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29-509: Proto-Tai is the reconstructed proto-language (common ancestor) of all the Tai languages , including modern Lao , Shan , Tai Lü , Tai Dam , Ahom , Northern Thai , Standard Thai , Bouyei , and Zhuang . The Proto-Tai language is not directly attested by any surviving texts, but has been reconstructed using the comparative method . It was reconstructed in 1977 by Li Fang-Kuei and by Pittayawat Pittayaporn in 2009. The following table shows

58-564: A fortis–lenis and a palatalization contrast: /N, n, Nʲ, nʲ, R, r, Rʲ, rʲ, L, l, Lʲ, lʲ/ . There were also /ŋ, ŋʲ, m/ and /mʲ/ , making 16 sonorant phonemes in total. Voiceless sonorants have a strong tendency to either revoice or undergo fortition , for example to form a fricative like /ç/ or /ɬ/ . In connected, continuous speech in North American English , /t/ and /d/ are usually flapped to [ ɾ ] following sonorants, including vowels, when followed by

87-532: A Proto-Tai coda inventory that is identical with the system in modern Thai. Pittayaporn's Proto-Tai reconstructed consonantal syllable codas also include *-l, *-c, and possibly *-ɲ, which are not included in most prior reconstructions of Proto-Tai. Below is the consonantal syllabic coda inventory: Norquest (2021) reconstructs the voiceless retroflex stop /ʈ/ for Proto-Tai. Examples of voiceless retroflex stops in Proto-Tai: Norquest (2021) also reconstructs

116-492: A list of diagnostic words to determine tonal values, splits, and mergers for particular Tai languages. At least three diagnostic words are needed for each cell of the Gedney Box. The diagnostic words preceding the semicolons are from Gedney (1972), and the ones following the semicolons are from Somsonge (2012) and Jackson, et al. (2012). Standard Thai (Siamese) words are given below, with italicised transliterations. Note that

145-589: A series of breathy voiced initials (*bʱ, *dʱ, *ɡʱ, *ɢʱ) for Proto-Tai. Examples of breathy voiced initials in Proto-Tai: Some sound correspondences among Proto-Tai, Proto-Northern Tai, and Proto-Southern Tai (i.e., the ancestor of the Central and Southwestern Tai languages) uvular initials given in Ostapirat (2023) are as follows. Initial velar correspondences, on the other hand, are identical. Li (1977) reconstructs

174-589: A voiceless sonorant occurring, there is a contrasting voiced sonorant. In other words, whenever a language contains a phoneme such as /ʍ/ , it also contains a corresponding voiced phoneme such as /w/ . Voiceless sonorants are most common around the Pacific Ocean (in Oceania , East Asia , and North and South America ) and in certain language families (such as Austronesian , Sino-Tibetan , Na-Dene and Eskimo–Aleut ). One European language with voiceless sonorants

203-437: Is Welsh . Its phonology contains a phonemic voiceless alveolar trill /r̥/ , along with three voiceless nasals: velar, alveolar and labial. Another European language with voiceless sonorants is Icelandic , with [l̥ r̥ n̥ m̥ ɲ̊ ŋ̊] for the corresponding voiced sonorants [l r n m ɲ ŋ]. Voiceless [r̥ l̥ ʍ] and possibly [m̥ n̥] are hypothesized to have occurred in various dialects of Ancient Greek . The Attic dialect of

232-428: Is applied in identifying the most likely pronunciation of the predicted etymon, the original word from which the cognates originated. The Most Natural Development Principle describes the general directions in which languages appear to change and so one can search for those indicators. For example, from the words cantar (Spanish) and chanter (French), one may argue that because phonetic stops generally become fricatives,

261-458: Is predictable from the reconstructed history of the language is a 'regular' reflex. Reflexes of the same source are cognates . First, languages that are thought to have arisen from a common proto-language must meet certain criteria in order to be grouped together; this is a process called subgrouping. Since this grouping is based purely on linguistics, manuscripts and other historical documentation should be analyzed to accomplish this step. However,

290-472: Is reconstructed with disyllabic words that ultimately collapsed to monosyllabic words in the modern Tai languages. However, irregular correspondences among certain words (especially in the minority non-Southwestern-Tai languages) suggest to Pittayaporn that Proto-Tai had only reached the sesquisyllabic stage (with a main monosyllable and optional preceding minor syllable ). The subsequent reduction to monosyllables occurred independently in different branches, with

