Northern Thai, Lanna, or Kham Mueang (Northern Thai: ᨣᩴᩤᨾᩮᩥᩬᨦ kam˧ mɯːəŋ˧, Thai

Thai language

Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

: คำเมือง kʰam˧ mɯːəŋ˧) is the language of the Thai Yuan

Thai Yuan

The Thai Yuan are a people of northern Thailand, the former Thai kingdom of Lanna....

 people of Lannathai, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

. It is a Tai language

Tai languages

The Tai or Zhuang–Tai languages are a branch of the Tai–Kadai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spoken of the Tai–Kadai languages, including standard Thai or Siamese, the national language of Thailand; Lao or Laotian, the national language of Laos; Burma's Shan language;...

, closely related to Thai

Thai language

Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

 and Lao

Lao language

Lao or Laotian is a tonal language of the Tai–Kadai language family. It is the official language of Laos, and also spoken in the northeast of Thailand, where it is usually referred to as the Isan language. Being the primary language of the Lao people, Lao is also an important second language for...

. Northern Thai has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in Thailand, with a few thousand in northwestern Laos

Laos

Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

.

Speakers of this language generally consider the name Yuan to be pejorative. They generally call themselves kon mueang (กนเมือง, kon˧ mɯːəŋ˧), Lannathai, or Northern Thai. The language is generally known by one of these terms, or as Phayap. The term Yuan is still used for the distinctive Tai Tham script that Northern Thai uses, which is closely related to the old Tai Lue Script and the Lao religious alphabets. It also resembles the Burmese

Burmese alphabet

The Burmese script is an abugida in the Brahmic family used for writing Burmese. Furthermore, various other scripts share some aspect and letters of the Burmese script, though they should not be considered strictly Burmese, including Mon, Shan, S'gaw Karen, Eastern and Western Pwo Karen and Geba...

 and Mon alphabets. (All these alphabets derive from the Old Mon alphabet.) 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.

Most linguists consider Northern Thai to be more closely related to Thai and the other Chiang Saeng languages than to Lao and the Lao–Phutai languages, but the distinction is never easy to make, as the languages form a continuum with few sharp dividing lines.

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.

Tai Tham script	Thai script	Transliteration	IPA	Meaning
ᨢ᩶ᩣ	ข้า	kha̋a	kʰaː˥˧	I/me (formal; used by male)
ᨢ᩶ᩣᨧᩮᩢ᩶ᩣ	ข้าเจ้า	kha̋aja̋o	kʰaː˥˧tɕaw˥˧	I/me (formal; used by female)
ᩁᩣ	ฮา	haa	haː˧	I/me (informal)
ᩁᩮᩢᩣ	เฮา	hao	haw˧	we/us (general)
ᨲᩫ᩠ᩅ	ตั๋ว	tǔa	tua˩˥	you (general, singular)
ᨤᩥ᩠ᨦ	ฅิง	khing	kʰiŋ˧	you (informal, singular)
ᨧᩮᩢ᩶ᩣ	เจ้า	ja̋o	tɕaw˥˧	you (formal, singular)
ᨸᩮᩥ᩠᩶ᨶ	เปิ้น	pôen	pɤn˥˩	I/me (formal, general), he/she (general)
ᨾᩢ᩠ᨶ	มัน	man	man˧	it (very rude if used on a person)

Tones

There are six phonemic tones

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

 in the Chiangmai dialect of Northern Thai: low-rising, mid-low, high-falling, mid-high, falling, and high rising-falling.

Tone	Example	Phonemic	Phonetic	Example meaning in English
low-rising	ขา	/xǎː/	[xaː˩˦]	leg
mid-low	ข่า	/xàː/	[xaː˨˨]	galangal
high-falling	ฃ้า	/xa̋ː/	[xaː˥˧]	to kill
mid-high	ฅา	/xaː/	[xaː˦˦]	thatch grass
falling	ไร่	/hâjː/	[hajː˦˩]	dry field
high rising-falling	ฟ้า	/fáː/	[faː˦˥˦]	sky

Consonants

Northern Thai phonology is relatively closer to Lao phonology because of the [ ɲ ] sound.

	Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...			Labio- dental Labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...			Alveolo- palatal Alveolo-palatal consonant In phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate...		Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....			Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...			[ m ]				[ n ]			[ ɲ ]			[ ŋ ]
Plosive	[ p ]	[ pʰ ]	[ b ]		[ t ]	[ tʰ ]	[ d ]				[ k ]	[ kʰ ]		[ ʔ ]*
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...				[ f ]	[ s ]						[ x ]			[ h ]
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...								[ tɕ]
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...		[ w ]											[ j ]
Lateral approximant							[ l ]

^* The glottal plosive is implied after a short vowel without final, or silent before a vowel.

Vocabulary

Northern Thai shares much vocabulary with Standard Thai, especially scientific terms, which draw many prefixes and suffixes from Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 and Pali

Páli

- External links :* *...

, and it also has its own distinctive words. Just like Thai and Lao, Lanna has borrowed many Sanskrit and Pali words.

Below, Thai words are shown on the left and Northern Thai words are shown on the right.

Different sounds

Standard Thai does not have palatal nasal

Palatal nasal

The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J...

 sound:

• ยาก→ ยาก(/jâːk/ → /ɲâːk/, difficult)
• ยุง→ ยุง(/juŋ/ → /ɲuŋ/, mosquito)
• ยาว→ ยาว(/jaːw/> /ɲaːw/, long)

Standard Thai does not have a high-falling tone.

• บ้าน→ บ้าน(/bâːn/ → /ba̋ːn/, home)
• ห้า→ ห้า(/hâː/ → /ha̋ː/, five)
• เจ้า→ เจ้า(/tɕâw/ → /tɕa̋w/, you, lord)

Different words

Many words differ from Standard Thai greatly:

• ยี่สิบ → ซาว (/jîː sìp/ → /saːw/, twenty)
• พูด → อู้ (/pʰûːt/ → /űː/, to speak)
• พี่ชาย → อ้าย (/pʰîː tɕʰaːj/> /ʔa̋ːj/, older brother)

Similar words

Some words differ in tone only:

• หนึ่ง → นึ่ง (/nɯ̂ŋ/, one)
• หก → ฮก (/hók/, six)
• เจ็ด → เจ๋ด (/tɕět/, seven)
• สิบ → ซิบ (/síp/, ten)
• เป็น → เป๋น (/pěn/, to be)
• กิน → กิ๋น (/kǐn/, to eat)

Some words differ in a single sound and associated tone. In many words, the initial ร (/r/) is spoken as ฮ (/h/):

• ร้อน → ฮ้อน (/rɔ́n/ → /hɔ́n/, hot)
• รัก → ฮัก (/rák/ → /hák/, to love)
• รู้ → ฮู้ (/rúː/ → /húː/, to know)

Aspirated consonants in the low-class consonant group(อักษรต่ำ /ʔàk sɔ̌n tàm/) become unaspirated:

• เชียงราย → เจียงฮาย (/tɕʰiaŋ raːj/ → /tɕiaŋ haːj/, Chiang Rai city
  Chiang Rai
  -Demographics:Official Population count: According to the Thailand National Statistical Office, as of September 2010, Chiang Rai municipal district has a population of 199,699...
  
   and province
  Chiang Rai Province
  Chiang Rai is the northernmost province of Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are Phayao, Lampang and Chiang Mai. In the north it borders Shan State of Myanmar and Bokeo of Laos.-Geography:...
  
  )
• คิด → กึ๊ด (/kʰít/ → /kít/, to think)
• ช้อน → จ๊อน (/tɕʰɔ́n/ → /tɕɔ́n/, spoon)
• ใช้ → ใจ๊ (/tɕʰáj/ → /tɕáj/, to use)
• พ่อ → ป้อ (/pʰɔ̂/ → /pɔ̂/, father)
• ทาง → ตาง (/tʰaːŋ/ → /taːŋ/, way)

Though many aspirated consonants often become unaspirated, when a unaspirated consonant is followed by ร (/r/) the unaspirated consonant becomes aspirated:

• โกรธ → โขด (/kròːt/ → /kʰòːt/, (be) angry)
• ประเทศ> ผะเตด (/praʔtʰêːt/ → /pʰaʔtêːt/, country)
• กราบ> ขาบ (/kràːp/ → /kʰàːp/, to prostrate oneself)

Other differences:

• ให้ → หื้อ (/hâj/ → /hɯ̋/, to give, let)