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46-783: Before the Thesaphiban reforms, the country consisted of partially independent cities called mueang , some directly subordinate to the capital, some subordinate to larger mueang , or to one or more of the tributary kingdoms . Before the reforms, governors inherited their posts from their family lineage, and lived on taxes they collected in their area, a practice formally called tax farming . These were converted from hereditary governors to appointed governmental posts, as had been done by Chinese Yuan , Ming , and Qing -era rulers in first recognizing Tusi (tribal leaders) as imperial officials, then replacing them with imperial appointees. The arrangement resulted in governors being appointed and paid by

92-443: A millenarian sect inspired by his apocalyptic prophecies , which spread fear, uncertainty and doubt among almost all the peoples along both banks of the river. The Bangkok government put down west bank resistance with little use of force, and cooperated with French Indochina officials insofar as limiting Thai authority to the west bank, later called Isan . East bank resistance however had no definitive end and became subsumed into

138-408: A central king or other leader. The more powerful mueang (generally designated as chiang , wiang , nakhon or krung – with Bangkok as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon ) occasionally tried to liberate themselves from their suzerain and could enjoy periods of relative independence. Mueang large and small often shifted allegiance , and frequently paid tribute to more than one powerful neighbor –

184-577: A commissioner ( khaluang boriwen , ข้าหลวงบริเวณ). Mueang Mueang ( Ahom : 𑜉𑜢𑜤𑜂𑜫 ; Thai : เมือง mɯ̄ang , pronounced [mɯaŋ˧] listen ), Muang ( Lao : ເມືອງ mɯ́ang , pronounced [mɯaŋ˦] ; Tai Nuea : ᥛᥫᥒᥰ muang ), Mong ( Shan : မိူင်း mə́ŋ , pronounced [məŋ˦] ), Meng ( Chinese : 猛 or 勐 ) or Mường (Vietnamese) were pre-modern semi-independent city-states or principalities in mainland Southeast Asia , adjacent regions of Northeast India and Southern China , including what

230-636: A language from 2000 years ago, in the Kra–Dai family (unrelated to Chinese, but possibly related to the Austronesian languages ), within the (proposed but debated) subgroup of Kam–Tai , although some say that Tai languages are a discrete family, and are not part of Kra–Dai. Ahom is distinct from but closely related to Aiton , which is still spoken in Assam to this day. Ahom has characteristics typical of Tai languages, such as: When speaking and writing Ahom, much

276-717: A meeting of Ahom people at Patsaku, Sibsagar District, the Tai Historical and Cultural Society of Assam was founded. Since the late 1960s, Ahom culture and traditions have witnessed a revival. In 1981 the Eastern Tai Literary Organization has been founded in Dhemaji, which produced language text books and publications in the Ahom script. Schools in Dibrugarh and Sibsagar districts started offering Tai language classes, teaching

322-432: A mix of Tai Ahom, Phakey, Khamti and Central Thai. The scholar Terwiel notes that the view of the Ahom language being a dead language is hotly contested by Ahom priests and spokesmen of the revival movement. According to them, the language did not die out because Ahom priests still use the language for religious purposes. Some even claim that the priestly class speaks Ahom as their mother tongue. Upon further investigation, it

368-664: A municipal status equivalent to town ( thesaban mueang ). In standard Thai, the term for the country of Thailand is ประเทศไทย, rtgs: Prathet Thai. Mueang still forms part of the placenames of a few places, notably Don Mueang District , home to Don Mueang International Airport ; and in the Royal Thai General System of Transcription Mueang Phatthaya ( เมืองพัทยา ) for the self-governing municipality of Pattaya . Nakhon ( นคร ) as meaning "city" has been modified to thesaban nakhon ( เทศบาลนคร ), usually translated as " city municipality ". It still forms part of