319-494: Is very similar to the situation in Middle Chinese . For convenience in tracking historical outcomes, Proto-Tai is usually described as having four tones, namely *A, *B, *C, and *D, where *D is a non-phonemic tone automatically assumed by all dead syllables. These tones can be further split into a voiceless (*A1 [1], *B1 [3], *C1 [5], *D1 [7]) and voiced (*A2 [2], *B2 [4], *C2 [6], *D2 [8]) series. The *D tone can also be split into

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348-585: The Classical period likely had [r̥] as the regular allophone of /r/ at the beginning of words and possibly when it was doubled inside words. Hence, many English words from Ancient Greek roots have rh initially and rrh medially: rhetoric , diarrhea . English has the following sonorant consonantal phonemes: /l/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /ɹ/, /w/, /j/ . Old Irish had one of the most complex sonorant systems recorded in linguistics, with 12 coronal sonorants alone. Coronal laterals , nasals , and rhotics had

377-524: The diphthong *ɯa(C). Unlike its modern-day monosyllabic descendants, Proto-Tai was a sesquisyllabic language (Pittayaporn 2009). Below are some possible Proto-Tai syllable shapes from Pittayaporn. Legend : During the evolution from Proto-Tai to modern Tai languages, monosyllabification involved a series of five steps. Robert M. W. Dixon (1998) suggests that the Proto-Tai language was fusional in its morphology because of related sets of words among

406-432: The sonority hierarchy , all sounds higher than fricatives are sonorants. They can therefore form the nucleus of a syllable in languages that place that distinction at that level of sonority; see Syllable for details. Sonorants contrast with obstruents , which do stop or cause turbulence in the airflow. The latter group includes fricatives and stops (for example, /s/ and /t/ ). Among consonants pronounced in

435-474: The *DS (short vowel) and *DL (long vowel) tones. With voicing contrast, these would be *DS1 [7], *DS2 [8], *DL1 [9], and *DL2 [10]. Other Kra–Dai languages are transcribed with analogous conventions. The following table of the phonetic characteristics of Proto-Tai tones was adapted from Pittayaporn. Note that *B and *D are phonetically similar. Proto-Tai tones take on various tone values and contours in modern Tai languages . These tonal splits are determined by

464-549: The Old Chinese reconstructions below from Baxter & Sagart 2014). Dictionaries Linguistic reconstruction Texts discussing linguistic reconstruction commonly preface reconstructed forms with an asterisk (*) to distinguish them from attested forms. An attested word from which a root in the proto-language is reconstructed is a reflex . More generally, a reflex is the known derivative of an earlier form, which may be either attested or reconstructed. A reflex that

493-443: The assumption that the delineations of linguistics always align with those of culture and ethnicity must not be made. One of the criteria is that the grouped languages usually exemplify shared innovation. This means that the languages must show common changes made throughout history. In addition, most grouped languages have shared retention. This is similar to the first criterion, but instead of changes, they are features that have stayed

522-478: The back of the mouth or in the throat, the distinction between an approximant and a voiced fricative is so blurred that no language is known to contrast them. Thus, uvular , pharyngeal , and glottal fricatives never contrast with approximants. Voiceless sonorants are rare; they occur as phonemes in only about 5% of the world's languages. They tend to be extremely quiet and difficult to recognise, even for those people whose language has them. In every case of

551-414: The cognate with the stop [k] is older than the cognate with the fricative [ʃ] and so the former is most likely to more closely resemble the original pronunciation. Sonorant In phonetics and phonology , a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract ; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in

580-461: The consonants of Proto-Tai according to Li Fang-Kuei 's A Handbook of Comparative Tai (1977), considered the standard reference in the field. Li does not indicate the exact quality of the consonants denoted here as [ tɕ , tɕʰ and dʑ ], which are indicated in his work as [č, čh, ž] and described merely as palatal affricate consonants . The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Pittayawat Pittayaporn's reconstruction of Proto-Tai. Some of

609-663: The data) is preferred. Comparative Reconstruction makes use of two rather general principles: The Majority Principle and the Most Natural Development Principle. The Majority Principle is the observation that if a cognate set displays a certain pattern (such as a repeating letter in specific positions within a word), it is likely that this pattern was retained from its mother language. The Most Natural Development Principle states that some alterations in languages, diachronically speaking, are more common than others. There are four key tendencies: The Majority Principle

