Where To Study Lan Na Language

[Leelas]

For personal reasons relating to academic requirements, I have found myself in a position in which it is both necessary and urgent for me to begin studying the Lan Na language and script as soon as possible. I am located in Bangkok, not in Chiang Mai. I understand that there might not be any schools at all that offer formal Lan Na training, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of any tutors who are proficient in Lan Na. I would need to focus more on reading than speaking, and would need to study very quickly. My ultimate goal here is being able to read historical manuscripts.

For the record, I am intermediate in spoken Thai but can read at an advanced level with the help of a dictionary.

Any advice?

[Richard W]

You can probably get a long way just with books. Based on relative ease of purchase, I'd suggest:

1) The Maefahluang dictionary (abbreviated MFL in Unicode circles), i.e. พจนานุกรมล้านนา ~ ไทย ฉบับแม่ฟ้าหลวง by อุดม รุ่งเรืองศรี (font-challenging Lanna script title ᨻᨧᨶᩣᨶᩩᨠᩕᩫ᩠ᨾᩃ᩶ᩣ᩠ᨶᨶᩣ ~ ᨴᩱ᩠ᨿ ᨨᨷᩢ᩠ᨷᨾᩯ᩵ᨼ᩶ᩣᩉᩖ᩠ᩅᨦ) ISBN 974-8359-03-4.

2) ภาษาเมืองล้านนา ฉบับเรียนด้วยตนเอง by บุญคิด วัชรศาตร์ (a full-depth teach-yourself book) ISBN 974-85472-0-5

3) The Northern Thai Dictionary of Palm-Leaf Manuscripts ISBN 974-7047-77-2 (A reference for obscure words). It feels as though it was got out in a hurry and the section of words in low pa* was misbound, with some subsections duplicated and others missing. I also don't have a great faith in the recordings of the spoken tones. (Yeah, I know - they're not speaking palm leaves!) I think there's been some confusion of Siamese and Northern Thai tones - the tones and spellings do not match well. On the other hand, a few generations ago, there was a tendency not to make a great fuss over tone marks, which may be why Northern Thai has two tone marks in Lanna script and Tai Khuen has (had?) five. A second issue or reprint may have sorted out these problems. I think you'll find it's still worth its cover price of 600฿, despite all my misgivings.

*For Latin-script writable names, see http://www.unicode.o...s/PDF/U1A20.pdf . Note that the characters are shown in a Tai Khuen style - low ca could do with a jot of tippex (though I hate the E-type glyph some times used in Northern Thailand).

If you find yourself in Thailand, go to a big bookshop and pick up some of the cheap text books that have been assembled by hand. I found a lovely dark blue book which was mostly a list of words but clearly aimed at Thais who would have to handle unedited manuscripts - Thai script title ตำรา เรียนหนังสือ ภาษาล้านนาไทย - an absolute snip at 60฿. However, I have no confidence that it is still on sale.

It may help a bit if you are already acquainted with the principles of conjuncts/subscript consonants, e.g. as in Khmer, Burmese, or any Southern Indian script but Tamil, or, but not so excellent, Devanagari script.

Formal texts seem a lot easier to work with than snippets of colloquial Northern Thai.

PM me if you need a Unicode Lanna font or keyboard mapping. The font needs Graphite, so will work in OpenOffice, LibreOffice and, with the right set-up, Firefox, but will probably not work with Microsoft Office. It has a few rough edges where I couldn't sort out what the lay-out rules were, and it's missing archaic punctuation and foreign characters. The keyboard mapping, based on Kesmanee, also has a few rough edges.

Edited February 20, 2013 by Richard W

[Richard W]

There are a couple of intense overviews of the writing system in English at http://www.laosoftware.com/download/dekalb_gk-vb.pdf (Lao version, but close enough to Lanna) and http://std.dkuug.dk/.../docs/n3207.pdf (the final Unicode proposal). Note that there were some minor changes between N3207 and what finally went in to the Unicode / ISO 10646 standard.

Do note that the writing of the vowels is far from standard; variants are likely to be encountered in old manuscripts. Also, neither document tells you that many people make *no* visual distinction between the tone mark mai tho and the vowel mark (and vowel shortener) mai sat.

Edited February 20, 2013 by Richard W

[Leelas]

Awesome! That's exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for. Thanks!

[realthaideal]

Awesome! That's exactly the sort of stuff I was looking for. Thanks!

Here's another resource: They teach a Lanna course sometimes at Wat Suan Dok up here in Chiang Mai, and though I never attended, I went and chatted with some monks and was given their workbook free. It's all in Thai, but that shouldn't be too much for you.

It's put out by Chulalongkorn University CM, but perhaps you can request it somewhere down there in BKK - maybe even thru Chula BKK. It's called "แบบเรียนภาษาล้านนา" and it progresses much like a child's alphabet and reading book does.

Good luck.

[HeavyDrinker]

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/lanna.htm

[Richard W]

It's put out by Chulalongkorn University CM, but perhaps you can request it somewhere down there in BKK - maybe even thru Chula BKK. It's called "แบบเรียนภาษาล้านนา" and it progresses much like a child's alphabet and reading book does.

I picked it up at a Se-ed bookshop over seven years ago. I can't remember where, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in Chiangmai itself. The back ground of the cover is russet, and it has a picture of pupils sitting in a circle with a teacher on the front cover. I too can recommend it. I didn't recommend it because it doesn't have an ISBN number and I was worried it might not have been available for long. The Wat Suan Dok connection is buried in the first line of the preface.

[Richard W]

Digging around, it looks as though Windows 8 supports the Tai Tham script - or at least, makes a reasonable attempt. It may help that Peter Constable of Microsoft (http://www.unicodeconference.org/iuc35/bios.htm) has studied the script - he was reviewing the encoding proposal mentioned above as it was being written. I note that the Microsoft script tag is 'lana'.