414-544: A small minority in their own kingdom, of which they kept control. During the 17th century, the Assamese language entered the Ahom court and co-existed with the Tai-Ahom for some time before finally replacing it. Eventually the Ahom peasants too adopted the Assamese language over the Ahom language for secular purposes, while Ahom was restricted to religious use by Ahom priests. The everyday usage of Ahom language ceased completely by

460-659: A tone system, but because the Ahom script did not spell out any tones, the tones are now unknown. The Ahom language has the following pronouns: Ahom uses the proximal demonstrative nai meaning 'this' and the distal demonstrative nan meaning 'that'. Tai-Ahom mainly used an SVO word order, but an SOV word order has also been attested. Classifiers are used when forming plurals, counting entities and when specifically referring to one single entity. Some classifiers are: 'kun' (used for persons), 'tu' (used for animals) and 'an' (general). For example 'khai song tu' means two buffalo, where 'khai' means buffalo, 'song' means two and 'tu'

506-566: Is colloquially known as Muang Lao , but for Lao people , the word conveys more than mere administrative district. The usage is of special historic interest for the Lao; in particular for their traditional socio-political and administrative organisation, and the formation of their early (power) states , described by later scholars as Mandala (Southeast Asian political model) . Provinces of Laos are now subdivided into what are commonly translated as districts of Laos , with some retaining Muang as part of

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552-502: Is dependent upon context and the audience interpretation. Multiple parts of the sentence can be left out; verb and adjectives will remain, but other parts of speech, especially pronouns, can be dropped. Verbs do not have tenses, and nouns do not have plurals. Time periods can be identified by adverbs, strings of verbs, or auxiliaries placed before the verb. Ahom, like other Tai languages, uses classifiers to identify categories, and repetitions of words to express idiomatic expressions. However,

598-578: Is not directly attested by any surviving texts, but has been reconstructed using the comparative method . This term has Proto-Tai-tone A1 . All A1 words are rising tone in modern Thai and Lao, following rules determined for tone origin . Accordingly, the term is: Different linguistic tones give different meanings; scholarship has not established a link between this term and any of the terms which differ in tone. Mueang conveys many meanings, all having to do with administrative, social, political and religious orientation on wet-rice cultivation. The origin of

644-618: Is now Thailand , Laos , Burma , Cambodia , parts of northern Vietnam , southern Yunnan , western Guangxi and Assam . Mueang was originally a term in the Tai languages for a town having a defensive wall and a ruler with at least the Thai noble rank of khun ( ขุน ), together with its dependent villages. The mandala model of political organisation organised states in collective hierarchy such that smaller mueang were subordinate to more powerful neighboring ones, which in turn were subordinate to

690-450: Is therefore usually regarded as a dead language. It retains cultural significance and is used for religious chants and to read literature. This is complicated however by the fact that the phonology with its tone system has been completely lost, because the Ahom script does not mark tone and under-specifies vowel contrasts, which obscures the meaning of words as tones are important to distinguish

736-458: The Mekong , local revolts ( Prakottakan Phi Bun ปรากฏการณ์ผีบุญ ) led by charismatic religious leaders called holy man or phi bun ( ผีบุญ ) broke out. The most serious of these was led by east-bank rebel Ong Keo against French authority in the former Thai tributary kingdom of Champasak . On the west bank in the area of Ubon Ratchathani , a less-well known former monk and phi bun headed

782-806: The Second Indochina War . Far from the Mekong, resistance to reform continued into the 21st century in the Southern Thailand insurgency . In 1915 there were 19 monthons containing 72 provinces. Due to economic problems, several monthon were merged in 1925. Monthon Phetchabun had been dissolved in 1915. Only 14 monthon remained: Ayutthaya, Bangkok (Krung Thep), Chanthaburi, Nakhon Chaisi, Nakhon Ratchasima, Nakhon Sawan, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Pattani, Phayap, Phitsanulok, Phuket, Prachinburi, Ratchaburi, and Udon Thani. In 1932 another four were abolished: Chanthaburi, Nakhon Chaisi, Nakhon Sawan, and Pattani. Finally in 1933

