Place names in Tai

Abstract Place names form a significant part of proper names in Tai, the largest member of the Kra-Dai family of languages that spread across national boundaries in mainland Southeast Asia which includes Thai, Lao, Shan, Tai Lue, Zhuang, Nung, Buyi, among others. This paper looks at the semantic and morphosyntactic features of place names in the Tai languages. They exhibit a number of typological features that are common in languages in this vast linguistic area. A set of geographic terms offer elaborate topographical information about the referents, such as ‘mountain/hill’, ‘stream/brook’, ‘river’, ‘spring’, ‘valley’, ‘plain’, ‘(rice) field’, ‘upland field’, among others. These are frequently found to combine with spatial terms to provide specific reference. A number of place names carrying social-cultural nuances are found in certain geographic locations, indicating the genesis of early social organizations of the Tai people, with implications for dialect subgrouping.