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New Tai Lue alphabet
Alphabet for the Tai Lü language

New Tai Lue script, also known as Xishuangbanna Dai and Simplified Tai Lue , is an abugida used to write the Tai Lue language. Developed in China in the 1950s, New Tai Lue is based on the traditional Tai Tham alphabet developed c. 1200. The government of China promoted the alphabet for use as a replacement for the older script; teaching the script was not mandatory, however, and as a result many are illiterate in New Tai Lue. In addition, communities in Burma, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam still use the Tai Tham alphabet.

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Consonants

Initials

Similar to the Thai and Lao scripts, consonants come in pairs to denote two tonal registers (high and low).3

Highᦀᦂᦃᦄᦈᦉᦊᦎᦏᦐᦔ
Lowᦁᦅᦆᦇᦋᦌᦍᦑᦒᦓᦗ
IPA/ʔa//ka//xa//ŋa//t͡sa//sa//ja//ta//tʰa//na//pa/
Highᦕᦖᦚᦛᦜᦡᦢᦠᦦᦧᦪ
Lowᦘᦙᦝᦞᦟᦤᦥᦣᦨᦩᦫ
IPA/pʰa//ma//fa//va//la//da//ba//ha//kʷa//xʷa//sʷa/

Finals

Final consonants do not have an inherent /a/ vowel.4 They are modified forms of initials with a virama-like hook:

Finalᧅᧆᧇᧂᧃᧄᧁno final with ᦰ
IPA/k̚//t̚//p̚//ŋ//n//m//w//ʔ/

Vowels

Consonants have a default vowel of /a/. In the table below, '◌' represents a consonant and is used to indicate the position of the various vowels:

      Short vowels            Long vowels      Diphthongs with i
LettersIPALettersIPALettersIPA
not present/a/ ᦺ◌/aj/
◌ᦰ/aʔ/◌ᦱ/aː/◌ᦻ/aːj/
◌ᦲᦰ/iʔ/◌ᦲ/i(ː)/
ᦵ◌ᦰ/eʔ/ᦵ◌/e(ː)/
ᦶ◌ᦰ/ɛʔ/ᦶ◌/ɛ(ː)/
◌ᦳ/u(ʔ)/◌ᦴ/uː/◌ᦼ/uj/
ᦷ◌ᦰ/oʔ/ᦷ◌/o(ː)/◌ᦽ/oj/
◌ᦸᦰ/ɔʔ/◌ᦸ/ɔ(ː)/◌ᦾ/ɔj/
◌ᦹᦰ/ɯʔ/◌ᦹ/ɯ(ː)/◌ᦿ/ɯj/
ᦵ◌ᦲᦰ/ɤʔ/ᦵ◌ᦲ/ɤ(ː)/ᦵ◌ᧀ/ɤj/

In some words, the symbol ᦰ is just used for distinguishing homonyms or displaying onomatopoeiae.

Generally, vowels in open syllables (without final) become long whereas ones in closed syllables become short (except /aː/ and /uː/).

Tones

New Tai Lue has two tone marks which are written at the end of a syllable: ᧈ and ᧉ.5 Because consonants come in pairs to denote two tonal registers, the two tone marks allow for representation of six specific tones:

High registerLow register
Markᧉᧈᧉᧈ
Shown with kᦂᦂᧉᦂᧈᦅᦅᧉᦅᧈ
IPA/ka˥//ka˩˧//ka˧˥//ka˥˩//ka˩//ka˧/
Transcriptionka¹ka³ka⁵ka²ka⁴ka⁶

Abbreviations

Two letters are used only for abbreviations:

  • Syllable ᦶᦟᦰ (/lɛʔ˧/, "and", "or"6) can be abbreviated as the character ᧞
  • Syllable ᦶᦟᧁᧉ (/lɛu˩/, "already") can be abbreviated as the character ᧟

Digits

New Tai Lue has its own set of digits:

0123456789
᧐᧑/᧚᧒᧓᧔᧕᧖᧗᧘᧙

An alternative glyph for one (᧚) is used when ᧑ might be confused with the vowel ᦱ.7

Unicode

Main article: New Tai Lue (Unicode block)

New Tai Lue script was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2005 with the release of version 4.1.

In June 2015, New Tai Lue was changed from an ISCII-style logical ordering (where vowel modifiers are always encoded after the base consonants which they modify), as used for most Indic scripts in Unicode, to a TIS-620-style visual ordering model (where a vowel modifier will be encoded before the base consonant if it appears before it in the line, or after it otherwise), as used for the Thai and Lao scripts. This change was made since visual ordering for New Tai Lue was found to be more widespread in practice than the previously-prescribed logical ordering.891011 This change affected the four vowel letters which appear to the left of the initial consonant.

The Unicode block for New Tai Lue is U+1980–U+19DF:

New Tai Lue[1][2]Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+198xᦀᦁᦂᦃᦄᦅᦆᦇᦈᦉᦊᦋᦌᦍᦎᦏ
U+199xᦐᦑᦒᦓᦔᦕᦖᦗᦘᦙᦚᦛᦜᦝᦞᦟ
U+19Axᦠᦡᦢᦣᦤᦥᦦᦧᦨᦩᦪᦫ
U+19Bxᦰᦱᦲᦳᦴᦵᦶᦷᦸᦹᦺᦻᦼᦽᦾᦿ
U+19Cxᧀᧁᧂᧃᧄᧅᧆᧇᧈᧉ
U+19Dx᧐᧑᧒᧓᧔᧕᧖᧗᧘᧙᧚᧞᧟
Notes1.^ As of Unicode version 16.02.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also

References

  1. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch16.pdf#G65706 ↩

  2. "New Tai Lue script". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2024-09-10. https://www.omniglot.com/writing/newtailue.htm ↩

  3. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch16.pdf#G65706 ↩

  4. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch16.pdf#G65706 ↩

  5. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch16.pdf#G65706 ↩

  6. "Dai Lue Dictionary ᦈᦹᧈ ᦶᦑᧃ ᦺᦑ ᦟᦹᧉ 傣泐词典 » ᦂᦱᧃᧉ ᦅᧄ". https://www.webonary.org/dailu/browse/?letter=%E1%A7%9E&key=khb&lang=lu ↩

  7. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch16.pdf#G65706 ↩

  8. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/ch16.pdf#G65706 ↩

  9. Moore, Lisa (2014-11-10). "L2/14-250: UTC #141 Minutes". https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14250.htm ↩

  10. Hosken, Martin (2014-04-23). "L2/14-090: Proposal to Deprecate and add 4 characters to the New Tai Lue block" (PDF). http://unicode.org/L2/L2014/14090-new-tai-lue.pdf ↩

  11. Pournader, Roozbeh (2014-08-05). "L2/14-195: Data on the usage of left-side spacing marks in New Tai Lue". http://unicode.org/L2/L2014/14195-newtailue.txt ↩