Khün

Khün language

Khün language

Tai language closely related to Thai and Lao

Not to be confused with Khuen language.

Khün, or Tai Khün (Tai Khün: ᨴᩱ᩠ᨿᨡᩨ᩠ᨶ, /taj˧˧.kʰɯːn˧˨˥/; Shan: တႆးၶိုၼ် Thai: ไทเขิน [tʰaj kʰɤ̌ːn]), also known as Kengtung tai, Kengtung Shan, is the language of the Tai Khün people of Kengtung, Shan State, Myanmar.[2] It is also spoken in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, and Yunnan Province, China.

Quick Facts Khun, Pronunciation ...

The Khün varieties share 93% to 100% lexical similarity.[2] Khun is closely related to other Tai languages. Khün shares 90% to 95% lexical similarity with Northern Thai language, 92% to 95% with Lü, 93% to 97% with Shan, and 80% to 83% with standard Thai.[2]

Geographical distribution

In China, there are about 10,000 Tai Khuen (Chinese: 傣艮/傣痕) people in the following areas of Yunnan province (Gao 1999).[3]

Phonology

More information Labial, Alveolar ...
  1. The glottal stop is implied[What does 'implied' mean? Is it there or not?] after a short vowel without final, or silent before a vowel.[If it's silent, what's the evidence that it's there?]
  2. The [r] is often used with Sanskrit and Pali loanwords.

Tones

There are contrastive five or six tones in Khün.[4] The varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Kat Fah have five tones, and the variety spoken in Murng Lang has six tones.[4] Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Murng Lang are part of Kengtung Township.[4]

Smooth syllables

The table below presents the tones in the varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, Kat Fah, and Murng Lang. These tones occur in smooth syllables which are open syllables or closed syllables ending in a sonorant sound, such as /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /w/, or /j/.

More information Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Kat Fah, Murng Lang ...

Checked syllables

Three of the five or six phonemic tones occur in checked syllables[4] which are closed syllables ending in a glottal stop (/ʔ/) or an obstruent sound, such as /p/, /t/, or /k/. The table below presents the three tones in the varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Kat Fah.

More information Tone, Vowel length ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    Khun at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. [2]
    bloggang.com (thai)
  3. [3]
    Gao Lishi 高立士. 1999. 傣族支系探微. 中南民族学院学报 (哲学社会科学版). 1999 年第1 期 (总第96 期).
  4. [4]
    Owen, R. W. (2012). A tonal analysis of contemporary Tai Khuen varieties. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (JSEALS) 5:12–31.


This Kra–Dai languages–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Khün, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.