| Nùng | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Vietnam,China,Laos |
| Ethnicity | Nung |
Native speakers | 968,800 (2009 census)[1] |
| Latin (modifiedVietnamese alphabet) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nut |
| Glottolog | nung1283 |
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Nùng is aKra–Dai language spoken mostly inCao Bằng andLạng Sơn provinces inVietnam and also inChina andLaos. It is also known asNong, Tai Nùng, Tay, andTày Nùng.Nùng is the name given to the variousTai languages ofnorthern Vietnam that are spoken by peoples classified asNùng by the Vietnamese government. The Nùng were originallyZhuang people who migrated to Vietnam in the 16th and 18th centuries.
In the 1999 census, it had about 856,000 speakers. It had about 968,800 speakers in the 2009 census.
In Vietnam, Nùng is spoken in all of theNortheast Region (exceptPhu Tho Province) and parts of theSouth Central Region (Dak Lak,Gia Lai andLam Dong Provinces).
In China, Nùng is spoken in theWenshan Prefecture ofYunnan andJinxi,Guangxi. Speakers of the Nùng language in China are classified asZhuang.
The Nùng people of Laos are believed to have originated from a border crossing in Vietnam to Laos. Nùng speakers in Laos are located in theXiengngeun district ofLuang Prabang Province. An alternative name for Nung in Laos isNong.[2]
The following are the sounds of the Nùng language:[3]
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ | ||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | kʰ | |||||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||||
| voiced | v | ʐ | ||||||
| lateral | ɬ | |||||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | j̈ | ||||
| Phoneme | Allophone |
|---|---|
| /kʰ/ | [kˣ] |
| /w/ | [u̯] |
| /j/ | [i̯] |
| /j̈/ | [ɨ̯], [ɰ] |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | iiː | ɨɨː | uuː |
| High-mid | eː | oː | |
| Mid | əː | ||
| Low-mid | ɔɔː | ||
| Low | ææː | aaː |
| Phoneme | Allophone | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| /eː/ | [eᵊ] | in closed syllables |
| /æ/ | [ɛ] | |
| /ɨ/ | [ɯ] | |
| /ɨː/ | [ɯː] | |
| /əː/ | [ə] | in closed syllables |
| /uː/ | [uᵊ] | before /n/ |
| /oː/ | [oᵊ] | before /n/ |
| /ɔː/ | [ɒ] | |
| /ɔ/ | [ɔʷ] | before /ŋ/ |
The Nùng language has six tones:
| Tones | |
|---|---|
| á | ˦ |
| a | ˧ |
| à | ˨ |
| a᷆ | ˨˩ |
| á+glottal | ˦ʔ |
| à+glottal | ˨ʔ |
Nùng consists of many varieties, some of which are listed below.[4][5]
Nùng Vên (En), a language formerly undistinguished from surrounding Central Tai (Nùng) dialects, was discovered to be aKra language by Hoàng Văn Ma andJerold A. Edmondson in 1998. Its speakers are classified asNùng by the Vietnamese government.