Does Anyone Know The Thai Norther Dialect?

[ThaiSold]

Well after almost 3 years in Chiang Mai and still can't understand what half the people here are saying (unless of course they speak central Thai) I think it's about time I learned the Northern Dialect. Only problem is I can't find one book on the subject out there. Ok I lied I did find one book http://www.thapra.lib.su.ac.th/e-book/northern_thai/ the site goes up and down a lot so don't count on it always working. But in the end the book isn't very conclusive but does deal with the 6th tone in good detail (central Thai only has 5 tones). I'm interested to learn from anyone who has learned with proficiency the northern dialect even more so if you know who to read and write the lanna script. I'd love to learn how you did it and what recourses you used.

[keo]

I found a good Peace Corps/Thailand Northern-Central Thai Dictionary online somewhere. I've got it printed, but have no idea of the online link, sorry.

It has the northern (in Thai script), then the Central Thai, then the English, and then an example Northern sentence (again in Thai script) using that word. There are some really great northern words in it, some are hilarious! For example...

สะเบิ้งสะเจ้ิง = ตกใจ = to get frightened

e.g. อู้ดังจ๋นปอสะเบิ้งสะเจ้ิง

I started learning the script, learning many of the consonants (the vowels are very similar to Thai), but kind of gave up. Finding material is pretty tough, bar the signs at the temples and (apparently) old temple scriptures. I found one book published by a westerner, but it was extremely expensive ($100+). The script IS beautiful though. Like Thai, but with the curves of Burmese. Stunning, but essentially useless. I have some flash cards somewhere if you are interested.

I've heard of there being free Northern lessons at places (meant for Thais), but never been, or met anyone who has been.

keo

[Richard W]

For proficiency in the language, I can't help you. Whenever I read Northern Thai (or Tai Khuen, for that matter) I do so on the basis of Siamese, though I do have dictionary back-up.

The script is fairly straightforward if you understand the principles of South Indian, Burmese or Khmer scripts. There are the subtle catches that a few consonants have multiple subscript forms, and that conjuncts are also used for CVC syllables.

Most teaching materials for the language and script are in Thai. I suspect the standard textbook is ภาษาเมืองส้านนา by บุญคิด วัชรศาสตร์ ISBN 974-85472-0-5 - 'the big blue book'. The standard dictionary is the Maefahluang dictionary (พจนานุกรมล้านนา-ไทย ฉบับแม่ฝ้าหลวง) ISBN 974-8539-03-4. (Its typesetting is appalling.) There are disagreements on how some vowels are to be written - I found an interesting array of views looking at the smaller textbooks, especially the handwritten ones, which I found a few years ago at DK in Chiangmai. (You may have to get the dictionary from an academic bookshop.)

Typing and displaying the script, which is named as TAI THAM in Unicode, is a bit tricky. I've rolled my own Kesmanee-based keyboards for Windows, using MSKLC, and Linux, using KMFL (with a backup of plain X for when it temperamentally fails to start). Rendering I can only do using a Graphite font. That works in OpenOffice / LibreOffice. Google has someone looking at creating a web font. I took the Lannaworld font from the Lannaworld site and added Graphite instructions so I can render text from the Unicode encoding. There are a few odd interactions I haven't been able to work out yet, and may end up making explicit, but arbitrary decisions on rendering. I'm loath to make the font public because of the copyright limitations.

[ThaiSold]

For proficiency in the language, I can't help you. Whenever I read Northern Thai (or Tai Khuen, for that matter) I do so on the basis of Siamese, though I do have dictionary back-up.

The script is fairly straightforward if you understand the principles of South Indian, Burmese or Khmer scripts. There are the subtle catches that a few consonants have multiple subscript forms, and that conjuncts are also used for CVC syllables.

