Tonal Geography of the Southern Thai Dialects

Abstract

This study aims to describe the tonal differences of Southern Thai as spoken in the 21st century across the entire region of Southern Thailand and to show their geographical distribution on maps. The study adopts a dialectological approach (Chambers and Trudgill 1998), focusing on how tones vary by geographical area. Tonal data were collected from 998 native Southern Thai speakers across Southern Thailand. Site selection was based on a geometric grid method using QGIS and Google Earth Pro software. A set of 80 monosyllabic words, adapted from Gedney’s (1972) checklist, was used to elicit tonal data. Tonal data were analyzed through auditory judgment, followed by acoustic verification and refinement using Praat software. The results revealed that tone patterns and characteristics varied by geographical area. Southern Thai can be divided into nine regional dialects based on the patterns of tone splits and mergers, and each of the nine dialects can be further divided into sub-dialects according to the phonetic characteristics of the tones. This study both confirms and extends previous findings: it supports earlier observations regarding the merger of tones A1 and B1 as a distinguishing feature of Southern Thai, while also revealing a more complex picture of tonal diversity and distribution than previously documented.