Tày is the major Tai language of Vietnam, spoken by more than a million Tày people in Northeastern Vietnam. It was formerly known as Thổ, a name now shared with the Cuối language.
There are also three semivowels [u̯i̯ɯ̯] that mainly occur in syllable-coda position in combination with other vowel sounds. [u̯i̯] are typically realized as consonant sounds [wj]. [u̯] follows front vowels /ieɛ/ and central vowels /əaɐ/. [i̯] follows back vowels /uoɔ/ as well as central vowels /əaɐ/. However, [ɯ̯] only follows /ə/.
The Tày people used to write their ritual texts and then songs with the logographic script, known as chữ Nôm Tày. The script is similar to sawndip and was created during the reign of Mạc dynasty, based on Chinese characters. Some of the characters, like Vietnamese Nôm, are borrowed directly from Han characters, while others are created locally from Chinese components.
Tày-Nùng orthography (1961)
The current Tày-Nùng orthography was created in 1961 on the basis of chữ Quốc ngữ, and then was approved by the government of Vietnam following the Decree 206-CP. Its alphabet consists of 31 letters as follows:
↑Edmondson, Jerold A.; Solnit, David B., eds. (1997). Comparative Kadai: The Tai Branch. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington.
↑Văn Ma, Hoàng (1997). "The Sound System of The Tày Language of Cao Bắng Province, Vietnam". In Edmondson, Jerold A.; Solnit, David B. (eds.). Comparative Kadai: The Tai branch. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. pp.221–231.
↑Holm, David (2020). "The Tày and Zhuang vernacular scripts: Preliminary comparisons". Journal of Chinese Writing Systems. Department of Ethnology, National Chengchi University.
↑Đào Thị Lý (2015). Lương Bèn (ed.). Tiếng Tày cơ sở[Tày Basics]. Thái Nguyên: Nhà xuất bản Đại học Thái Nguyên.
↑Đào Thị Tấm; Nguyễn Hồng Cúc (2013). Phạm Thị Phương Thái (ed.). Học tiếng Tày[Learn Tày]. Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản Khoa học xã hội.
↑Ayaka Hirano (2019). "The Differences between the Tay and Nung Languages in the Trang Dinh District of Lang Son Province". Topics in Middle Mekong Linguistics. Kobe: Kobe City University of Foreign Studies.