Most teaching materials for the language and script are in Thai. I suspect the standard textbook is ภาษาเมืองส้านนา by บุญคิด วัชรศาสตร์ ISBN 974-85472-0-5 - 'the big blue book'. The standard dictionary is the Maefahluang dictionary (พจนานุกรมล้านนา-ไทย ฉบับแม่ฝ้าหลวง) ISBN 974-8539-03-4. (Its typesetting is appalling.) There are disagreements on how some vowels are to be written - I found an interesting array of views looking at the smaller textbooks, especially the handwritten ones, which I found a few years ago at DK in Chiangmai. (You may have to get the dictionary from an academic bookshop.)

Typing and displaying the script, which is named as TAI THAM in Unicode, is a bit tricky. I've rolled my own Kesmanee-based keyboards for Windows, using MSKLC, and Linux, using KMFL (with a backup of plain X for when it temperamentally fails to start). Rendering I can only do using a Graphite font. That works in OpenOffice / LibreOffice. Google has someone looking at creating a web font. I took the Lannaworld font from the Lannaworld site and added Graphite instructions so I can render text from the Unicode encoding. There are a few odd interactions I haven't been able to work out yet, and may end up making explicit, but arbitrary decisions on rendering. I'm loath to make the font public because of the copyright limitations.

Hi Richard, sorry if I found most of your reply quite foreign. Though the textbook ภาษาเมืองส้านนา by บุญคิด วัชรศาสตร์ you mentioned sounded interesting, you wouldn't know where i could find it would you? I've seen the teachers website before and you'd think he'd have instructions on how to get it from his site. You think they have it at the library? With your suggestion tommorrow i'll try the library at CM uni and the CM library.

[keo]

This is NOT a full set. I didn't manage to make the full set before I stopped! Cut, fold & laminate.

[keo]

Not the best quality, but it's readable!

http://www.eric.ed.gov:80/PDFS/ED401729.pdf

[Richard W]

Though the textbook ภาษาเมืองส้านนา by บุญคิด วัชรศาสตร์ you mentioned sounded interesting, you wouldn't know where i could find it would you? I've seen the teachers website before and you'd think he'd have instructions on how to get it from his site. You think they have it at the library? With your suggestion tommorrow i'll try the library at CM uni and the CM library.

The label says I got my copy from DK, but my recollection say Suriwong. I did a web search, but even taking hyphens out of the ISBN number, the most useful thing I could find is that Mae Fah Luang University has 6 copies. Perhaps it's out of print.

[Richard W]

This is NOT a full set. I didn't manage to make the full set before I stopped! Cut, fold & laminate.

For a full set of consonants and principal subscript forms, see the final full Unicode proposals. (There have been some minor changes since then - see the Unicode Standard for the final form.)

There is one typo in the flash cards - in the bottom middle chart, top left hand corner, next to จะ, the consonants don't match. The Lanna consonant give for งะ​ wasn't updated when the other consonants were.

There are a number of points I disagree with in the cards - though we can doubtless find precedent for everything Keo has kindly done.

• The high and mid consonants should have a rising tone in their names, so ป๋ะ ผ๋ะ ด๋ะ ต๋ะ ถ๋ะ ระฏ๋ะ ระฐ๋ะ ก๋ะ ข๋ะ จ๋ะ ฉ๋ะ
  
• Historically, there has been a tendency to replace some of the consonants by geminate forms. While we just have to live with that in the case of ญะ, for the modern form also occurs geminated, there are two examples where we don't. Firstly, the form given for ฌะ is actually the geminate ชฺฌะ. Secondly, the form given for ระฐ๋ะ is the geminate ฏฺฐ๋ะ. The single form has a 'base', i.e. main level, form like that of ถ๋ะ, not like that of ระฏ๋ะ. The Khuen form looks like the geminate except that it lacks the kink in the bowl - a very subtle difference.
  
• The consonant corresponding to Siamese ฉ and used for Indic /ch/ tends to be replaced by the very similar ส๋ะ, and this seems to have happened in the chart. I have seen the tua mueang alphabet quoted without a separate form for Indic /ch/. I have also seen fonts with a ฉ๋ะ very similar to ส๋ะ, apparently as a compromise, and this may be what has happened here.
  

[ThaiSold]

It seems that learning the lanna script is otherwise pointless to me, unless there is a reason why you can't use Thai script to actually sound the words out.

