A Comparative Study On Phonology In Thai And Mengding Dialect Of Dai Language

Thai language is the official language which takes central Bangkok dialect as standard,and Mengding dialect of Dai language is a kind of dialect of Tai Nüa language in China.Both of which belong to the southwestern language of Tai branch of the Kam–Tai languages family,and because they are in different social,geographical and historical environments,they formed their own characteristics in the long course of history.Although both of them have been differentiated for a long time and some of their pronunciations have been changed,they still maintain a rigorous correspondence,and there are similarities and differences between the two.This paper selects the phonetics of two languages in Bangkok,Thailand,and Mengding town,Gengma as the research objects,adopts the method of comparative study to describe the paronym pronunciation of Thai language and Mengding dialect of Dai Language,analyzes the initial consonant,compound vowel and tone of the two dialects from the synchronic and diachronic perspective to obtain the correspondence of pronunciations,analyzes their own characteristics in the course of diachronic evolution,and clarifies the overall perspective and development track of pronunciations of Mengding dialect of Dai language.In terms of the pronunciation and character,the number of initial consonants of current Mengding dialect of Dai language is less than that of Thai and other parts of Dai language;Dai language of Mang City belongs to the same dialect with Mengding dialect of Dai language,but what is the difference between the Dai language and Thai Language that all derive from the primitive Tai Languages,and why does such difference occur? This paper discusses the phonetic correspondence law between Thai and Mengding dialect from the place of articulation,and explains the reasons for the differences between the two.Because consonant initials of Mengding dialect are not divided into high consonants and low consonant like Thai and Dai language of Xishuangbanna,it is unable to distinguish the ancient voice category of primitive Tai Language;taking the sound and letter of Bangkok dialect of Thailand,the parent category of ancient voice,evolution direction and the characteristics of Mengding dialect can be clarified through the comparison of the two.Among them,the main characteristic of initial consonants of Mengding dialect is that a large number of ancient voiceless consonants and voiced consonants tend to merge.The ph and f are neither contrast phonemes,nor free pronunciation change,but Mengding dialect has not yet developed the stage of light lip sounds.The track that *?b evolves into m is not only similar to Dehong,but also has the situation of partly pronunciation change of v.It is the most obvious that ? in the compound vowels of Mengding dialect is not all integrated into e like Dehong,but ? and e can be inter-conversed.Adjacent transition starts to appear in the part of tail vowel;notably,tail vowels of plosives,-t and-d,change more significantly and most of them shift into the tail vowel of-p.In terms of tone in Mengding dialect,on the one hand,due to the lengthening vowels of the primitive Tai Language,the ancient voiceless consonants,D1 S,shift into the ancient voiced consonants,D1L;on the other hand,for the alternation of ancient voiceless consonants and voiced consonants,tone D1 L in part of consonants has shifted into D2 L.Meanwhile,D2 S in part of ancient voiced consonants has merged into tone D1S;a few D2 L has shifted into D1 L due to different evolution directions of the vowels of the primitive Tai Language.