Pronunciation Of Y- And Ny-

[Richard W]

I am trying to find out about the present day contrast between /ñ/ and /j/ (as in German ja) in Thailand. As I understand it, the history is relatively straightforward. I know what has happened in Standard Thai and Lao, but I am getting conflicting hints about Northern Thai. I would be particularly grateful for information about what has happened in Northern Thai, but I would also be interested in any Isaan deviations from Lao. For completeness I would also be interested to hear about Southern Thai - it seems that /ñ/ is present in some dialects but not in others. 'Ancient Thai' (date uncertain, but probably much less than 2000 years old) had four relevant initial sounds and clusters:

1. /ʔj/, anciently written อย, is universally pronounced /j/ nowadays. In Thai, it is now mostly written ย or หย. Lao has a special letter, like ย, but with an out-turned tail.

Examples: ยา 'medicine', อย่า 'don't', อยาก 'hungry', เยี่ยม 'visit', ย่าง 'roast', เย็น 'cool', อย่าง 'manner'.

The next three are now pronounced alike in Standard Thai and Lao - in Thai the pronunciation is /j/, but in Lao it is /ñ/ (as in Spanish), so Lao has a contrast and Thai does not.

2. /j/, almost universally written with ย.

Examples: ยา 'cover, calk', ย่า 'paternal grandmother', ยาม 'hours of the night', ยาก 'difficult'.

3. /ñ/, almost universally written with ย.

Examples: ยัง 'still, yet', เย็บ 'sew', ยี่ 'two (as in ยี่สิบ 'twenty'), ยิ้ม 'smile', ยิน 'hear', ยุง 'mosquito'

4. /hñ/, written หญ or หย in Thai, and written หย (with a special form of ย) in Lao.

Examples: หญ้า 'grass', ใหญ่ 'big', หยาก 'rubbish, dirt', หญิง 'woman'

I would also be interested in any areas where the above are all pronounced with /j/, but loanwords, such as ญาติ 'kin', are pronounced with /ñ/.

[sabaijai]

I hear the /ñ/ used in northern Thai as well. Don't know if the distribution is the same as for Lao, though, as my northern Thai is very limited.

[Rikker]

Richard,

Do you have the book from White Lotus Press by Asger Mollerup, "Thai-Isan-Lao Phrasebook"? It has side-by-side wordlists for quite a few words in Thai, Lao and the local Mahasarakham variety of Isan. Flipping through it, the Isaan in the book follows the Lao for every /ñ/ and /j/ I saw, but the author does have a note at the beginning saying that in some of his transcriptions the Isaan speakers use the Thai /j/ where Lao pronounces /ñ/. It would be interesting to see which words those are, at least. If I run across any in there, I'll post them.

I'm sorry I don't know more about Thai dialects. Makes me wish I'd bought that Isaan dictionary I hemmed and hawed over for so long the last time I was in Bangkok. Blue cover hardback in Thai, readily available at ศูนย์หนังสือจุฬาฯ if you don't already own it. The จุฬา library also has lots of research publications and theses on dialects.

Sigh... makes me long for the libraries of Thailand!

Edited February 17, 2006 by Rikker

[Richard W]

Flipping through it, the Isaan in the book follows the Lao for every /ñ/ and /j/ I saw, but the author does have a note at the beginning saying that in some of his transcriptions the Isaan speakers use the Thai /j/ where Lao pronounces /ñ/. It would be interesting to see which words those are, at least. If I run across any in there, I'll post them.

I've very little on the dialects. It does not surprised me that the situation is complicated. Mrs W finally agreed to help, and she pronounced all the native words with /j/. But ญาติ she pronounced with /ñ/! I floated my questions on a couple of Northern Thai websites where they've had discussion of the tua mueang, and got back one relevant answer. The respondent said that he did not feel that the equivalents of ย (not อย) and ญ did not convey the same sound to him.

The จุฬา library also has lots of research publications and theses on dialects.

How accessible is the library? I will be in Thailand for a few weeks later on this year. I'm have to step up my researches because I've a horrible feeling the Unicode encoding of the tua mueang will be a disaster. Unfortunately, my Thai is pretty poor.

[Rikker]

I've very little on the dialects. It does not surprised me that the situation is complicated. Mrs W finally agreed to help, and she pronounced all the native words with /j/. But ญาติ she pronounced with /ñ/! I floated my questions on a couple of Northern Thai websites where they've had discussion of the tua mueang, and got back one relevant answer. The respondent said that he did not feel that the equivalents of ย (not อย) and ญ did not convey the same sound to him.

The จุฬา library also has lots of research publications and theses on dialects.

How accessible is the library? I will be in Thailand for a few weeks later on this year. I'm have to step up my researches because I've a horrible feeling the Unicode encoding of the tua mueang will be a disaster. Unfortunately, my Thai is pretty poor.

