Tai Hongjin language


Tai Hongjin is a Tai language of southern China. Dialects may not be mutually intelligible.
Speakers of Tai Hongjin live in the Red River and Jinsha River watershed regions of south-central Yunnan. Most are Buddhists, but few are Theravada.

Dialects

Tai Hongjin can be split into five dialects, which are often mutually unintelligible.
The total number of Tai Hongjin speakers combined is 136,000. A related but separate Tai language called Dǎi Jīnpíng is spoken in Jinping County 金平县, Honghe Prefecture 红河州, which Zhou reports as having 15,400 speakers. This language has its own traditional script as well.

Heipu

Heipu 黑蒲 is a variety of Tai Ya 傣雅 spoken by 118 people in the 2 villages of Shitouzhai 石头寨 and Xiaomiao 小庙 in Panlong Township 盘龙乡, District 5 五区, Xinping County, Yunnan. Heipu 黑蒲 is a Han Chinese exonym referring to their practice of teeth blackening. In Xinping County, the Heipu also refer to themselves as the Tai Kha 傣卡. It is mutually intelligible with Tai Ya as spoken in District 4 四区 of Xinping County. However, Heipu is unique in that it has only 4 tones, and has lost the final stops -p, -t, -k. Heipu is not to be confused with 2 other groups of the same name: