72-620: The Fourth Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge ( Thai : สะพานมิตรภาพ ไทย-ลาว แห่งที่ 4 , pronounced [sā.pʰāːn mít.trā.pʰâːp tʰāj lāːw hɛ̀ŋ tʰîː sìː] ; Lao : ຂົວມິດຕະພາບ ລາວ-ໄທ ແຫ່ງທີ 4 , pronounced [kʰǔa̯ mīt.tā.pʰâːp láːw tʰáj hɛ̄ŋ tʰíː sīː] ) is a highway bridge over the Mekong River that links the Chiang Khong District , Chiang Rai Province of Thailand and Houayxay in Laos . The bridge opened to
144-623: A dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as a second language among the country's minority ethnic groups from the mid-late Ayutthaya period onward. Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect. Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Northern Thai , Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with
216-493: A classic example of a dialect continuum, encompassing Norway, Denmark, Sweden and coastal parts of Finland. The Continental North Germanic standard languages ( Norwegian , Danish and Swedish ) are close enough and intelligible enough for some to consider them to be dialects of the same language, but the Insular ones ( Faroese and Icelandic ) are not immediately intelligible to the other North Germanic speakers. Historically,
288-469: A continuum until they have independent cultural status (autonomy), a process the German linguist Heinz Kloss called ausbau . Speakers of local varieties typically read and write a related standard variety, use it for official purposes, hear it on radio and television, and consider it the standard form of their speech, so that any standardizing changes in their speech are towards that variety. In such cases
360-457: A dialect continuum (excluding urban enclaves of Cantonese ). There are sharper boundaries resulting from more recent expansion between Hakka and Yue, and between Southwestern Mandarin and Yue, but even here there has been considerable convergence in contact areas. Cree is a group of closely related Algonquian languages that are distributed from Alberta to Labrador in Canada . They form
432-459: A dialect continuum, drawing lines called isoglosses between areas that differ with respect to some feature. A variety within a dialect continuum may be developed and codified as a standard language , and then serve as an authority for part of the continuum, e.g. within a particular political unit or geographical area. Since the early 20th century, the increasing dominance of nation-states and their standard languages has been steadily eliminating
504-447: A dialect continuum, isoglosses for different features are typically spread out, reflecting the gradual transition between varieties. A bundle of coinciding isoglosses indicates a stronger dialect boundary, as might occur at geographical obstacles or long-standing political boundaries. In other cases, intersecting isoglosses and more complex patterns are found. Standard varieties may be developed and codified at one or more locations in
576-522: A distinct dialect, but the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard varieties of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language are all based on the same dialect, Shtokavian . Therefore, Croats , Serbs , Bosniaks and Montenegrins communicate fluently with each other in their respective standardized varieties . In Croatia , native speakers of Shtokavian may struggle to understand distinct Kajkavian or Chakavian dialects, as might
648-533: A four-way distinction among stops and affricates . The maximal four-way occurred in labials ( /p pʰ b ʔb/ ) and denti-alveolars ( /t tʰ d ʔd/ ); the three-way distinction among velars ( /k kʰ ɡ/ ) and palatals ( /tɕ tɕʰ dʑ/ ), with the glottalized member of each set apparently missing. The major change between old and modern Thai was due to voicing distinction losses and the concomitant tone split . This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE, possibly occurring at different times in different parts of
720-525: A language defined in this way may include local varieties that are mutually unintelligible, such as the German dialects . The choice of standard is often determined by a political boundary, which may cut across a dialect continuum. As a result, speakers on either side of the boundary may use almost identical varieties, but treat them as dependent on different standards, and thus part of different "languages". The various local dialects then tend to be leveled towards their respective standard varieties, disrupting
792-464: A large extent, but those from distant regions are more difficult to be understood. The difference between the written standard and the vernaculars is apparent also in the written language, and children have to be taught Modern Standard Arabic in school to be able to read it. All modern Aramaic languages descend from a dialect continuum that historically existed before the Islamicization of
