Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo
Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo
Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo
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Some northern <strong>Tai</strong> languages have been found to be displaced farther south such as the<br />
Sek language, spoken in Laos <strong>and</strong> in the northeast of Thail<strong>and</strong>.<br />
2. The Central <strong>Tai</strong> group has languages spoken in the south of china <strong>and</strong> the<br />
north of Vietnam such as the Tay, Tho, Nung, Lungchow, Tien-pao <strong>and</strong> the Yung-chun<br />
languages.<br />
3. The Southwestern <strong>Tai</strong> group has languages spoken in Assam (India), Burma,<br />
Thail<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> Laos as well as some languages in Vietnam such as the White <strong>Tai</strong> <strong>and</strong> the<br />
Black <strong>Tai</strong>. The <strong>Tai</strong> languages spoken in Malaysia also belong to the Southwestern <strong>Tai</strong><br />
group.<br />
Some scholars, however, do not see much difference between the Central <strong>Tai</strong><br />
group <strong>and</strong> the Southwestern <strong>Tai</strong> group. Haudricourt called these two groups by the same<br />
name: “Thai conquerants”. In my article of 1985, the question of the validity of separating<br />
the Central <strong>Tai</strong> group from the Southwestern group was raised. Chamberlain in 1975 cited<br />
an unpublished work by Gedney which expressed the opinion that the Central <strong>and</strong><br />
Southwestern languages of Li form only one branch. The lack of data concerning the <strong>Tai</strong><br />
languages spoken roughly in the expanse between the Red River <strong>and</strong> Cao Bang in North<br />
Vietnam has made the question of the unification of Central <strong>Tai</strong> <strong>and</strong> Southwestern <strong>Tai</strong> an<br />
open one.<br />
General Characteristics of the <strong>Tai</strong> languages<br />
As of now, no one has formed a complete picture of Proto-<strong>Tai</strong>, the ancestral<br />
language of all the present-day <strong>Tai</strong> languages, so the general characteristics of Proto-<strong>Tai</strong><br />
cannot be presented. Those of the <strong>Tai</strong> languages in this section are characteristics that are<br />
commonly found in almost all the <strong>Tai</strong> languages of today. However, it would not be too<br />
far-fetched to speculate that ancestral Proto-<strong>Tai</strong> would not be too diverse from its<br />
descendant-languages <strong>and</strong> that, were it to be reconstructed, it would share some of the<br />
following characteristics.<br />
a. Monosyllabicity Cognates of proper <strong>Tai</strong> words in present-day <strong>Tai</strong> languages are<br />
found to be monosyllabic words. J. Marvin Brown (1965 <strong>and</strong> 1985: 215-221) listed 1387<br />
<strong>and</strong> 818 words that he believed to have been present in ancient Thai. Most of these words<br />
are monosyllabic.<br />
In maintaining that monosyllabicity is one of the chief characteristics of the <strong>Tai</strong><br />
language, the present writer’s opinion that the <strong>Tai</strong> language family is to be separated from<br />
the Austronesian language family is emphasized. If we were to place <strong>Tai</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />
Austronesian under the same umbrella, as stipulated by Paul Benedict (see supra), we<br />
would have to hold that many <strong>Tai</strong> words (or roots to use Benedict’s term) come in<br />
disyllabic form.<br />
b. Tonality At present there has not been a single report of a <strong>Tai</strong> language that does<br />
not have tones. Most <strong>Tai</strong> languages of today have 5 or 6 tones; some languages in the<br />
south of Thail<strong>and</strong> have 7 tones. And it is a common characteristic of all <strong>Tai</strong> languages<br />
that syllables that end with nasal consonants <strong>and</strong> long vowels can have more tones than<br />
syllables with final stop consonants.<br />
The Journal of Religion <strong>and</strong> Culture (Vol.1 No.1 2007) :189-232 217