Kedah Malay or Kedahan (); also known as ''Pelat Utara'' or ''Loghat Utara'' ('Northern Dialect') or as it is known in Thailand, Syburi Malay () is a variety of the

Malayic languages The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay, which is the national language of Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia; it further serves as basis for Ind ...

mainly spoken in the northwestern Malaysian states of Perlis, Kedah,

Penang Penang ( ms, Pulau Pinang, is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Malacca Strait. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the M ...

, and northern

Perak Perak () is a state of Malaysia on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Perak has land borders with the Malaysian states of Kedah to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, and Selangor to the south. Thailand' ...

and in the southern Thai provinces of

Trang Trang may refer to: Places * Trang province, Thailand **Trang, Thailand, capital city of Trang province **Trang Airport ** Trang railway station ** Trang River *Trang, a sub-district of Mayo district, Pattani province, Thailand * Trang (commune), ...

and Satun. The usage of Kedah Malay was historically prevalent in southwestern Thailand before being superseded by the Thai language. Enclaves of Kedah Malay can be found in

Kawthaung District Kawthoung District ( my, ကော့သောင်ခရိုင်) is a district of Tanintharyi Region of Myanmar. The district covers an area of 9,178 km2, and had a population of 221,738 at the 2014 Census. Administrative divisions ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

;

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and Krabi in upper southern Thailand; Jaring Halus, Langkat and

Aceh Aceh ( ), officially the Aceh Province ( ace, Nanggroë Acèh; id, Provinsi Aceh) is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. Granted a ...

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

and up north in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

, central Thailand, where most of the Kedah Malay speakers are descendants of historical settlers from Kedah. Kedah Malay can be divided into several dialects, namely ''Kedah Persisiran'' ( Littoral Kedah; which is the de facto

prestige dialect Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.) Prestige may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Films * ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...

of Kedah Malay), ''Kedah Utara'' (Northern Kedah), Perlis- Langkawi,

and some others outside Malaysia. Speakers in

as well as Satun are heavily influenced by the Thai language. However in the district of Baling, they speak a different variant more closely related to Kelantan-Patani Malay than it is to Kedah Malay.

Phonology

Consonants

Note(s): * Word initially: ** is pronounced as the velar fricative in the syllable onset. *** In certain loan words, is pronounced as an alveolar trill such as in 'market'. * Word finally: ** Following , velar nasal is neutralised to , so 'cat' and 'yellow' are pronounced and though the final consonant is still underlyingly as can be seen from the derived forms of these words such as 'yellowness' which still retains the . ** is neutralised to , so 'thin' is pronounced . *** After , this is palatalised, so 'hot' is pronounced . ** is realised as a pharyngeal fricative so 'hungry' is pronounced .

Vowels

Monophthongs

Kedah Malay has eight monophthongs, unlike Standard Malay which has six with and not having phonemic status. Note(s): * In open-ended final syllables and before a glottal stop (allophone of in the syllable coda) also in final syllables, is realised as , so 'son/daughter' and 'to force' are pronounced and .

Diphthongs

Kedah Malay has four diphthongs with being a surplus diphthong that does not exist in Standard Malay.

Comparison with Standard Malay

Below is a comparison between Kedah Malay and Standard Malay.

Vocabulary

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * *

External links

Kedahan-Standard Malay Online dictionary
Agglutinative languages Malay dialects Languages of Malaysia Languages of Thailand Languages of Myanmar {{malayic-lang-stub Malayic languages