Linguistic characteristics

Tai languages

Also known as: Daic languages

Written by

David B. SolnitAll

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Britannica Editors

History

Phonological characteristics

The sound system of the Tai languages may best be described in terms of its syllabic structure. Each syllable consists of an initial consonant or consonant cluster followed by a vowel or vowel cluster (long vowel or diphthong), which may be further followed by a final consonant, usually a nasal sound or an unreleased stop. (An unreleased stop is a consonant in which there is complete stoppage of the airstream from the lungs and in which the tongue or the lips maintain the position of the consonant without opening the stoppage.) In addition, each syllable has a tone (i.e., the syllable must be pronounced with a certain pitch level and contour in all contexts. This can be illustrated (seeClick Here to see full-size table sounds of the Thai language table) by the five tones of Siamese, or Standard Thai, a national standard based on the language spoken in the Bangkok area.

The Thai tones are as follows: level (using no diacritic), low (using a grave accent), falling (using a circumflex), high (using an acute accent), and rising (using a wedge, or haček); for example, maa (with no diacritic) ‘to come,’ màak (with a grave accent) ‘areca nut,’ mâak (with a circumflex) ‘much,’ máa (with an acute accent) ‘horse,’ and mǎa (with a wedge) ‘dog’ are differentiated by various tones.

Grammatical characteristics

The statements about morphology and syntax refer particularly to the standard language of Thailand, though they are applicable in general to all the Tai languages.

Morphology

Words or morphemes (word elements) are, for the most part, monosyllabic, but there are also many polysyllabic words, mainly compounds and loanwords from the Indic languages Sanskrit and Pali and from Khmer, an Austroasiatic language spoken mainly in Cambodia. There are no inflections in Tai comparable to -ed in English ‘walked’ or -s in ‘dogs.’ The chief Tai method of forming new words is compounding—e.g., nâa-taa ‘countenance’ (literally, ‘face-eye’), kèp-kìaw ‘to harvest’ (literally, ‘gather-cut with a sickle’). Reduplication, the repetition of a word or part of it, is also quite common—e.g., díi-dii ‘very good’ from dii ‘good.’ Partial reduplication is also found, such as sanùk-sanǎan ‘to enjoy oneself’ from sanùk ‘to have fun.’ Some Tai languages have developed prefixes by abbreviating forms that were once full words; prefixes and infixes are also common in the Indic and Khmer loans into the more southerly Tai languages—e.g., pra-thêet ‘country’ (from Sanskrit pradeśa) and d-amn-ɤɤn ‘to proceed,’ derived from dɤɤn ‘walk’ (from Khmer damnaɤ ‘gait, bearing’ and dae ‘walk,’ respectively). There also developed some native prefixes that are abbreviated forms of what once were full words. For example, ma-, a prefix used in many names of fruits, such as ma-phráaw ‘coconut,’ ma-mûaŋ ‘mango,’ is derived from màak ‘areca nut’ (originally ‘fruit’). Similarly, in the word sa-dɯˇɯ ‘navel,’ sa- is the reduced form of sǎaj ‘line, string,’ which refers to the umbilical cord. Old processes of derivation involved using the alternation of consonants or tone or both, such as níi ‘this’ and nîi ‘here,’ nɔɔj ‘small, little’ and nɔɔj ‘a little bit,’ khiaw ‘sickle’ and kìaw ‘to cut with a sickle.’ Such processes are, however, no longer active.

Syntax

Word order is generally subject–verb–object (SVO), and modifiers such as adjectives and possessive nouns follow the item they modify. The verb plus object (verb phrase) functions as predicate. Words translatable as English adjectives also commonly function as predicate and can be negated; hence, they are considered a type of verb. Nouns too may also function as predicate in certain contexts; an example is wan-níi wan-sǎḳ ‘today (is) Friday.’ A noun phrase consists of a noun, which may be followed by its modifiers (another noun, an adjective, or a verb phrase), which, in turn, are followed by a numeral with a classifier and, finally, by a demonstrative. For example, tûu ‘cabinet’ and náŋsɯˇɯ ‘book’ become tûu-náŋsɯˇɯ ‘bookcase’; tûu-kèp náŋsɯˇɯ is also ‘bookcase’ (‘cabinet-keep-book’); tûu-yen is ‘icebox’ (‘cabinet-cool’); and tûu-kèp-náŋsɯˇɯ sɔɔŋ-baj níi is ‘these two bookcases’ (‘cabinet-keep-book two-classifier these’). Numerals and demonstratives cannot be used directly with nouns but must be used with a classifier, a word similar in function to English head in the phrase fifty head of cattle.

A verb phrase may consist of an adjective or of a verb, often followed by its object or its complements or both. A common type of complement denotes the direction of action by using such words as paj ‘to go,’ maa ‘to come,’ khɯˆn ‘to ascend,’ loŋ ‘to descend,’ and so on. Examples are ʔaw náŋsɯˇɯ paj ‘Take the book away!’; ʔaw náŋsɯˇɯ maa ‘Bring the book (here)!’; aw náŋsɯˇɯ khɯˆn maa ‘Bring the book up!’; and aw náŋsɯˇɯ loŋ paj ‘Take the book down!’. Short words, known as particles and occurring mostly at the end of the sentence, indicate meanings such as completion or continuation of action, question or command, emphasis or uncertainty, and degree of politeness or intimacy. For example, kháw maa lεεw ‘He has come’; kháw maa máj ‘Is he coming?’; khun maa máj khráp ‘Are you coming?’ (man speaking, polite); khun maa máj khá ‘Are you coming?’ (woman speaking, polite).

Vocabulary

The various Tai languages have been in contact with many different languages spoken in the same area of Southeast Asia, and it is inevitable that words from different sources have been adopted by them. There is a basic core of vocabulary that is shared by most of the Tai languages and may be considered as the native vocabulary of the protolanguage. Nevertheless, items in this list may be found to resemble forms in other languages, such as Chinese or Indonesian, and they have given rise to different interpretations of the relationship of the Tai languages to other linguistic families. Loanwords in later periods from the Khmer and Indic languages (Sanskrit and Pali) are particularly common in Thai and Lao, and loans from Chinese are abundant in the Central and the Northern dialects.

Writing

Two different types of writing have been used among the Tai languages. One, ultimately derived from Chinese, is used by the Central and the Northern dialects; the other comes from Indic sources and is used in many languages of the Southwestern group. The Chinese-based system, which is employed chiefly to write songs, consists of Chinese characters, some modified since the 18th century, but it may have been in use much earlier. The other type of writing system, first attested in the 13th century, derives from the Southern Indic type of script. The earliest known example of the Indic-based writing system is the inscription of Ramkhamhaeng in northern Thailand from ad 1293. There are many forms of this type of script, used by a number of languages in the Southwestern group as well as by neighbouring languages, such as Mon, Khmer, and Burmese.

The Modern Thai alphabet (see Click Here to see full-size tabletable) is a modified form of the original writing. It preserves the old distinction of voiced (low), voiceless aspirate (high), and voiceless unaspirate/glottalized (middle), a distinction now largely lost but one that nevertheless leaves its effects on the tone. This system also provides an unambiguous method for indicating the vowels and tones. Similar types of writing are used in Lao, Lü, White Tai, Black Tai, and other languages. Some scripts, such as those used by Shan, Ahom, and Nüa (Dehong Dai of Yunnan, China), have in their traditional forms insufficient vowel signs and few or no tone markers. The Shan and Nüa scripts now also exist in reformed and augmented versions that distinguish all vowels and tones.

Fang Kuei Li David B. Solnit