Tai Noi script

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Tai Noi
Lao Buhan
Script type
Time period
c. 1500
Tai Yo
[a] The Semitic origin of the Brahmic scripts is not universally agreed upon.
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
This article contains
Lao script
.
Brahmic scripts
The Brahmi script and its descendants
Northern Brahmic
Southern Brahmic

The Tai Noi (also spelled Thai Noi) or Lao Buhan script is a

Brahmic script that has historically been used in Laos and Isan[3] since about 1500 CE.[1] The contemporary Lao script is a direct descendant and has preserved the basic letter shapes.[4] The script has mostly dropped out of use in the Isan region of Thailand, due to the Thaification policies of the Thai government, that imposed Central Thai culture such as the Thai script throughout the country.[4]

Names

The Tai Noi script (

Northeastern Thai: อักษรลาวเดิม RTGS Akson Lao Doem, lit. 'Original Lao script').[4] The script is also called Tua Wiang, meaning "orthography of the court".[6]

History

The Tai Noi/Lao script and the Thai script derive from a common ancestral Tai script of what is now northern Thailand which was an adaptation of the

Fak Kham script represents the prototype for the Tai Noi script, which was developed in Lan Xang. The first true examples of inscriptions in Tai Noi are provided by a stele found in Thakhek, dated to 1497.[1]

The 16th century would see the establishment of many of the hallmarks of the contemporary Lao language. Scribes abandoned the use of written Khmer or Lao written in the Khmer alphabet, adopting a simplified, cursive form of the script now known in Thailand as Tai Noi.

Nong Bua Lamphu dated to 1510, and the last epigraphic evidence is dated to 1840 AD, although large numbers of texts were destroyed or did not survive the heat and humidity. Temples built in what is now Isan still featured the Tai Noi script on its murals and although Siam would intervene in some matters, daily administration was still left to the remaining kings and various Lao princes that served as governors of the larger mueang.[citation needed
]

Maha Sarakham Province
. Dating to the reign of Siamese Ruler Rama III (1788–1851), the writing is in the Tai Noi script
Inscription in Lao Buhan which records the construction, decoration and opening of Wat Sahasahatsarama or Wat Si Saket, Vientiane. Completed 1824.

The use of the script was banned in Isan in 1871 by royal decree and supplemented with the Thai alphabet, followed by reforms that imposed Thai as the administrative language of the region in 1898, but these edicts had little impact as education was done informally by village monks. The written language survived to some degree until the imposition of the radical Thaification policies of the 1930s, as the Central Thai culture was elevated as the national standard and all expressions of regional and minority culture were brutally suppressed.[7] Many documents were confiscated and burned, religious literature was replaced by royally sanctioned Thai versions and schools, where only the Thai spoken and written language was used, were built in the region. As a result, only a handful of people, such as academic experts, monks that maintain the temple libraries and some elderly people of advanced age are familiar with and can read material written in Tai Noi script. This has led to Isan being mainly a spoken language, and when it is written, if at all, it is written in the Thai script and spelling conventions that distance it from its Lao origins.[4]

Portions of an ancient legal text written in the Tai Noi script on a palm-leaf manuscript. The script was banned in the 1930s but survived in Laos as the modern Lao alphabet.

In Laos, Tai Noi survives with a few modifications as the

Northeast Thailand, children's tracing books for learning Tai Noi script, a standardized Tai Noi script presented in alphabet posters, flash cards for teaching Tai Noi and a 16,000-word multilingual Thai-Isan-English dictionary employing the Tai Noi script.[11]

Northeastern Thai: พิพิธภัณฑ์ศรีอุบลรัตนาราม in the Thai script, identical to how it is in the Thai language, and Lao
: ພິພິດທະພັນສີອຸບົນຣັດຕະນາຣາມ in the contemporary Lao.

Characteristics

The Tai Noi consonants are written horizontally from left to right, while vowels are written in front, on top, at the bottom, and after the letter, depending on the vowel. The script does not have capital or lowercase letters. There are no spaces between words. Sentences are ended with a space.

The Tai Noi script has its own numbers, which are similar to numbers found in the Lao script.

Consonants

The Tai Noi script contains 27 initial consonants.

Consonant clusters

Consonant clusters are initial consonants that consist of two consonant letters combined into one letter.[12]

The following picture illustrates some examples:

Final consonants

The Tai Noi script contains letters specifically for consonants in the final position of a word. There are 11 final consonant letters in total for 8 different sounds.

Vowels

The Tai Noi script contains 29 vowels formed by numerous diacritics.

Unicode

Attempts to encode Tai Noi in Unicode have been made.[5]

Fonts

You can download a Tai Noi font at the IsanGate website.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Lorrillard, Michel (2005). "The Diffusion of Lao Scripts". The Literary Heritage of Laos: Preservation, Dissemination, Research Perspectives (Collected Papers in Lao, Thai and English from the International Conference in Vientiane, 8–10 January 2004). Vientiane: The National Library of Laos. pp. 366–372.
  2. ^ a b c d Phra Ariyuwat (1996). Phya Khankhaak, the Toad King: A Translation of an Isan Fertility Myth in Verse. Translated by Wajuppa Tossa. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. pp. 27–34.
  3. doi:10.15021/00002577
    .
  4. ^ a b c d e f Ronnakiat, Nantana (1992). "Evidence of the Tai Noi Alphabet Found in Inscriptions" (PDF). The Third International Symposium on Language and Linguistics. Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University. pp. 1326–1334.
  5. ^ a b Mitchell, Ben (2018). "Towards a Comprehensive Proposal for Thai Noi/lao Buhan Script" (PDF) – via Unicode.org.
  6. ^ Keyes, Charles (2003). "The Politics of Language in Thailand and Laos". In Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in Asia, ed. By Michael e. Brown and Šumit Ganguly. Cambridge, Ma: The mit Press, Pp. 177-210. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  7. ^ Draper, John (2013). "Introducing Multilingual Thai – Isan – English Signage in a Thai University" (PDF). Journal of Lao Studies. 4 (1): 11–42.
  8. ^ "The Constitution of the Lao People's Democratic Republic". Archived from the original on 2011-08-06 – via un.int.
  9. ^ Draper, John (2004). "Isan: The Planning Context for Language Maintenance and Revitalization". Second Language Learning & Teaching. 4.
  10. S2CID 145264735
    .
  11. JSTOR 44668412
    .
  12. ^ "First Revised Proposal Transliteration of Akson-Tham-Isan and Akson-Thai-Noi" (PDF) – via eki.ee.
  13. ^ "อักษรไทยน้อย - IsanGate : ประตูสู่อีสานบ้านเฮา".
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