I really appreciate everyones repsonse but I really can't understand anything too technical. Obviously you don't need to be a linguist to be able to speak a language and that's all i'm aiming for. eg. a seven year old can speak there own language well yet still be baffled by most the comments here. Let's keep this thread real please.

[ThaiSold]

Not the best quality, but it's readable!

http://www.eric.ed.g...FS/ED401729.pdf

This is actually really helpful, though what it needs is real world conversations, I can work on that but it gives me something to work with, I guess what we really need is a learn thai handbook but just change the Thai to Lanna.

[Richard W]

It seems that learning the lanna script is otherwise pointless to me, unless there is a reason why you can't use Thai script to actually sound the words out.

There is probably little utility in learning the script just to speak the language, just as there is little point in learning Latin so as to be able to spell English words.

There are two problems to using the Thai script to sound words out:

• All the limitations of using the Thai script to sound Central Thai words out - which can largely be overcome by use of phinthu (the dot below consonants) and phonetic spellings such as เงิน็ for เงิน
  
• The sixth tone - etymologically corresponding to mai tho on high and voiceless mid consonants in Central Thai. I think that tone can be denoted by use of brackets - but I'm rather shaky on the use of the Thai script with Central Thai values to represent Northern Thai.
  

Have you learnt the regular correspondences between Siamese and Kam Mueang? A group that you might overlook is that ร in Siamese clusters leaves aspiration in KM.

[keo]

This is NOT a full set. I didn't manage to make the full set before I stopped! Cut, fold & laminate.

For a full set of consonants and principal subscript forms, see the final full Unicode proposals. (There have been some minor changes since then - see the Unicode Standard for the final form.)

There is one typo in the flash cards - in the bottom middle chart, top left hand corner, next to จะ, the consonants don't match. The Lanna consonant give for งะ​ wasn't updated when the other consonants were.

There are a number of points I disagree with in the cards - though we can doubtless find precedent for everything Keo has kindly done.

• The high and mid consonants should have a rising tone in their names, so ป๋ะ ผ๋ะ ด๋ะ ต๋ะ ถ๋ะ ระฏ๋ะ ระฐ๋ะ ก๋ะ ข๋ะ จ๋ะ ฉ๋ะ
  
• Historically, there has been a tendency to replace some of the consonants by geminate forms. While we just have to live with that in the case of ญะ, for the modern form also occurs geminated, there are two examples where we don't. Firstly, the form given for ฌะ is actually the geminate ชฺฌะ. Secondly, the form given for ระฐ๋ะ is the geminate ฏฺฐ๋ะ. The single form has a 'base', i.e. main level, form like that of ถ๋ะ, not like that of ระฏ๋ะ. The Khuen form looks like the geminate except that it lacks the kink in the bowl - a very subtle difference.
  
• The consonant corresponding to Siamese ฉ and used for Indic /ch/ tends to be replaced by the very similar ส๋ะ, and this seems to have happened in the chart. I have seen the tua mueang alphabet quoted without a separate form for Indic /ch/. I have also seen fonts with a ฉ๋ะ very similar to ส๋ะ, apparently as a compromise, and this may be what has happened here.
  

Thanks for the link to that document Richard, looks rather useful.

As for the flash cards, I merely created them using a resource I found online. You are clearly very knowledgeable in the subject of linguistics, but unfortunately I am not, and most of what you have said is way over my head!

Cheers

Edited October 17, 2011 by keo

[Richard W]

I shall try to explain things assuming less background knowledge.

The tua mueang are also known as the Tham script, for it is the script traditionally used to record Buddhist teachings, i.e. the dharma (ธรรม) in the North, from the Shan states to Laos.

