Kedah Malay or Kedahan (; also known as ''Pelat Utara'' or ''Loghat Utara'' 'Northern Dialect') or as it is known in Thailand, Syburi Malay ( ''Phasa Malāyū Saiburī'') is a

Malayic language The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. The two most prominent members of this branch are Indonesian and Malay. Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia and has evolved ...

mainly spoken in the northwestern Malaysian states of

Perlis Perlis (Kedah Malay language, Kedah Malay (Perlis dialect): ''Peghelih'') is a Negeri, state of Malaysia in the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It is the smallest state in Malaysia by area and population. The state borders the Thai ...

Kedah Kedah (), also known by its honorific Darul Aman (Islam), Aman (دار الأمان; Arabic for 'The Safe Abode') and historically as Queda, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia, located in the northwestern part of ...

Penang Penang is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia along the Strait of Malacca. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay Peninsula. Th ...

, and northern

Perak Perak (; Perak Malay: ''Peghok'') is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, 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, Kel ...

and in the southern Thai provinces of Trang and Satun. The usage of Kedah Malay was historically prevalent in southwestern Thailand before being superseded by the

Thai language Thai,In or Central Thai (historically Siamese;Although "Thai" and "Central Thai" have become more common, the older term, "Siamese", is still used by linguists, especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages (Diller 2008:6 ...

. Enclaves of Kedah Malay can be found in Kawthaung District in

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

;

Ranong Ranong () is a town (''thesaban mueang'') in southern Thailand, capital of the Ranong Province and the Mueang Ranong District. The town covers completely the area of the ''tambon'' Khao Niwet (เขานิเวศน์). As of 2024, it had ...

and

Krabi Krabi (, ) is the capital of and main town in Krabi Province (''thesaban mueang''), on the west coast of southern Thailand, where the Krabi River flows into Phang Nga Bay. The town lies south of Bangkok, and as of 2020, has a population of 32, ...

in upper southern Thailand; Jaring Halus, Langkat and

Aceh Aceh ( , ; , Jawi script, Jawoë: ; Van Ophuijsen Spelling System, Old Spelling: ''Atjeh'') is the westernmost Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia. It is located on the northern end of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capit ...

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 list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

and up north in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, 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 estim ...

, 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 The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely i ...

Kedah; which is the de facto

prestige dialect Prestige in sociolinguistics is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally c ...

of Kedah Malay), ''Kedah Utara'' (Northern Kedah),

Langkawi Langkawi, officially known as Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah (), is a duty-free island and an archipelago of 99 islands (plus five small islands visible only at low tide in the Strait of Malacca) located some 30 km off the coast of northwe ...

and some others outside Malaysia. Speakers in Trang as well as Satun are heavily influenced by the Thai language. However in the district of

Baling The Baling District is an administrative district in southeastern Kedah, Malaysia. Located about 110 km from Alor Setar, it borders Perak and Betong, the southernmost town of Thailand. Name The name Baling can be traced to a series of e ...

, 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 (even spelt accordingly in rare manuscript instances i.e. for the former) 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

monophthong A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...

s, 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

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s 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
{{DEFAULTSORT:Malay, Kedah, Language Agglutinative languages Malay dialects Languages of Malaysia Languages of Thailand Languages of Myanmar Malayic languages