Does Anyone Know The Thai Norther Dialect?

[Mole]

Yes, it's actually spelled อักษร without อ

อักษรต่ำ and อักษรสูง can never be written with ๊ and ๋

In order to use the ๋ tone on low consonants, you have to put in a high consonant in front (most of the time ห)

I'm surprised you even ask this question if you can write ลั๋บ, which is NO, this combination is grammatically incorrect. I think this is one of the first rules which you learn because it's fixed with no exceptions.

ONLY mid consonants can be written with ๊ and ๋.

Didn't I just wrote about this in my previous post? I'm gonna quote myself then so this rule is also drilled in your head.

high tone consonants as well as low tone consonants can not be written with ๊

only neutral consonants กดตบปอจ can be written with ๊

If you write หม้ด, it would have been read exactly the same as ม่ด and obviously not correct tone.

Similar situation if you write หน้า or น่า and they are read exactly the same with the same tone.

มด is correct because it would be read with the same tone as the other words you listed.

[Richard W]

ONLY mid consonants can be written with ๊ and ๋.

All the short typed explanations I've seen of Northern Thai pronunciation use mai chattawa on dead syllables starting with high consonants - most notably the following:

พจนานุกรมล้านนา ~ไทย ฉบับแม่ฟ้าหลวง by อุดม รุ่งเรืองศรี - when naming the letters

Northern Thai Dictionary of Palm-Leaf Manuscripts - when giving pronunciations in the Thai script (it also uses the IPA, which avoids ambiguity)

ภาษาเมืองล้านนา ฉบับเรียนด้วยตนเอง by บุญคิด วัชรศาสตร์ - when naming the letters

If you write หม้ด, it would have been read exactly the same as ม่ด and obviously not correct tone.

...

มด is correct because it would be read with the same tone as the other words you listed.

This is where I am calling on your knowledge - it was conceivable that the word might have an unexpected tone. It is an inconvenient fact that correspondences can be unexpectedly irregular - think of the English vowels in 'mood', 'good' and 'flood' (these once rhymed) and the strange sound of 'u' in English 'bury'. A Thai example is that standard Thai for 'woman' is หญิง but the Northern Thai word is ญิง. Lao has both forms!

There are some odd tones in the Peace Corps dictionary - for example, the word for younger sibling is recorded as หน้อง, which implies the tone of words such as หน้า 'face', เสื้อ 'clothing', ข้าว 'rice', ห้า 'five' and ผ้า 'cloth'.

[Mole]

Your dictionary has a peculiar way to write things.

They might as well have written it น่อง which would have been read exactly the same as หน้อง

I find it even stranger that they choose to write that word like this.

น้อง in muang is pronounced identical to standard Thai as far as I can tell (say).

You should consult with someone knowledgeable in written Thai that you trust so you can get your confirmation that ๊ and ๋ is only used for mid consonants. Never on high and low.

Also, ญิง in muang is always said with แม่ญิง which is equivalent to standard Thai ผู้หญิง

In standard Thai, you can say only หญิง depending on context, but in muang, as far as I can think of, it's always said as แม่ญิง no matter context.

Same goes for ผู้ชาย which is ป้อจาย

ญิง alone would also mean to shoot or ยิง in standard Thai.

Edited November 11, 2011 by Mole

[SimonN]

You should consult with someone knowledgeable in written Thai that you trust so you can get your confirmation that ๊ and ๋ is only used for mid consonants. Never on high and low.

It central Thai, yes. But can't these rules change when the Thai alphabet is used to represent other dialects?

[meadish_sweetball]

I noticed that Richard W has worked on an annotated retyping of the Peace Corps dictionary, available on his website. I asked his permission to post the link here for reference. Since it is a work in progress, I believe corrections are welcome. Looks like a great resource! http://homepage.ntlworld.com/richard.wordingham/lanna/peace_corps_dictionary.pdf

[konjianghai]

Your dictionary has a peculiar way to write things.

They might as well have written it น่อง which would have been read exactly the same as หน้อง

I find it even stranger that they choose to write that word like this.

น้อง in muang is pronounced identical to standard Thai as far as I can tell (say).

You should consult with someone knowledgeable in written Thai that you trust so you can get your confirmation that ๊ and ๋ is only used for mid consonants. Never on high and low.

Also, ญิง in muang is always said with แม่ญิง which is equivalent to standard Thai ผู้หญิง

In standard Thai, you can say only หญิง depending on context, but in muang, as far as I can think of, it's always said as แม่ญิง no matter context.

Same goes for ผู้ชาย which is ป้อจาย

ญิง alone would also mean to shoot or ยิง in standard Thai.