The higher culture, including writing and religion, of SE Asia derived from India, with Hinduism and Buddhism and Sanskrit and Pali. The design of the Indic writing system can be seen best in it is application to open syllables consisting of a consonant and a vowel. One writes the letter for the consonant and adds a mark to indicate the vowel. This mark may be written before, below, above or after. Some vowel symbols have come to be written in two or more parts, e.g. เ-า in Thai, which historically is different from writing two or more vowel symbols, though the difference matters not. The vowel /a/ is exceedingly common in Pali and Sanskrit, so the writing system was simplified at the outset by making it the default vowel. The next refinement is to handle sequences of consonants. This was originally done by stacking them vertically, which is what South Indian Burmese, Tham and Khmer scripts still overwhelmingly do. The second consonant is termed subscript, because it is written below. (Some people call the first consonant superscript, but most people reserve that term for consonants written above the normal level.)

Combinations of consonants in this fashion are known as conjuncts, especially when they are joined. Conjuncts may be simplified – Devanagari, the script used for Hindi, is notorious for this. There is a natural tendency to simplify the forms of subscript consonants and to write them smaller than the basic form.

Pali and later Indic languages had only a limited number of sequences of consonants – a syllable ended in a vowel, a nasal consonant (m, n etc.) or the same consonant as the next syllable started with – a double consonant or geminate. (Be warned that Thai grammarians use 'dobule consonant' in a different sense.) Strictly speaking, an aspirated consonant was not doubled, for the first consonant is unaspirated. Thus one has Buddha, dukkha etc., not *Budhdha, *dukhkha. Geminate consonants are very common in Pali.

The development of the palatals, using the natural transcriptions, has been:

Oldest recorded   Lanna        Sound in
Thai, & Pali      Tone class   Std. Thai
                              script
   จ               H            จ
   ฉ               H            ส
   ช               L            จ
   ฌ               L            ช
   ญ               L            ญ (but not as ย)

Apart from ญ and ร, the spelling of Northern Thai consonants has not systematically changed since the earliest days. The Tua Mueang consonants corresponding to ฉ ส therefore represent the same sound (including tone), and, as the shapes are very similar, many refuse to distinguish them at all. (Lao has similarly dispensed with the consonant corresponding to ฉ.) This does result in the the Pali geminate /cch/ (as in gacchāmi 'I go') being written as what would be literally transliterated to the Thai script as จฺส.

[ThaiSold]

Not the best quality, but it's readable!

http://www.eric.ed.g...FS/ED401729.pdf

Problem with this dictionary there is not Thai translations for the examples to each word. nor is there an english translation for examples so it's kinda hard to follow, seems to be a lot of tonal mistakes too like the word คั่บ they spell คับ which doesn't seem right.

[Mole]

Being a native northern Thai speaker, I wouldn't really recommend anyone to study the Lanna script in order to learn "กำเมือง"

This script is very archaic and is used only in religious settings and hardly any native northerners can even read it anymore.

It is more or less only a spoken language and not a written one. You can write it using the standard Thai script but there are certain sounds which does not exist in standard Thai such as ญ which is pronounced similar to the Spanish ñ but unlike in Spanish, the northern ญ sound are usually found at the beginning of a sound/word.

Also, the slightly difference in tones is problematic to write using only the 4 standard Thai tone symbols.

Most northern Thais just write in standard Thai when they need to write something.

The best way to learn gam muang (or any language for that matter) is to try to speak it a lot and at any opportunity you can get.

[alvin80]

Being a native northern Thai speaker, I wouldn't really recommend anyone to study the Lanna script in order to learn "กำเมือง"

This script is very archaic and is used only in religious settings and hardly any native northerners can even read it anymore.

It is more or less only a spoken language and not a written one. You can write it using the standard Thai script but there are certain sounds which does not exist in standard Thai such as ญ which is pronounced similar to the Spanish ñ but unlike in Spanish, the northern ญ sound are usually found at the beginning of a sound/word.

Also, the slightly difference in tones is problematic to write using only the 4 standard Thai tone symbols.

Most northern Thais just write in standard Thai when they need to write something.

The best way to learn gam muang (or any language for that matter) is to try to speak it a lot and at any opportunity you can get.

am very keen to learn it too..i was there in the North and struggling to catch up..they could speak ภาษากลาง but often revert back unknowingly..

Nowdays i don't ahve much opportunities to listen nor much less speak it..!!

แล้อีกอย่างหนึ่ง Mole..y0ur written english is very go0d!!

