Kedah Malay

Kedah Malay
بهاس ملايو قدح
ภาษามลายูไทรบุรี
Pelat Utagha
Bahasa Melayu Kedah, Bahasa Melayu Utara
Native toMalaysia, Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia
RegionKedah, Pulau Pinang, Perlis, northern Perak (Kerian, Manjung, Larut, Matang and Selama), Trang, Satun, Ranong, Tanintharyi, Langkat, Aceh
EthnicityKedahan Malays
Thai Malays
Burmese Malays
Jaring Halus Malays
Native speakers
2.6 million (2004)[1]
Dialects
  • Kedah Persisiran
  • Kedah Utara
  • Perlis-Langkawi
  • Penang
  • Northern Perak
  • Satun
  • Jaring Halus
Latin script, Arabic script, Thai script
Language codes
ISO 639-3meo
Glottologkeda1251
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Distribution of Kedah Malay language
Dark Blue: Regions where Kedahan is currently spoken, Blue: Regions where Kedahan is historically spoken
A young man speaks Kedah Malay

Kedah Malay or Kedahan (Malay: bahasa Melayu Kedah; also known as Pelat Utara or Loghat Utara 'Northern Dialect') or as it is known in Thailand, Syburi Malay (Thai: ภาษามลายูไทรบุรี Phasa Malāyū Saiburī) is a Malayic language mainly spoken in the northwestern Malaysian states of Perlis, Kedah, Penang, and northern Perak and in the southern Thai provinces of Trang and Satun. The usage of Kedah Malay was historically prevalent in southwestern Thailand before being superseded by the Thai language. Enclaves of Kedah Malay can be found in Kawthaung District in Myanmar; Ranong and Krabi in upper southern Thailand; Jaring Halus, Langkat and Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia and up north in Bangkok, central Thailand, where most of the Kedah Malay speakers are descendants of historical settlers from Kedah.[2]

Kedah Malay can be divided into several dialects, namely Kedah Persisiran (Littoral Kedah; which is the de facto prestige dialect of Kedah Malay), Kedah Utara (Northern Kedah), Perlis-Langkawi, Penang and some others outside Malaysia.[3] Speakers in Trang as well as Satun are heavily influenced by the Thai language. However in the district of Baling, they speak a different variant more closely related to Kelantan-Patani Malay than it is to Kedah Malay.[4]

  1. ^ Kedah Malay at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Asmah Haji Omar 2017, p. 38.
  3. ^ See Malayan languages for a comparison between Kedah Persisiran and Penang dialects.
  4. ^ Mohd Noor Aswad 2019.