ศาลาชุมนุม

[Richard Wordingham]

I'm trying to annotate a glossary for Northern Thai by including all the words in the sample sentences of a Northern Thai-Thai-English dictionary. I'm not sure how to translate a Northern Thai classifier.

The dictionary has the sample sentence หยิบลวดข๊ดนันมากำ, though I would prefer to write it หยิ๋บลวดข๋ดนั้นมากำ. (I think the tonemark disappeared from นัน in the dictionary because of poor photocopying.) I believe a reasonable Thai rendering would be หยิบลวดวงนั้นมาหน่อย. However, am I right to render the Northern Thai classifier ข๋ด by Central Thai วง when the sense is 'coil', e.g. for coiled wire? The T-L dictionary here gives only เส้น as a classifier for ลวด.

[Rick Bradford]

หยิ๋บ?

Wouldn't ยิ๋บ do just as well?

Or is there an extra tonal implication in northern Thai?

[Nan]

However, am I right to render the Northern Thai classifier ข๋ด by Central Thai วง when the sense is 'coil', e.g. for coiled wire? The T-L dictionary here gives only เส้น as a classifier for ลวด.

ขด is for "coil" by Central Thai as well.

หยิ๋บลวดข๋ดนั้นมากำ

- หยิบลวดขดนั้นมาหน่อย

If a wire is not coiled or a wire itself, we use "เส้น" - เส้นลวด, ลวดเส้นหนึ่ง

[Richard Wordingham]

ขด is for "coil" by Central Thai as well.

- หยิบลวดขดนั้นมาหน่อย

If a wire is not coiled or a wire itself, we use "เส้น" - เส้นลวด, ลวดเส้นหนึ่ง

Thanks. Unless someone gives me a good reason not to bother, I'll report the need for an additional classifier to be listed against ลวด.

[Richard Wordingham]

หยิ๋บ?

Wouldn't ยิ๋บ do just as well?

Or is there an extra tonal implication in northern Thai?

I'll treat this as an innocent question and first consider the spelling of the word for coil (= Siamese ขด). I prefer to write it ข๋ด; that is the way I have seen it written. It is, for example, the way the Northern Thai Dictionary of Palm Leaf Manuscripts gives the pronunciation of a homophonous word.

There are two frequent tones on short dead syllables in Northern Thai, a high tone with a terminal rise and a high tone with a terminal fall. The words with the first tone have Siamese cognates starting with a high or mid consonant and words with the second tone have Siamese cognates starting with a local consonant. The traditional local writing system works the same way. In the tradition of Chiangmai, these two tones are equated with the rising tone of live syllables and the high tone of live syllables. However, some people, apparently from Chiangrai, seem to see the first as a 'high' tone, and that is what the Wikipedia article on Northern Thai currently calls it. On that notion, one might write it as ข๊ด (as in the quote I gave) or even, I'm afraid, ค๊ด. The latter notation immediately invites comparison with plain คด 'to scoop', which is pronounced much the same in Siamese and Northern Thai. The dictionary I'm working from often confuses the two notations. Given this scope for confusion, I'm much happier to be guided by the local writing tradition, and use ข.

Where things get complicated is with ย. Tai started with four very similar initial consonants or consonant clusters - ย (low), อย (mid), ญ (low) and หญ (high). Siamese has simplified them all to /j/ and the writing system mostly to ย (low) and หย (high), with just four words using the mid cluster อย. In native words, Lao and Northern Thai merged ย, ญ and หญ as /ɲ/ (high and low) but changed อย to /j/ (mid) and a new letter was invented for it. Given that one does not expect a contrast corresponding to high v. low with initial /j/, perhaps using ย and หย in accordance with the rule ย for live and no tone mark, หย elsewhere, corresponding to the Siamese and Northern Thai rule mid = low for live and no tone mark, but mid = high elsewhere, does not matter so much. To put it simply, one does not expect to encounter Northern Thai *ยิบ with the tone of คด.