New Tai Lue alphabet

New Tai Lue script, also known as Xishuangbanna Dai[5] and Simplified Tai Lue, is an abugida used to write the Tai Lü 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.

New Tai Lue
Xishuangbanna Dai
Type
abugida
LanguagesTai Lü
Time period
since 1950s
Parent systems
DirectionLeft-to-right
ISO 15924Talu, 354
Unicode alias
New Tai Lue
U+1980–U+19DF
Brahmic scripts
The Brahmic script and its descendants
Northern Brahmic
Southern Brahmic
China Post logo with New Tai Lü script reading hoŋ⁴ faːk¹ haːi¹ tsoŋ⁵ ko⁶ in Mohan, Yunnan.

Consonants

Initials

Similar to the Thai and Lao scripts, consonants come in pairs to denote two tonal registers (high and low).[5]

High ᦀᦂᦃᦄᦈᦉᦊᦎᦏᦐᦔ
Low ᦁᦅᦆᦇᦋᦌᦍᦑᦒᦓᦗ
IPA /ʔa//ka//xa//ŋa//t͡sa//sa//ja//ta//tʰa//na//pa/
High ᦕᦖᦚᦛᦜᦡᦢᦠᦦᦧᦪ
Low ᦘᦙᦝᦞᦟᦤᦥᦣᦨᦩᦫ
IPA /pʰa//ma//fa//wa//la//da//ba//ha//kʷa//xʷa//sʷa/

Finals

Final consonants do not have an inherent /a/ vowel.[5] They are modified forms of initials with a virama-like hook:

Final ᧅᧆᧇᧂᧃᧄᧁno 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
Mark ᧈᧉᧈᧉ
Shown with k ᦂᦂᧈᦂᧉᦅᦅᧈᦅᧉ
IPA /ka˥//ka˧˥//ka˩˧//ka˥˩//ka˧//ka˩/
Transcription ka¹ka²ka³ka⁴ka⁵ka⁶

Abbreviations

Two letters are used only for abbreviations:

  • Syllable ᦶᦟᦰ (/lɛʔ˧/) can be abbreviated as the character ᧞
  • Syllable ᦶᦟᧁᧉ (/lɛu˩/) 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.[5]

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 logical ordering used by most Indic scripts to a visual ordering model as used by the Thai and Lao scripts.[5][6][7][8] 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+198x ᦀ ᦁ ᦂ ᦃ ᦄ ᦅ ᦆ ᦇ ᦈ ᦉ ᦊ ᦋ ᦌ ᦍ ᦎ ᦏ
U+199x ᦐ ᦑ ᦒ ᦓ ᦔ ᦕ ᦖ ᦗ ᦘ ᦙ ᦚ ᦛ ᦜ ᦝ ᦞ ᦟ
U+19Ax ᦠ ᦡ ᦢ ᦣ ᦤ ᦥ ᦦ ᦧ ᦨ ᦩ ᦪ ᦫ
U+19Bx ᦰ ᦱ ᦲ ᦳ ᦴ ᦵ ᦶ ᦷ ᦸ ᦹ ᦺ ᦻ ᦼ ᦽ ᦾ ᦿ
U+19Cx ᧀ ᧁ ᧂ ᧃ ᧄ ᧅ ᧆ ᧇ ᧈ ᧉ
U+19Dx ᧐ ᧑ ᧒ ᧓ ᧔ ᧕ ᧖ ᧗ ᧘ ᧙ ᧚ ᧞ ᧟
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also

References
  1. Diringer, David (1948). Alphabet a key to the history of mankind. p. 411.
  2. "Proposal for encoding characters for Myanmar minority languages in the UCS" (PDF). International Organization for Standardization. 2006-04-02. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-07-23. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
  3. Hartmann, John F. (1986). "The spread of South Indic scripts in Southeast Asia". Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 3 (1): 6–20. JSTOR 40860228.
  4. Penth, Hans (1986). "On the History of Thai scripts" (PDF). Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020.
  6. Moore, Lisa (2014-11-10). "L2/14-250: UTC #141 Minutes".
  7. Hosken, Martin (2014-04-23). "L2/14-090: Proposal to Deprecate and add 4 characters to the New Tai Lue block" (PDF).
  8. Pournader, Roozbeh (2014-08-05). "L2/14-195: Data on the usage of left-side spacing marks in New Tai Lue".
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