Thai language

• 1. Origins And Evolution

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  In 1405, the Chinese explorer Ma Huan recorded the language of the Xiānluó kingdom in his book Yingya Shenglan. He noted that the local speech resembled the patois spoken in Guangdong. This observation captures a moment when Ayutthaya was already a bilingual society speaking both Thai and Khmer. The great number of Khmer-speaking captives taken from Angkor Thom after victories in 1369, 1388, and 1431 strengthened this bilingualism for some time. Gradually toward the end of the period, a language shift took place as Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In this process, an abundance of Khmer elements transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period became a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates during this era. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge their own vocabulary from Khmer sources. Varasarin (1984) notes that three languages, Thai, Khmer, and Khmero-Indic, were at work closely together in formulaic expressions and normal discourse. The Thais later developed the royal vocabulary according to their immediate environment. Thai and Pali, the latter from Theravada Buddhism, were added to the vocabulary. An investigation of the Ayutthaya Rajasap reveals how these linguistic layers interacted. Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on live syllables with no possible distinction on dead syllables. This system existed before major sound changes occurred between about 1300 and 1600 CE. All voiced, voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction during this period. Plain voiced stops became voiceless aspirated stops while glottalized stops remained unaffected. Voiced fricatives became voiceless and voiceless sonorants became voiced. In essence, every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones. A lower-pitched tone corresponded to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant. A higher-pitched tone corresponded to a syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant including glottalized stops. Since the tone split, the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship has been completely obscured. Modern Lao, Isan and northern Thai dialects are often described as having six tones but these are not necessarily due to preservation of the original six tones resulting from the tone split.

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• 2. Phonological Structure

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  Standard Thai distinguishes three voice-onset times among plosive and affricate consonants: voiced, tenuis, and aspirated. Where English makes a distinction between voiced and voiceless aspirated, Thai distinguishes a third type of voicing with unaspirated sounds. These occur in English only as an allophone after an s as in the sound of the p in spin. There is similarly a laminal denti-alveolar triplet in Thai. In the velar series there is a pair and in the postalveolar series a pair without corresponding voiced sounds. Among some younger speakers such as younger female speakers from Bangkok metropolitan area, postalveolar series are alveolar and . Among some older speakers such as older speakers from Maeklong river basin, they can be stops and , however this pronunciation is not standard. Voiced stops tend to vary from fully pulmonic to implosives. However, implosive pronunciation is rare among younger speakers due to standardization and influence of the standard dialect. Standard Thai has five phonemic tones: mid, low, falling, high, and rising. Sometimes referred to in older reference works as rectus, gravis, circumflexus, altus, and demissus respectively. The full complement of tones exists only in so-called live syllables those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant. For dead syllables those that end in a plosive or in a short vowel, only three tonal distinctions are possible: low, high, and falling. Because syllables analyzed as ending in a short vowel may have a final glottal stop especially in slower speech, all dead syllables are phonetically checked. They have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables. In open syllables, tone values include Mid [33], Low [21], Falling [41], High [45], Rising [214]. Traditionally, the high tone was recorded as either [44] or [45]. This remains true for the older generation but the high tone is changing to [334] among youngsters. Teeranon (2007) documented this change in an acoustic study and perceptual experiment. Pittayaporn (2009) reconstructs a similar system for Proto-Southwestern-Tai but believes there was also a mid back unrounded vowel occurring only before final velar. He also seems to believe that the Proto-Southwestern-Tai vowel length distinctions can be reconstructed back to similar distinctions in Proto-Tai. The vowel system of modern Thai contains nine pure vowels and three centering diphthongs each of which can occur short or long. According to Li (1977), however, many Thai dialects have only one such short-long pair where both members have frequent correspondences throughout the Tai languages. In closed syllables, the long high vowels are rare and cases that do exist typically have diphthongs in other Tai languages. In closed syllables, both short and long mid and low do occur. However, generally, only words with short and long are reconstructible back to Proto-Tai. Both of the mid back unrounded vowels are rare and words with such sounds generally cannot be reconstructed back to Proto-Tai.

