Lanna script
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| Lanna | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Abugida | |
| Spoken languages | Northern Thai | |
| Time period | c. 1300–present | |
| Parent systems | Proto-Canaanite alphabet → Phoenician alphabet → Aramaic alphabet → Brāhmī → Pallava → Khmer → Lanna |
|
| ISO 15924 | Lana | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Lanna script is used for three living languages: Northern Thai (that is, Kam Mu’ang), Tai Lü and Khün. In addition, the Lanna script is also used for Lao Tham (or old Lao) and other dialect variants in Buddhist palm leaves and notebooks. The script is also known as Tham or Yuan script.
The Northern Thai language is a close relative of Thai and member of the Chiang Saeng language family. It is spoken by nearly 6,000,000 people in Northern Thailand and several thousand in Laos of whom few are literate in Lanna script, although there is some resurgent interest in the script among the young. Northern Thai is now written with the Thai alphabet.
There are 670,000 speakers of Tai Lü of whom those born before 1950 are literate in Lanna script. The script has also continued to be taught in the monasteries. There are 120,000 speakers of Khün for which Lanna is the only script.
[edit] References
- Everson, Michael; Hosken, Martin (2006-08-06). Proposal for encoding the Lanna script in the BMP of the UCS (pdf). Working Group Document. International Organization for Standardization.
- Lanna alphabet (Tua Mueang). Omniglot. Retrieved on 2008-04-23.
[edit] External Links
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