Tai Nüa language

Tai Nüa (Tai Nüa: ᥖᥭᥰᥖᥬᥳᥑᥨᥒᥰ) (also called Tai Nɯa, Dehong Dai, or Chinese Shan; own name: Tai2 Lə6, which means "upper Tai" or "northern Tai", or ᥖᥭᥰᥖᥬᥳᥑᥨᥒᥰ [tai taɯ xoŋ]; Chinese: Dǎinàyǔ 傣那语 or Déhóng Dǎiyǔ 德宏傣语; Thai: ภาษาไทเหนือ, pronounced [pʰāːsǎː tʰāj nɯ̌a] or ภาษาไทใต้คง, pronounced [pʰāːsǎː tʰāj tâj.kʰōŋ]) is one of the languages spoken by the Dai people in China, especially in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in the southwest of Yunnan province. It is closely related to the other Tai languages. Speakers of this language across the border in Myanmar are known as Shan. It should not be confused with Tai Lü (Xishuangbanna Dai). There are also Tai Nüa speakers in Thailand.

Most Tai Nüa people call themselves tai˥lə˧, which means 'upper Tai' or 'northern Tai'. Note that this is different from Tai Lue, which is pronounced tai˥lɪ˦˧ in Tai Nüa.

Dehong is a transliteration of the term taɨ˧˩xoŋ˥, where taɨ˧˩ means 'bottom, under, the lower part (of)', and xoŋ˥ means 'the Hong River' (more widely known as the Salween River or Nujiang 怒江 in Chinese) (Luo 1998).