Northern Thai language

Northern Thai, also called Kam Mueang, Lanna or Tai Yuan, is the language spoken by the Northern Thai people of Thailand. It is a Southwestern Tai language. The language has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in Northern Thailand, with a smaller community of speakers in northwestern Laos.
Speakers of this language generally consider the name "Tai Yuan" to be pejorative. They refer to themselves as Khon Mueang, Lanna, or Northern Thai. The language is also sometimes referred to as Phayap, "Northwestern ".
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, and when used in writing standard Thai script is invariably used. The modern spoken form is called Kam Mueang. There is a resurgence of interest in writing it in the traditional way, but the modern pronunciation differs from that prescribed in spelling rules.File:Lanna cm2.jpg|thumb|Nameboard of a Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai written with Tai Tham script: Wat Mokhamtuang

Classification

Northern Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen branch, a model popularized by foundational linguists such as Fang-Kuei Li and Marvin Brown, others being Thai, Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages. The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family, which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border.
From a purely genealogical standpoint, most linguists consider Northern Thai to be more closely related to Central Thai than to Lao or Isan, but the language has been heavily influenced by both Lao and Central Thai throughout history. All Southwestern Tai languages form a coherent dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible varieties, with few sharp dividing lines. However, this genealogical classification is increasingly contested by modern scholars. Critics argue that these groupings may reflect political "Thaification" and a drive for national unity rather than purely linguistic history. While the Chiang Saen group is the standard model, it often masks the closer historical ties Northern Thai has with the Lao-Phutai branch. Nevertheless, Northern Thai has today become closer to the Central Thai language, as Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand.

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, or phasa Lan Na.
In Central Thai and Southern Thai, Northern Thai is known as phasa thin phayap, or phasa thai thin nuea.
In Lao, it is known as phasa nyuan or phasa nyon.
In Tai Lü, it is known as kam yon.
In Shan it is known as kwam yon.

History

Tai migration

The ancestors of the Northern Thai people were speakers of Southwestern Tai dialects that migrated from what is now southeastern China, specifically what is now Guangxi and northern Vietnam where the diversity of various Tai languages suggests an Urheimat. The Southwestern Tai languages began to diverge from the Northern and Central branches of the Tai languages, covered mainly by various Zhuang languages, sometime around 112 AD, but likely completed by the sixth century. Due to the influx of Han Chinese soldiers and settlers, the end of the Chinese occupation of Vietnam, the fall of Jiaozhi and turbulence associated with the decline and fall of the Tang dynasty led some of the Tai peoples speaking Southwestern Tai to flee into Southeast Asia, with the small-scale migration mainly taking place between the eighth and twelfth centuries. The Tais split and followed the major river courses, with the ancestral Northern Thai originating in the Tai migrants that followed the Mekong River.

Indianized kingdoms

Ancestors of the Northern Thai people established Ngoenyang, an early kingdom that existed between the 7th to 13th centuries, as well as smaller kingdoms like Phayao, in what is now modern-day northern Thailand. They settled in areas adjacent to the kingdom of Hariphunchai, coming into contact with Mon-speaking people whose writing system was eventually adapted for the Northern Thai language as the Tai Tham script. In the 13th century, King Mangrai consolidated control of these territories, establishing the kingdom of Lan Na. In the 15th century, King Tilokkarat ushered in a golden age for Northern Thai literature, with a profusion of palm leaf manuscripts written in Tai Tham, using vernacular Northern Thai and interspersed with Pali and Buddhist Indic vocabulary.