[Richard W]

This script is very archaic and is used only in religious settings and hardly any native northerners can even read it anymore.

I think quite a high proportion of great grandfathers can. It's not very archaic - effective suppression seems to date to the 60's.

/ñ/ is the only problem, and it oughtn't to be such a big one.

Also, the slightly difference in tones is problematic to write using only the 4 standard Thai tone symbols.

I've seen parentheses used to indicate the high falling tone (etymological mai tho with high consonants), e.g. สน้า. It'll be a few years yet before the minority Mon-Khmer language trick of using thanthakhat as a tone mark (OK, register mark in most of these languages) will be supported.

[Richard W]

It'll be a few years yet before the minority Mon-Khmer language trick of using thanthakhat as a tone mark (OK, register mark in most of these languages) will be supported.

I apologise to Microsoft. Windows 7 has moved beyond the WTT limitations, and it may well be that Windows Vista has as well. OpenOffice and, it seems, much of Linux, still can't handle combinations like กู์. (That's ko kai with sara uu and thathakhat, which does not occur in Siamese.)

[Richard W]

Problem with this dictionary there is not Thai translations for the examples to each word. nor is there an english translation for examples so it's kinda hard to follow, seems to be a lot of tonal mistakes too like the word คั่บ they spell คับ which doesn't seem right.

Are you sure of this? (Confirmation or denial of the pronunciation from Mole would be useful.) My wife, who's from a bit further up river, says there's no difference between the Northern and r-less Central Thai pronunciations of ครับ 'yes, etc', and the Maefahluang dictionary doesn't mention any odd pronunciation.

Being a sentence particle, a change in tone since it was borrowed from Central Thai wouldn't surprise me.

One thing that surprised me is that it systematically records short dead syllables with a high initial consonant as having a high tone, rather than as a rising tone. I wonder if this is because Central Thai barely allows such a combination. Such distortions could immediately eliminate ครั่บ as a representation - rather as the RID has พรุก rather than พรุ่ก for an ancestral form of พรุ่ง 'tomorrow'.

[wandrinstar]

Its just Thai Lao Dialect, there are many, i cant understand the Ferang Waffle.A complete overkill to a simple question.

[Mole]

There is in fact a slight difference in tone.

I don't know how to explain it. But the northern neutral tone is slightly different than the standard Thai.

I would say it's something in between standard Thai neutral tone and the Chinese Mandarin neutral tone.

[wandrinstar]

Slight tone.?. Its a different language.Boon Boon Gri. Miles away, some Laos cant understand each other sometimes. But i know nothing after 25 years working with them. The answer to the O.P seems a bit Ferang Teacher to me, basicly more waffle.

[ThaiSold]

Problem with this dictionary there is not Thai translations for the examples to each word. nor is there an english translation for examples so it's kinda hard to follow, seems to be a lot of tonal mistakes too like the word คั่บ they spell คับ which doesn't seem right.

Are you sure of this? (Confirmation or denial of the pronunciation from Mole would be useful.) My wife, who's from a bit further up river, says there's no difference between the Northern and r-less Central Thai pronunciations of ครับ 'yes, etc', and the Maefahluang dictionary doesn't mention any odd pronunciation.

Being a sentence particle, a change in tone since it was borrowed from Central Thai wouldn't surprise me.

One thing that surprised me is that it systematically records short dead syllables with a high initial consonant as having a high tone, rather than as a rising tone. I wonder if this is because Central Thai barely allows such a combination. Such distortions could immediately eliminate ครั่บ as a representation - rather as the RID has พรุก rather than พรุ่ก for an ancestral form of พรุ่ง 'tomorrow'.

I'm sure there is a difference because abliet i've only been learning for 2 weeks northern people don't say the letter ร so that's the first defference between ถิ่นเหนือ and ถิ่นกลาง and although my ears arn't tone death they seem to use the lower tone when saying it I find it too difficult to ask Thai people because unless they have a PHD in Thai language they are honestly clueless. I've looked at 4 different books now and they all have different interpretations. I guess it all depends on who you ask I guess ey.

