The northern-southern bipartite classification is from Theraphan L-Thongkum's 1984 multi-dialectal Nyah Kur dictionary.

However, Gerard Diffloth considers Nyah Kur to be made up of three dialects, namely North, Central, and South.

The modern-day speakers of Nyah Kur are the descendants of the Mon who did not flee west when the Khmer overran their empire in the 9th and 11th centuries.

Nyah Kur was discovered by linguists early in the 20th century, but was not recognized as being related (in fact a "sister" language) to Mon for nearly 70 years.

Mon being the only extant linguistic relative of Nyah Kur within the Monic branch of Austroasiatic languages and Khamti being close relative of Standard Thai, the likes of which has influenced Nyah Kur greatly in terms of phonology, but unlike Thai, uses a derivative of the Mon-Burmese script similar to Mon.