Thai subordination

In 1775, Kawila of Lampang revolted with Siamese assistance, and captured the city, ending 200 years of Burmese rule. Kawila was installed as the prince of Lampang and Phraya Chaban as the prince of Chiang Mai, both as vassals of Siam. In 1899, Siam annexed the Northern Thai principalities, effectively dissolving their status as sovereign tributary states.
The Compulsory Education Act of 1921 banned schools and temples from using languages other than Central Thai, in an effort to bring remote regions under Siamese control. Northern Thai was relegated from the public sphere, with influential religious leaders like Khruba Srivichai jailed for using Northern Thai in sermons. In the 1940s, authorities promulgated Thai cultural mandates that reinforced the importance of learning and using Central Thai as the prestige language.
These economic and educational pressures have increased the use of standard Thai to the detriment of other regional languages like Northern Thai. Today, Northern Thai is typically code-switched with standard Thai, especially in more developed and urbanized areas of Northern Thailand, whereas exclusive use of Northern Thai remains prevalent in more remote areas.

Dialects

Thanajirawat classifies Tai Yuan into five major dialect groups based on tonal split and merger patterns.

most Tai Yuan varieties in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar
Bokeo Province, Laos
Mae Chaem District, Chiang Mai Province and Laplae District, Uttaradit Province, Thailand
Tha Pla District, Uttaradit Province and Xayaburi Province, Laos
Ratchaburi Province, Thailand

Phonology

Consonants

Initial consonants

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

Initial consonant clusters

There are two relatively common consonant clusters:

/kw/
/kʰw/

There are also several other, less frequent clusters recorded, though apparently in the process of being lost:

/ŋw/
/tɕw/
/sw/
/tw/
/tʰw/
/nw/
/ɲw/
/jw/
/lw/
/ʔw/

Final consonants

All plosive sounds are unreleased. Hence, final,, and sounds are pronounced as,, and respectively.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	ม	ญ, ณ, น, ร, ล, ฬ		ง
Plosive	บ, ป, พ, ฟ, ภ	จ, ช, ซ, ฌ, ฎ, ฏ, ฐ, ฑ, ฒ,ด, ต, ถ, ท, ธ, ศ, ษ, ส		ก, ข, ค, ฆ
Approximant	ว		ย

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.
The vowels each exist in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Northern Thai, but usually transliterated the same: เขา means "they/them", while ขาว means "white".
The long-short pairs are as follows:
The basic vowels can be combined into diphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:
Additionally, there are three triphthongs, For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Thai script	IPA
เ–ียว*
–วย*
เ–ือย*

Allophones

The following section largely concerns the Nan dialect of Northern Thai.

Phoneme	Allophone	Context	Example	Example	IPA	Gloss
		onset		บ่า		shoulder
		onset		ดอย		mountain
		onset		ป่า		forest
		coda		อาบ		bath
		coda, emphasised		บ่หลับ		don't sleep!
		onset		ตา		eye
		coda		เปิด		open
		coda, emphasised		บ่เผ็ด		not spicy!
		onset		กา		crow
		coda		ปีก		wing
		coda, emphasised		บ่สุก		not ripe!
		before non-front vowels		แขก		guest
		before front vowels		ฅิง		you
		onset		ซาว		twenty
		under emphasis		สาทุ		surely
		non-intervocalic		ห้า		five
		intervocalic		ใผมาหา		who come find
		after bilabial stop		ฅืบนึ่ง		span one
		after alveolar stop		แถมขวดนึ่ง		more bottle one
		after velar stop		แถมดอกนึ่ง		more flower one

Tones

There are six phonemic tones in the Chiang Mai dialect of Northern Thai: low-rising, low-falling, high-level with glottal closure, mid-level, high-falling, and high-rising. or low-rising, mid-low, high-falling, mid-high, falling, and high rising-falling

Contrastive tones in smooth syllables

The table below presents six phonemic tones in the Chiang Mai dialects in smooth syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in sonorant sounds such as , , , , and and open syllables. Sources have not agreed on the phonetic realization of the six tones in the Chiang Mai dialect. The table presents information based on two sources, one from Gedney and the other one from the Lanna dictionary which is a Northern Thai-Thai dictionary. Although published in 1999, Gedney's information about the Chiang Mai dialect is based on data he collected from one speaker in Chiang Mai in 1964. As tones may change within one's lifetime, the information about the six tones from Gedney should be considered with caution.
The Gedney boxes for the tones are shown below the descriptions.

