Abstract:
This research aims to analyze and compare the Northeastern Thai tones produced in five different types of speech communities in Sisaket province which are 1) Northeastern Thai, 2) Northeastern Thai-Kui, 3) Northeastern Thai-Khmer, 4) Northeastern Thai-Kui-Khmer, and 5) Multilingual community. There are two hypotheses. First, by auditory analysis along with the use of Gedney (1972) tone box, the pattern of tone split-mergers and the tone system(s) in the speech of the language participants from five communities are similar. Second, when analyzed by an acoustic method, the characteristics of the Northeastern Thai tones produced in each community are different in pitch height, pitch contour, and pitch range. The data of this research was collected from fifteen female native speakers of Northeastern Thai who live in the communities stated previously by two processes. The first part of the data was collected and analyzed via an auditory method with the use of Gedneys tonebox. The second part was collected and analyzed by using Praat version 5.3.35. The results show that there are two patterns of tone split-mergers and two tone systems produced by fifteen speakers. Both patterns show similarities in the split-mergers of the tone in columns B, C, and DL but an important difference in column A. The majority speakers (thirteen speakers) tone system consists of five tones (Tone 1: low-rising, Tone 2: high-falling, Tone 3: high-level, Tone 4: low-level, Tone 5: mid-falling) and the minority speakers consists of six tones (Tone 1: low-rising, Tone 2: low-falling, Tone 3: high-falling, Tone 4: high-level, Tone 5: low-level, Tone 6: mid-falling). The results of the acoustic analysis suggest that there are some differences in the characteristics of the Northeastern Thai tones spoken in five communities. The major difference is the pitch range of the Northeastern Thai tones spoken in the Northeastern Thai-Kui and Northeastern Thai-Khmer communities which is significantly narrower than other communities. The pitch height of tone 2 and tone 5 produced by some speakers of Northeastern Thai-Kui and the Multilingual community shows noticeable difference from those produced by the rest of the speakers. The pitch contour of the Northeastern Thai tones produced by most speakers shows the least dissimilarity.