Northern Thai language

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Northern Thai
Kam Mueang ᨣᩴᩤᨾᩮᩥᩬᨦ
Pronunciation	[kam˧ mɯːəŋ˧], ( listen)
Region	Northern Thailand
Ethnicity	Northern Thai people
Native speakers	(6 million cited 1983)^[1]
Language family	Tai–Kadai Tai Southwestern (Thai) Chiang Saen Northern Thai
Writing system	Tai Tham alphabet (standard), Thai alphabet (de facto since early 20th century)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`nod`
Glottolog	`nort2740`^[2]

Northern Thai (Thai: ภาษาถิ่นพายัพ; rtgs: Phasa Thin Phayap), Lanna (Thai: ล้านนา), or Kam Mueang (Northern Thai: ᨣᩴᩤᨾᩮᩥᩬᨦ [kam˧.mɯːəŋ˧], (

listen), Thai: คำเมือง [kʰam˧ mɯːəŋ˧]) is the language of the Northern Thai people of Lanna, Thailand. It is a Tai language closely related to Lao. Northern Thai has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in Thailand, with a few thousand in northwestern Laos.
Speakers of this language generally consider the name "Tai Yuan" to be pejorative. They generally call themselves khon mueang (ฅนเมือง, [xon˧ mɯːəŋ˧]), Lanna, or Northern Thai. The language is generally known by one of these terms or as Phayap.
The term Yuan is still sometimes used for Northern Thai's distinctive Tai Tham alphabet, which is closely related to the old Tai Lue alphabet and the Lao religious alphabets. The use of the tua mueang, as the traditional alphabet is known, is now largely limited to Buddhist temples, where many old sermon manuscripts are still in active use. There is no active production of literature in the traditional alphabet. The modern spoken form is called Kam Muang. There is a resurgence of interest in writing it in the traditional way, but the modern pronunciation differs from that prescribed in spelling rules.^[3]
Most linguists consider Northern Thai to be more closely related to Thai and the other Chiang Saeng languages than to Lao and the Lao–Phutai languages, but the distinction is never easy to make, as the languages form a continuum with few sharp dividing lines.

Names

The Northern Thai language has various names in Northern Thai, Thai, and other Tai languages.

In Northern Thai, it is commonly called kam mueang (ᨣᩴᩤᨾᩮᩥᩬᨦ, กำเมือง /kām.mɯ̄aŋ/, literally "the city language"; cf. Standard Thai: คำเมือง /kʰām.mɯ̄aŋ/), or phasa lanna (ᨽᩣᩇᩣᩃ᩶ᩣ᩠ᨶᨶᩣ, ภาษาล้านนา /pʰāː.sǎː.láːn.nāː/, literally "the language of Lanna").
In Standard Thai, Northern Thai is known as phasa thin phayap (ภาษาถิ่นพายัพ /pʰāː.sǎː.tʰìn.pʰāː.jáp/, literally "the language of the northern region"), or phasa thai thin nuea (ภาษาไทยถิ่นเหนือ /pʰāː.sǎː.tʰāj.tʰìn.nɯ̌a/, literally "the Thai language of the northern region", or colloquially it is known as phasa nuea (ภาษาเหนือ /pʰāː.sǎː.nɯ̌a/, literally "the northern language").
In Lao, it is known as phasa nyuan or phasa nyon (ພາສາຍວນ or ພາສາໂຍນ respectively, /pʰáː.sǎː.ɲúan/ or /pʰáː.sǎː.ɲóːn/ respectively, literally "the Tai Yuan language").
In Tai Lü, it is known as kam yon (ᦅᧄᦍᦷᧃ kâm.jôn, literally "the Tai Yuan language").
In Shan it is known as kwam yon (ၵႂၢမ်းယူၼ်း kwáːm.jón, literally "the Tai Yuan language").

Script

Northern Thai in its own alphabet, the Tai Tham script

Currently, different scripts are used to write Northern Thai. Northern Thai is traditionally written with the Tai Tham script, which in Northern Thai is called tua mueang (ᨲᩫ᩠ᩅᨾᩮᩥ᩠ᩋᨦ ตั๋วเมือง /tǔa.mɯ̄aŋ/) or tua tham (ᨲᩫ᩠ᩅᨵᩢᨾ᩠ᨾ᩺ ตั๋วธัมม์ /tǔa.tʰām/). However, native speakers are presently illiterate in the traditional script; therefore, they instead use the Thai script to write the language. In Laos, the Lao script is commonly used to write Northern Thai.