[wandrinstar]

This must be the most silly attempt at back slapping ,pedantic nonsense ,and how clever am i, Ive read here. Whats your mission here, to make fools of Ferangs in Thai eyes.They don't want your hair splitting. Wouldn't be so bad if you understood Thai, wich you clearly don't, on a hands on day to day language, and that's from someone with 40 years of Thai Lao. Mandarin my arse, wafffle on. As for Richard W, his Central remark shows hes not in touch, or living with education Thais. Would be nice if you could teach basic English whist you here. This is not intended to annoy, but reading you lot has annoyed me.

[keo]

This must be the most silly attempt at back slapping ,pedantic nonsense ,and how clever am i, Ive read here. Whats your mission here, to make fools of Ferangs in Thai eyes.They don't want your hair splitting. Wouldn't be so bad if you understood Thai, wich you clearly don't, on a hands on day to day language, and that's from someone with 40 years of Thai Lao. Mandarin my arse, wafffle on. As for Richard W, his Central remark shows hes not in touch, or living with education Thais. Would be nice if you could teach basic English whist you here. This is not intended to annoy, but reading you lot has annoyed me.

Is it a crime to be interested/have knowledge in the field of linguistics?

Would be nice if you could spell, and use punctuation, properly.

[ThaiSold]

This must be the most silly attempt at back slapping ,pedantic nonsense ,and how clever am i, Ive read here. Whats your mission here, to make fools of Ferangs in Thai eyes.They don't want your hair splitting. Wouldn't be so bad if you understood Thai, wich you clearly don't, on a hands on day to day language, and that's from someone with 40 years of Thai Lao. Mandarin my arse, wafffle on. As for Richard W, his Central remark shows hes not in touch, or living with education Thais. Would be nice if you could teach basic English whist you here. This is not intended to annoy, but reading you lot has annoyed me.

Is it a crime to be interested/have knowledge in the field of linguistics?

Would be nice if you could spell, and use punctuation, properly.

c'mon guys let's be nice i'm really trying to find out the best way way to learn the northern dialect and what resources are available.

[wandrinstar]

Indeed, it must be nice, but Ive read waffle only regarding Thai /Lao so far. the content is on Parr with my spelinz.. I initially looked to learn something factual.

[keo]

Not the best quality, but it's readable!

http://www.eric.ed.g...FS/ED401729.pdf

Problem with this dictionary there is not Thai translations for the examples to each word. nor is there an english translation for examples so it's kinda hard to follow, seems to be a lot of tonal mistakes too like the word คั่บ they spell คับ which doesn't seem right.

The examples are tough at first, but as you start to amass more northern vocabulary, they start making sense. It certainly helps now and again to have the help of a northern speaker who can speak English well.

What would be nice is if there was an audio recording of it all, like the Becker books.

คับ is just the northern ร-less version of ครับ.

Right?! Maybe it is a mistake, I don't know. I wouldn't get hung up about it.

Stick at it man, it gets easier, but I think Mole is right, it's a spoken language and you'll probably need to learn it that way!

Indeed, it must be nice, but Ive read waffle only regarding Thai /Lao so far. the content is on Parr with my spelinz.. I initially looked to learn something factual.

Well for someone who has 25 years, or 40 years or whatever, of whatever, you have very little to contribute to the thread. Except trying to insult most of the people who have contributed to it.

I think you need to learn some manners, myself.

Listen to yourself...

[/url] Its just Thai Lao Dialect, there are many, i cant understand the Ferang Waffle.A complete overkill to a simple question.

Slight tone.?. Its a different language.Boon Boon Gri. Miles away, some Laos cant understand each other sometimes. But i know nothing after 25 years working with them. The answer to the O.P seems a bit Ferang Teacher to me, basicly more waffle.

This must be the most silly attempt at back slapping ,pedantic nonsense ,and how clever am i, Ive read here. Whats your mission here, to make fools of Ferangs in Thai eyes.They don't want your hair splitting. Wouldn't be so bad if you understood Thai, wich you clearly don't, on a hands on day to day language, and that's from someone with 40 years of Thai Lao. Mandarin my arse, wafffle on. As for Richard W, his Central remark shows hes not in touch, or living with education Thais. Would be nice if you could teach basic English whist you here. This is not intended to annoy, but reading you lot has annoyed me.

