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/.[4]
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[5] and was created during 2nd century CE,[6] 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.[7][8] Its alphabet contains 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.
^Hoàng Nhật Thanh; Dương Triều Ân; Hoàng Tuấn Nam (2003). Từ điển chữ Nôm Tày [Dictionary of Nom Tay]. Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản Khoa học xã hội.
^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.
