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Dai Lue-English Dictionary

Dai Lue-English Dictionary

David Bade

Materials for the study of Dai Lue (sometimes referred to as Lü) are not abundant. The only previously published bilingual dictionary of Dai Lue in any language other than Chinese was the 1200 page glossary in Hudak's edition of Gedney's notebooks (William J. Gedney's The Lue Language: Glosssary, Texts, and Translations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1996). That earlier work was entirely in IPA transcription; no table of either the traditional or the reformed script was included. Furthermore, it was entirely based on fieldwork with Dai Lue speakers in Thailand during the years 1964-1969; there is no indication that Gedney had consulted any written texts. Hudak does mention Seri Weroha's unpublished Tai Lue-English dictionary of 1974 but does not indicate what use, if any, he made of it in editing Gedney's notes. Hanna also mentions Weroha's dictionary, but only to note that it has never been published.

After Gedney's work on Tai Lue three Tai Lue-Chinese dictionaries have been published, only one of which Hanna cites: the undated Xishuangbanna Dai Wen Han Wen Cihui Duizhao published by the Yunan Institute for Nationalities. In 2002 the same publisher published a Tai Lue-Chinese dictionary using the traditional script (刀世勋. 傣汉词典. 昆明: 云南民族出版社, 2002 [Dāo Shìxūn. Dai-Han cidian. Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2002]), and two years later a dictionary featuring the reformed script was published in Beijing (喻翠荣, 罗美珍. 傣仂汉词典. 北京: 民族出版社, 2004 [Yu Cuirong and Luo Meizhen. Daile-Han cidian. Beijing: Minzu chubanshe 2004]). Hanna states that "Chinese scholarship on the Dai Lue language has not been consulted" (p. xxxiii) but does not indicate why. Perhaps he does not read Chinese well enough to use those sources? His research, like Gedney's, was done primarily in Thailand, but he does note that he made several trips to Xishuangbanna to study Dai Lue.

Hanna's dictionary was compiled on the basis of thirty months of field research in Thailand, a corpus of 275 Dai Lue texts ("132,000 words of running text") including texts written for his dictionary project as well as published sources, and material from a dictionary workshop held in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2005. The published sources he lists are 18 volumes of Dai Lue texts published in China and Thailand between 1986 and 2007. His list is a bit surprising not only for the absence of the 2002 and 2004 dictionaries mentioned above, but for the lack of any publications prior to 1986. In the 1990s I consulted several volumes published in the 1970-1980s which were donated by John Hartmann to Founders' Memorial Library at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Illinois, but none of these are listed among Hanna's sources. Are there no earlier published sources available, or were they only not available to Hanna during the period of his work on the dictionary?

Unlike Gedney's glossary (which was in IPA transcription and in A-Z alphabetical order), Hanna's dictionary lists entries in the reformed orthography developed in the 1950's ('new Lue') followed by an IPA transcription and the entries follow the alphabetic order used in the Xishuangbanna Dai Wen Han Wen Cihui Duizhao. In addition to the dictionary's Dai Lue entries, Hanna's volume includes an introductory chapter on the grammar of Dai Lue (in both English and Thai), a bibliography of works on Dai Lue and related languages, an English-Dai Lue finderlist and appendixes containing lists and brief discussions of classifiers, pronouns, onomatopoetic words, final particles, geopolitical terms, colour terms and a list of the 150 most commonly used words.

Overall an excellent contribution to Dai Lue studies, and a volume that I am extremely happy to see. The only changes that I would suggest for the dictionary is to add a section on the traditional script as well as an index to the entries in that script. Perhaps these can be added in a new edition prepared in collaboration with someone who can also bring all the existing Chinese scholarship to bear on the revision.

David Bade, University of Chicago (retired) (dwbade1958@outlook.com)

Book Jacket

Dai Lue-English Dictionary

William J. Hanna
Silkworm Books, 2012
978‐616‐215‐031‐9

This dictionary is the first of its kind, a pioneering work in the field of Southeast Asian linguistics. It focuses primarily on the dialect of Dai Lue spoken in Sipsong Panna, China, but also notes differences with the Dai Lue dialect in Thailand. The Dai Lue data comes from three main sources: data collected through extensive field research in Chiang Kham, Thailand, and in Sipsong Panna, China; a lexicography workshop conducted with Dai Lue‐speakers; and a corpus of over 130,000 words from Dai Lue texts.

Containing more than 13,000 Dai Lue entries, the dictionary provides a phonetic pronunciation guide and complete English definition for each word, as well as the part of speech, classifiers, and spelling variants. Helpful usage examples of the word in context are all accompanied by English translation. An index of English terms keyed to the Dai Lue entries follows the dictionary proper.

The preliminary material includes a bilingual English and Thai introduction to the Dai Lue language, namely the phonology, orthography, and morphology, and an explanation of the structure of entries. Extensive appendixes provide lists of Dai Lue classifiers, pronouns, onomatopoetic words, final particles, geopolitical terms, and colour terms, and a frequency list of 150 of the most commonly used words.
The dictionary is an essential reference for both learners of Dai Lue and for Dai Lue speakers who are interested in their own language or in learning English. The map, introduction, appendixes,and source list prove invaluable for Thai scholars as well as linguists interested in Asian languages.

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