Tai languages

Tai
Zhuang–Thai
Geographic distribution	Southern China (esp. Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and Guangdong), Southeast Asia, north-east India)
Linguistic classification	Kra–Dai Be–Tai ? Tai
Proto-language	Proto-Tai
Subdivisions	Northern (NT) Central (CT) Southwestern (SWT) (see also Zhuang languages)
ISO 639-2 / 5	tai
Glottolog	daic1237
Distribution of Tai languages:   Northern Tai / Northern Zhuang   Central Tai / Southern Zhuang   Southwestern Tai / Thai

The Tai or Zhuang–Tai^[1] languages (Thai: ภาษาไท or ภาษาไต, transliteration: p̣hās̛̄āthay or p̣hās̛̄ātay), 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 Siamese, the national language of Thailand; Lao or Laotian, the national language of Laos; Myanmar's Shan language; and Zhuang, a major language in the Southern Chinese province of Guangxi.

Name[]

Cognates with the name Tai (Thai, Dai, etc.) are used by speakers of many Tai languages. The term Tai is now well-established as the generic name in English. In his book The Tai-Kadai Languages Anthony Diller claims that Lao scholars he has met are not pleased with Lao being regarded as a Tai language.^[2] For some, Thai should instead be considered a member of the Lao language family.^[2] One or more Ancient Chinese characters for 'Lao' may be cited in support of this alternative appellation.^[2] Some scholars including Benedict (1975), have used Thai to refer to a wider (Tai) grouping and one sees designations like proto-Thai and Austro-Thai in earlier works.^[2] In the institutional context in Thailand, and occasionally elsewhere, sometimes Tai (and its corresponding Thai-script spelling, without a final -y symbol) is used to indicate varieties in the language family not spoken in Thailand or spoken there only as the result of recent immigration.^[2] In this usage Thai would not then be considered a Tai language.^[2] On the other hand, Gedney, Li and others have preferred to call the standard language of Thailand Siamese rather than Thai, perhaps to reduce potential Thai/Tai confusion, especially among English speakers not comfortable with making a non-English initial unaspirated voiceless initial sound for Tai, which in any event might sound artificial or arcane to outsiders.

According to Michel Ferlus, the ethnonyms Tai/Thai (or Tay/Thay) would have evolved from the etymon *k(ə)ri: 'human being' through the following chain: kəri: > kəli: > kədi:/kədaj (-l- > -d- shift in tense sesquisyllables and probable diphthongization of -i: > -aj).^[3][4] This in turn changed to di:/daj (presyllabic truncation and probable diphthongization -i: > -aj). And then to *daj^A (Proto-Southwestern Tai) > tʰaj^A2 (in Siamese and Lao) or > taj^A2 (in the other Southwestern and Central Tai languages by Li Fangkuei). Michel Ferlus' work is based on some simple rules of phonetic change observable in the Sinosphere and studied for the most part by William H. Baxter (1992).^[4]

The Central Tai languages are called Zhuang in China and Tay and Nung in Vietnam.

History[]

Map showing linguistic family tree overlaid on a geographic distribution map of the Tai family. This map only shows general pattern of the migration of Tai-speaking tribes, not specific routes, which would have snaked along the rivers and over the lower passes.

Citing the fact that both the Zhuang and Thai peoples have the same exonym for the Vietnamese, kɛɛu^A1,^[a] Jerold A. Edmondson of the University of Texas at Arlington posited that the split between Zhuang (a Central Tai language) and the Southwestern Tai languages happened no earlier than the founding of Jiaozhi in Vietnam in 112 BCE but no later than the 5th-6th century AD.^[5] Based on layers of Chinese loanwords in Proto-Southwestern Tai and other historical evidence, Pittayawat Pittayaporn (2014) suggests that the dispersal of Southwestern Tai must have begun sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries AD.^[6]

Connection to ancient Yue language(s)[]

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The Tai languages descend from proto-Tai-Kadai, which has been hypothesized to originate in the Lower Yangtze valleys. Ancient Chinese texts refer to non-Sinitic languages spoken cross this substantial region and their speakers as "Yue". Although those languages are extinct, traces of their existence could be found in unearthed inscriptional materials, ancient Chinese historical texts and non-Han substrata in various Southern Chinese dialects. Thai, as the most-spoken language in the Tai-Kadai language family, has been used extensively in historical-comparative linguistics to identify the origins of language(s) spoken in the ancient region of South China. One of the very few direct records of non-Sinitic speech in pre-Qin and Han times having been preserved so far is the "Song of the Yue Boatman" (Yueren Ge 越人歌), which was transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC, and found in the 善说 Shanshuo chapter of the Shuoyuan 说苑 or 'Garden of Persuasions'. In the early 80's the Zhuang linguist Wei Qingwen using reconstructed Old Chinese for the characters discovered that the resulting vocabulary showed strong resemblance to modern Zhuang.^[7] Later, Zhengzhang Shangfang (1991) followed Wei's insight but used Thai orthography for comparison, since this orthography dates from the 13th century and preserves archaisms vis-à-vis the modern pronunciation.^[8] The following is a simplified interpretation of the "Song of the Yue Boatman" by Zhengzhang Shangfang quoted by David Holm (2013) with Thai script and Chinese glosses being omitted.^[9] The upper row represents the original text, the next row the Old Chinese pronunciation, the third a transcription of written Thai, and the fourth line English glosses. Finally, there is Zhengzhang's English translation.