[wandrinstar]

Yeah, Ive insulted the pedantic teacher element, that's all, but anyone with a brain knows you learn from living with and speaking daily.Ill ad one more insult, i change to the Kings Thai in Bkk , it sounds as if you live with a Bar Girl if you use a dialect , but just shoot the messenger, those who cant do Teach.According to the Lao Pilot of the Air Ambulance i flew with 20 odd years ago,there were 14 active Lao Dialects.You know when you have cracked the Dialect Codes the Locals fall about laughing, with you not at you. No PHD Required.

[Richard W]

Not the best quality, but it's readable!

http://www.eric.ed.g...FS/ED401729.pdf

Problem with this dictionary there is not Thai translations for the examples to each word. nor is there an english translation for examples so it's kinda hard to follow, seems to be a lot of tonal mistakes too like the word คั่บ they spell คับ which doesn't seem right.

In this post I will describe the main correspondences between Northern and Standard Thai and apply them to the issue of the tones in the Peace Corps dictionary. It gets a bit technical, but I haven't worked out how to make it simpler.

When discussing the tones of Tai dialects, it is helpful to classify words occurring in several dialects by the 'original' type of the initial consonant and the tone mark the word ought to have received in Thai when first written. (Words that cannot be projected back to Proto-Tai need not fit this scheme.)

There are four divisions by tone, conventionally labelled:

A: live with no tone

B: live with mai ek

C: live with mai tho

D: dead syllables with no tone mark.

Mai tri, mai chattawa and dead syllables with tone marks are later additions to handle words that do not fit the original pattern.

The types of the original consonants are numbered according to a generalised tone class. A 4-way divisions works for the dialects of Thailand. In this scheme, the high consonants are numbered 1, the consonants that are mid in Central Thai but high in Northern Thai are numbered 2, universally mid consonants are numbered 3, and the low consonants are numbered 4. Finally dead syllables are split onto short (S) and long (L), for the vowel length at some point in the word's history has usually affected the tones, e.g. the Thai tone rules.

What would be nice is if there was an audio recording of it all, like the Becker books.

This is the scheme used at a Thai dialect site. The control table at the foot gives examples of each combination. Don't forget to select the region and voice before you play a recording, or else it will misleadingly 404 on you.

This classification can be used to name the tone that words matching the description have. Obviously some phonetic tones will receive multiple names - no Tai dialect has 20 tones!

Five of the six tones on Northern Thai live syllables are traditionally identified with the corresponding Siamese tones - A1 (rising), A4 (mid), B1 (low), B4 (falling) and C4 (high). This leaves C1-3 as the famous sixth tone. Note that while A1 is the 'same' tone in Northern and Standard Thai (e.g. [R]haa 'find, look for'), A2 is the same as A1 in Northern Thai but is the same as A4 in Standard Thai, so we have Northern Thai [R]paa corresponding to Siamese [M]plaa. Otherwise, the phonetic identities are as in Standard Thai - A3 = A4, B1 = B2 = B3 and C1 = C2 = C3.

(Note that although A2 and A3 are the same in Central Thai, there are, or were in the 60's, Central Thai dialects (e.g. U Thong) in which they were different from both A1 and A4.)

The DxL tones present no problem - both Northern and Standard Thai exhibit the widespread behaviour that DxL = Bx. (The Isan-Lao tendency of DxL = Cx is unusual amongst Tai-Kadai dialects.)

The DxS tones are more troublesome. D4S is traditionally identified with C4 (high), but actually they are phonetically different in both Northern and Standard Thai. Whereas D1-3S is the same as D1-3L in Standard Thai (i.e. both are low), D103S is different from D1-3L in Northern Thai. For the Chiangmai dialect, it is identified with the A1-2 tone.

