| Northern Tai | |
|---|---|
| Northern Zhuang | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Southern China |
| Linguistic classification: | Tai–Kadai
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| Subdivisions: |
other Northern Zhuang
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Distribution of the Tai–Kadai language family.
Northern Tai
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The Northern Tai languages are an established branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. They include the northern Zhuang languages and Bouyei of China, Tai Mène of Laos and Yoy of Thailand.
Ethnologue[1] distinguishes the following languages.
(See varieties of Zhuang.)
Yoy is elsewhere classified as Southwestern Tai, and E, which appears to be a mixed language on a Northern-Thai base.
Pittayaporn (2009:300) reconstructs a similar group of Zhuang varieties, group "N", defined by the phonological shifts *ɯj, *ɯw → *aj, *aw.[3] He moves the prestige dialect of Zhuang, Wuming, from the Northern Tai Yongbei Zhuang to Yongnan Zhuang (purportedly Central Tai), as it lacks these shifts. The various languages and localities Pittayaporn includes in group N, along with their Ethnologue equivalents, are:
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