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#1732791373167864-737: A less arguable example of a dialect continuum. For many decades since Italy's unification, the attitude of the French government towards the ethnolinguistic minorities was copied by the Italian government. The eastern Romance continuum is dominated by Romanian . Outside Romania and Moldova, across the other south-east European countries, various Romanian language groups are to be found: pockets of various Romanian and Aromanian subgroups survive throughout Bulgaria , Serbia , North Macedonia , Greece , Albania and Croatia (in Istria ). Conventionally, on
936-492: A rapid and ever-increasing decline since the 1850s. Standard Dutch was based on the dialects of the principal Brabantic and Hollandic cities. The written form of Standard German originated in the East Central German used at the chancery of the kingdom of Saxony , while the spoken form emerged later, based on North German pronunciations of the written standard. Being based on widely separated dialects,
1008-554: A result of centuries of interaction and multilingualism. The boundaries between the northern Mandarin area and the central groups, Wu , Gan and Xiang , are particularly weak, due to the steady flow of northern features into these areas. Transitional varieties between the Wu, Gan and Mandarin groups have been variously classified, with some scholars assigning them to a separate Hui group. The boundaries between Gan, Hakka and Min are similarly indistinct. Pinghua and Yue form
1080-530: A syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant (including glottalized stops). An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops/affricates (original /p t k tɕ ʔb ʔd/ ) also caused original tone 1 to lower, but had no such effect on original tones 2 or 3. The above consonant mergers and tone splits account for the complex relationship between spelling and sound in modern Thai. Modern "low"-class consonants were voiced in Old Thai, and
1152-832: Is a group of closely related Algonquian languages in Canada , which is distributed from British Columbia to Quebec , and the United States , distributed from Montana to Michigan , with diaspora communities in Kansas and Oklahoma . With Cree, the Ojibwe dialect continuum forms its own continuum, but the Oji-Cree language of this continuum joins the Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi dialect continuum through Swampy Cree . The Ojibwe continuum has 70,606 speakers. Roughly from northwest to southeast, it has these dialects: Unlike
1224-402: Is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible , but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be. This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include
1296-506: Is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and ethnic minorities in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis . In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages . Although most linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai". As
1368-557: Is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai script . Hlai languages Kam-Sui languages Kra languages Be language Northern Tai languages Central Tai languages Khamti language Tai Lue language Shan language others Northern Thai language Thai language Southern Thai language Tai Yo language Phuthai language Lao language (PDR Lao, Isan language ) Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of
1440-520: Is closely related to Italian; in Italy, Ligurian , Piedmontese , Lombard , Emilian , Romagnol , Italian Gallo-Picene, Venetian , Friulian , Ladin ; and in Switzerland, Lombard and Romansh . This continuum is sometimes presented as another example, but the major languages in the group (i.e. Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian) have had separate standards for longer than the languages in
1512-1053: Is identical or near-identical. The Germanic dialects spoken on the island of Great Britain comprise areal varieties of English in England and of Scots in Scotland. Those of large areas north and south of the border are often mutually intelligible. In contrast, the Orcadian dialect of Scots is very different from the dialects of English in southern England —but they are linked by a chain of intermediate varieties. The western continuum of Romance languages comprises, from West to East: in Portugal, Portuguese ; in Spain, Galician , Leonese or Asturian , Castilian or Spanish , Aragonese and Catalan or Valencian ; in France, Occitan , Franco-Provençal , standard French and Corsican which
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#17327913731671584-461: Is now more difficult to recognize because many of the intervening languages have declined or become extinct. The Goidelic languages consist of Irish , Scottish Gaelic and Manx . Prior to the 19th and 20th centuries, the continuum existed throughout Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland. Many intermediate dialects have become extinct or have died out leaving major gaps between languages such as in
1656-412: Is perhaps most evident today in Italy, where, especially in rural and small-town contexts, local Romance is still often employed at home and work, and geolinguistic distinctions are such that while native speakers from any two nearby towns can understand each other with ease, they can also spot from linguistic features that the other is from elsewhere. In recent centuries, the intermediate dialects between