A sign written in Northern Thai, Thai, and English

Some problems arise when the Thai script is used to write Northern Thai. In particular, Standard Thai script cannot transcribe all Northern Thai tones. The two falling tones in Northern Thai correspond to a single falling tone in Thai. Specifically, Northern Thai has two types of falling tones: high-falling tone (˥˧) and falling tone (˥˩). However, Thai lacks the distinction between the two falling tones, not having a high-falling tone (˥˧). When using Thai script to write Northern Thai tones, the distinction of the two falling tones is lost because Thai script can only indicate a low falling tone (˥˩). As an example, the tonal distinction between /ka᷇ː/ (ก้า (ᨠᩖ᩶ᩣ กล้า) "to be brave") and /kâː/ (ก้า (ᨣ᩵ᩤ ค่า) "value") is lost when written in Thai since as only /kâː/ (ก้า) is permitted. Consequently, the meaning of ก้า is ambiguous as it can mean both "to be brave" and "value". Similarly, /pa᷇ːj/ (ป้าย (ᨸ᩶ᩣᩭ ป้าย) "sign") and /pâːj/ (ป้าย (ᨻ᩵ᩣᩭ พ่าย) "to lose") have the same problem and only /pâːj/ (ป้าย) is permitted. As a result, the spelling ป้าย is ambiguous because it can mean both "sign" or "to lose". Such tonal mergence ambiguity is avoided when the language is written with the Northern Thai script.

Northern Thai script page 1
Northern Thai script page 2
Northern Thai script page 3
Northern Thai script page 4

Phonology

Consonants

Initial consonants

Northern Thai consonant inventory is similar to that of Lao; both languages have the [ɲ] sound and lack [tɕʰ].

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		[m] ᨾ ᩉ᩠ᨾ	[n] ᨶ ᨱ ᩉ᩠ᨶ	[ɲ] ᨿ ᨬ ᩉ᩠ᨿ	[ŋ] ᨦ ᩉ᩠ᨦ
Stop	tenuis	[p] ᨸ ᨻ	[t] ᨲ ᨴ ᨭ	[t͡ɕ] ᨧ ᨩ	[k] ᨠ ᨣ	[ʔ]^* ᩋ
	aspirate	[pʰ] ᨹ ᨽ ᨷᩕ	[tʰ] ᨳ ᨮ ᨵ ᨰ ᨲᩕ ᨴᩕ	([t͡ɕʰ])^**	([kʰ])^**
	voiced	[b] ᨷ	[d] ᨯ
Fricative		[f] ᨺ ᨼ	[s] ᩈ ᩇ ᩆ ᨨ ᨪ ᨫ		[x] ᨡ ᨤ ᨥ ᨠᩕ ᨣᩕ	[h] ᩉ ᩁ ᩌ ᩉᩕ
Approximant		[w] ᩅ ᩉ᩠ᩅ	[l] ᩃ ᩁ ᩉᩖ ᩉ᩠ᩃ ᩊ	[j] ᩀ

^* Implied before any vowel without an initial and after a short vowel without a final.

^** /kʰ/ and /t͡ɕʰ/ occur in loanwords from Standard Thai.

Initial consonant clusters

There are two relatively common consonant clusters:

/kw/
/xw/

There are also several other, less frequent clusters recorded,^[4] though apparently in the process of being lost:^[5]

/ŋw/
/tɕw/
/sw/
/tw/
/tʰw/^[6]
/nw/
/ɲw/
/jw/
/lw/
/ʔw/

Final consonants

All plosive sounds are unreleased. Hence, final /p/, /t/, and /k/ sounds are pronounced as [p̚], [t̚], and [k̚] respectively.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	[m]	[n]		[ŋ]
Stop	[p]	[t]		[k]	[ʔ]^*
Approximant	[w]		j

^* The glottal stop appears at the end when no final follows a short vowel.

Vowels

The basic vowels of the Northern Thai language are similar to those of Standard Thai. They, from front to back and close to open, are given in the following table. The top entry in every cell is the symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet, the second entry gives the spelling in the Thai alphabet, where a dash (–) indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant must follow.

	Front		Back
	unrounded				rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long
High	/i/ -ิ	/iː/ -ี	/ɯ/ -ึ	/ɯː/ -ื-	/u/ -ุ	/uː/ -ู
Mid	/e/ เ-ะ	/eː/ เ-	/ɤ/ เ-อะ	/ɤː/ เ-อ	/o/ โ-ะ	/oː/ โ-
Low	/ɛ/ แ-ะ	/ɛː/ แ-	/a/ -ะ, -ั-	/aː/ -า	/ɔ/ เ-าะ	/ɔː/ -อ

The vowels each exist in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Northern Thai,^[7] but usually transliterated the same: เขา (khao) means "they/them", while ขาว (khao) means "white".
The long-short pairs are as follows:

Long					Short
Thai	IPA	Example			Thai	IPA	Example
–า	/aː/	ฝาน	/fǎːn/	'to slice'	–ะ	/a/	ฝัน	/fǎn/	'to dream'
–ี	/iː/	ตี๋	/tǐː/	'to cut'	–ิ	/i/	ติ๋	/tǐʔ/	'to criticize'
–ู	/uː/	สูด	/sùːt/	'to inhale'	–ุ	/u/	สุ๋ด	/sǔt/	'rearmost'
เ–	/eː/	เอน	/ʔēːn/	'to recline'	เ–ะ	/e/	เอ็น	/ʔēn/	'tendon, ligament'
แ–	/ɛː/	แก่	/kɛ̀ː/	'to be old'	แ–ะ	/ɛ/	แก๊ะ	/kɛ́ʔ/	'sheep'
–ื-	/ɯː/	ฅืน	/xɯ̄ːn/	'to return'	–ึ	/ɯ/	ขึ้น	/xɯ᷇n/	'to go up'
เ–อ	/ɤː/	เมิน	/mɤː̄n/	'to delay; long time'	เ–อะ	/ɤ/	เงิน	/ŋɤ̄n/	'silver'
โ–	/oː/	โจ๋ร	/t͡ɕǒːn/	'thief'	โ–ะ	/o/	จ๋น	/t͡ɕǒn/	'to be poor'
–อ	/ɔː/	ลอง	/lɔ̄ːŋ/	'to try'	เ–าะ	/ɔ/	ล่อง	/lɔ̂ŋ/	'to go down, to go downhill'

The basic vowels can be combined into diphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Long		Short
Thai script	IPA	Thai script	IPA
–าย	/aːj/	ไ–^, ใ–^, ไ–ย, -ัย	/aj/
–าว	/aːw/	เ–า^*	/aw/
เ–ีย	/iːa/	เ–ียะ	/ia/
–	–	–ิว	/iw/
–ัว	/uːa/	–ัวะ	/ua/
–ูย	/uːj/	–ุย	/uj/
เ–ว	/eːw/	เ–็ว	/ew/
แ–ว	/ɛːw/	–	–
เ–ือ	/ɯːa/	เ–ือะ	/ɯa/
เ–ย	/ɤːj/	–	–
–อย	/ɔːj/	–	–
โ–ย	/oːj/	–	–

Additionally, there are three triphthongs, all of which are long:

Thai script	IPA
เ–ียว	/iaw/
–วย	/uaj/
เ–ือย	/ɯaj/

Allophones

The following section largely concerns the Nan dialect of Northern Thai.^[8]

Phoneme	Allophone	Context	Example using Thai script	IPA	Gloss
/b/	[b]	onset	บ่า	/bàː/	shoulder
/d/	[d]	onset	ดอย	/dɔ̄ːj/	mountain
/p/	[p]	onset	ป่า	/pàː/	forest
	[p̚]	coda	อาบ	/ʔàːp/	bath
	[pm̩]	coda, emphasised	บ่หลับ	/bɔ̀ lǎp/	not sleep!
/t/	[t]	onset	ตา	/tǎː/	eye
	[t̚]	coda	เปิด	/pɤ̀ːt/	open
	[tn̩]	coda, emphasised	บ่เผ็ด	/bɔ̀ pʰět/	not spicy!
/k/	[k]	onset	กา	/kǎː/	crow
	[k̚]	coda	ปีก	/pìːk/	wing
	[kŋ̩]	coda, emphasised	บ่สุก	/bɔ̀ sǔk/	not ripe!
/x/	[x]	before non-front vowels	แขก	/xɛ̀ːk/	guest
	[ç]	before front vowels	ฅิง	/xīŋ/	you(familiar)
/s/	[s]	onset	ซาว	/sāːw/	twenty
	[ɕ]	under emphasis	สาทุ	/sǎː.túʔ/	surely
/h/	[h]	non-intervocalic	ห้า	/ha᷇ː/	five
	[ɦ]	intervocalic	ใผมาหา	/pʰǎj māː hǎː/	who come find(Who is here to see you?)
/nɯ̂ŋ/	[m̩]	after bilabial stop	ฅืบนึ่ง	/xɯ̂ːp nɯ̂ŋ/	span one(one more span)
	[n̩]	after alveolar stop	แถมขวดนึ่ง	/tʰɛ̌m xùat nɯ̂ŋ/	more bottle one(one more bottle)
	[ŋ̩]	after velar stop	แถมดอกนึ่ง	/tʰɛ̌m dɔ̀ːk nɯ̂ŋ/	more flower one(one more flower)