Grapheme Data for Tai Dam written with Tai Viet script
Tai Dam (ISO code blt) is a Tai language of Vietnam. It is primarily spoken in Sơn La province and surrounding areas of Vietnam and Laos. The Tai Viet script (ISO code Tavt) is the traditional script used by the Tai Dam and several closely related languages.
There are a number of variations in the way the language is written. That shown here represents the writing of Baccam Don, from Thuan Chau in Sơn La Province.
My primary sources are:
- Baccam Don, Baccam Faluang, Baccam Hung and Dorothy Fippinger, Tai Dam-English, English-Tai Dam Vocabulary Book, 1989.
- Fippinger, Jay and Dorothy Fippinger, “Black Tai Phonemes with Reference to White Tai,” Anthropological Linguistics, 12:83-97, March 1970.
- Gedney, William J. “A Comparative Sketch of White, Black, and Red Tai.” The Social Science Review, Special Number (1964).
Note that I use the “high” and “low” tone series labels as they are used by the language community, which are reflected in the Unicode character names, and which are the reverse of the way the labels are used in the Tai linguistic community.
Vowels
Section titled “Vowels”Like all Tai languages, Tai Dam vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right, of the initial consonant. A dotted circle is used here to show the position of the vowel relative to the initial consonant. But Tai Dam is visually encoded, so the left-side and right-side vowels are spacing characters, not diacritics, even though they are shown here with the dotted circle.
Tai Dam has six tones: four level tones and two glides. The tone numbering system most often used for the spoken language is that introduced by Gedney 1964, and Fippinger 1970:
- Lower-mid level
- High rising
- Low: level or falling, terminated by a glottal catch
- High level
- Higher-mid level
- Mid falling: abruptly falling from the level of tone 5, terminated by a glottal catch
Only tones 2 and 5 occur on checked syllables (i.e. closed syllables ending with /p/, /t/, /k/, or /ʔ/).
I have chosen to represent the level tones with the tone bars Extra High, High, Low, and Extra Low, respectively (omitting the Mid tone bar).
In the written language, three different tone marking systems have been used for the Tai Viet in different times and places:
- Historically, tones were not marked beyond the use of the high and low series consonants. In this system, tones are underdifferentiated. This system would be used in all documents before 1975, but is less common now.
- Since 1975, one segment of the Tai Dam community has adopted the use of the Lao diacritic tone marks Mai Ek (U+AABF) and Mai Tho (U+AAC1).
- Another segment of the Tai Dam community has created a pair of spacing tone marks, Mai Nueng (U+AAC0) and Mai Song (U+AAC2).
Tone systems 2 and 3 are parallel to each other, with Mai Ek being equivalent to Mai Nueng, and Mai Tho equivalent to Mai Song.
Tone system 1 can be derived from either of the other two by omitting the Mai Ek and Mai Tho, or Mai Nueng and Mai Song.
I have chosen to describe systems 2 and 3 here.
Abbreviations: In the tone-related graphemes, -Low C- indicates the use of a Low Series Consonant for the intial consonant; -High C- indicates the use of a high series consonant in the initial position.