1728-486: Is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media. A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language (also known as Phasa Mueang or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai, so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the "Kham Mueang" accent. Standard Thai
1800-602: The Balkans in the west with Balkan Turkish , includes Turkish in Turkey and Azerbaijani language in Azerbaijan , extends into Iran with Azeri and Khalaj , into Iraq with Turkmen , across Central Asia to include Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , to southern Regions of Tajikistan and into Afghanistan . In the south, the continuum starts in northern Afghanistan, northward to Chuvashia . In
1872-571: The Dutch , Frisian , Low Saxon and High German dialects formed a canonical dialect continuum, which has been gradually falling apart since the Late Middle Ages due to the pressures of modern education, standard languages, migration and weakening knowledge of the dialects. The transition from German dialects to Dutch variants followed two basic routes: Though the internal dialect continua of both Dutch and German remain largely intact,
1944-556: The East Slavic and West Slavic languages . East Slavic includes Russian , Belarusian , Rusyn and Ukrainian ; West Slavic languages of Czech , Polish , Slovak , Silesian , Kashubian , and Upper and Lower Sorbian . All South Slavic languages form a dialect continuum. It comprises, from West to East, Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Serbia , North Macedonia , and Bulgaria . Standard Slovene , Macedonian , and Bulgarian are each based on
2016-877: The Indo-Aryan languages across large parts of India , varieties of Arabic across north Africa and southwest Asia, the Turkic languages , the varieties of Chinese , and parts of the Romance , Germanic and Slavic families in Europe. Terms used in older literature include dialect area ( Leonard Bloomfield ) and L-complex ( Charles F. Hockett ). Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as waves . In this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Instead, dialectologists map variation of various language features across
2088-466: The Romance languages , which are similarly descended from a language spread by imperial expansion over substrate languages 2000 years ago. Unlike Europe, however, Chinese political unity was restored in the late 6th century and has persisted (with interludes of division) until the present day. There are no equivalents of the local standard literary languages that developed in the numerous independent states of Europe. Chinese dialectologists have divided
2160-541: The Uralic languages . The Sami languages , sometimes mistaken for a single language, are a dialect continuum, albeit with some disconnections like between North , Skolt and Inari Sami . The Baltic-Finnic languages spoken around the Gulf of Finland form a dialect continuum. Thus, although Finnish and Estonian are considered as separate languages, there is no definite linguistic border or isogloss that separates them. This
2232-588: The modern vernacular dialects (or languages) branched from ancient Arabic dialects, from North Western Africa through Egypt , Sudan , and the Fertile Crescent to the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq . The dialects use different analogues from the Arabic language inventory and have been influenced by different substrate and superstrate languages. Adjacent dialects are mutually understandable to
Fourth Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge - Misplaced Pages Continue
2304-655: The Continental West Germanic group, and so are not commonly classified as dialects of a common language. Focusing instead on the local Romance lects that pre-existed the establishment of national or regional standard languages, all evidence and principles point to Romania continua as having been, and to varying extents in some areas still being, what Charles Hockett called an L-complex, i.e. an unbroken chain of local differentiation such that, in principle and with appropriate caveats, intelligibility (due to sharing of features) attenuates with distance. This
2376-480: The Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi dialect continuum, with around 117,410 speakers. The languages can be roughly classified into nine groups, from west to east: Various Cree languages are used as languages of instruction and taught as subjects: Plains Cree, Eastern Cree, Montagnais, etc. Mutual intelligibility between some dialects can be low. There is no accepted standard dialect. Ojibwa (Chippewa)
2448-532: The Dutch and German standards do not show a high degree of mutual intelligibility when spoken and only partially so when written. One study concluded that, when concerning written language, Dutch speakers could translate 50.2% of the provided German words correctly, while the German subjects were able to translate 41.9% of the Dutch equivalents correctly. In terms of orthography, 22% of the vocabulary of Dutch and German
