The Nyah Kur language, also called Chao-bon ( th, ชาวบน), is an Austroasiatic language spoken by remnants of the

Mon people The Mon ( mnw, ဂကူမည်; my, မွန်လူမျိုး‌, ; th, wikt:มอญ, มอญ, ) are an ethnic group who inhabit Lower Myanmar's Mon State, Kayin State, Kayah State, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Region, the Irrawaddy ...

Dvaravati The Dvaravati ( th, ทวารวดี ; ) was an ancient Mon kingdom from the 7th century to the 11th century that was located in the region now known as central Thailand. It was described by the Chinese pilgrim in the middle of the 7th cen ...

, the Nyah Kur people, who live in present-day

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

Distribution

Nyah Kur (ɲɑ̤h kur) is spoken by a few thousand people in the central and northeastern

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

(Sidwell 2009:113-114). According to Premsrirat (2002), there are 4,000 to 6,000 speakers of Nyah Kur, the vast majority living in

Chaiyaphum Province Chaiyaphum ( th, ชัยภูมิ, ) is one of Thailand's seventy-six provinces (''changwat''), located in central northeastern Thailand , also called Isan. Neighboring provinces are (from north clockwise) Khon Kaen, Nakhon Ratchasima, Lopb ...

. The northern dialects of

Phetchabun Province Phetchabun ( th, เพชรบูรณ์, ) is one of Thailand's seventy-six provinces (''changwat'') lies in lower northern Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are (from north clockwise) Loei, Khon Kaen, Chaiyaphum, Lopburi, Nakhon Sawan, Phi ...

are highly endangered. ;Southern dialects *

* Nakhon Ratchasima Province ( Dan Khun Thot District, Pak Thong Chai District, and Khong District) ;Northern dialects *

(Ban Thaduang, etc.) * Phitsanulok Province ( Nakhon Thai District) The northern-southern bipartite classification is from Theraphan L-Thongkum's 1984 multi-dialectal Nyah Kur dictionary. However,

Gerard Diffloth Gerard is a masculine forename of Proto-Germanic origin, variations of which exist in many Germanic and Romance languages. Like many other early Germanic names, it is dithematic, consisting of two meaningful constituents put together. In this ca ...

considers Nyah Kur to be made up of three dialects, namely North, Central, and South.

Classification

Being the only languages of the Monic branch of the

Mon–Khmer language The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

family,

Mon Mon, MON or Mon. may refer to: Places * Mon State, a subdivision of Myanmar * Mon, India, a town in Nagaland * Mon district, Nagaland * Mon, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India * Mon, Switzerland, a village in the Canton of Grisons * A ...

and Nyah Kur are very closely related.

History

The modern-day speakers of Nyah Kur are the descendants of the Mon who did not flee west when the Khmer overran their empire in the 9th and 11th centuries. Consequently, modern Mon and Nyah Kur have both developed directly from Old Mon independently for almost a millennium. Nyah Kur was discovered by linguists early in the 20th century, but was not recognized as being related (in fact a "sister" language) to Mon for nearly 70 years. Due to integration into Thai society, the number of speakers of Nyah Kur as a first language is rapidly decreasing and some predict the language will become extinct within the next century unless the current course is reversed. Language change influenced by Thai is also occurring as younger generations pronounce certain phonemes different from older generations. For instance, final -/r/ and -/l/, which do not occur as finals in Thai, are now often pronounced as - by younger generations (Premsrirat 2002). However, since the younger generations also generally have positive attitudes about their language and support the idea of having an orthography for Nyah Kur, the language may be preserved (Premsrirat 2002).

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

* All vowel can have breathy voice e.g. /a̤/

Diphthongs

* All vowel can have breathy voice e.g. /ɯ̤a̤/

Orthography

Nyah Kur is written in the Thai alphabet.

Consonants

* ก - * ค - ʰ* ง - �* จ - * ช - ʰ* ซ - �/s* ญ - �* ด - /t* ต - * ท - ʰ* น - * บ - /p* ป - * พ - ʰ* ฟ - * ม - * ย - * ร - * ล - * ว - * อ - �* ฮ - * ฮง - �̊* ฮน - ̥* ฮม - ̥* ฮร - ̥* ฮล - ̥~l* ฮว - �* ʔ - �

Vowels

* อะ, อั - * อา - ː* อิ - * อี - ː* อึ - �* อื - �ː* อุ - * อู - ː* เอ็ - * เอ - ː* แอะ - �* แอ - �ː* โอะ, โอ็ - * โอ - ː* เอาะ, อ็อ - �* ออ - �ː* เออะ - �* เออ, เอิ - �ː* เอ็อ - �* เอา - w* เอีย - ə* เอือ - �ə* อัว, -ว- - əref>

References

*Diffloth, G. (1984). ''The Dvaravati Old-Mon language and Nyah Kur''. Chulalongkorn University Printing House, Bangkok. *Huffman, F.E. (1990). ''Burmese Mon, Thai Mon and Nyah Kur: a synchronic comparison'' Mon–Khmer studies 16-17, pp. 31–64 *Sidwell, Paul (2009). ''Classifying the Austroasiatic languages: history and state of the art''. LINCOM studies in Asian linguistics, 76. Munich: Lincom Europa.

External links

''Development of Modern Mon and Nyah Kur'' Paul Sidwell, Australian National University (accessed May 11, 2006)

Distribution

Classification

History

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Diphthongs

Orthography

Consonants

Vowels

Further reading

References

External links

Further reading