Khün, or Tai Khün (Tai Khün: ᨴᩱ᩠ᨿᨡᩨ᩠ᨶ, /taj˧˧.kʰɯːn˧˨˥/; Shan: တႆးၶိုၼ် Thai: ไทเขิน [tʰaj kʰɤ̌ːn]), also known as Kengtung tai, Kengtung Shan, is the language of the Tai Khün people of Kengtung, Shan State, Myanmar.[2] It is also spoken in Chiang Rai Province, Thailand, and Yunnan Province, China.
The Khün varieties share 93% to 100% lexical similarity.[2] Khun is closely related to other Tai languages. Khün shares 90% to 95% lexical similarity with Northern Thai language, 92% to 95% with Lü, 93% to 97% with Shan, and 80% to 83% with standard Thai.[2]
In China, there are about 10,000 Tai Khuen (Chinese: 傣艮/傣痕) people in the following areas of Yunnan province (Gao 1999).[3]
There are contrastive five or six tones in Khün.[4] The varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Kat Fah have five tones, and the variety spoken in Murng Lang has six tones.[4] Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Murng Lang are part of Kengtung Township.[4]
The table below presents the tones in the varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, Kat Fah, and Murng Lang. These tones occur in smooth syllables which are open syllables or closed syllables ending in a sonorant sound, such as /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /w/, or /j/.
Three of the five or six phonemic tones occur in checked syllables[4] which are closed syllables ending in a glottal stop (/ʔ/) or an obstruent sound, such as /p/, /t/, or /k/. The table below presents the three tones in the varieties spoken in Keng Tung City, Kang Murng, and Kat Fah.