2520-555: The Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed. Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on "live syllables" (those not ending in a stop), with no possible distinction on "dead syllables" (those ending in a stop, i.e. either /p/, /t/, /k/ or the glottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel). There was a two-way voiced vs. voiceless distinction among all fricative and sonorant consonants, and up to
2592-456: The Levant and Mesopotamia. Northeastern Neo-Aramaic , including distinct varieties spoken by both Jews and Christians, is a dialect continuum although greatly disrupted by population displacement during the twentieth century. The Persian language in its various varieties ( Tajiki and Dari ), is representative of a dialect continuum. The divergence of Tajik was accelerated by the shift from
2664-677: 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. Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand. The standard
2736-643: The Perso-Arabic alphabet to a Cyrillic one under the Soviets. Western dialects of Persian show greater influence from Arabic and Oghuz Turkic languages, but Dari and Tajik tend to preserve many classical features in grammar and vocabulary. Also the Tat language , a dialect of Persian, is spoken in Azerbaijan. Turkic languages are best described as a dialect continuum. Geographically this continuum starts at
2808-491: The Thai-speaking area. All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction: However, in the process of these mergers, the former distinction of voice was transferred into a new set of tonal distinctions. In essence, every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones, with a lower-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant, and a higher-pitched tone corresponding to
2880-700: The Turkic languages are very close to one another, and they share basic features such as SOV word order, vowel harmony and agglutination . Many of the Indo-Aryan languages of the Indian subcontinent form a dialect continuum. What is called " Hindi " in India is frequently Standard Hindi , the Sanskritized register of the colloquial Hindustani spoken in the Delhi area, the other register being Urdu . However,
2952-573: The basis of extralinguistic features (such as writing systems or the former western frontier of the Soviet Union), the North Slavic continuum is split into East and West Slavic continua. From the perspective of linguistic features alone, only two Slavic (dialect) continua can be distinguished, namely North and South, separated from each other by a band of non-Slavic languages: Romanian, Hungarian and German. The North Slavic continuum covers
Fourth Thai–Lao Friendship Bridge - Misplaced Pages Continue
3024-498: The capital of Bokeo Province , northwestern Laos . North of the bridge, a six kilometer service road connects the bridge to Laotian highway R3A. In the south, a three kilometer service road connects the bridge to the Chiang Khong-Thoen Highway and Route 1129 in Thailand. The bridge was jointly financed by the governments of Thailand, Laos, and China – with Chinese and Thai construction firms responsible for
3096-486: The complete loss of its grammatical case systems and adoption of features more commonly found among analytic languages . The barrier between East South Slavic and West South Slavic is historical and natural, caused primarily by a one-time geographical distance between speakers. The two varieties started diverging early on ( c. 11th century CE ) and evolved separately ever since without major mutual influence, as evidenced by distinguishable Old Slavonic , while
3168-606: The construction and the costs shared between Thailand and China. The project was hoped to boost trade and development of the Greater Mekong Subregion . About 1,900 million baht was budgeted for the project. On 12 December 2012, a ceremony marking the joining of the two sides of the bridge was held in Houayxay, Laos. A year later, on 12 December 2013, the bridge was officially opened at a ceremony presided over by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn . Chiang Khong
3240-714: The continent's largest language branches. The Romance area spanned much of the territory of the Roman Empire but was split into western and eastern portions by the Slav Migrations into the Balkans in the 7th and 8th centuries. The Slavic area was in turn split by the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in the 9th and 10th centuries. The Norwegian , Danish and Swedish dialects comprise
3312-571: The continuum which historically connected the Dutch, Frisian and German languages has largely disintegrated. Fragmentary areas of the Dutch-German border in which language change is more gradual than in other sections or a higher degree of mutual intelligibility is present still exist, such as the Aachen - Kerkrade area, but the historical chain in which dialects were only divided by minor isoglosses and negligible differences in vocabulary has seen
3384-693: The east it extends to the Republic of Tuva , the Xinjiang autonomous region in Western China with the Uyghur language and into Mongolia with Khoton . The entire territory is inhabited by Turkic speaking peoples. There are three varieties of Turkic geographically outside the continuum: Chuvash , Yakut and Dolgan . They have been geographically separated from the other Turkic languages for an extensive period of time, and Chuvash language stands out as