Contrastive tones in checked syllables

The table below presents four phonemic tones in checked syllables, i.e. closed syllables ending in a glottal stop and obstruent sounds such as , , and .

Tone	Standard Thai Tone Equated to	Example	Example	Phonemic	Phonetic	gloss
low-rising	rising		หลั๋ก			post
high-rising	high		ลัก			steal
low-falling	low		หลาก			differ from others
high-falling	falling		ลาก			drag

Grammar

The grammar of Northern Thai is similar to those of other Tai languages. The word order is subject–verb–object, although the subject is often omitted. Just as Standard Thai, Northern Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.

Adjectives and adverbs

There is no morphological distinction between adverbs and adjectives. Many words can be used in either function. They succeed the word which they modify, which may be a noun, verb, or another adjective or adverb.

/ แม่ญิงเฒ่า an old woman
/ แม่ญิงตี้เฒ่าโวย a woman who became old quickly

Because adjectives can be used as complete predicates, many words used to indicate tense in verbs may be used to describe adjectives.

/ ข้าหิว I am hungry.
/ ข้าจะหิว I will be hungry.
/ ข้ากะลังหิว I am hungry right now.
/ ข้าหิวแล้ว ''I am already hungry.''

Verbs

s do not inflect. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number; nor are there any participles.

/ ข้าตี๋เปิ้น, I hit him.
/ เปิ้นตี๋ข้า, He hit me.

The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of / โดน before the verb. For example:

/ เปิ้นโดนตี๋, He is hit or He got hit. This describes an action that is out of the receiver's control and, thus, conveys suffering.

To convey the opposite sense, a sense of having an opportunity arrive, / ได้ is used. For example:

/ เปิ้นจะได้ไปแอ่วเมืองลาว, He gets to visit Laos.
/ เปิ้นตี๋ได้, He is/was allowed to hit or He is/was able to hit

Negation is indicated by placing บ่ before the verb.

/ เปิ้นบ่ตี๋, He is not hitting. or He not hit.

Aspect is conveyed by aspect markers before or after the verb.
Aspect markers are not required.
Words that indicate obligation include at cha, na cha, khuan cha, and tong.

at cha ''Might
na cha Likely to
khuan cha Should
tong Must

Actions that wherein one is busily engaged can be indicated by มัวก่า.
Words that express one's desire to do something can by indicated by khai and kan.

khai
kan

Phor tha wa'' is used to give the impression or sensation of being something or having a particular quality.

Final particles

Northern Thai has a number of final particles, which have different functions.

Interrogative particles

Some of the most common interrogative particles are kor and ka

kor
''ka''

Imperative particles

Some imperative particles are , , and .
lae
chim
hia
''toe''

Polite particles

Polite particles include and .

khap
''chao''

Nouns

s are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles.
Nouns are neither singular nor plural. Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: / ละอ่อน is often repeated as ละอ่อน ๆ to refer to a group of children.
The word / หมู่ may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word., masculine; / หมู่เฮา mu hao,, emphasised we; / หมู่หมา mu ma,, ''.
Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers, used as measure words, in the form of noun-number-classifier.

Pronouns

Pronouns may be omitted once they have already been established in the first sentence, unless the pronoun in the following sentences is different from the first sentence. The pronoun "you" may also be omitted if the speaker is speaking directly to a second person. Moreover, names may replace pronouns, and they can even replace the first person singular pronoun.