In case anyone interested is unaware of the correspondences, I will now list the significant correspondences of the initial consonants. For the most part, one can treat Northern Thai as being derived from Standard Thai spelling, and indeed, the first five are reading rules for Northern Thai in the Lanna script.

1. The most striking difference, and one that causes problems when trying to write Northern Thai in the Thai script using Siamese sound values, is that the low consonants ค ช ฑ(?) ท พ lose their aspiration. (Historically, they never had it.)
   This change did not affect ฅ (kho khon). As Standard Thai has replaced ฅ by ค, the apparent effect is that ค sometimes preserves its aspiration. Note that this change does not affect ฆ ฌ ฒ ธ ภ.
   
2. ร becomes /h/ in Northern Thai. As the second element of a cluster, this /h/ aspirates the consonant, whereas in Lao it is simply lost. In Pali/Sanskrit words, and some loans from Siamese, this change has been resisted (except when the second element of a cluster), and borrowed /r/ has become /l/, as in Lao.
   
3. ล is lost as the second element of a pure cluster. (This has no effect where a vowel is inserted in an impure cluster, or in clusters with ห nam.)
   
4. ฉ merged with ส and ฌ with ซ. (In some parts, ช merged with ซ as in Lao instead of becoming the low counterpart of จ. I wonder if this is a case of Lao becoming assimilated to Nuea!)
   
5. Northern Thai /kh/ is pronounced as a fricative.
   
6. Standard Thai lost the consonant difference between the mid consonant อย on one hand and low ย, low ญ and high หญ on the other. Northern Thai (and Lao) distinguish them as /y/ and /ny/. With four exceptions, Standard Thai then replaced อย by ย or หย, often simplifying อย้ to ย่.
   The only practical rules to rescue from this are that if Standard Thai has a high or rising tone, or has ญ, or has falling tone on a dead syllable, then Northern Thai (and Lao) will have /ny/. Otherwise, one cannot predict from Standard Thai whether Northern Thai will have /y/ or /ny/.
   

One problem with the correspondences is that Standard Thai may write a falling tone with mai ek when etymologically it should be written with mai tho. My favourite examples are ฆ่า 'to kill', เฒ่า 'old' and โซ่ 'fetter'.

I will now give my observations to date on the tones in the Peace Corps dictionary. So far I have only studied the first eight pages in detail.

For live syllables, the Thai writing systems presents no mechanism for distinguishing the C2 tone (6th tone) from the B4 tone (falling) on live syllables. For example, Northern Thai [6]kaa (cognate with Siamese กล้า [F]klaa) 'brave') and Northern Thai [F]kaa (cognate with Siamese ค่า) cost are both written as ก้า. Apart from this major issue, I see no problems with the tones on live syllables.

The ambiguity should be restricted to (Siamese) mid consonants, for mai tho on a high consonant should indicate the 6th tone and on a low consonant should indicate the falling tone, and this works for the pages I have examined. Short of listening to speakers, the method of resolution is to look for a cognate in Standard Thai. If that cognate has a mid consonant, the tone is the 6th tone; if it has a low consonant, the tone is the falling tone. This rule can be fooled by unetymological spellings, such as that of Siamese นึ่ง [FS]nueng 'to steam', which by its etymology should be written with mai tho, as in the Northern Thai script.

One oddity is Northern Thai คว่าง corresponding to Siamese ขว้าง as in Siamese ทิ้งขว้าง 'to throw'. As the first element of the latter *has* been borrowed into Northern Thai from Siamese (it preserves the aspiration), and the limited comparative evidence supports C1 as opposed to B4, I suspect Northern Thai has also borrowed the second element from Siamese.

For dead consonants, the only problem I can see is that both D2S and D4S are written as high tones, leading to unnecessary irresolvable confusion when the initial consonant is one of ก ต ป. Given this decision, there are still some odd spellings, such as แค้บ for [RS]khaep 'shoe' and ขี้เห๊อะ for [R]khii [HS]hoe 'rubbish', when แค็บ and ขี้เฮอะ would do. (I contend that the former should be transcribed แข๋บ็.) It'll be a few days before I'm in a position to publish my full set of tone interpretations.