3456-568: The islands of Rathlin , Arran or Kintyre and also in the Irish counties of Antrim , Londonderry and Down . The current Goidelic speaking areas of Ireland are also separated by extinct dialects but remain mutually intelligible. Arabic is a standard case of diglossia . The standard written language, Modern Standard Arabic , is based on the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an , while
3528-528: The local patois as pronounced in Guangdong Ayutthaya , the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai and Khmer . Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer-speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369, 1388 and 1431. Gradually toward the end of
3600-476: The local varieties into a number of dialect groups, largely based on phonological developments in comparison with Middle Chinese . Most of these groups are found in the rugged terrain of the southeast, reflecting the greater variation in this area, particularly in Fujian . Each of these groups contains numerous mutually unintelligible varieties. Moreover, in many cases the transitions between groups are smooth, as
3672-465: The local variety is said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, the standard variety. A standard variety together with its dependent varieties is commonly considered a "language", with the dependent varieties called "dialects" of the language, even if the standard is mutually intelligible with another standard from the same continuum. The Scandinavian languages , Danish , Norwegian and Swedish , are often cited as examples. Conversely,
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#17327913731673744-517: The major Romance languages have been moving toward extinction , as their speakers have switched to varieties closer to the more prestigious national standards. That has been most notable in France, owing to the French government's refusal to recognise minority languages , but it has occurred to some extent in all Western Romance speaking countries. Language change has also threatened the survival of stateless languages with existing literary standards, such as Occitan. The Romance languages of Italy are
3816-630: The most divergent from other Turkic languages. There are also Gagauz speakers in Moldavia and Urum speakers in Georgia . The Turkic continuum makes internal genetic classification of the languages problematic. Chuvash , Khalaj and Yakut are generally classified as significantly distinct, but the remaining Turkic languages are quite similar, with a high degree of mutual intelligibility between not only geographically adjacent varieties but also among some varieties some distance apart. Structurally,
3888-551: The most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modern orthography . According to a Chinese source, during the Ming dynasty , Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433), Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xiānluó (暹羅) or Ayutthaya Kingdom, saying that it somewhat resembled
3960-559: The national standard of Pakistan , while Hindus regard the same speech as Hindi , an official standard of India . Even so, the Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 scheduled languages and Urdu is among them. During the time of the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia , a standard was developed from local varieties of Eastern South Slavic , within a continuum with Torlakian to
4032-432: The nonstandard dialects that comprise dialect continua, making the boundaries ever more abrupt and well-defined. Dialectologists record variation across a dialect continuum using maps of various features collected in a linguistic atlas , beginning with an atlas of German dialects by Georg Wenker (from 1888), based on a postal survey of schoolmasters. The influential Atlas linguistique de la France (1902–10) pioneered
4104-544: The north and Bulgarian to the east. The standard was based on varieties that were most different from standard Bulgarian. Now known as Macedonian , it is the national standard of North Macedonia , but viewed by Bulgarians as a dialect of Bulgarian. Europe provides several examples of dialect continua, the largest of which involve the Germanic , Romance and Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family ,
4176-415: The period, a language shift took place. Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great-grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In the process of language shift, an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai,
4248-427: The previous dialect continuum. Examples include the boundaries between Dutch and German , between Czech , Slovak and Polish , and between Belarusian and Ukrainian . The choice may be a matter of national, regional or religious identity, and may be controversial. Examples of controversies are regions such as the disputed territory of Kashmir , in which local Muslims usually regard their language as Urdu ,
