People & Language
Northern Thai, Lanna, or Kham Mueang, is the language of the Khon Mueang people of Lanna, Thailand. It is a Tai language, closely related to Thai and Lao. Northern Thai has approximately six million speakers, most of whom live in Thailand, with a few thousand in northwestern Laos.
Southern Thailand, also known as Pak Tai is a Southwestern Tai language spoken in southern Thailand as well as by small communities in the northernmost Malaysian states. My wife comes from Krabi and speak Chaiya dialect, same dialect as in Phuket.