Wiktionary:Northern Thai transliteration

We have not yet established a standard Northern Thai romanisation. See discussion page for ideas.

Writing Systems
There are three major writing systems:


 * 1) Writing in the Thai alphabet, basically using the orthographic conventions of Siamese, including the sound values of the stop consonants.  This system may be called 'thap sap' (ทับศัพท์), at least in Siamese.  It is used in the recent translation of the New Testament.
 * 2) Writing in the Thai alphabet, basically using the vowel and tone conventions of Siamese, but with the consonant values from the Lanna script (script code Lana).  This is close to being a transliteration of the Lanna script consonant system.  This system may be called rup pariwat (รูปปริวรรต).
 * 3) Writing in the Lanna script.  It is used in the recent translation of the New Testament.

Dependent Vowels
Because of grave deficiencies in Tai Tham rendering, the Lanna script vowels are shown on ᨠ or, where more appropriate, ᨣ or ᨠᩖ. For greater clarity, implicit vowels are shown by the dotted circle for both scripts.

Dependent Vowels plus Coda
This does not list predictable combinations, such as ◌าย/ᨠᩣ᩠ᨿ/aai.

No. 32 generalises to the combination of mai sat with vowels above or below.

Tone marks
NOTE: This page is currently being created by adapting the policy for Thai. This section has yet to reach the level of an initial draft. The other sections may be considered ready.

Diatonemes
Although the presence of six tones across Northern Thai is widespread, there are differences in realisation across the region. To establish the diatonemes of the language, it is helpful to go back to the Gedney Box and give concrete examples. The standard four-fold division of initials is more than adequate to encompass Northern Thai, Thai and Lao. Examples are given in the tables in the form (Chiang Mai) thap sap / Lanna script / (Siamese cognate).

The mapping of the cells of the Gedney box is shown in the coloured table. The identification of the tones on short dead syllables with tones on live syllables is not necessarily consistent across accents. NOTE TO EDITORS: Please ensure that there is a comparable set of tone descriptions across dialects. There is a confusing tendency for descriptions to vary from researcher to researcher - perhaps because of variations in informants! By all means supplement consistent descriptions with alternative descriptions. Northern Thai has six tones on live syllables (tone classes A, B and C) and four tones on dead syllables (tone class D). 

Lexical Ordering
For the Thai script, the Thai lexical ordering should be used.

For the Lanna script, we need evidence. The following principles appear to be widely agreed:
 * 1) Ordering is done syllable by syllable (this can be hard to implement), and there might be some difference between phonetic and alphabetical syllables.
 * 2) Differences of tone mark have the lowest priority.
 * 3) Consonants and vowels count equally.
 * 4) Short vowels precede long vowels.

There is not necessarily agreement on the positional of the additional consonants, i.e. those not used for Pali. Additionally, do the vowel letters come first or (almost) last? Are consonants split according to sound (as in the MFL)?