Tai Viet script

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Tai Viet
Type Abugida
Spoken languages Tai Dam, Tai Dón, Tai Song


ISO 15924 Tavt
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Tai Viet script is used by three Tai languages spoken primarily in northwestern Vietnam, northern Laos, and central Thailand – Tai Dam (also Black Tai or Tai Noir), Tai Dón (White Tai or Tai Blanc), and Thai Song (Lao Song or Lao Song Dam). The Thai Song of Thailand are geographically removed from, but linguistically related to the Tai people of Vietnam and Laos. There are also populations in Australia, China, France, and the United States. The script is related to other Thai scripts used throughout Southeast Asia.

The script is still used by the Tai people in Vietnam, and there is a desire to introduce it into formal education there. On the other hand, it is not known whether it is in current use in Laos, Thailand, or China.

A fourth language, Tai Daeng (Red Tai or Tai Rouge), uses a very closely related script. But the differences in the vowel structure of Tai Daeng are significant enough that it will probably require encoding as a separate script.

Several different spellings have been employed for the name of the language and script. In linguistic circles, it is common to use “Thai” to indicate the language of central Thailand, and “Tai” to indicate the language family. But even that usage is followed not consistently.

Some segments of the language community prefer the spelling “Tay”, first because it more closely reflects their own pronunciation for the name of their language, secondly because the spelling “Tai” resembles their word for “death”, and thirdly because of some negative connotations associated with the spelling “Tai” in Vietnamese. But these feelings are by no means universal. At least one major group in the Tai community in Des Moines, Iowa, has indicated to the author that they will continue to use the spelling “Tai”.

After some debate and experimenting with other names, we have settled on the name “Tai Viet”. The spelling “Tai” appears to be less confusing to the IT community which must implement the script. “Viet” distinguishes this script from other Tai scripts, while recognizing the fact that 90% of the user community is in Vietnam. The order “Tai Viet” is used, parallel to names like “Tai Le”, to make it easy to find when searching for “Tai”.


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