4320-543: The public on 11 December 2013. The bridge was the last section of Asian Highway 3 to be built. Traffic on the bridge drives on the right , as in Laos, while traffic in Thailand drives on the left ; the lane-change is on the Thai side. The bridge is 630 meters long (with a main span of 480 meters) and is 14.7 meters wide. It is about 10 kilometers from Chiang Khong District in northeastern Chiang Rai Province , in northern Thailand, and about 12 kilometers from Houayxay ,
4392-424: The royal vocabulary according to their immediate environment. Thai and Pali, the latter from Theravada Buddhism, were added to the vocabulary. An investigation of the Ayutthaya Rajasap reveals that three languages, Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse. In fact, Khmero-Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to
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#17327913731674464-443: The speakers of the two with each other. Likewise in Serbia , the Torlakian dialect differs significantly from Standard Serbian. Serbian is a Western South Slavic standard, but Torlakian is largely transitional with the Eastern South Slavic languages (Bulgarian and Macedonian). Collectively, the Torlakian dialects with Macedonian and Bulgarian share many grammatical features that set them apart from all other Slavic languages, such as
4536-461: The term Hindi is also used for the different dialects from Bihar to Rajasthan and, more widely, some of the Eastern and Northern dialects are sometimes grouped under Hindi. The Indo-Aryan Prakrits also gave rise to languages like Gujarati , Assamese , Maithili , Bengali , Odia , Nepali , Marathi , Konkani and Punjabi . Chinese consists of hundreds of mutually unintelligible local varieties . The differences are similar to those within
4608-474: The terminology "low" reflects the lower tone variants that resulted. Modern "mid"-class consonants were voiceless unaspirated stops or affricates in Old Thai—precisely the class that triggered lowering in original tone 1 but not tones 2 or 3. Modern "high"-class consonants were the remaining voiceless consonants in Old Thai (voiceless fricatives, voiceless sonorants, voiceless aspirated stops). The three most common tone "marks" (the lack of any tone mark, as well as
4680-435: The three tones of Old Thai were split have since merged into five in standard Thai, with the lower variant of former tone 2 merging with the higher variant of former tone 3, becoming the modern "falling" tone. หม ม หน น, ณ หญ ญ หง ง ป ผ พ, ภ บ ฏ, ต ฐ, ถ ท, ธ ฎ, ด จ ฉ ช Dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain
4752-423: The two marks termed mai ek and mai tho ) represent the three tones of Old Thai, and the complex relationship between tone mark and actual tone is due to the various tonal changes since then. Since the tone split, the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship between lower and higher tonal variants has been completely obscured. Furthermore, the six tones that resulted after
4824-508: The urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao , Isan , and some fellow Thai topolects . These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum . Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020). Moreover, most Thais in the northern (Lanna) and the northeastern (Isan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because Central Thai
4896-401: The use of a trained fieldworker. These atlases typically consist of display maps , each showing local forms of a particular item at the survey locations. Secondary studies may include interpretive maps , showing the areal distribution of various variants. A common tool in these maps is an isogloss , a line separating areas where different variants of a particular feature predominate. In
4968-555: The vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand . Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali , Sanskrit , Mon and Old Khmer . It is a tonal and analytic language . Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers . Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and
5040-442: The western dialect of common Old Slavic was still spoken across the modern Serbo-Croatian area in the 12th and early 13th centuries. An intermediate dialect linking western and eastern variations inevitably came into existence over time – Torlakian – spoken across a wide radius on which the tripoint of Bulgaria , North Macedonia and Serbia is relatively pivotal. The other major language family in Europe besides Indo-European are
5112-401: Was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Khmer expressions, sayings, and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference. Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer. The Thais later developed
5184-548: Was designated as a Special Economic Zone in 2015. 20°12′49.2″N 100°27′15.1″E / 20.213667°N 100.454194°E / 20.213667; 100.454194 Thai language Thai , or Central Thai (historically Siamese ; Thai: ภาษาไทย ), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai , Mon , Lao Wiang , Phuan people in Central Thailand and
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