Contributor: Jim Brase, SIL International
| Grapheme | USV | Phoneme | Status | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <ꪀ> | AA80 | /ʔ/ | expected | ꪨꪱꪀ ‘different’ | syllable final |
| <ꪀ> | AA80 | /k/ | expected | ꪀꪲꪙ ‘to eat’, ꪬꪷꪀ ‘to break’ | low tone series (syll. init.), and syllable final |
| <ꪁ> | AA81 | /k/ | expected | ꪁꪾ ‘gold’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪄ> | AA84 | /x/ | expected | ꪄꪱꪥ ‘to sell’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪅ> | AA85 | /x/ | expected | ꪼꪅ꫁ ꪙꪲ꫁ ‘now’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪈ> | AA88 | /ŋ/ | expected | ꪈꪾ꪿ ‘to think’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪉ> | AA89 | /ŋ/ | expected | ꪹꪋ꪿ꪉ ‘thing’ | syllable final |
| <ꪊ> | AA8A | /tʃ/ | expected | ꪊꪴ꫁ꪣ ‘fishnet’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪋ> | AA8B | /tʃ/ | expected | ꪵꪋ ‘tea’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪎ> | AA8E | /s/ | expected | ꪎꪲ꪿ ‘four’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪏ> | AA8F | /s/ | expected | ꪏꪳ꫁ ‘to buy’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪐ> | AA90 | /ɲ/ | expected | ꪐ꫁ꪱ ‘grass’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪑ> | AA91 | /ɲ/ | expected | ꪑꪷꪉ ‘alive’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪒ> | AA92 | /d/ | expected | ꪵꪒꪉ ‘red’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪒ> | AA92 | /t/ | expected | ꪵꪜꪒ ‘eight’ | syllable final |
| <ꪓ> | AA93 | /d/ | obsolete | the high series /d/ has merged with /l/ and is no longer used. | |
| <ꪔ> | AA94 | /t/ | expected | ꪔꪱ ‘eye’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪕ> | AA95 | /t/ | expected | ꪹꪕꪸꪉ ‘above’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪖ> | AA96 | /tʰ/ | expected | ꪖ꫁ꪱ ‘to wait’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪗ> | AA97 | /tʰ/ | expected | ꪗꪴꪉ ‘barrel’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪘ> | AA98 | /n/ | expected | ꪘꪱꪫ ‘cold’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪙ> | AA99 | /n/ | expected | ꪙꪮꪙ ‘to sleep’ | syllable final |
| <ꪚ◌ꪾ> | AA9A AABE | /ap/ = /a/ + /p/ | rare | ꪝꪾꪚ ‘to fold’ | short /a/ + /p/ (alternative) |
| <ꪚ> | AA9A | /b/ | expected | ꪚꪲꪙ ‘to fly’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪚ> | AA9A | /p/ | expected | ꪎꪲꪚ ‘ten’ | syllable final |
| <ꪛ> | AA9B | /b/ | expected | ꪛꪱꪥ ꪵꪮꪚ ‘lesson’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪜ> | AA9C | /p/ | expected | ꪜꪱ ‘fish’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪝ> | AA9D | /p/ | expected | ꪝꪱ ‘to carry’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪠ> | AAA0 | /f/ | expected | ꪶꪠꪙ ‘rain’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪡ> | AAA1 | /f/ | expected | ꪡ꫁ꪱ ‘sky’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪢ> | AAA2 | /m/ | expected | ꪻꪢ꪿ ‘new’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪣ> | AAA3 | /m/ | expected | ꪘꪱꪣ ‘thorn’ | syllable final |
