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Article published In:
Written Language & Literacy
Vol. 21:2 (2018) ► pp.198–237

Tai Dam orthographies

Multigraphia, mismatching tones, and mutual borrowing of tone marking devices among three scripts

| Payap University

Tai Dam [blt] is a Southwestern Tai (< Kra-Dai) language spoken in Vietnam, Laos, China, and Thailand with approximately 750,000 speakers (Simons & Fennig 2017). The Tai Viet script has been used for centuries to write Tai Dam and other Tai languages. Because the Tai Viet script is not taught in schools, however, some Tai Dam readers prefer to use adaptations of the Vietnamese and Lao orthographies for writing Tai Dam. This paper describes Tai Dam orthographies in the Tai Viet, Lao, and Roman scripts. Particular focus is given to the way writers have faced the challenge of tonal mismatch between Tai Dam and Vietnamese or Lao by borrowing tone marking devices from one script to another, and to the sociolinguistic implications of these tone marking systems.

Keywords: Tai Dam, Tai Viet script, Lao script, multigraphia, digraphia, script adaptation, tone orthography, consonant classes, traditional script, spelling variation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Tai Dam demographics and background
    • 1.2History of writing in Tai Dam
    • 1.3Orthographic variation in Tai Dam
  • 2.Multigraphia
    • 2.1The sociolinguistics of multigraphia
      • 2.1.1Scripts as conflicting symbols of identity
      • 2.1.2Scripts as coexisting options within a stable framework
    • 2.2Orthography standardization: When is it necessary?
    • 2.3Sociolinguistics of multigraphia among Tai Dam
  • 3.Scripts used to write Tai Dam
    • 3.1The Tai Viet script
    • 3.2The Lao script
    • 3.3The Roman-script orthography for Vietnamese
  • 4.Phoneme-grapheme correspondences
    • 4.1Initial consonants
    • 4.2Final consonants
    • 4.3Special rhyme graphemes
    • 4.4Vowels
      • 4.4.1Monophthongs
        • 4.4.1.1Monophthongs in the Tai Viet script
        • 4.4.1.2Monophthongs in the Lao and Roman scripts
      • 4.4.2Diphthongs
      • 4.4.3Unstressed presyllable vowels
    • 4.5Tones
      • 4.5.1Development of tone marking systems for the Tai Viet script
      • 4.5.2Challenges in representing tones for the Lao-script orthography
      • 4.5.3Adapting the Vietnamese orthography for writing Tai Dam tones
  • 5.Spacing and punctuation
  • 6.Conclusion
    • 6.1Tones in Tai Viet script
    • 6.2Tones in Lao script
    • 6.3Tones in Roman script
    • 6.4Implications for other languages
    • 6.5Tai Dam orthographies in their sociolinguistic contexts
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 April 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00015.vit
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