Kelantan–Pattani Malay

Writing system

Kelantanese Malay is written both in Latin and in the Jawi alphabet, a writing system based on the Arabic script. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the general population of Malay speakers in both Malaysia and Indonesia that now mainly use the Latin script, known in Malay as rumi (رومي), for daily communication. Today, Pattani Malay is generally not a written language, though it is sometimes written in informal settings. An old-fashioned form of standard Malay is used when writing is needed rather than the local dialect. A phonetic rendering of Pattani Malay in the Thai alphabet has been introduced, but it has not been met with much success due to the socio-religious significance of Jawi to Muslim Malays.

History

Southern Thailand has continued to be a region affected by two cultural spheres: the mainly Buddhist, Thai-speaking Siamese kingdoms and the mainly Muslim, Malay-speaking sultanates. The region was a warehouse of trade where merchants from Europe, India, Arabia, China, Siam, and other parts of the Malay world met. At first dominated by Hindu-Buddhist Indian influences, the great kingdom of Srivijaya would later fall into chaos. Islam was introduced by Arab and Indian traders in the 11th century and has been the dominant religion ever since, replacing Buddhism and Hinduism that had held sway. By the 14th century, the area became vassals to Ayutthaya, but the region was autonomous and never fully incorporated into modern Thai nation-state until 1902. This political autonomy and isolation from the rest of the Malay world allowed for the preservation of the Malay language and culture but also led to the divergence of the dialect.

Variation

Kelantan–Pattani Malay can be divided into three major variants and several dialects (and a few subdialects):

Kelantan: Coastal (Narathiwat, Besut dialects), Central / River, Dabong / Inland

Pattani: Yala, Saiburi, Bana Taning, Chenok / Chana, Nonthaburi / Bangkok

Reman: Grik, Sik, Baling, Padang Terap, Batu Kugho / Selama, Southern Yala

• The Reman variants of Kedah and Perak show some vocabulary influence from Perak Malay and Kedah Malay (e.g. mika ('you'), ang/hang ('you'), ciwi ('brag/show off'), etc.).

Creole/Pidgin: Samsam Malay (a mixed language of Thai and Pattani Malay spoken by those of mixed Thai-Malay ancestry)

Distribution

Kelantanese is spoken in the Malaysian state of Kelantan, as well as in Besut and Setiu districts of Terengganu and the Perhentian Islands. It is also spoken in the Merapoh township, in the Lipis district of Pahang since this town borders the state of Kelantan.

Many people in the districts of Baling, Sik and Padang Terap in Kedah as well as the Hulu Perak district of Perak speak Kelantan-Patani language of Reman dialects, since most of the Malay people there are the descendants of Kelantanese migrants and Pattani refugees (in which whereby these regions were once parts of the Reman Kingdom of Pattani).

Pattani Malay is the main language of the Thai provinces Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani where ethnic Malays make up the majority of the population, it is also spoken in parts of Songkhla and Bangkok. It is less spoken in the province of Satun, where despite making up the majority, ethnic Malays generally speak Southern Thai and their Malay dialect is similar to Kedah Malay. It is also spoken in scattered villages as far north as Hat Yai. In the past, Malay was the main language as far north as the Isthmus of Kra, the traditional division between Central Thailand and Southern Thailand, based on the preponderance of etymologically Malay place names.

Comparison with Standard Malay

Kelantan–Pattani Malay is different enough from Standard Malay that it is often unintelligible to speakers of the standard language. Differences include some differences in vocabulary, and different sound correspondences. The influence of Southern Thai and the Kelantan–Pattani Malay in Pattani upon each other is great, and both have large numbers of loanwords from the other. The influence of the Thai language makes comprehension between the Pattani variety of Kelatan-Pattani Malay and Standard Malay a bit more difficult than comprehension between the Kelantanese variety of Kelantan–Pattani Malay and Standard Malay.

Vowels

Consonants

Vocabulary

Note(s):

• The spelling used for the Kelantan–Pattani Malay words is a pronunciation respelling.