828-511: The Yuan as imperial officials, in an arrangement generally known as the Tusi ("Native Chieftain") system. Ming and Qing -era dynasties gradually replaced native chieftains with non-native Chinese government officials. In the 19th century, Thailand's Chakri dynasty and Burma's colonial and subsequent military rulers did much the same with their lesser mueang, but, while the petty kingdoms are gone,

874-540: The 'Tai Ahom Yuva Chatra Sanmilan, Assam' (TAYCSA), demanded that the Tai-Ahom language be included in the school curriculum of the state of Assam. They also demanded the creation of a two-year diploma course in Mahdavdeva University. An online dictionary containing nearly 5,000 entries (see External links) has been created by analyzing old manuscripts, especially the Bar Amra. A descriptive grammar of Ahom, based on

920-462: The Ahom still reside today. Tai-Ahom was the exclusive court language of the Ahom kingdom , where it was used to write state-histories or ' Buranjis '. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the small Ahom community expanded their rule dramatically toward the west and they successfully saw off challenges from the Mughal Empire and other invaders. The rapid expansion resulted in the Ahom people becoming

966-504: The central government, and mueang developed into provinces . An essential step in the ending of tax farming was the creation on 3 September 1885 of the Royal Survey Department . Though its first fruits were not obtained until 1901, the department's cadastral surveys , i.e., surveys of specific land parcels, made possible the defining of ownership for land registration and equitable taxation . The term changwat (จังหวัด) for

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1012-399: The creation of the first adequate modern dictionary by Nomal Chandra Gogoi in 1987, titled The Assamese-English-Tai Dictionary . This dictionary allowed a reader to find the translation of 9,000 Assamese words into English and Tai. This dictionary filled in missing gaps of the Ahom vocabulary with Aiton and Khamti words and if those were not available, Lanna and Thai words were used. The result

1058-527: The early 19th century. Although the language is no longer spoken, the exhaustive 1795 Ahom-Assamese lexicon known as the Bar Amra preserves the lexical forms of the language towards the end of the Ahom Kingdom . The language today is used chiefly for liturgical purposes, and is no longer used in daily life. While the written language (and ritualistic chants) survive in a vast number of written manuscripts, Ahom

1104-623: The expressions, classifiers, pronouns, and other sentence particles vary between the Tai languages descended from Proto-Tai, making Tai languages mutually unintelligible. It has its own script, the Ahom script . The Ahom people and their language originated in Yunnan in south-west China . They migrated from the border between northern Vietnam and the Guangxi province of China, to the Hukawng Valley , along

1150-573: The grammar found in old manuscripts, is being worked on. A sketch has been released, titled “A Sketch of Tai Ahom” by Stephen Morey. The Tai Ahom consonants have been reconstructed as the following, by analyzing old texts: The semi-vowel /w/ is missing from the system, however it is an allophone of /b/ that occurs only in the word final position. Consonants found in the word final position are: /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, j, b [w]/. Vowels can occur in syllable medial and final positions only. The following vowel inventory has been reconstructed: The language had

1196-491: The kingdom, until it began to be replaced by the Assamese language in the 17th century. Since the early 18th century, there have been no native speakers of the language, though extensive manuscripts in the language still exist today. The tonal system of the language is entirely lost. The language was only partially known by a small group of traditional priests of the Ahom religion , and it was being used only for ceremonial or ritualistic purposes. There has been efforts to revive

1242-556: The language by following the phonology of existing sister languages, especially Tai-Aiton and Tai-Phake . The Institute of Tai Studies and Research (ITSAR), is a Tai-Ahom language teaching institute in Moran , Sivasagar , Assam , India, established in 2001 and affiliated to Dibrugarh University . It offers a one-year Tai-Ahom language diploma course and a three-month certificate course in spoken Tai-Ahom. Other initiatives have been taken, such as workshops and language classes. In 2019,

