| Tai Daeng | |
|---|---|
| Red Tai Táy-Môc-Châu | |
| ꪼꪕꪵꪒꪉ Tay lɛɛŋ | |
 "Tai Daeng" written in Tai Viet script | |
| Region | NorthwesternVietnam NortheasternLaos |
| Ethnicity | Tai Daeng |
Native speakers | (105,000 cited 1999–2007)[1] |
Kra–Dai
| |
| Tai Viet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | tyr |
| Glottolog | taid1249 |
| ELP | Tai Daeng |
 | |
Tai Daeng,Táy-Môc-Châu orRed Tai is the language of theTai Daeng people of northwesternVietnam and across the border into northeasternLaos. It belongs to theTai language family, being closely connected withBlack Tai andWhite Tai, as well as being more distantly related to thelanguage spoken in modern Thailand.
The language is classified as part of theThái official ethnic community in Vietnam and of the Phu Tai composite group in Laos.[2] However, speakers in Vietnam tend to identify with Black Tai, or Tai Dam, thus denying that they are Red Tai.[citation needed]
Tai Daeng is classified as belonging to theTai-Kadai language group, located in the Tai languages andSouthwestern Tai languages subgroups.Tai Meuay is closely related to Tai Daeng.[3]
The number of Tai Daeng speakers is generally estimated at 80,000 native speakers, with an ethnic population of roughly 100,000 located mostly in Vietnam.
In China, Tai Daeng (Chinese:傣亮) people are located in the following townships of Yunnan province, with about 2,000 people (Gao 1999).[4] They are referred to by the neighboring Han Chinese, Miao, and Yao peoples as Dry Tai (Gan Dai 旱傣).
All syllables in Tai Daeng have an initial consonant orconsonant cluster, followed by a vowel or adiphthong, and optionally end in a final consonant. Each syllable also carries a tone. Like many related languages, Tae Daeng has different possibilities for the realization of tone on different types of syllables, depending on the presence, absence, and type of final consonant.
Free syllables are those which end in a vowel, a nasal or a semivowel while checked syllables are those having a final p, t, k or a glottal stop. Tae Daeng has five tones on free syllables:[9]
The first tone can employglottalization, but is not mandatory.Tae Daeng has two tones on checked syllables:
Tae Deang frequently employsserial verb construction in which two or more verbs are strung together in one clause.[10][11]
Tae Daeng employs a Subject-Verb-Object word order and because of the lack of inflections upon verbs, syntactical functions are largely derived from word order and prepositions. Particles are highly adaptive and can usually be found at the end of a sentence in order to emphasize, question, command or indicate a level of familiarity or respect.[citation needed]
Tai Daeng differs from its close relations White Tai and Black Tai in that, while it doesn't feature a writing system of its own, speakers make occasional usage of theTai Viet script.[9]
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)