Rick Bradford wrote:หยิ๋บ?
Wouldn't ยิ๋บ do just as well?
Or is there an extra tonal implication in northern Thai?
I'll treat this as an innocent question and first consider the spelling of the word for coil (= Siamese
ขด). I prefer to write it
ข๋ด; that is the way I have seen it written. It is, for example, the way the
Northern Thai Dictionary of Palm Leaf Manuscripts gives the pronunciation of a homophonous word.
There are two frequent tones on short dead syllables in Northern Thai, a high tone with a terminal rise and a high tone with a terminal fall. The words with the first tone have Siamese cognates starting with a high or mid consonant and words with the second tone have Siamese cognates starting with a local consonant. The traditional local writing system works the same way. In the tradition of Chiangmai, these two tones are equated with the rising tone of live syllables and the high tone of live syllables. However, some people, apparently from Chiangrai, seem to see the first as a 'high' tone, and that is what the Wikipedia article on Northern Thai currently calls it. On that notion, one might write it as
ข๊ด (as in the quote I gave) or even, I'm afraid,
ค๊ด. The latter notation immediately invites comparison with plain
คด 'to scoop', which is pronounced much the same in Siamese and Northern Thai. The dictionary I'm working from often confuses the two notations. Given this scope for confusion, I'm much happier to be guided by the local writing tradition, and use
ข.
Where things get complicated is with
ย. Tai started with four very similar initial consonants or consonant clusters -
ย (low),
อย (mid),
ญ (low) and
หญ (high). Siamese has simplified them all to /j/ and the writing system mostly to
ย (low) and
หย (high), with just four words using the mid cluster
อย. In native words, Lao and Northern Thai merged
ย,
ญ and
หญ as /ɲ/ (high and low) but changed
อย to /j/ (mid) and a new letter was invented for it. Given that one does not expect a contrast corresponding to high v. low with initial /j/, perhaps using
ย and
หย in accordance with the rule
ย for live and no tone mark,
หย elsewhere, corresponding to the Siamese and Northern Thai rule mid = low for live and no tone mark, but mid = high elsewhere, does not matter so much. To put it simply, one does not expect to encounter Northern Thai *
ยิบ with the tone of
คด.