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

Mon people The Mon (; Thai Mon: ဂကူမည်; , ; , ) are an ethnic group who inhabit Lower Myanmar's Mon State, Kayin State, Kayah State, Tanintharyi Region, Bago Region, the Irrawaddy Delta, and several areas in Thailand (mostly in Pathum Than ...

Dvaravati Dvaravati () was a medieval Mon political principality from the 6th century to the 11th century, located in the region now known as central Thailand, and was speculated to be a succeeding state of Lang-chia or Lang-ya-hsiu (). It was describe ...

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

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. Nyah Kur shares 69%

lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...

with Mon, the only other language in the Monic language family.

Distribution

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

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

(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. The northern dialects of

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

are highly endangered. ;Southern dialects * Chaiyaphum Province * 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 cas ...

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 spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

family, Mon 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. 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

Source:

Consonants

Vowels

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

Diphthongs

Orthography

Nyah Kur is written in the Thai alphabet. Here the Thai Nyah Kur orthography will be shown side by side with a mix of traditional Mon and Khamti script. Mon being the only extant linguistic relative of Nyah Kur within the Monic branch of

Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

and Khamti being close relative of Standard Thai, the likes of which has influenced Nyah Kur greatly in terms of phonology, but unlike Thai, uses a derivative of the Mon-Burmese script similar to Mon.

Consonants

* ก/က - * ค/ခ - ʰ* ง/ၚ - �* จ/စ - * ช/ဆ - ʰ* ญ/ဉ - �* ด/ဒ - * ต/တ - * ท/ထ - ʰ* น/န - * บ/ၜ - * ป/ပ - * พ/ဖ - ʰ* ฟ/ꩯ - * ม/မ - * ย/ယ - * ร/ရ - * ล/လ - * ว/ဝ - * ซ/သ - �/s* ฮ/ဟ - * ฮง/ငှ - �̊* ฮน/နှ - ̥* ฮม/မှ - ̥* ฮร/ရှ - ̥* ฮล/လှ - ̥~l* ฮว/ဝှ - �* อ/အ - �Placeholder]

Vowels

* อะ,อั/ ႊ - * อา/ ာ - ː* อิ/ ိ - * อี/ ဳ - ː* อึ/ ို - �* อื/ ိုဝ် - �ː* อุ/ ု - * อู/ ူ - ː* เอ็/ ေ - * เอ/ ေဝ်- ː* แอะ/ ႄ - �* แอ/ ႄဝ် - �ː* โอะ,โอ็/ ဴ - * โอ/ ဴဝ် - ː* เอาะ,อ็อ/ ွ - �* ออ/ ွဝ် - �ː* เออะ/ ိူ - �* เออ,เอิ/ ိူဝ် - �ː* เอ็อ/ ဵု - �* เอา/ ်ွ - w* เอีย/ ႅ - ə* เอือ/ ိုဝ် - �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 ''Mon-Khmer Studies'' was an academic journal that focused on Mon-Khmer languages. It was established in 1964 and ceased publication in 2016. From 1992 onwards, it was published by Mahidol University and SIL International SIL Global (formerl ...

'' 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