Person	Tai Tham script	Thai script	Transliteration	Phonemic	Phonetic	Meaning
first		กู	ku	/kūː/		I/me
first		ฮา	ha	/hāː/		I/me
first		ข้า	kha	/kʰa᷇ː/		I/me. Literally "servant, slave".
first		ผู้ข้า	phukha	/pʰu᷇ː.kʰa᷇ː/		I/me
first		ข้าน้อย	kha noi	/kʰa᷇ː nɔ́ːj/		I/me
first		ข้าเจ้า	kha chao	/kʰa᷇ː tɕa᷇w/		I/me
first		ข้าผะเจ้า	khaphachao	/kʰa᷇ː.pʰa.tɕa᷇w/		I/me
first		เฮา	hao	/hāw/		we/us
first		ตู๋	tu	/tǔː/		we/us
second		มึง	muenɡ	/mɯ̄ŋ/		you
second		ฅิง	khing	/kʰīŋ/		you
second		ตั๋ว	tua	/tǔa/		you
second		เจ้า	chao	/tɕa᷇w/		you. Literally "master, lord"
second		สู	su	/sǔː/		you
second		สูเขา	su khao	/sǔː kʰǎw/		you
second		สูเจ้า	su chao	/sǔː tɕa᷇w/		you
third		มัน	man	/mān/		it, he/she
third		เขา	khao	/kʰǎw/		they/them
third		เปิ้น	poen	/pɤ̂n/		he/she, others
third		ต้าน	tan	/tâːn/		he/she, you, others
reflexive		ตั๋วเก่า	tua kaw	/tǔa kàw/		oneself

Vocabulary

Northern Thai shares much vocabulary with Standard Thai, especially scientific terms, which draw many prefixes and suffixes from Sanskrit and Pali, and it also has its own distinctive words. Just like Thai and Lao, Northern Thai has borrowed many loanwords from Khmer, Sanskrit, and Pali.

word	gloss	origin
ของกิ๋น	food	native Tai word
อาหาร	food	Pali and/or Sanskrit
ก่ำเนิด	birth	Khmer

Writing system

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 or tua tham. 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.
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-mid falling tone and high-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 and is lost when written in Thai since as only is permitted. Consequently, the meaning of ก้า is ambiguous as it can mean both "to be brave" and "value". Similarly, and have the same problem and only 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 and Standard Thai

The tables below present the differences between Northern Thai and Standard Thai.

Different sounds

Unlike Northern Thai, Standard Thai lacks alveolo-palatal nasal sound. Thus, the alveolo-palatal nasal sound and the palatal approximant sound in Northern Thai both correspond to the palatal approximant sound in Standard Thai:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss	note
ยาก		difficult	cf.
ยุง		mosquito	cf.
ยาว		long	cf.
ยา		medicine	cf.
อยาก		desire	cf.
อย่าง		manner, way	cf.

Unlike Northern Thai, Standard Thai lacks a high-mid-falling tone. The high-mid falling tone and high-falling tone in Northern Thai both correspond to the falling tone in Standard Thai.

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss
บ้าน		village, home
ห้า		five
เจ้า		master, lord, you
เหล้า		alcohol
เล่า		tell

Different words

Many words differ from Standard Thai greatly:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss	note
ยี่สิบ	ซาว	twenty	cf. "twenty" and Shan: "twenty"
พูด	อู้	speak
พี่ชาย	อ้าย	older brother	cf. "older brother" and Shan: "eldest brother, first born son"
ท้ายทอย	ง่อน	nape	cf. "nape"
จมูก	ดัง	nose	cf. "nose", Standard Thai: ดั้ง "nasal bridge".
ทำ	/ ยะ/เยียะ	do
ดู	ผ่อ	look	cf. "to see, to look" and Tai Lü: "to see, to look"
เที่ยว	แอ่ว	visit, travel	cf. Tai Lü: "to visit, to travel"
เนื้อ	จิ๊น	meat	cf. "meat"
ไม่	บ่อ	no	cf. "no, not"
ชอบ	มัก	like	cf. "to like"
มาก	นัก	much, many
เดิน	เตียว	walk	cf. Tai Lü: "to walk"
วิ่ง	ล่น	run
หัวเราะ	ใค่หัว	laugh	cf. Tai Lü: "to laugh"
สนุก	ม่วน	funny, amusing	cf. "fun, amusing, pleasant", Tai Lü: "fun, amusing, pleasant", and Shan: "fun, amusing, pleasant"
โกหก	จุ๋	lie	cf. Tai Lü: "to lie, to deceive"
อะไร	อะหยัง	what	cf. "what"
เด็ก	ละอ่อน	child	cf. Tai Lü: "child, young offspring"
พระ	ตุ๊เจ้า	Buddhist monk	cf. Tai Lü: "Buddhist monk"

