Nyah Kur language

Nyah Kur
Chaobon
Spoken in	Thailand
Region	Southeast Asia
Native speakers	1,500  (date missing)
Language family	Austro-Asiatic Monic Nyah Kur
Dialects	Chaiyaphum Petchabun
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cbn

The Nyah Kur language is an Austroasiatic language spoken by a remnant of the Mon people of Dvaravati, the Nyah Kur people, who live in present-day Thailand. It is known as Chao-bon (Thai: ชาวบน) in Thai.

Distribution

Nyah Kur is spoken by a few thousand people in the central and northeastern provinces of (Sidwell 2009:113-114):

• Phetchabun Province
• Phitsanulok Province (Nakhon Thai district)
• Chaiyaphum Province
• Nakhon Ratchasima Province (Dan Khun Thot, Pak Thong Chai, and Khon districts)

Classification

Being the only languages of the Monic branch of the Mon–Khmer language family, Mon and Nyah Kur are very closely related.

History

The modern-day speakers of Nyah Kur are the descendants of the Mon who did not flee west when the Khmer overran their empire in the 9th and 11th centuries. Consequently, modern Mon and Nyah Kur have both developed directly from Old Mon independently for almost a millennium.

Nyah Kur was discovered by linguists early in the 20th century, but was not recognized as being related (in fact a "sister" language) to Mon for nearly 70 years.

Due to integration into Thai society, the number of speakers of Nyah Kur as a first language is rapidly decreasing and some predict the language to become extinct within the next century unless the current course is reversed.

Further reading

• Premsrirat, Suwilai. 2002. "The Future of Nyah Kur." Bauer, Robert S. (ed.) 2002. Collected papers on Southeast Asian and Pacific languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

References

• Diffloth, G. (1984). The Dvaravati Old-Mon language and Nyah Kur. Chulalongkorn University Printing House, Bangkok. ISBN 9745637831
• Huffman, F.E. (1990). Burmese Mon, Thai Mon and Nyah Kur: a synchronic comparison Mon–Khmer studies 16-17, pp. 31–64
• Sidwell, Paul (2009). Classifying the Austroasiatic languages: history and state of the art. LINCOM studies in Asian linguistics, 76. Munich: Lincom Europa.

External links

• Development of Modern Mon and Nyah Kur Paul Sidwell, Australian National University (accessed May 11, 2006)
• SEALANG Brief discussion outlining development of Mon and Nyah Kur from Old Mon (accessed May 11, 2006)

Further reading

• Theraphan L. Thongkum. (1984). Nyah Kur (Chao bon)–Thai–English dictionary. Monic language studies, vol. 2. Bangkok, Thailand: Chulalongkorn University Printing House. ISBN 9745637858