น้อง in muang is pronounced identical to standard Thai as far as I can tell (say).

Is different on tones. As now modern Kam Muang like how we speaking today is under Central Thai influence. Alot, it effects our accent. Dialect of 100-200 years ago are so much pure then today.

I'm not sure from which province you're from and today i made a video about this word.

I never in my life speak น้อง in same tone like Central Thai. Maybe you do if you're from Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai accent is more to Central Thai side.

Would like every one to take a look at my clip.

http://youtu.be/U647N1QRRt4

As many times we all know when using Thai alphabets to write Northern Thai it will never give the correct sound.

Look at how some of the members trying to suggest which way to best write down... some words can write many ways and sound the same. so is there any point to trying correct each other?

There's no standard Northern Thai. Since people speaking all a little different. Hate to say it but it is.

All of those books were base on who knows which location. Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai or where ever?

To us native speakers we know when reading how they sound.

For non native speaker they couldnt know unless they heard by ears.

To say in general i don't want people who wanted to learn taking anything literally on some of the textbook. What they need to do is learn to listen to the accents around them. Since those textbook are written in Thai alphabets. You could not have the exact written word for the sounds (tones).

Oh even some say we speak with 6 tones...look carefully up i belive we do sometime speak more to up our normal 8 tones.

Specially on Buddhist textbook or chanting. I'll try to look up for this.

Edited November 11, 2011 by konjianghai

[SimonN]

Indeed, a great resource. I did notice one error while I was scrolling through, the entry for หลืด, translation should be เคยชิน.

[konjianghai]

ONLY mid consonants can be written with ๊ and ๋.

All the short typed explanations I've seen of Northern Thai pronunciation use mai chattawa on dead syllables starting with high consonants - most notably the following:

พจนานุกรมล้านนา ~ไทย ฉบับแม่ฟ้าหลวง by อุดม รุ่งเรืองศรี - when naming the letters

Northern Thai Dictionary of Palm-Leaf Manuscripts - when giving pronunciations in the Thai script (it also uses the IPA, which avoids ambiguity)

ภาษาเมืองล้านนา ฉบับเรียนด้วยตนเอง by บุญคิด วัชรศาสตร์ - when naming the letters

If you write หม้ด, it would have been read exactly the same as ม่ด and obviously not correct tone.

...

มด is correct because it would be read with the same tone as the other words you listed.

This is where I am calling on your knowledge - it was conceivable that the word might have an unexpected tone. It is an inconvenient fact that correspondences can be unexpectedly irregular - think of the English vowels in 'mood', 'good' and 'flood' (these once rhymed) and the strange sound of 'u' in English 'bury'. A Thai example is that standard Thai for 'woman' is หญิง but the Northern Thai word is ญิง. Lao has both forms!

There are some odd tones in the Peace Corps dictionary - for example, the word for younger sibling is recorded as หน้อง, which implies the tone of words such as หน้า 'face', เสื้อ 'clothing', ข้าว 'rice', ห้า 'five' and ผ้า 'cloth'.

หน้อง, is like how i speak in short version or long version. Best word to spell down. I speak with 2 tones down.

หน้า speaking in higher tone then Central Thai try speak it 1 tone higher.

เสื้อ trying to speak 1 tone down with this.

ข้าว best to write as เข้า and speak Ouch but no ch...now as Kou with 2 tones lower and curl your sound a little

ห้า write as ฮ้า speak with 1 tone higher

Edited November 11, 2011 by konjianghai

[Richard W]

Indeed, a great resource. I did notice one error while I was scrolling through, the entry for หลืด, translation should be เคยชิน.

Thank you. Typo fixed, correction will be in next upload (within the next 12 hours).

[Richard W]

There's no standard Northern Thai. Since people speaking all a little different. Hate to say it but it is.

All of those books were base on who knows which location. Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai or where ever?

There's no single standard for English, but we can usually say whether two words have the same vowel in most accents. All I'm trying to establish at the moment is sameness or difference of tones, not a description of tones. It does not matter whether a tone is the same as a Bangkok tone or as a Luang Prabang tone. (I do intend to ask about vowel lengths, but I would be completely unsurprised to find that there are big differences in some cases.)

To say in general i don't want people who wanted to learn taking anything literally on some of the textbook. What they need to do is learn to listen to the accents around them. Since those textbook are written in Thai alphabets. You could not have the exact written word for the sounds (tones).