Speakers in the Pattani region are also noted to use loans directly from Thai such as tahang "army" from ทหาร RTGS: tá-hǎan, torosak "telephone" from โทรศัพท์ RTGS: toorá-sàp and besek "receipt" from ใบเสร็จ RTGS: bai-set.

Phonology

There are 21 consonants and 12 vowels in Pattani Malay..

Consonants

Notes(s):

• the palatal stops has been identified as palatal plosives [, ] according to Nawanit (1993), palatal affricates [, ] according to Wu (2023), and post alveolar affricates [, ]
• // is inherently geminated and can only occur at the front of the word like 'kkijo' [xːiɟ͡ʝɔ] "to work" and 'kketah' [xːətah] "paper", some speakers may merge the phoneme with [kː]
• The phonemes // and // only appear in some loanwords or proper names with [r] usually merging with [] and [z] merging with []
• // is more pronounced as a voiceless dental plosive [] rather than an alveolar one (Wu, 2023)

Vowels

Note(s):

• The close central unrounded vowel is believed to actually be a schwa according to Teoh (1994), Adi Yasran (2005) and Wu (2023).
• Before a final and final coda and in open-ended words, is pronounced as:
  • Open-mid back rounded according to Nawanit (1989) and Wu (2023) across his work; exp. mata > 'eyes', masak > 'ripe' (the one used from hereon throughout the page).
  • Open back unrounded according to Adi Yasran (2006, 2010) and Zaharani (2006).
  • Near-open central according to Teoh (1984).
• Many such as Adi Yasran (2010) and Teoh and Yeoh (1988) believe that the nasal vowels of Kelantan–Pattani Malay do not count as phonemes, yet Wu (2023) distinguishes it as separate phonemes.

Gemination

Gemination occurs for various purposes and in various forms in Kelantan-Pattani Malay. At the phonemic level, these geminations are transcribed as but they are pronounced as so is pronounced as .

Initial syllable reduction

These geminations are derived by deleting the initial syllable and replacing it with a geminated form of the initial consonant of the remaining word.

• From simple words
  • betina > 'woman'
  • buwi > 'to give'
• From prefixed words
  • berjalan > 'to walk'
  • berdiri > 'to stand up'

Initial morpheme reduction

These geminates are derived by deleting the initial morpheme of a reduplicated word and replacing it with a geminated form of the remaining morpheme. Unlike the geminations acquired from initial syllable reduction, these geminates are not free variants of their Standard Malay counterparts.

• From the reduplicated form of a word
  • baik-baik > 'well'
  • molek-molek > 'properly'
• From words that are reduplications of a single word
  • layang-layang > 'kite'
  • kura-kura > 'tortoise'

Functional word reduction

In this situation, a word with a function is deleted and the word afterwards is geminated. This sort of gemination is a free variant of its Standard Malay counterpart.

• From a verbal linker
  • basuh buwi cuci > 'to wash clean'
  • taruh buwi panjang > 'to keep something so it'll grow long'
• From preposition reduction
  • ke darat > 'to/at/from the shore'
  • sejak pagi > 'since the morning'

Loanwords

Many loanwords tend to have initial geminated consonants too.

• tar > 'tar'

Stress

Kelantan–Pattani Malay has a set of stress rules that is quite different to that of Standard Malay.

Words with initial simple consonants

Generally, in Kelantan–Pattani Malay, the primary stress falls on the last syllable if the word starts with a single consonant.

• nak > 'to want'
• dalam > 'in'
• gelisah > 'restless'

However, in words with more than one syllable, syllables with a schwa are unstressed.

• petang > 'afternoon'
• belakang > 'back'

Syllables that do not have the schwa and are not in the word-final position take the secondary stress.

• jalan > 'path'
• makanan > 'food'

Words with geminated consonants

If a word has an initial syllable with a geminated consonant, that syllable automatically takes the primary stress.

• berjalan > 'to walk'
• ke darat > 'to/at/from the shore'