Shan (Shan:, ; Thai: ภาษาไทใหญ่, ) is related to the Thai language and is called Tai-Yai, or Tai Long in the Tai languages. It is spoken in Northeast Burma, that is to say, in the Shan States of Burma, and in pockets in Northern Thailand. There are also Shan people and Shan speakers in the Xishuangbanna (Sipsongpanna) Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan province in southwestern China, which lies just across the eastern border from the Shan States of Burma. It has five tones and is a part of the Kam-Tai or Kadai language family, which are found from Northern Burma and India on the west through Southern China on the north, and Laos on the east.

The term "Shan" is believed to be a Burmese variation on "Siam," which surely indicates that the ethnic Burmese believed that the "Shan" were a Thai (Tai) people.

Studies of the Shan are complicated by the civil war within Burma and the difficulty of escaping to Thailand.

The number of Shan speakers is not known, in part because the Shan population is unknown. Estimates range from 4 million to 30 million, though it is likely that the true number of Shan is somewhere around 6 million, with about half speaking the Shan language; 3.3 million is the number generally estimated. Many Shan speak local dialects as well as the language of their trading partners. Few people can read or write in Shan script, especially foreigners.

Given the chaos prevailing under the current Burmese government, one choice for scholars is to study the Shan people and their language in Thailand, where estimates of Shan refugees run as high as two million, and Mae Hong Son province is home to a Shan majority.

The major source for information about the Shan language in English is Dunwoody Press's Shan for English Speakers. They also publish a Shan-English dictionary. Aside from this, the language is almost completely undescribed in English.

As noted above, Shan is a member of the Tai family of languages (superfamily Kam-tai or Kadai). It has five tones, which do not correspond exactly to Thai tones, plus a "sixth tone" used for emphasis. It is written in what may be called a pseudo-Burmese script, which appears to be Burmese to the casual observer but is in fact entirely different, just as the Shan language has no relation to the Burmese language (a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages).

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