What part of the country is the missus from? As for ญาติ, it's one I've definitely heard pronounced with /ñ/ in the Isaan. I didn't even know it was a contrasting sound with /j/ until I started looking in books on Lao/Isaan.

As for the accessibility of จุฬา, how do you mean? It's very physically accessible. Dead center Bangkok, right by Siam Square, and you pay a 20B fee at the entrance for day pass. As for linguistically accessible, the majority of relevent research will be in Thai. You can search their catalog online to see if it is worth a trip. But whatever you find that you want to take home you would have to get photocopied (they will copy anything for you, and have a photocopy station on most floors of the library, with busy but quick service). I was there doing research on lexicography (and whatever else interested me), and there were a lot of interesting-looking theses which I would've liked to read, but didn't really want to photocopy the entirety of. (I did copy a really great shorter thesis on Thai slang, though). I feel like I saw a lot of stuff on minority languages of Thailand, but not all Tai languages. But definitely some Tai languages. Again, I'll try to check on their catalog here soon (and I'll post the link when I scrounge it up, unless you want to google it).

Also, the National Library of Thailand (หอสมุดแห่งชาติ)is another good source. Chula is a really good repository for its research data probably because it sponsors so much good research, whereas the NLT collects what the various universities and organizations do, so there may be useful books in both. The NLT is on Samsen road, close to the river.

I hope I answered some questions for you. Anything more specific, let me know. I know my way around the Chula library well, less so for NLT, because they started a big remodel shortly after I went for the first time, and much of their collection was in temporary storage and unavailable for the four months I was in Thailand last year. Oh well. I'll be back someday.

[Richard W]

The จุฬา library also has lots of research publications and theses on dialects.

How accessible is the library? I will be in Thailand for a few weeks later on this year. I'm have to step up my researches because I've a horrible feeling the Unicode encoding of the tua mueang will be a disaster. Unfortunately, my Thai is pretty poor.

What part of the country is the missus from? As for ญาติ, it's one I've definitely heard pronounced with /ñ/ in the Isaan.

Chiangdao, Chiangmai, which you may remember Gwindor saying was chock full of Tai Yai.

As for the accessibility of จุฬา, how do you mean? It's very physically accessible. Dead center Bangkok, right by Siam Square, and you pay a 20B fee at the entrance for day pass.

Some places may be picky about whom they let in or have lengthy joining procedures. 20฿ and no cooling off period is exactly the sort of information I was looking for.

[Rikker]

If you haven't been here yet, here is the URL of the Chula University library:

http://library.car.chula.ac.th/

I tried searching under "subject" for various things. I tried ภาษาถิ่น, สัทศาสตร์, and the names in Thai of various dialects. Here are some promising things I found.

ศัพท์ไท 6 ภาษา / ปราณี กุลละวณิชย์, วิทยา จิโรจน์กุล, ม.ร.ว. กัลยา ติงศภัทิย์

Phonemes and orthography : language planning in ten minority languages of Thailand / William A. Smalley

108 คำโบราณไทลื้อ / ทวี สว่างปัญญางกูร

หน่วยเสียงภาษาตากใบ / โดย วิจิตร ศรีสุวิทธานนท์

การแปรและการเปลี่ยนแปลงทางเสียงในภาษากวย-กูย (ส่วย) / ปรีชา สุขเกษม = Phonological variation and change in Kuai-Kui (Suai) / Preecha Sukgasame

ภูมิศาสตร์คำศัพท์ภาษาไทยถิ่นในจังหวัดระยอง จันทบุรีและตราด / จันทิราพร สุขปรีดี = Word geography of the Thai dialects in Changwat Rayong, Chanthaburi and Trat / Janthiraporn Sukpreedee

หน่วยเสียงของภาษาเชียงใหม่ / เบ็ญจวรรณ สุนทรากูล

หน่วยเสียงภาษาอุบลฯ เชียงใหม่ และสงขลา เทียบกับภาษากรุงเทพฯ / ซ่อนกลิ่น พิเศษสกลกิจ

The Phonology of the Lanna language [A Northern Thai dialect] / Ruengdet Pankhuenkhat

There's a start.

[Rikker]

Also, I have access to many of the volumes from William Gedney's series of books on the Tai dialects. Here are the ones in my university's library:

William J. Gedney's Southwestern Tai Dialects : Glossaries, Texts, And Translations

William J. Gedney's Central Tai Dialects : Glossaries, Texts, And Translations

William J. Gedney's Tai Dialect Studies : Glossaries, Texts, And Translations

William J. Gedney's The Lue Language : Glossary, Texts, And Translations

William J. Gedney's The Saek Language : Glossary, Texts, And Translations

William J. Gedney's The Yay Language : Glossary, Texts, And Translations