Similar words

There is not a straightforward correspondence between the tones of Northern and Standard Thai. It also depends on the initial consonant, as can be seen from the merged Gedney tone boxes for Standard Thai and the accent of Chiang Mai:
Note that the commonalities between columns are features of the Chiang Mai accent. On the other hand, the relationships between rows are typical of Northern Thai, being found for at least for Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phayao,
Nan and Prae, and extending at least to Tak and the old 6-tone accent of Tai Khuen, except that the checked syllables of Chiang Rai are more complicated.
The primary function of a tone box is etymological. However, it also serves as a summary of the rules for tone indication when the writing system is essentially etymological in that regard, as is the case with the major Tai-language writing systems using the Thai, Lanna, New Tai Lue, Lao and Tai Dam scripts.
Some words differ only as a result of the regular tone correspondences:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss
หก	ห๋ก	six
เจ็ด	เจ๋ด	seven
สิบ	สิ๋บ	ten
เป็น	เป๋น	be
กิน	กิ๋น	eat

Other tone differences are unpredictable, such as:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss
หนึ่ง	นึ่ง	one

Some words differ in a single sound and associated tone. In many words, the initial ร in Standard Thai corresponds to ฮ in Northern Thai:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss	note
ร้อน	ฮ้อน	hot	cf. Lao: ຮ້ອນ "to be hot" and Shan: "to be hot"
รัก	ฮัก	love	cf. Lao: ຮັກ "to love" and Shan: "to love"
รู้	ฮู้	know	cf. Lao: ຮູ້ "know" and Shan: "know"

Aspiration of initial consonants

Some aspirated consonants in the low-class consonant group in Standard Thai correspond to unaspirated sounds in Northern Thai. These sounds include ค, ช, ท, and พ, but sounds such as ฅ, คร, ฆ, ฒ, พร, ภ remain aspirated. Such aspirated consonants that are unaspirated in Northern Thai correspond to unaspirated voiced sounds in Proto-Tai which are *ɡ, *ɟ, *d, and *b.:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss	note
เชียงราย	เจียงฮาย	Chiang Rai city and province	cf. Tai Lü: "Chiang Rai"
คิด	กึ๊ด	think	cf. Tai Lü: "to think"
ช้อน	จ๊อน	spoon	cf. Tai Lü: "spoon"
ใช้	ใจ๊	use	cf. Shan: "to use", Tai Lü: "to use"
พ่อ	ป้อ	father	cf. Shan: "father", Tai Lü: "father"
ทาง	ตาง	way	cf. Shan: "way", Tai Lü: "way"

But not:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss	note
โฆษณา	โฆษณา	commercial, advertisement	cf. Tai Lü: "advertisement"
ภาษา	ภาษา	language	cf. Tai Lü: "nationality"
วัฒนธรรม	วัฒนธัมม์	culture	cf. Tai Lü: "culture"
ธรรม	ธัมม์	Dharma	cf. Tai Lü: "Dharma"

Though a number of aspirated consonants in Standard Thai often correspond to unaspirated sounds in Northern Thai, when an unaspirated consonant is followed by ร the unaspirated consonant becomes aspirated:

Standard Thai	Northern Thai	gloss	note
ประเทศ	ผะเต้ศ	country	cf. Tai Lü: "country"
กราบ	ขาบ	kowtow, prostrate	cf. Tai Lü: "to prostrate oneself"
ปราสาท	ผาสาท	palace	cf. Tai Lü: "palace"