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638-658: The diagnostic words listed above cannot all be used for other Tai-Kadai branches such as Kam–Sui , since tones in other branches may differ. The table below illustrates these differences among Tai and Kam–Sui etyma . In 2007, Peter K. Norquest undertook a preliminary reconstruction of Proto-Southern Kra-Dai, which is ancestral to the Hlai languages , Ong Be language , and Tai languages . There are 28 consonants, 5–7 vowels, 9 closed rimes (not including vowel length), and at least 1 diphthong , *ɯa(C). Proto-Southern Kra-Dai medial consonants also include: Proto-Southern Kra-Dai also includes

667-579: The differences are simply different interpretations of Li's consonants: the palatal consonants are interpreted as stops, rather than affricates, and the glottalized consonants are described using symbols for implosive consonants . However, Pittayaporn's Proto-Tai reconstruction has a number of real differences from Li: There is a total of 33–36 consonants, 10–11 consonantal syllable codas and 25–26 tautosyllabic consonant clusters. Tai languages have many fewer possible consonants in coda position than in initial position. Li (and most other researchers) construct

696-581: The following conditions: In addition, William J. Gedney developed a "tone-box" method to help determine historical tonal splits and mergers in modern Tai languages. There is a total of 20 possible slots in what is known as the Gedney's Tone Box . Proto-Tai tones correspond regularly to Middle Chinese tones . (Note that Old Chinese did not have tones.) The following tonal correspondences are from Luo (2008). Note that Proto-Tai tone *B corresponds to Middle Chinese tone C, and vice versa. Gedney (1972) also included

725-442: The following initial clusters: Pittayaporn (2009) reconstructs two types of complex onsets for Proto-Tai: Tautosyllabic consonant clusters from Pittayaporn are given below, some of which have the medials *-r-, *-l-, and *-w-. Pittayaporn's Proto-Tai reconstruction also has sesquisyllabic consonant clusters . Michel Ferlus (1990) had also previously proposed sesquisyllables for Proto-Thai-Yay . The larger Tai-Kadai family

754-725: The language's descendants that appear to be related through ablaut . Proto-Tai had a SVO ( subject–verb–object ) word order like Chinese and almost all modern Tai languages . Its syntax was heavily influenced by Chinese. Examples of Kra-Hlai-Tai isoglosses as identified by Norquest (2021): Examples of Hlai-Be-Tai isoglosses as identified by Norquest (2021): Examples of Be-Tai isoglosses as identified by Norquest (2021): Ostapirat (2023) notes that as in Proto-Hmong–Mien , prenasalized consonant initials in Proto-Tai often correspond with prenasalized consonant initials in Old Chinese (with

783-681: The resulting apparent irregularities in synchronic languages reflecting Proto-Tai sesquisyllables. Examples of sesquisyllables include: Other clusters include *r.t-, *t.h-, *q.s-, *m.p-, *s.c-, *z.ɟ-, *g.r-, *m.n-; *gm̩.r-, *ɟm̩ .r-, *c.pl-, *g.lw-; etc. Below are Proto-Tai vowels from Pittayaporn. Unlike Li's system, Pittayaporn's system has vowel length contrast. There is a total of 7 vowels with length contrast and 5 diphthongs . The diphthongs from Pittayaporn (2009) are: Proto-Tai had three contrasting tones on syllables ending with sonorant finals ("live syllables"), and no tone contrast on syllables with obstruent finals ("dead syllables"). This

812-405: The same in both languages. Because linguistics, as in other scientific areas, seeks to reflect simplicity, an important principle in the linguistic reconstruction process is to generate the least possible number of phonemes that correspond to available data. This principle is again reflected when choosing the sound quality of phonemes, as the one which results in the fewest changes (with respect to

841-570: The world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are semivowels like [j] and [w] , nasal consonants like [m] and [n] , and liquid consonants like [l] and [r] . This set of sounds contrasts with the obstruents ( stops , affricates and fricatives ). For some authors, only the term resonant is used with this broader meaning, while sonorant is restricted to the consonantal subset—that is, nasals and liquids only, not vocoids (vowels and semivowels). Whereas obstruents are frequently voiceless , sonorants are almost always voiced. In

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