"Nuea" (เหนือ) indeed means "north" or "northern" in the standard Central Thai language, whereas I believe "le" is the way northerners pronounce the same word.
BTW, readers of this mailing list may be interested bookmarking the following online Thai-English dictionary from NECTEC: http://lexitron.nectec.or.th/ On Thursday 2003.09.11 12:29:52 -0700, Richard Cook wrote: > Gedney says "nuea"/"nü" is a Thai word for 'north/northern' ... looks > as if the syllable in this name gets written many different ways ... > le, lu, lü, lüe, lue, nü, nüa, nüe, neua, nuea ... at least it's > possibly the same syllable. > > Here are some references: > > Gedney, William J. 1976. "Notes on Tai Nuea". In _Tai Linguistics in > Honor of Fang-kuei Li. (Gething et al. eds.) Bangkok. [62-102]. > > Morez, L. N. 1978. _Jazyk Ly_. Moskow: Nauka. > > Seree Weroha. 1974. _Tai Lue / English Dictionary_. 2 Vol. Univ. > Michigan. > >
