Tai Ya language

Tai Ya (Chinese: 傣雅语), also known as Tai Cung, Tai Chung and Dai Ya, is a Southwestern Tai language of southern China. It has one dialect, Tai Hongjin (Chinese: 红金傣语); Red Tai.

Speakers of Tai Hongjin live in the Red River (红河 or 元江) and Jinsha River (金沙江) watershed regions of south-central Yunnan. Most are Buddhists, but few are Theravada. It is also spoken by around 5,000–6,000 people in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand.

Unlike other more widely studied Dai languages, Tai Ya has no traditional orthography, though it has a rich oral tradition. Papers have noted that this lack of orthography may endanger the survival of Tai Ya in future generations in Thailand, as the Tai Ya people shift towards the use of Northern Thai and Central Thai, due to the lack of literature in Tai Ya. However, it has been attested that language vitality as a whole (including the majority speakers in Yunnan Province) is high and "likely to be spoken by future generations".