A Comparative Study On The Phonetics Of Thai And Jinping Dai Languages

Thai is the official language of Thailand,with Bangkok dialect as the standard pronunciation.The Jinping Dai language refers to the Dai dialect used by the Dai people who call themselves "Dai Hao","Dai Duan" in Jinping County,Honghe Prefecture.From historical sources,both ethnic groups developed from the Baiyue.In terms of language,both belong to the Tai branch of the Kam-Tai languages family.In terms of culture,they have common cultural customs.So there are many similarities between Thai and Dai languages.But because the two groups are in different social environments,and influenced by geographical factors and other ethnic groups,they have own changes in the process of development,these factors make them different.But all the same,their voice system still shows a certain correspondence.As it were,they have similarities and differences.This paper selects the phonetics of two languages in Bangkok Thailand,and Luguan village,Mengla town,Jinping county as the research objects,compares their homologs,uses comparative study.Then this paper deals with the initial consonant,finals and tones of two linguistic points from diachronic and synchronic perspectives to see the corresponding relationship and development and evolution of phonetics.The Thai phonetics system is relatively complete,the text is more standardized in Tai language family,and this language compound consonant better.But there are a few single consonants combined.A Thai high consonant "kh" comes from a variety of sources.In vowels,part of the phonemes are combined,but at the same time,the vowels form a complete and opposite nine pair vowel system.In coda consonants,the Thai language has a good retention of the "-p","-t","-k".Besides,the tone is quite complete,but the differentiation of middle consonant also causes the differentiation of tone.Relatively speaking,the compound consonant is not well preserved in the Dai language of Jinping,but some single consonants retain the characteristics of the primitive Tai language.The differentiation and combining of "*(?)",“*h(?)","*j","*(?)j" can be seen from the "(?)" and "j"(These initial consonants all read "j" in Thai language).And "(?)b","(?)d" are also changed in Dai language.In addition,it can be seen from the analysis that the aspirated sound in the consonant of Dai language in Jinping also retains the aspirated feature of the initial consonant.Moreover,apart from the vowel "a".the other vowels have no long and short opposition.And some vowels are becoming higher.Comparison with other Dai dialects,Jinping dialects retains the ending completely.But there is also the phenomenon that end of rhyme "k" tends to fall off.In terms of tone,the tone of Dai language is not as complete as that of Thai language because vowels don’t have long and short opposites.In a word,as one of the four major Dai dialects in China,Jinping Dai language is still different from other Dai dialects.So with to Thai language,common source gives them a lot of similarity laws and correspondences,but some differences.Both two languages have developed along different development tracks.