Kam Mueang () or Northern Thai language () is the language of the Northern Thai people of Lanna, Thailand. It is a Southwestern Tai language that is closely related to Tai Lue language. Kam Mueang has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in the native Northern Thailand, with a smaller community of Lanna speakers in northwestern Laos.
Speakers of this language generally consider the name "Tai Yuan" to be pejorative. They refer to themselves as (, คนเมือง, – literally "people of Mueang" meaning "city dwellers"), Lanna, or Northern Thai. The language is also sometimes referred to as (พายัพ, ), "Northwestern (speech)".
The term Yuan is still sometimes used for Northern Thai's distinctive Tai Tham alphabet, which is closely related to the old Tai Lue alphabet and the Lao religious alphabets. The use of the , as the traditional alphabet is known, is now largely limited to Buddhist temples, where many old sermon manuscripts are still in active use. There is no active production of literature in the traditional alphabet, and when used in writing standard Thai script is invariably used. The modern spoken form is called . There is a resurgence of interest in writing it in the traditional way, but the modern pronunciation differs from that prescribed in spelling rules.
Classification
Northern Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Thai, Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages. The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family, which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border.
From a purely genealogical standpoint, most linguists consider Northern Thai to be more closely related to Central Thai than to Lao or Isan, but the language has been heavily influenced by both Lao and Central Thai throughout history. All Southwestern Tai languages form a coherent dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible varieties, with few sharp dividing lines. Nevertheless, Northern Thai has today become closer to the Central Thai language, as Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand.
Names
The Northern Thai language has various names in Northern Thai, Thai, and other Tai languages. In Northern Thai, it is commonly called (, , literally "city language"; cf. Standard Thai: คำเมือง ), or (, ภาษาล้านนา , literally "the language of Lan Na"). In Central Thai and Southern Thai, Northern Thai is known as phasa thin phayap (ภาษาถิ่นพายัพ , literally "the language of the northwestern region"), or phasa thai thin nuea (ภาษาไทยถิ่นเหนือ , literally "the Thai language of the northern region", or colloquially it is known as phasa nuea (ภาษาเหนือ , literally "the northern language"). In Lao, it is known as or ( or respectively, or respectively, literally "the Tai Yuan language"). In Tai Lü, it is known as kam yon ( , literally "the Tai Yuan language"). In Shan it is known as kwam yon ( , literally "the Tai Yuan language").
History
Tai migration
The ancestors of the Northern Thai people were speakers of Southwestern Tai dialects that migrated from what is now southeastern China, specifically what is now Guangxi and northern Vietnam where the diversity of various Tai languages suggests an Urheimat. The Southwestern Tai languages began to diverge from the Northern and Central branches of the Tai languages, covered mainly by various Zhuang languages, sometime around 112 AD, but likely completed by the sixth century. Due to the influx of Han Chinese soldiers and settlers, the end of the Chinese occupation of Vietnam, the fall of Jiaozhi and turbulence associated with the decline and fall of the Tang dynasty led some of the Tai peoples speaking Southwestern Tai to flee into Southeast Asia, with the small-scale migration mainly taking place between the eighth and twelfth centuries. The Tais split and followed the major river courses, with the ancestral Northern Thai originating in the Tai migrants that followed the Mekong River.