What you certainly hope for from a writing system is it that will tell you enough to pronounce words once you have learnt the accent. The one major problem I am aware of is that one needs an extra tone mark. I'm pretty sure I've seen parentheses used to indicate the 6th tone. One could use underlining, and, if you are bold enough, Microsoft will now let you use thanthakhat. (I've seen materials for one of the minority languages that lists thanthakhat as a tone mark, for that is how it is proposed to use it - see p21 of Orthography Design for Chong.) The Tai Lue of Laos have a similar problem using the Lao script with roughly Lao sound values, and they have solved it by using the Lao mai chattawa alongside other tone marks.

Edited November 11, 2011 by Richard W

[Richard W]

You should consult with someone knowledgeable in written Thai that you trust so you can get your confirmation that ๊ and ๋ is only used for mid consonants. Never on high and low.

The Royal Institute Dictionary gives the following exemplars of tone indication:

กา ก่า ก้า ก๊า ก๋า (live)

จะ จ้ะ จ๊ะ จ๋ะ (dead, both short and long)

คา ค่า ค้า (live)

คะ ค่ะ ค๋ะ (dead, short)

คาก ค้าก ค๋าก (dead, long)

ขา ข่า ข้า (live)

ขะ ข้ะ (dead, both short and long)

I guess that changes the tua mueang names from ก๋ะ ข๋ะ ฃ๋ะ กะ ฅะ ฆะ งะ... to ก๋ะ ค๋ะ ฅ๋ะ ก๊ะ ฅะ ฆะ งะ...

[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.

When I had only worked through only 8 pages I thought it was quite reasonable (though horribly ambiguous), but having worked through all the words there do seem to be quite a few errors. I'll list what I've found, and hope for confirmation or refutation from the experts. I don't want to call something wrong just because different parts of the North use different tones (in terms of correspondences, not just the actual melody). For example, the MFL gives [F]mae[H]ui as the word for 'grandmother', but then notes that in some areas it is pronounced [F]mae[6]ui, as spelt in tua mueang.

1. I believe the following actually have the sixth tone, i.e. the same tone as หน้า 'face', เสื้อ 'clothing', ข้าว 'rice', ห้า 'five' and ผ้า 'cloth':
   
   1. 
      
   2. ญุ้ง = 'ยุ่ง', 'to be busy, involved'
      
   3. นิ๊ง = 'เกี่ยง', 'to argue over'
      
   4. เฒ่า in 'ป้อเฒ่า' 'grandfather'. (Etymologically, เฒ่า ought to be spelt เถ้า - it isn't just English that has etymologically incorrect spellings.)
      

[*]I believe the following actually have the 'falling' tone, i.e. the same tone as พ่อ 'father' (generally transcribed as ป้อ for Northern Thai) and แม่ 'mother'

1. ผ้าน = 'เข็ด, ขยาด' 'to be afraid of'
   
2. น้วม = 'ข้ำ, เละ', 'to be mushy'
   

[*]I believe the following actually have the 'high' tone, i.e. the same tone as น้า 'mother's younger sibling', ไม้ 'wood', น้อง 'younger sibling' and ม้า 'horse':

1. แต้ = 'จริง', 'to be true, real'
   
2. 2nd syllable of บ่ะป้าว = 'มะพร้าว', 'coconut'
   
3. 2nd syllable of ปี้ใป้ = 'พี่สะใภ้', 'sister-in-law' (I think ป๊ was misread as ป้)
   
4. ปู้ = 'male', as in ตั๋วปู้ = 'male animal' and ปู้เมีย = 'kathoey'
   
5. ปื้น = 'พื้น', 'floor'
   
6. ต้อง as in ลุ๊ต้อง = 'ท้องเสีย', 'to have diarrhoea', especially as we already have กั๊ดต๊อง = 'อิ่ม', 'to be full'
   
7. แหล้ว = 'แล้ว', 'already'
   

[*]I believe the following actually have the 'low' tone, i.e. the same tone as as in เข่า 'knee', ไข่ 'egg', ผ่า 'chop' and ใหม่ 'new':

1. เตียว = 'กางเกง', 'pants'
   
2. 1st syllable of อีป้อ = 'พ่อ', 'father'
   

There are some others where there are clear errors:

• เข้าโปด for เข้าโป้ด
  
• ตั๊ดฮัน for ตั๊ดอั้น
  
• ซือ for ซื่อ (perhaps just a reproduction error)
  
• ฮัน for อั้น
  

Finally, there are many cases where the tone mark can only be seen in the example.

[konjianghai]

There's no standard Northern Thai. Since people speaking all a little different. Hate to say it but it is.

All of those books were base on who knows which location. Chiang Mai or Chiang Rai or where ever?

