Talk:Northern Thai language

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The reason that Northern Thai people consider Yuan to be pejorative is that they don't know what it means. They confuse it with the now-pejorative term for the Vietnamese, which is a homophone, though the two are spelled differently. In point of fact, the Northern Thai (khon mueang, whatever) never referred to themselves as Yuan or Tai Yuan. The term is a purely literary one, derived from the Pali word Yavana, which in turn is derived from the Greek Ionia. In the original Pali usage Yavana referred to (1) speakers of the Greek language, and (2) the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in what is today Afghanistan/Pakistan. The name was later applied to the Chiang Mai region in the Pali-language chronicles (such as the Camadevivamsa) as part of a general trend to re-map the classical world of Indic Buddhism onto southeast Asia.

--Mrrhum 22:10, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Any Fluent Speakers of Northern Thai Here on WP?

Are there any Fluent Speakers of Northern Thai here on WP? I'd love to see this article expanded to resemble the "Isan Thai" and "Standard Thai" pages. I'd also like to see an article on the tua mueang script.--WilliamThweatt 03:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm semi-fluent in Northern Thai in that I've heard my mother and family members speak it often. (Thus, I've only been introduced to the spoken aspects. I have no clue about the written language, except that I've seen it written on temple signs and have mistaken it for Laos.) I know that students in Chiang Mai learn a few Northern words in school, although mainstream (central) Thai is officially taught.

I've expanded the article to include vocabulary differences, but I don't want to take this article the wrong way. I may be treating it as a subset of Thai, rather than considering it a unique language or dialect (not more associated with either Thai or Laos).

Wikky Horse 09:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)