New Tai Lue alphabet

New Tai Lue script, also known as Xishuangbanna Dai[5] and

Simplified Tai Lue, is an abugida used to write the Tai Lü New Tai Lue
language. Developed in China in the 1950s, New Tai Lue is based Xishuangbanna Dai
on the traditional Tai Tham alphabet developed c. 1200. The
government of China promoted the alphabet for use as a
replacement for the older script; teaching the script was not
mandatory, however, and as a result many are illiterate in New Tai Script type Abugida
Lue. In addition, communities in Burma, Laos, Thailand and Time since 1950s
Vietnam still use the Tai Tham alphabet. period
Direction left-to-right
Languages Tai Lü
Contents Related scripts
Consonants Parent Proto-Sinaitic alphabet[a]
Initials systems
Finals Phoenician
alphabet[a]
Vowels
Tones Aramaic alphabet[a]

Abbreviations Brāhmī
Digits Tamil-Brahmi
Unicode
Kadamba or
See also
Pallava
References alphabet[1]

Pyu or Old
Consonants Mon[1]

Burmese[2]
Initials Mon[3][4]

Similar to the Thai and Lao scripts, consonants come in pairs to Tai
denote two tonal registers (high and low).[5] Tham

New
Tai
Lue

ISO 15924
ISO 15924 Talu, 354 , New Tai Lue
Unicode
Unicode New Tai Lue
alias
 Unicode U+1980–U+19DF (http
range s://www.unicode.org/char
ts/PDF/U1980.pdf)

China Post logo with New Tai Lü

script reading hoŋ⁴ faːk¹ haːi¹ tsoŋ⁵
ko⁶ in Mohan, Yunnan.

High ᦀ ᦂ ᦃ ᦄ ᦈ ᦉ ᦊ ᦎ ᦏ ᦐ ᦔ
Low ᦁ ᦅ ᦆ ᦇ ᦋ ᦌ ᦍ ᦑ ᦒ ᦓ ᦗ
IPA /ʔa/ /ka/ /xa/ /ŋa/ /t͡sa/ /sa/ /ja/ /ta/ /tʰa/ /na/ /pa/

High ᦕ ᦖ ᦚ ᦛ ᦜ ᦡ ᦢ ᦠ ᦦ ᦧ ᦪ
Low ᦘ ᦙ ᦝ ᦞ ᦟ ᦤ ᦥ ᦣ ᦨ ᦩ ᦫ
IPA /pʰa/ /ma/ /fa/ /wa/ /la/ /da/ /ba/ /ha/ /kʷa/ /xʷa/ /sʷa/

Finals

Final consonants do not have an inherent /a/ vowel.[5] They are modified forms of initials with a virama-like
hook:

Final ᧅ ᧆ ᧇ ᧂ ᧃ ᧄ ᧁ no final with ᦰ

IPA /k̚/ /t̚/ /p̚/ /ŋ/ /n/ /m/ /w/ /ʔ/

Vowels
Consonants have a default vowel of /a/. In the table below, '◌' represents a consonant and is used to indicate
the position of the various vowels:
 Short vowels Long vowels Diphthongs with i
Letters IPA Letters IPA Letters IPA

not present /a/ ᦺ◌ /aj/

◌ᦰ /aʔ/ ◌ᦱ /aː/ ◌ᦻ /aːj/

◌ᦲᦰ /iʔ/ ◌ᦲ /i(ː)/

ᦵ◌ᦰ /eʔ/ ᦵ◌ /e(ː)/

ᦶ◌ᦰ /ɛʔ/ ᦶ◌ /ɛ(ː)/

◌ᦳ /u(ʔ)/ ◌ᦴ /uː/ ◌ᦼ /uj/

ᦷ◌ᦰ /oʔ/ ᦷ◌ /o(ː)/ ◌ᦽ /oj/

◌ᦸᦰ /ɔʔ/ ◌ᦸ /ɔ(ː)/ ◌ᦾ /ɔj/

◌ᦹᦰ /ɯʔ/ ◌ᦹ /ɯ(ː)/ ◌ᦿ /ɯj/

ᦵ◌ᦲᦰ /ɤʔ/ ᦵ◌ᦲ /ɤ(ː)/ ᦵ◌ᧀ /ɤj/

In some words, the symbol ᦰ is just used for distinguishing homonyms or displaying onomatopoeiae.

Generally, vowels in open syllables (without final) become long whereas ones in closed syllables become short
(except /aː/ and /uː/).