There's no single standard for English, but we can usually say whether two words have the same vowel in most accents. All I'm trying to establish at the moment is sameness or difference of tones, not a description of tones. It does not matter whether a tone is the same as a Bangkok tone or as a Luang Prabang tone. (I do intend to ask about vowel lengths, but I would be completely unsurprised to find that there are big differences in some cases.)

To say in general i don't want people who wanted to learn taking anything literally on some of the textbook. What they need to do is learn to listen to the accents around them. Since those textbook are written in Thai alphabets. You could not have the exact written word for the sounds (tones).

What you certainly hope for from a writing system is it that will tell you enough to pronounce words once you have learnt the accent. The one major problem I am aware of is that one needs an extra tone mark. I'm pretty sure I've seen parentheses used to indicate the 6th tone. One could use underlining, and, if you are bold enough, Microsoft will now let you use thanthakhat. (I've seen materials for one of the minority languages that lists thanthakhat as a tone mark, for that is how it is proposed to use it - see p21 of Orthography Design for Chong.) The Tai Lue of Laos have a similar problem using the Lao script with roughly Lao sound values, and they have solved it by using the Lao mai chattawa alongside other tone marks.

So you trying to find the 6th tone mark by using thanthakhat based on Chong written system. ๊ is right for that 6th tone mark, it sound different then ้ anyway from my point of view.

Would it be more helpful if you use Diacritic when typing with Latin alphabets? I used to talk with other people if there is ever to invent new way of modernize Lanna language and to makeit simple for foreigners seems like this is the best way. Like Vietnamese for example. IMO would help out alot to speak the right tones and sound.

Edited November 20, 2011 by konjianghai

[RickBradford]

@konjianghai

Would like every one to take a look at my clip.<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); "><br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">http://youtu.be/U647N1QRRt4

And a beautiful clip of music at the end -- do you have more information on the song/singer?

[konjianghai]

@konjianghai

Would like every one to take a look at my clip.<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); "><br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">http://youtu.be/U647N1QRRt4

And a beautiful clip of music at the end -- do you have more information on the song/singer?

Thank you The singer is ป๊อป ทศรรห์

song name is บ่าวเคิ้น if you want mp3 i can sent it to you.

Edited November 20, 2011 by konjianghai

[Richard W]

So you trying to find the 6th tone mark by using thanthakhat based on Chong written system. ๊ is right for that 6th tone mark, it sound different then ้ anyway from my point of view.

Using mai tri that way just shifts the problem, though I believe it makes it less severe. For example, under your scheme, both [6]jao 'lord' (= Central Thai เจ้า) and [H]jao 'morning' (= Central Thai เช้า) would be written เจ๊า. This would securely distinguish them from [F]jao 'to rent' (= Central Thai เช่า). The ideal solution is to get a proper mai pan (or is it mai ben?) added to the Thai script. The Thai script solution I prefer to use is to use Central Thai consonants with the old Lanna values (cf. akson nithet อักษรไทยนิเทศ), but it seems that most Thais are unhappy with sound values depending on the language.

Would it be more helpful if you use Diacritic when typing with Latin alphabets?

I believe there is a suitable diacritic for the 6th tone, U+1DC7 COMBINING ACUTE MACRON e.g. e᷇ (see Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement if it does not render properly). This is based on the description as 'high-falling'. Font support is currently poor. It has also been pretty poor for the combining caron (for the rising tone) - Thai2English regularly substituted the breve.

Most other schemes of showing the tone extend naturally. E.g., for this forum's scheme, I advocate using [6], as above.

[Richard W]

Thinking about the concept of a 'mai pan', a promotional intermediate would be to use ๕ as the tone mark. To get it typed, one would have to place it after า, (or type <space, า, left, rubout, ๕, right>) but, apart from that, experimentation with fonts on LibreOffice on Ubuntu suggests it should work well. To be perfectly general, one has the same problem with​ ะ, but I think that combination isn't needed. Do educate me - I'm not sure how many different tones occur with dead, short syllables. Chiang Mai certainly has rising, high and low at least, though the latter may be restricted to 'open' syllables.

[Richard W]

It's only บะ for northern Thai and I told about it's tone in my first post about this issue already. Many fruit/vegetable names which happens to use มะ this in central Thai, if it's also called the same, บะ will be used in northern Thai instead.

บ่า, บะ, หม่า, หมะ, หมัก, หทาก ก็ว่า แต่ในพจนานุกรมนี้จะใช้คำนำหน้านี้เป็น บ่า เพียงรูปเดียว

Google found several instances of หมะก้วยเตด.

Perhaps you it's better you go and ask anyone who speak it then....

