Tai Nuea or Tai Nüa (, (Mangshi) or , (Menglian); ; áÂÂá²á¸áÂÂáÂÂá°áÂÂáº, ; ; , ), also called Dehong Tai (; , ) 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 (, ), which means 'Upper Tai' or 'Northern Tai'. However, it is not related to Tai Lue, which is pronounced 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 (, ) in Menglian dialect.
Another autonym is (), where means 'bottom, under, the lower part (of)' and means 'the Hong River' (Luo 1998). Dehong is a transliteration of the term . It should not be confused with the term ( or ) '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 (å£é£è¯Â).
Zhou (2001:13) classifies Tai Nuea into the Dehong () and Menggeng () 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. <nowiki>*</nowiki> occur in loanwords.
2. The consonant [l] and [n] merged to [l] in the initial position in Mangshi (èÂÂå¸Â) dialect but not in Menglian (Ã¥ÂÂè¿Â) dialect.
3. The consonant [pð] and [f] merged to [pð] in Menglian (Ã¥ÂÂè¿Â) dialect but not in Mangshi (èÂÂå¸Â) dialect.
Tai Nuea has ten vowels and 13 diphthongs:
<nowiki>*</nowiki> Only in Mangshi dialect.
Tai Nuea has six tones:
Syllables with , and final can have only one of three tones in Mangshi (èÂÂå¸Â) Dialect or four tones in Menglian (Ã¥ÂÂè¿Â) Dialect.
In Mangshi (èÂÂå¸Â) Dialect, the high falling tone mark (âÂÂᥳ) is usually left unmarked.
Due to the irregular checked tones correspondence, the Tai Le used will be written in Mangshi dialect.
The Tai Le script is part of the Mon-Burmese family of writing systems and is closely related to the Ahom script. The script is thought to date back to the 14th century.
The original Tai Nuea spelling did not generally mark tones and failed to distinguish several vowels. It was reformed to make these distinctions, and diacritics were introduced to mark tones. The resulting writing system was officially introduced in 1956. In 1988, the spelling of tones was reformed; special tone letters were introduced instead of the earlier Latin diacritics.
The modern script has a total of 35 letters, including the five tone letters.
The transcription below is given according to the Unicode tables.
Consonants that are not followed by a vowel letter are pronounced with the inherent vowel [a]. Other vowels are indicated with the following letters:
Diphthongs are formed by combining some vowel letters with the consonant [w] and some vowel letters with ᥠ[ai]/[j].
In the Thai and Tai Lü writing systems, the tone value in the pronunciation of a written syllable depends on the tone class of the initial consonant, vowel length and syllable structure. In contrast, the Tai Nuea writing system has a very straightforward spelling of tones, with one letter (or diacritic) for each tone.
Tone marks were presented via the third reform (1963) as diacritics. Then the fourth reform (1988) changed them into tone letters. The tone letter is placed at the end of syllable. Examples in the table show the syllable [ta] in different tones.
Only three tones occur in checked syllables [syllables with a final -p, -t or -k]. The sixth tone (mid level) is not written in open syllables, and the third is not written in checked syllables.
Tai Nuea word order is usually subjectâÂÂverbâÂÂobject (SVO); modifiers (e.g. adjectives) follow nouns.
Tai Nuea has official status in some parts of Yunnan (China), where it is used on signs and in education. Yunnan People's Radio Station (Yúnnán rénmÃÂn guÃÂngbà  diàntái äºÂÃ¥ÂÂ人æ°Â广æÂÂçµå°) broadcasts in Tai Nuea. On the other hand, however, very little printed material is published in Tai Nuea in China. However, many signs of roads and stores in Mangshi are in Tai Nuea.
In Thailand, a collection of 108 proverbs was published with translations into Thai and English.