Kedah Malay or Kedahan (); also known as Pelat Utara or Loghat Utara ('Northern Dialect') or as it is known in Thailand, Syburi Malay () 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 The usage of Kedah Malay was historically prevalent in southwestern Thailand before being superseded by the Thai language.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.
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. 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.
Phonology
Consonants
Note(s): Word initially: is pronounced as the velar fricative in the syllable onset. In certain loan words, is pronounced as an alveolar trill such as in 'market'. Word finally: Following , velar nasal is neutralised to , so 'cat' and 'yellow' are pronounced and though the final consonant is still underlyingly as can be seen from the derived forms of these words such as 'yellowness' which still retains the . is neutralised to , so 'thin' is pronounced . After , this is palatalised, so 'hot' is pronounced . is realised as a pharyngeal fricative so 'hungry' is pronounced .
Vowels
Monophthongs
Kedah Malay has eight monophthongs, unlike Standard Malay which has six with and not having phonemic status.
Note(s):
In open-ended final syllables and before a glottal stop (allophone of in the syllable coda) also in final syllables, is realised as , so 'son/daughter' and 'to force' are pronounced and .
Diphthongs
Kedah Malay has four diphthongs with being a surplus diphthong that does not exist in Standard Malay.
Comparison with Standard Malay
Below is a comparison between Kedah Malay and Standard Malay.