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• 3. Grammatical Framework

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  From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered an analytic language. The word order is subject-verb-object although the subject is often omitted. Additionally, Thai is an isolating language lacking any form of inflectional morphology whatsoever. Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience. Verbs do not inflect. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number nor are there any participles. The language being analytic and case-less, the relationship between subject, direct and indirect object is conveyed through word order and auxiliary verbs. Transitive verbs follow the pattern subject-verb-object. In order to convey tense, aspect and mood TAM, the Thai verbal system employs auxiliaries and verb serialization. TAM markers are however not obligatory and often left out in colloquial use. In such cases, the precise meaning is determined through context. This results in sentences lacking both TAM markers and overt context being ambiguous and subject to various interpretations. The sentence can thus be interpreted as I am eating there, I eat there habitually, I will eat there or I ate there. Aspect markers in Thai have been divided into four distinct groups based on their usage. These markers could appear either before or after the verb. The imperfective aspect marker currently is used before the verb to denote an ongoing action similar to the -ing suffix in English. Similarly, is a post-verbal aspect marker which corresponds to the continuative or temporary aspect. Comparably, still is used in an incomplete action and usually collocates with or any second marker in common use. The marker is usually analyzed as a past tense marker when it occurs before the verb. As a full verb means to get or receive. However, when used after a verb, takes on a meaning of potentiality or successful outcome of the main verb. marks the event as being completed at the time of reference. has two other meanings in addition to its use as a TAM marker. It can either be a conjunction for sequential actions or an archaic word for to finish. Future can be indicated by before the verb or by a time expression indicating the future. Dative marker often used in a sentence to indicate prepositional or double objects. The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of before the verb. The construction is traditionally an adversative passive, a feature common to many Southeast Asian languages where a passive construction is restricted to unfavorable meanings such as he was killed but not he was rewarded. In current usage is found with virtually all transitive verbs. This neutral usage first arose as an Anglicism as Thailand became Westernized in the early 20th century but has since become pervasive.

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• 4. Social Registers

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  Central Thai is composed of several distinct registers forms for different social contexts. Street or Common Thai is informal without polite terms of address as used between close relatives and friends. Elegant or Formal Thai is official and written version includes respectful terms of address used in simplified form in newspapers. Rhetorical Thai is used for public speaking. Religious Thai heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Pali is used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks. Royal Thai influenced by Khmer is used when addressing members of the royal family or describing their activities. Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts. Street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations. Rhetorical, religious, and royal Thai are taught in schools as part of the national curriculum. As noted above, Thai has several registers each having certain usages such as colloquial, formal, literary, and poetic. Thus, the word eat can be kin common, daek vulgar, yat vulgar Original meaning is to cram, boriphok formal literary, rapprathan formal polite Often shortened to /tān/, chan religious, sawoei royal. The word play a role in indicating respect, a request, encouragement or other moods similar to the use of intonation in English. They vary the level of formality but are not used in elegant written Thai. The most common particles indicating respect are with a high tone when the speaker is a man, and with a falling tone when the speaker is a woman. Used in a question or a request, the particle falling tone is changed to a high tone. Other common particles indicate emphasis or an imperative. It can come across as ordering someone to do something. Others soften indicating a request or making your sentence sound more friendly. Subject pronouns are often omitted with nicknames used where English would use a pronoun. Pronouns when used are ranked in honorific registers and may also make a T-V distinction in relation to kinship and social status. Specialized pronouns are used for royalty and for Buddhist monks. Children or younger women could use or be referred by word when talking with an older person. The second person pronoun lit: you is semi-feminine. It is used only when the speaker or the listener or both are female. Males usually do not address each other by this pronoun. Instead of a second person pronoun such as you it is much more common for unrelated strangers to call each other brother sister aunt uncle granny. To express deference, the second person pronoun is sometimes replaced by a profession similar to how in English presiding judges are always addressed as your honor rather than you. In Thai, students always address their teachers by teacher rather than you. Teachers, monks, and doctors are almost always addressed this way.

