Northern Tai languages

Northern Tai
Northern Zhuang
Geographic
distribution		 Southern China
Linguistic classification Kra–Dai
  • Tai
    • Northern Tai
Subdivisions
Glottolog nort3180[1]
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Distribution of the Tai–Kadai language family
  Northern Tai

The Northern Tai languages are an established branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. They include the northern Zhuang languages and Bouyei of China, Tai Mène of Laos and Yoy of Thailand.

Languages

Ethnologue

Ethnologue distinguishes the following languages:[2]

(See varieties of Zhuang.)

Yoy is elsewhere classified as Southwestern Tai, and E, which is a mixed language Northern Tai-Chinese language.

Longsang Zhuang, a recently described Northern Tai language, is spoken Longsang Township, Debao County, Guangxi, China. Hezhang Buyi is a moribund Northern Tai language of northwestern Guizhou that is notable for having a Kra substratum.

Pittayaporn (2009)

Pittayaporn (2009:300) distinguishes a similar group of Zhuang varieties as group "N", defined by the phonological shifts *ɯj, *ɯw → *aj, *aw.[4] He moves the prestige dialect of Zhuang, the Wuming dialect, from the Northern Tai Yongbei Zhuang to Yongnan Zhuang - purportedly Central Tai - as it lacks these shifts. The various languages and localities Pittayaporn includes in group N, along with their Ethnologue equivalents, are:

References

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Northern Daic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=841-16
  3. ↑ Pittayaporn classified Yoy as Southwestern Tai, but does not provide supporting analysis.
  4. ↑ Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. 2009. The Phonology of Proto-Tai. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Linguistics, Cornell University.
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