World Language Map

Where is Northern Thai spoken?

Northern Thai (ᨣᩤᩴᨾᩮᩬᩥᨦ) is a Tai-Kadai language, spoken in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Northern Thai is spoken

Northern Thai is spoken in 3 countries: Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Thailand9.6%6,712,416
LaosNot givenNot given
MyanmarNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Northern Thai has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Northern Thai?

Wikidata gives about 6 million speakers (ethnologue.com, 1983). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Northern Thai sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Northern Thai as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Tai-Kadai
  2. Kam-Tai
  3. Daic-Beic
  4. Daic
  5. Central-Southwestern Tai
  6. Wenma-Southwestern Tai
  7. Sapa-Southwestern Tai
  8. Southwestern Tai
  9. Southwestern Tai P
  10. Shanic
  11. Southern Shanic
  12. Yuanic
  13. Northern Thai

Related languages

Other languages in the Yuanic group:

More about Northern Thai

Codes: ISO 639-3 nod, Glottolog nort2740. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Questions about Northern Thai

Where is Northern Thai spoken?

Northern Thai is spoken in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Unicode CLDR puts it at 9.6% of the population of Thailand, which is about 6,712,416 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Northern Thai?

Wikidata gives about 6 million speakers (ethnologue.com, 1983). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Northern Thai in?

Glottolog places Northern Thai in the Tai-Kadai family, in the branch Kam-Tai, Daic-Beic, Daic, Central-Southwestern Tai, Wenma-Southwestern Tai, Sapa-Southwestern Tai, Southwestern Tai, Southwestern Tai P, Shanic, Southern Shanic and Yuanic.

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