable or a closed syllable ending in a sonorant).^[4]: 9

Tai Dón tones in smooth syllables^[4]: 9

Description	Tone letters	Example
level, slightly lower than mid	22 (or ˨˨)	/kaː˨˨/ ꪀꪱ "crow"
high-rising	45 (or ˦˥)	/kaː˦˥/ ꪀꪱꫀ "all the way to"
low-rising, glottalized	24ʔ (or ˨˦ʔ)	/kaː˨˦ʔ/ ꪀꪱꫂ "young rice plant"
level, somewhat higher than mid	44 (or ˦˦)	/kaː˦˦/ ꪁꪱ "stuck"
level, somewhat higher than mid with a rise and fall	454 (or ˦˥˦)	/kaː˦˥˦/ ꪁꪱꫀ "price"
falling, glottalized	31ʔ (or ˧˩ʔ)	/kaː˧˩ʔ/ ꪁꪱꫂ "to trade"

Two of the six tones occur on a checked syllable (a syllable ending in a stop).

Tai Dón tones in checked syllables^[4]: 9

Tone	Vowel length	Example
high-rising	short	/sat˦˥/ ꪎꪰꪒ "animal"
	long	/ʔaːp˦˥/ ꪮꪱꪚ "to bathe"
level, somewhat higher than mid	short	/mot˦˦/ ꪣꪺꪒ "ant"
	long	/laːt˦˦/ ꪩꪱꪒ "to cover"

Writing System

Consonants

Initials

Shown below are consonants of Tai Don with two tonal registers (high on the top and low on the bottom).

Finals

Shown below are final consonants of Tai Don with short vowel [a] on top and other vowels on the bottom.