And now I've found แก๋งม่ะหนุน rather than แก๋งบ่ะหนุน in the example sentence for เก็ม on p5 of the Peace Corps Dictionary. Is the pronunciation [L]ma[R]nun or [F]ma[R]nun? Or is it an even more complicated matter? Should I suspect a typo?

[nalaknarak]

I think some words are like central Thai but some are different. The tones are a little bit different too. Here I found this video on youtube:

[Mekong Bob]

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.

When I had only worked through only 8 pages I thought it was quite reasonable (though horribly ambiguous), but having worked through all the words there do seem to be quite a few errors. I'll list what I've found, and hope for confirmation or refutation from the experts. I don't want to call something wrong just because different parts of the North use different tones (in terms of correspondences, not just the actual melody). For example, the MFL gives [F]mae[H]ui as the word for 'grandmother', but then notes that in some areas it is pronounced [F]mae[6]ui, as spelt in tua mueang.

1. I believe the following actually have the sixth tone, i.e. the same tone as หน้า 'face', เสื้อ 'clothing', ข้าว 'rice', ห้า 'five' and ผ้า 'cloth':
   
   1. 
      
   2. ญุ้ง = 'ยุ่ง', 'to be busy, involved'
      
   3. นิ๊ง = 'เกี่ยง', 'to argue over'
      
   4. เฒ่า in 'ป้อเฒ่า' 'grandfather'. (Etymologically, เฒ่า ought to be spelt เถ้า - it isn't just English that has etymologically incorrect spellings.)
      

[*]I believe the following actually have the 'falling' tone, i.e. the same tone as พ่อ 'father' (generally transcribed as ป้อ for Northern Thai) and แม่ 'mother'

1. ผ้าน = 'เข็ด, ขยาด' 'to be afraid of'
   
2. น้วม = 'ข้ำ, เละ', 'to be mushy'
   

[*]I believe the following actually have the 'high' tone, i.e. the same tone as น้า 'mother's younger sibling', ไม้ 'wood', น้อง 'younger sibling' and ม้า 'horse':

1. แต้ = 'จริง', 'to be true, real'
   
2. 2nd syllable of บ่ะป้าว = 'มะพร้าว', 'coconut'
   
3. 2nd syllable of ปี้ใป้ = 'พี่สะใภ้', 'sister-in-law' (I think ป๊ was misread as ป้)
   
4. ปู้ = 'male', as in ตั๋วปู้ = 'male animal' and ปู้เมีย = 'kathoey'
   
5. ปื้น = 'พื้น', 'floor'
   
6. ต้อง as in ลุ๊ต้อง = 'ท้องเสีย', 'to have diarrhoea', especially as we already have กั๊ดต๊อง = 'อิ่ม', 'to be full'
   
7. แหล้ว = 'แล้ว', 'already'
   

[*]I believe the following actually have the 'low' tone, i.e. the same tone as as in เข่า 'knee', ไข่ 'egg', ผ่า 'chop' and ใหม่ 'new':

1. เตียว = 'กางเกง', 'pants'
   
2. 1st syllable of อีป้อ = 'พ่อ', 'father'
   

There are some others where there are clear errors:

• เข้าโปด for เข้าโป้ด
  
• ตั๊ดฮัน for ตั๊ดอั้น
  
• ซือ for ซื่อ (perhaps just a reproduction error)
  
• ฮัน for อั้น
  

Finally, there are many cases where the tone mark can only be seen in the example.

Richard W -

I have never heard the term "tua mueang" used to refer to the "Central Thai" dialect - can you please tell me where this term came from?

I have often heard "tua mueang" used to refer to the center of a district town, as opposed to the outskirts of that town.

Please clarify. Thanks!

Edited May 27, 2012 by Mekong Bob

[Richard W]

I have never heard the term "tua mueang" used to refer to the "Central Thai" dialect - can you please tell me where this term came from?

"Tua mueang" is the Lanna script, just as "k(h)am mueang" is the speech of the north. Just what "mueang" refers to is unclear. Suggestions range from it being short for "Mueang Lannat(h)ai" to a vague suggestion that somehow the script is the writing of the cities, as though the script for recording the dharma (whence the name "Tham script" and thus Unicode "Tai Tham" to appease the rulers of Sipsong Panna) were more civilised.

[meadish_sweetball]

mueang = "of the realm ([broadly] Lanna; [these days generally] Northern Thailand)" (my own mental definition)

khon mueang = Lanna (Northern Thai) people

tua mueang = Lanna script (letters) [note that somewhat similarly, in Central Thai, we have 'tua aksawn' = consonant; alphabet]