ศาลาชุมนุม

[Richard Wordingham]

Am I right in thinking that the Isaan word for 'no' is spelt 'บ่' ?

Officially, the word is also standard Thai.

Not quite. It is not used in central Thai, every every day conversation unless one wants to have fun with the word. This word is mostly used in poems or songs of the older generation. Unless you speak I-saan, I would not recommend using it.

That's why I said 'officially'.

[Aulok]

It seems that 'บ่' could have been the original Thai word, and was later replaced by ไม่ which is closely related to MANY Chinese dialects:

Chinese:
Guilin dialect------------mei (not) si (be) 'isn't'; (Guangxi province)
Sichuan----------------mei (not) dei (obtain) 'don't have'; (Sichuan province)
Guizhou----------------mei (not) der (obtain) 'don't have'; (Guizhou province)
Nanning Cantonese-----mer (not) hi (go) 'don't go'; (Guangxi province)
Guangzhou Cantonese--m (not. a syllabic consonant) heo (go) 'don't go'; (Guangdong province)
Wuhan-----------------mao (not) der (obtain) 'don't have'; (Hubei province)
Mandarin Chinese-------mei (not) you (have) 'don't have'; (Beijing)

Kam-Tai languages:
Bouyei-----mi (not) (Guizhou province)
Sui--------mi (not) (Guizhou province)
Dehong----maau (Yunnan province)
Phake-----mau (Assam of India)
Po-ai------moo (Yunnan province)
Longming--mau (Guangxi province)

But many of them still retain the original /bo/
Lue (Dai)---bau (Yunnan province)
Zhuang-----bou (Guangxi province)
Lao---------bo (Laos)
Shan-------pe (don't) （Myanmar/Burma)
White Tai---báu (Vietnam, Laos)
Black Tai----báu (Vietnam, Laos)
Lung Chou--boo Guangxi province)
Saek-------boo (northeast Thailand)

In Thai, you may sometimes find ไป่ or เบาะ บ่อ (how to use it?) which is reminiscent of a linguistic fossil of the negative word. Also note that Khmer seems to be relevant:
Khmer-----pum (Cambodia)

It seems that /me/ variants occur in the peripheric areas to the northwest and /bo/ variants are mostly found in the southeast. There are a number of languages in this area using /kong/, /kam/, /kwe/, etc, as the negative adverb 'not, no', like Vietnamese and languages in the Kam-Sui branch of the Kam-Tai family. Hopefully this can be helpful for the discussion of the negative adverb /mai/ and /bo/ in Thai and northern Thai.

[pi_choen]

i know บ่อ from isaan
there is บ่อ used for questionword like ไหม in standard thai
by the way is เค้อ a polite partikel used like ครับ in standard thai
also is แซบ used for อร่อย in standard thai
that means to ask like อร่อยไหมครับ is in isan แชบบ่อเด้อ