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• 5. Lexical Borrowings

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  Other than compound words and words of foreign origin, most words are monosyllabic. Chinese-language influence was strong until the 13th century when the use of Chinese characters was abandoned and replaced by Sanskrit and Pali scripts. However, the vocabulary of Thai retains many words borrowed from Middle Chinese. Khmer was used as a prestige language in the early days of the Thai kingdoms which are believed to have been bilingual societies proficient in Thai and Khmer. There are over 2,500 Thai words derived from Khmer surpassing the number of Tai cognates. These Khmer words span across all semantic fields. Thai scholar Uraisi Varasarin classified them into over 200 sub-categories. As a result, it is impossible for Thais past and present to engage in a conversation without incorporating Khmer loanwords in any given topic. The influence is particularly preponderant in regard to royal court terminology. Later, most vocabulary was borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali. Buddhist terminology is particularly indebted to these. Indic words have a more formal register and may be compared to Latin and French borrowings in English. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the English language has had the greatest influence especially for scientific technical international and other modern terms. Arabic-origin words include Quran and bad vile vulgar. From Middle Chinese or Teochew Chinese come chair rice noodle older sister used in Chinese community in Thailand two archaic but still used in word twenty bean basin glue fishbone pit to smear. English-origin words include apple bank means bank or banknote bill cake captain cartoon clinic computer colloquially shortened to corruption countdown dinosaur duel e-mail fashion golf shampoo slip taxi technology valve visa wreath. Portuguese were the first Western nation to arrive in what is modern-day Thailand in the 16th century during the Ayutthaya period. Their influence in trade especially weaponry allowed them to establish a community just outside the capital and practise their faith as well as exposing and converting the locals to Christianity. Thus, Portuguese words involving trade and religion were introduced and used by the locals. Paper heron auction low-priced Christian priest bread coin soap entered Thai through this contact. Tamil words include curry curry powder clove butter. Malay words include sailor seaman sago small mosque. Persian words include rose loincloth balance scale felt spare part. Japanese words include karaoke ninja sushi. Khmer words from Old Khmer include capital city kathoey to steal thief nose prosperous smart road fire sea.

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• 6. Writing System

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  Thai is written in the Thai script an abugida written from left to right. The language and its script are closely related to the Lao language and script. Most literate Lao are able to read and understand Thai as more than half of the Thai vocabulary grammar intonation vowels and so forth are common with the Lao language. The Thais adopted and modified the Khmer script to create their own writing system. While in Thai the pronunciation can largely be inferred from the script, the orthography is complex with silent letters to preserve original spellings and many letters representing the same sound. While the oldest known inscription in the Khmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. Notable features include it being an abugida script in which the implicit vowel is a short in a syllable without final consonant and a short in a syllable with final consonant. Tone markers if present are placed above the final onset consonant of the syllable. Vowels sounding after an initial consonant can be located before after above or below the consonant or in a combination of these positions. There is no universally applied method for transcribing Thai into the Latin alphabet. For example, the name of the main airport is transcribed variably as Suvarnabhumi, Suwannaphum, or Suwunnapoom. Guide books textbooks and dictionaries follow different systems. For this reason, many language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script. Official standards are the Royal Thai General System of Transcription RTGS published by the Royal Institute of Thailand only in Thai and the almost identical defined by the International Organization for Standardization. The RTGS system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments especially for road signs. Its main drawback is that it does not indicate tone or vowel length. As the system is based on pronunciation not orthography, reconstruction of Thai spelling from RTGS romanisation is not possible. The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2005 ISO 11940. By adding diacritics to the Latin letters it makes the transcription reversible making it a true transliteration. Notably, this system is used by Google Translate although it does not seem to appear in many other contexts such as textbooks and other instructional media.

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