Tones
New Tai Lue has two tone marks which are written at the end of a syllable: ᧈ and ᧉ.[5] Because consonants
come in pairs to denote two tonal registers, the two tone marks allow for representation of six specific tones:

High register Low register

Mark ᧈ ᧉ ᧈ ᧉ
Shown with k ᦂ ᦂᧈ ᦂᧉ ᦅ ᦅᧈ ᦅᧉ
IPA /ka˥/ /ka/ /ka/ /ka/ /ka˧/ /ka˩/
Transcription ka¹ ka² ka³ ka⁴ ka⁵ ka⁶

Abbreviations
Two letters are used only for abbreviations:

Syllable ᦶᦟᦰ (/lɛʔ˧/) can be abbreviated as the character ᧞

Syllable ᦶᦟᧁᧉ (/lɛu˩/) can be abbreviated as the character ᧟

Digits
New Tai Lue has its own set of digits:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

᧐ ᧑/᧚ ᧒ ᧓ ᧔ ᧕ ᧖ ᧗ ᧘ ᧙

An alternative glyph for one (᧚) is used when ᧑ might be confused with the vowel ᦱ.[5]

Unicode
New Tai Lue script was added to the Unicode Standard in March, 2005 with the release of version 4.1.

In June 2015 New Tai Lue was changed from logical ordering used by most Indic scripts to a visual ordering
model as used by the Thai and Lao scripts.[5][6][7][8] This change affected the four vowel letters which appear
to the left of the initial consonant.

The Unicode block for New Tai Lue is U+1980–U+19DF:

New Tai Lue[1][2]

Official Unicode Consortium code chart (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1980.pdf) (PDF)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F

U+198x ᦀ ᦁ ᦂ ᦃ ᦄ ᦅ ᦆ ᦇ ᦈ ᦉ ᦊ ᦋ ᦌ ᦍ ᦎ ᦏ

U+199x ᦐ ᦑ ᦒ ᦓ ᦔ ᦕ ᦖ ᦗ ᦘ ᦙ ᦚ ᦛ ᦜ ᦝ ᦞ ᦟ
U+19Ax ᦠ ᦡ ᦢ ᦣ ᦤ ᦥ ᦦ ᦧ ᦨ ᦩ ᦪ ᦫ
U+19Bx ᦰ ᦱ ᦲ ᦳ ᦴ ᦵ ᦶ ᦷ ᦸ ᦹ ᦺ ᦻ ᦼ ᦽ ᦾ ᦿ

U+19Cx ᧀ ᧁ ᧂ ᧃ ᧄ ᧅ ᧆ ᧇ ᧈ ᧉ

U+19Dx ᧐ ᧑ ᧒ ᧓ ᧔ ᧕ ᧖ ᧗ ᧘ ᧙ ᧚ ᧞ ᧟
Notes

1.^ As of Unicode version 13.0

2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

See also
Tai Tham script
Tai Le script

References
1. Diringer, David (1948). Alphabet a key to the history of mankind (https://archive.org/details/in.go
v.ignca.1287). p. 411.
2. "Proposal for encoding characters for Myanmar minority languages in the UCS" (https://web.arc
hive.org/web/20060723083627/http://lwinmoe.friendsofburma.org/doc/myanmar_extension.pdf)
 (PDF). International Organization for Standardization. 2006-04-02. Archived from the original (h
ttp://lwinmoe.friendsofburma.org/doc/myanmar_extension.pdf) (PDF) on 2006-07-23. Retrieved
2006-07-09.
3. Hartmann, John F. (1986). "The spread of South Indic scripts in Southeast Asia". Crossroads:
An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 3 (1): 6–20. JSTOR 40860228 (https://
www.jstor.org/stable/40860228).
4. Penth, Hans (1986). "On the History of Thai scripts" (http://www.fontpad.co.uk/wp-content/uploa
ds/2015/01/On-the-History-of-Thai-scripts.pdf) (PDF).
5. "The Unicode Standard, Chapter 16.6: New Tai Lue" (https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicod
e13.0.0/ch16.pdf#G65706) (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020.
6. Moore, Lisa (2014-11-10). "L2/14-250: UTC #141 Minutes" (https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/
14250.htm).
7. Hosken, Martin (2014-04-23). "L2/14-090: Proposal to Deprecate and add 4 characters to the
New Tai Lue block" (http://unicode.org/L2/L2014/14090-new-tai-lue.pdf) (PDF).
8. Pournader, Roozbeh (2014-08-05). "L2/14-195: Data on the usage of left-side spacing marks in
New Tai Lue" (http://unicode.org/L2/L2014/14195-newtailue.txt).

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