Yang Zhuang Orthography Converter

This tool converts between Liao and Lee orthography. The latter orthography has not been finalised and is subject to change.

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Initials

There are 4 types of initials in Yang Zhuang, namely simple initials, labialized initials, palatalized initials and initials for Guiliu Mandarin loanwords. Simple initials are written with simple initial letters while the other initials are written with combinations of simple initial letters. Each simple initial letter has a consonantal class which affects the tone of the syllable. Some initial phonemes are represented by more than one letters which have different consonantal classes.

There are 4 consonantal classes. Consonantal classes are only applicable to native Tai words but not Guiliu Mandarin loanwords. The spelling rules of these two categories of words will be explained at the bottom.

The following list shows all Yang Zhuang initials and their corresponding letters. There are 23 simple initial phonemes and 37 simple initial letters. In some dialects, particularly Jingxi Urban, some initial phonemes have merged. The IPA in brackets indicates the phonemes that the original phonemes have merged into.

Rimes

Yang Zhuang has 12 vowel phonemes and 14 basic vowel letters. Each vowel letter carries a tenseness, which is either tense or lax. Historically, tenseness corresponded to the actual quality of the vowel. However in modern Yang Zhuang, tenseness only affects the tone of syllables ending with -p, -t and -k and it does not affect the quality nor the actual length of the vowel. All vowels except /ə/ and /ʊ/ are either tense or lax. These vowels only have one representation. /ə/ and /ʊ/ both have a tense counterpart and a lax counterpart. These counterparts evolved from different historical vowels and are represented by different letters.

Notes

Red cells: Double vowel letters are shortened to single.

Green cells: In mainstream dialects, om and op have merged with am and ap respectively. In Debao and Jingxi urban dialects, these 2 merged phonemes are pronounced as am and ap. In some rural dialects in Ma'ai and Jiuzhou, they are pronounced as om and op as in top (liver) and nóm. In peripheral dialects (Debao Longguang, Jingxi Hurun), the rimes are still distinct but om and op are pronounced as ʊm and ʊp respectively.

Speical Vowel Letters: oa and oaa

There are two special vowel letters, oa and oaa. They represent words with labialized initials in the proto language. Nowadays, the labialization is lost in most dialects and have different reflexes across dialects.

In Debao mainstream dialects, the rule applies except when the syllable ends with -oa. In this case, it does not simplify into -o but should be pronounced as /ɔ/.

Examples

Wait! How about the tenseness...

Tones

Yang Zhuang words are classified into three categories: Native Tai words, loanwords from Guiliu Mandarin and exceptional words. Every category has its own rule to represent tones.

Tones of Tai Words

Most Yang Zhuang dialects have a 6-tone system which is derived from an earlier 3-tone system through a tonal split according to the phonation of the initial consonant. As different Yang Zhuang dialects have different tonal split patterns, the same tone in a certain dialect may correspond to different tones in another dialect. Therefore, it is impossible to account for all Yang Zhuang dialects if we write tones according to a single 'standard' dialect.

In this orthography, we only mark the tonal category from the original 3-tone system. In syllables ending with a sonorant, there are 3 tonal categories A, B and C. In syllables ending with an obstruent, there are 2 tonal categories DL and DS based on the tenseness of the vowel.

Tone Boxes for Tai Words

A tone box shows the tonal distribution of a Yang Zhuang dialect. The columns represent the tonal categories and the rows represent the consonantal class. Every cell represents the actual tone value of a specific combination of the tonal category and the consonantal class. Therefore, the actual tone of the syllable can be deduced given its consonantal class, tonal cateogory and the tone box of the dialect.

Examples please?

The examples below show how to deduce the actual tone value of a native Tai syllable.

Tones of Guiliu Words

Yang Zhuang has borrowed words from Guiliu Mandarin. Guiliu Mandarin uses 4-tone system. When Guiliu Mandarin words were borrowed into a Yang Zhuang, their tones are adapted to become some of the existing Tai tones. Again, every dialect has its own correspondence rules.

Tone Boxes for Guiliu words

In Jingxi Urban dialect, tonal split has occured for Guiliu Tone 4 syllables. The split is determined by the consonantal class of the corresponding loanword from Middle Chinese (even though we are considering Guiliu Mandarin loanword!). The tone is pronounced as 33ʔ for voiceless-intial syllables (class 1A, 1U), and 213ʔ for voiced-initial syllables (class 2). For example, the syllable téngh in yîh téngh has a corresponding Middle Chinese loan dèng, which takes consonantal class 2. Therefore, téngh is pronounced with 213ʔ here.

Examples

The examples below show how to deduce the actual tone value of a Guiliu Mandarin loanword syllable.

Where to put the tone mark?

1. If there is only 1 vowel letter, put it on that letter. Example: tóy
2. Otherwise, if the first 2 vowel letters are different, put it on the second letter. Example: joèy
3. If the first 2 vowel letters are the same, put it on the first letter. Example: káang

Exceptional Words

There is a small set of words which do not follow the regular tonal reflex of Tai words or Guiliu Mandarin loanwords. These exceptional words are mostly onomatopoeias, sentence final particles and frequent words that underwent tone change. There is no rule to determine the tone of these words. The tone value has to be remembered word by word.

The following shows some common exceptional words and their Debao Urban pronunciation.