Thai language
Thai (th. ภาษาไทย (paasaa thai), lit. the language of Thai) is the official language of Thailand, and of no other country. It is part of the Tai/Daic language family, whose origin is uncertain but which is sometimes linked to the Austroasiatic, the Austronesian or Sino-Tibetan language families. Thai is a tonal language, with both lexical and grammatical uses of tones.
Dialects
The status of many of these dialects is debated.
- Standard or Central Thai, spoken by about 25 million (1990), is the official dialect of Thailand.
- Bangkok Thai can be included in Standard Thai or considered as a separate dialect.
- Korat. Spoken by about 400,000 (1984) in Ratchasima.
- Isaan (north-eastern). The dialect of the Isaan region of Thailand is sometimes considered a dialect of the Laotian language, which it closely resembles. Spoken by about 15 million (1983).
- Thai Yuan or Lanna (northern), spoken by about 6 million (1983).
- Southern, Pak Thai, or Dambro: spoken about 5 million (1990).
- Malay or Pattani. Spoken by 3 million (1998) in southern Thailand.
- Tai Dam. Spoken by about 500,000 (1990) in Vietnam.
- Tai Daeng. Spoken by about 125,000 (1990) in Vietnam and elsewhere.
- Phuan or Phu Thai. Spoken by about 400,000 (1993), mostly outside Thailand.
- Lue(Dai). Spoken by about 78,000 (1993) in Thailand, and 250,000 to 1 million in China.
- Song. Spoken by about 20,000 to 30,000 (1982).
- Shan. Spoken by about 3 million (1993) in Myanmar.
Statistics from Ethnologue 2003-10-4.
Thai alphabet
The Thai alphabet (q.v. for full details) originates from the Devanagari script via Pali, and is quite complex from the perspective of Unicode and computer text rendering, because:
- It is an abugida script, in which the default vowel is a long O.
- Vowels associated with consonants are nonsequential: they can precede, follow, or surround their associated consonant(s).
- Tone markers can occur at several places relative to the vowel grapheme.
There is no universal standard for transliterating Thai into English. For example, the name of King Rama IX, the present monarch, is transliterated variously as Bhumibol, Phumiphon, or many other versions. Each guide book, text book and dictionary invents its own system. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners master the Thai alphabet before attempting the language.
The Thai Royal Institute [1] publishes a set of rules for transliterating English words into the Thai alphabet, but these rules are not intended to be used in reverse.
Grammar
From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. Like many Asian languages, the Thai pronomial and inflectional system includes markers for the sex and relative status of both speaker and audience. This combination of tonality, complex orthography, relational markers, in addition to a complex phonology, can make Thai a difficult language for many Europeans to learn.
Tones
There are five tones: middle, low, high, rising and falling. The last four are hinted at in written Thai by tone marks, although these are not sufficient to define the correct tone unambiguously, and may be absent if the tone is implicit.
Word-Order
The word-order is Subject-Verb-Object.
Adjectives
Adjectives follow the noun. There are no definite or indefinite articles.
Verbs
Verbs do not change with person (I, you, they etc.) or with tense.
Nouns
Nouns are uninflected, and there are no plural forms. Plurals are expressed by adding "nouns of multitude".
Pronouns
For conversational use
- ผม ("pom", rising tone) = I/me (masculine)
- ดิฉัน ("di-chan", middle-rising) = I/me (feminine)
- ฉัน ("chan", rising) = I/me (masculine or feminine; informal)
- คุณ ("khun") = you (polite)
- เธอ ("ter") = you (informal)
- เรา ("rao") = we
- เขา ("kao", rising tone) = he/she
- มัน ("man") = it
- พวกเขา ("puak-kao", falling-rising) = they
- พี่ ("pee", falling tone) = older brother or sister (often used loosely for older non-relatives)
- น้อง ("norng", high tone) = younger brother or sister (often used loosely for younger non-relatives)
For sacred and royal use
To be continued.
Adjectives
Adjectives do not change with number (singular or plural).
Adverbs
Many adverbs are expressed by repeating the adjective. Adverbs usually follow the verb.
Polite Particles
The so-called polite particles are untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect for the listener. They are not used in written Thai. A man finishes a sentence with ครับ (pronounced "krup", with a high tone) and a woman with ค่ะ (pronounced "ka" with a falling tone).
Classes of Thai
The Thai langauge can be spoken in different forms depending on the social context. These can be listed as:
- Street Thai: informal, without polite terms of address, as used between close relatives and friends.
- Elegant Thai: official and written version, includes respectful terms of address; used in simplified form in newspapers.
- Rhetorical Thai: used for public speaking.
- Sacred Thai.
- Royal Thai.
Less educated Thais can speak only at the first level. Few Thais can speak the Sacred or Royal versions.
Six-hour clock
Thais use two systems for telling the time: the 24-hour clock and the traditional Thai six-hour clock. The latter system has been used in some form since the days of the Ayutthaya kingdom, but was codified in its present form in 1901 by King Chulalongkorn (in Royal Gazette 17:206) and is widely used in colloquial speech. It works by dividing the day into four equal parts, then counting the hours within each part. The hours are named as follows:
| 12-hour | Pronunciation | Thai | Notes |
|---|
| 1 am | ti 1 | ตีหนึ่ง | ti = strike |
| 2 am | ti 2 | ตีสอง |
| 3 am | ti 3 | ตีสาม |
| 4 am | ti 4 | ตีสี่ |
| 5 am | ti 5 | ตีห้า |
| 6 am | 6 meung chao | หกโมงเช้า | chao = morning |
| 7 am | 7 meung chao | เจ็ดโมงเช้า | meung = chime |
| 8 am | 8 meung chao | แปดโมงเช้า |
| 9 am | 9 meung chao | เก้าโมงเช้า |
| 10 am | 10 meung | สิบโมง |
| 11 am | 11 meung | สิบเอ็ดโมง |
| 12 noon | thiang wan | เที่ยงวัน |
| 1 pm | bai meung | บ่ายโมง | bai = slant, i.e. setting sun |
| 2 pm | bai 2 meung | บ่ายสองโมง |
| 3 pm | bai 3 meung | บ่ายสามโมง |
| 4 pm | 4 meung yen | สี่โมงเย็น | yen = cool, i.e. late afternoon |
| 5 pm | 5 meung yen | ห้าโมงเย็น |
| 6 pm | 6 meung yen | หกโมงเย็น |
| 7 pm | 1 thum | หนึ่งทุ่ม | thum = drumbeat |
| 8 pm | 2 thum | สองทุ่ม |
| 9 pm | 3 thum | สามทุ่ม |
| 10 pm | 4 thum | สี่ทุ่ม |
| 11 pm | 5 thum | ห้าทุ่ม |
| 12 midnight | tieng keun | เที่ยงคืน |
Note: These pronunciations are approximate, and would probably not be understood by native Thais.
Reference
- Segaller, Denis: Thai Without Tears, BMD Book Mags, ISBN 9748711528
Learn Thai
Check out http://www.kisa.ca/thai
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