1288-404: The language in recent times. A reconstructed version is taught in various educational institutions in Assam by AHSEC and Dibrugarh University . Tai-Ahom is classified in a Northwestern subgrouping of Southwestern Tai owing to close affinities with Shan , Khamti and, more distantly, Thai . The immediate parent language from which Ahom is descended has been reconstructed as Proto-Tai ,

1334-475: The meaning of "town language," specifically in contrast to those of the many hill tribe peoples in the surrounding mountainous areas. Ahom language The Ahom language or Tai-Ahom language ( Ahom :𑜁𑜪𑜨 𑜄𑜩 𑜒𑜑𑜪𑜨 or 𑜁𑜨𑜉𑜫 𑜄𑜩 𑜒𑜑𑜪𑜨; khwám tái ahüm ) is a dormant , Southwestern Tai language formerly spoken by the Ahom people . It's currently undergoing a revival and mainly used in religious and educational purposes. Ahom language

1380-404: The meaning of words in tonal languages. Fabricated samples of the Ahom script delayed translation of legitimate Ahom texts. Several publications were created based on the fabricated samples, leading to incorrect grammatical analysis and dictionary resources that acted as a barrier to future researchers. A later translation of Ahom Buranji , a major Ahom script was provided by Golap Chandra Barua,

1426-633: The most powerful of the period being Ming China . Following Kublai Khan 's defeat of the Dali Kingdom of the Bai people in 1253 and its establishment as a tutelary state, new mueang were founded widely throughout the Shan States and adjoining regions – though the common description of this as a "mass migration" is disputed. Following historical Chinese practice, tribal leaders principally in Yunnan were recognized by

Monthon - Misplaced Pages Continue

1472-406: The name of some places. Sung Noen District is noted for having been the site of two ancient cities: Mueang Sema and Khorakhapura. Pali púra became Sanskrit puri , hence Thai บุรี, บูรี , (buri) all connoting the same as Thai mueang : city with defensive wall. "Khorakhapura" was nicknamed "Nakhon Raj," which as a portmanteau with Sema, became Nakhon Ratchasima. Though dropped from

1518-585: The name of this mueang, Sanskrit buri persists in the names of others. Müang Fai is a term reconstructed from Proto-Tai , the common ancestor of all Tai languages . In the Guangxi - Guizhou of Southern China region, the term described what was then a unique type of irrigation engineering for wet-rice cultivation . Müang meaning 'irrigation channel, ditch, canal' and Fai , 'dike, weir, dam.' together referred to gravitational irrigation systems for directing water from streams and rivers. The Proto-Tai language

1564-451: The name: Thailand is colloquially known as Mueang Thai . After the Thesaphiban reforms of Prince Damrong Rajanubhab , city-states under Siam were organized into monthon ( มณฑล , Thai translation of mandala ), which was changed to changwat ( จังหวัด ) in 1916. Mueang still can be found as the term for the capital districts of the provinces ( amphoe mueang ), as well as for

1610-562: The place names remain. Place names in Southwestern Tai languages In Khmer, "moeang" (មឿង) is a word borrowed from the Thai language meaning "small city" or "small town." Usually used as a place name for villages. The placename "mueang" is written in Chinese characters as 勐, 孟 ; měng , which is equivalent to Tai Nüa : ᥛᥫᥒᥰ and Tai Lü : ᦵᦙᦲᧂ , both of which are spoken in China . Laos

1656-541: The provinces was first used in 1907 for the provinces in Monthon Pattani, and by 1916 had come into general use. It took till around 1910 to implement the system throughout the country. The main reason for the slow implementation was the lack of suitably educated officials, but also the resistance of the traditional local leaders, which recalled the 1768–1770 resistance of the monk Chao Phra Faang to Thonburi reestablishment of Siamese authority . In 1902 along both banks of

