Northern Kedah dialect

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Northern Kedah dialect
Dialek Kedah Utara
Native to	Malaysia
Region	Kubang Pasu, Padang Terap
Ethnicity	Kedahan Malays
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (disputed) Malayic Malayic Kedah Malay Northern Kedah dialect
Language codes
ISO 639-3	None (mis)

The Northern Kedah dialect (Malay: Dialek Kedah Utara; abbreviated to NKD) is a dialect of Kedah Malay spoken in the area from the sea of Jitra to the Malaysia-Thailand border, specifically in a small part of Kubang Pasu and in almost the entirety of Padang Terap:.

Phonology

Vowels

NKD has a set of eight vowels with four front vowels, three back vowels and one mid vowel.

Vowel Inventory of NKD

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Close-mid	e		o
Mid		ə
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	a

With the exception of /a/, /o/ and /ə/, the vowels of NKD can appear in all positions:

• The phoneme /a/ takes the open front [a] when in word-initial and word-mid positions but takes the open back [ɒ] when in word-final position in an open-ended word and a close-ended word with a glottal stop [ʔ] or a glottal fricative [h]
  • panggil [paŋŋẽ] 'call'; initial /a/ is an open front [a]
  • paksa [paʔsɒ] 'force'; final /a/ in open-ended word is an open back [ɒ]
• /o/ can appear in word-initial and word-final positions but not in word-mid
  • seluruh [sluɣoh] 'whole'
  • duit [doʲt] 'money'
• /ə/ can appear in word-initial and word-mid positions but not in word-final
  • tebal [təbai] 'thick'
  • masjid [məsəd͡ʒed] 'mosque'

NKD has three diphthongs:

• /ai/
  • tebal [təbai] 'thick'
• /oi/
  • pukul [pukoi] 'hit'
• /au/
  • pisau [pisau] 'knife'

Consonants

The phonemic consonants of NKD can be seen in the table below:

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p		t		k
	voiced	b		d		ɡ
Affricate	voiceless				t͡ʃ
	voiced				d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless			s			h
	voiced
Approximant	central				j	w
	lateral			l
Trill				r

Stop consonants

• The stop consonants of NKD comprise /p, b, t, d, k, g/.
  • With the exception of /t/, all the stop consonants of NKD cannot appear in the word-final position.
  • Glottal stop [ʔ] is an allophone of /k/ in word-final position.

Fricative consonants

• The fricative consonants of NKD comprise /s, h/.
  • /h/ can appear in word-initial and word-final positions and between two vowel phonemes.
  • /s/ can only appear in word-initial position and between two vowel phonemes.

/r/ phoneme

• Velar fricative [ɣ] and pharyngeal fricative [ʕ] are allophones of /r/
  • [ɣ] is an allophone of word-initial /r/ and word-final /r/ if it is followed by close-front /i/. Word-final /r/ when followed by close-front /i/ may also be omitted and the vowel is usually reduced to either /e/ or nasal /ɛ̃/
    • rumah [ɣumɒh] 'house'
    • hilir [hile] or [ile] 'downstream'
    • hanyir [haɲɛ̃] 'having the smell of a fish'
  • [ʕ] is an allophone of word-final /r/ is it isn't followed by close-front /i/
    • besar [bəsaʕ] 'big'
• Alveolar trill [r] only appears in loanwords
  • market [markɛt] 'market'

Affricate consonants

• The affricate consonants of NKD comprise /t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/.
  • Both consonants can appear word-initially, between two vowel phonemes and in word-final position in open-ended words.

Nasal consonants

• Comprises the consonants /m, n, ɲ, ŋ/
  • /m, n, ŋ/ can appear in all positions
  • /ɲ/ only appears in word-initial and word-mid positions

Lateral consonants

• Comprises only /l/
  • Only appears word-initially and between two vowel phonemes

Semivowels

• Comprises /j, w/
  • Both consonants appear in between vowel phonemes
  • /w/ can appear word-finally

Unique features of NKD

Reduction of consonant clusters with /l/

Correspondence (SM ≙ NKD)			Standard Malay (SM)		Northern Kedah dialect (NKD)	English Translation
Final /il/	≙	Vowel /e/	panggil	/paŋɡil/	[paŋŋẽ] (Note: /e/ is nasalised here because it is preceded by a voiced nasal-obstruent consonant cluster)	'call'
Final /ul/	≙	Diphthong /oi/	betul	/bətul/	[bətoi]	'correct'
Final /al/	≙	Diphthong /ai/	kenal	/kənal/	[kənai]	'know'

Secondary articulation

In NKD, three types of secondary articulations occur

• Palatalisation
  • lepas [ləpaʲh] 'let go'
• Labialisation
  • buat [buʷɒʔ] 'make'
• Aspiration
  • itu [tʰu] 'that'

Merging of segments

Merging	Standard Malay	Northern Kedah dialect	English Translation
VV > /ɛ/	/naik/	[nɛʔ]	'rise'
VV > /e/	/kain/	[kʰen]	'cloth'
VC > /ɔ/	/umur/	[ɔmɔ]	'age'
VC > /ɛ/	/haɲir/	[haɲɛ̃]	'smell like a fish'
VVC > /e/	/t͡ʃair/	[t͡ʃe]	'melt'
VVC > /ɔ/	/ɲiur/	[ɲɔ]	'coconut'
VCV > /e/	/pahit/	[pʰet]	'bitter'
VCV > /u/	/tahun/	[tʰun]	'year

Assimilation of nasal-obstruent consonant clusters

Nasal-obstruent consonant clusters in NKD assimilate in a way that is different to how they assimilate in Standard Malay.

Nasal-obstruent (Standard Malay)	Assimilation to NKD	Example Consonant Cluster (SM ≙ NKD)		Example Word (SM ≙ NKD)
Unvoiced obstruent	Nasal is deleted Obstruent is geminated	/mp/	[pp]	/kampuŋ/	[kappoŋ]
		/ɲt͡ʃ/	[t͡ʃt͡ʃ]	/haɲt͡ʃur/	[hat͡ʃt͡ʃur]
Voiced obstruent	Obstruent is deleted Nasal is geminated Following vowel is nasalised	/mb/	[mm]	/hambat/	[hammãt]
		/ŋɡ/	[ŋŋ]	/gaŋɡu/	[gaŋŋũ]

Note(s):

• Nasal consonants will not be geminated if in a nasal-obstruent consonant cluster where the voiced obstruent is not homorganic with the aforementioned nasal consonant. So while /ŋ/ in 'tunggu' /tuŋɡu/ does get geminated, /m/ in 'camca' /t͡ʃamt͡ʃa/ does not.
• Deletion of phoneme does not occur if the nasal-obstruent consonant cluster is in word-initial position.

References

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