| <ꪤ> | AAA4 | /j/ | expected | ꪤꪴ꪿ ‘to dwell’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪥ> | AAA5 | /j/ | expected | ꪜꪱꪥ ‘tip, point’ | final consonant - realized phonetically as a high close front unrounded vowel |
| <ꪨ> | AAA8 | /l/ | expected | ꪨꪷꪉ ‘after’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪩ> | AAA9 | /l/ | expected | ꪩꪴꪀ ‘child’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪪ> | AAAA | /v/ | expected | ꪪꪲ ‘comb’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪫ> | AAAB | /w/ | expected | ꪵꪫ꪿ꪫ ‘chipped’ | final consonant - realized phonetically as a high close back rounded vowel |
| <ꪫ> | AAAB | /v/ | expected | ꪵꪫ꪿ꪙ ‘glass’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪬ> | AAAC | /h/ | expected | ꪬꪱ ‘to seek’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪭ> | AAAD | /h/ | expected | ꪭꪴ꫁ ‘to know’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪮ> | AAAE | /ʔ/ | expected | ꪮ꫁ꪱꪥ ‘father’ | low tone series (syll. init.) |
| <ꪮ> | AAAE | /ɔ/ | rare | in open syllables | |
| <ꪯ> | AAAF | /ʔ/ | expected | ꪹꪯꪸꪣ ‘mother’ | high tone series (syll. init.) |
| <◌ꪰ> | AAB0 | /a/ | common | ꪏꪰꪀ ‘to launder’ | See /aː/. The short /a/ has a quality contrast as well as a length contrast. The pronunciation may be close to [ɐ]. The short /a/ occurs only in closed syllables, without final /ʔ/. Various script dialects will favor either U+AAB0 or U+AAB7. |
| <ꪱ> | AAB1 | /aː/ | expected | ꪀꪱ ‘crow’ | Tai Dam has length contrast only between /aː/ and /a/. |
| <◌ꪲ> | AAB2 | /i/ | expected | ꪜꪲ ‘year’ | |
| <◌ꪳ> | AAB3 | /ɨ/ | expected | ꪊꪳ꪿ ‘to remember’ | fluctuates freely to [ɯ] |
| <◌ꪴ> | AAB4 | /u/ | expected | ꪬꪴ ‘ear’ | |
| <ꪵ> | AAB5 | /ɛ/ | expected | ꪵꪕ꫁ ‘true’ | |
| <ꪶ> | AAB6 | /o/ | expected | ꪶꪬꪀ ‘six’ | |
| <◌ꪷꪚ> | AAB7 AA9A | /ap/ = /a/ + /p/ | rare | ꪝꪷꪚ ‘to fold’ | short /a/ + /p/ (alternative) |
| <◌ꪷ> | AAB7 | /ɔ/ | common | ꪀꪷ ‘plant’ | in open syllables only |
| <◌ꪷ> | AAB7 | /a/ | common | ꪏꪷꪀ ‘to launder’ | See /aː/. The short /a/ has a quality contrast as well as a length contrast. The pronunciation may be close to [ɐ]. The short /a/ occurs only in closed syllables, without final /ʔ/. Various script dialects will favor either U+AAB0 or U+AAB7. |
| <◌ꪸ> | AAB8 | /ɪə/ | expected | ꪣꪸ ‘wife’ | may fluctuate freely with [iə] |
| <ꪹꪱ> | AAB9 AAB1 | /aw/ = /a/ + /w/ | expected | ꪹꪔ꪿ꪱ ‘turtle’ | ligature: short /a/ + /w/ |
| <ꪹ◌ꪷ> | AAB9 AAB7 | /ə/ | expected | ꪹꪩꪷꪉ ‘often’ | |
| <ꪹ◌ꪸ> | AAB9 AAB8 | /e/ | expected | ꪹꪢꪸꪒ ‘all’ | |
| <ꪹ> | AAB9 | /ɨə/ | expected | ꪹꪣ ‘to go’ | |
| <ꪺ> | AABA | /ʊə/ | expected | ꪣꪺ ‘dim’ | may fluctuate freely with [uə] |
| <ꪻ> | AABB | /əw/ = /ə/ + /w/ | expected | ꪻꪄ꪿ ‘dry’, ꪻꪠ ‘who’ | ligature: /ə/ + /w/ - realized phonetically as [əɨ] |
| <ꪼ> | AABC | /aj/ = /a/ + /j/ | expected | ꪼꪜ ‘to go’, ꪼꪏ ‘teacher’ | ligature: short /a/ + /j/ |
| <ꪽ> | AABD | /an/ = /a/ + /n/ | common | ꪋ꪿ꪽ ‘beautiful’, ꪙꪽ ‘loud’ | ligature: short /a/ + /n/ |
| <◌ꪾꪚ> | AABE AA9A | /ap/ = /a/ + /p/ | common | ꪝꪾꪚ ‘to fold’ | short /a/ + /p/ |
| <◌ꪾ> | AABE | /am/ = /a/ + /m/ | expected | ꪜꪾ꫁ ‘to cut down’, ꪙꪾ꫁ ‘water’ | ligature: short /a/ + /m/ |