1702-417: The rules of Tai grammar. It has also changed greatly regarding semantics, literally translating Assamese into Tai words, which leads to sentences which do not make sense to any Tai speaker. Terwiel therefore calls this revived language 'pseudo-Ahom'. Nevertheless, this revived language has been used passionately by revitalists and many neologisms have been created. The demand for translation into Tai-Ahom led to

1748-424: The same man responsible for fabricating samples of translated Ahom script. It was discovered years later, by Professor Prasert na Nagara , that the translation was unreliable. Despite these difficulties, along with the lack of native speakers and specific text, studies in Ahom have prevailed, and certain available scripts have been translated and transliterated, using known words, characters and context. In 1954, at

1794-535: The same watershed area that insured a high degree of cooperation to create and maintain irrigation systems ( müang-faai ) – which probably was the primary reason for founding mueang . Kham Mueang ( Thai : คำเมือง ) is the modern spoken form of the old Northern Thai language that was the language of the kingdom of Lan Na (Million Fields). Central Thai may call northern Thai people and their language Thai Yuan . They call their language Kham Mueang in which Kham means language or word; mueang ; town, hence

1840-559: The scholar Morey reported that Ahom priests have resorted to compounding words to differentiate between words that are homophones in the revived language, since Ahom lost its tone system. For example in old Ahom, the word su for tiger and su for shirt would have sounded differently by pronouncing them with a different tone. In revived Ahom, they are now differentiated by compounding them with another word: tu for animal and pha for cloth respectively. Subsequently, tu su and pha su can be differentiated. An effort has been made to revive

1886-693: The upper reaches of the Chindwin river , northern Burma . In the 13th century, they crossed the Patkai Range . and settled in the Brahmaputra River valley, in Northeast India. After increasing their power in Upper Assam, the Ahom people extended their power to the south of the river Brahmaputra and east of the river Dikho, which corresponds to the modern day districts of Dibrugarh and Sibsagar, Assam, where

Monthon - Misplaced Pages Continue

1932-776: The whole monthon system was abolished by the Provincial Administration Act 2476 B.E./A.D. 1933 , part of the changes made after the coup d'état , which changed from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy, and the 70 provinces to second-level administrative divisions. Nakhon Sawan Merger Krung Thep Merger Chanthaburi Merger Roi Et Merger Ubon Merger Phetchabun Merger Nakhon Chai Si Merger Pattani Merger Chumphon Merger 1907 1916 - merged into Monthon Phitsanulok The larger monthon Phayap, Udon Thani, and Isan had an additional administrative level between monthon and provincial administration. Three to five boriwen (บริเวณ), each administered by

1978-753: The word mueang yet remains obscure. In October 2007, The National Library of Laos , in collaboration with the Berlin State Library and the University of Passau , started a project to produce the Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts. Papers presented at the Literary Heritage of Laos Conference, held in Vientiane in 2005, have also been made available. Many of the mss. illuminate the administrative, social, political, and religious demands put on communities in

2024-521: Was a hodgepodge of multiple Tai languages, that was only linked to the Ahom language by the Ahom script in which the dictionary entries were written. The scholar Terwiel recommended in 1992 to base neo-Ahom on the grammar and tones of the very closely related Aiton language, which is still spoken in Assam. Summarizing, the revivalists use a language consisting of a mixture of Tai words from multiple Tai languages, overlaid on an Assamese grammatical base. In 1999,

2070-436: Was determined that the priests could decipher the Ahom script and read the words aloud. However, because they did not know any tones, they did not have any idea of the meaning of the words except for the simplest expressions. According to Terwiel, there are great differences between the old Ahom language of the manuscripts, which is easily recognizable as a Tai language, and what the revivalists call Ahom, which does not follow

2116-452: Was the state language of Ahom kingdom . It was relatively free of both Mon-Khmer and Indo-Aryan influences and has a written tradition dating back to the 13th century. The Ahom people established the Ahom kingdom and ruled parts of the Brahmaputra river valley in the present day Indian state of Assam between the 13th and the 18th centuries. The language was the court language of

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