Languages and dialects
Standard Thai, also known as Central Thai or Siamese, is the official language of Thailand, spoken by about 65 million people (1990) including speakers of Bangkok Thai (although the latter is sometimes considered as a separate dialect). Khorat Thai is spoken by about 400,000 (1984) in Nakhon Ratchasima; it occupies a linguistic position somewhere between Central Thai and the Isan on a dialect continuum, and may be considered a variant or dialect of either. A majority of the people in the Isan region of Thailand speak a dialect of the Lao language, which has influenced the Central Thai dialect.[citation needed]
In addition to Standard Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages, including:
Isan (Northeastern Thai), the language of the Isan region of Thailand, a socio-culturally distinct Thai-Lao hybrid dialect which is written with the Thai alphabet. It is spoken by about 15 million people (1983).
Nyaw language, spoken mostly in Nakhon Phanom Province, Sakhon Nakhon Province, Udon Thani Province of Northeast Thailand.
Galung language, spoken in Nakhon Phanom Province of Northeast Thailand.
L (Tai Lue, Dai), spoken by about 78,000 (1993) in northern Thailand.
Northern Thai (Phasa Nuea, Lanna, Kam Mueang, or Thai Yuan), spoken by about 6 million (1983) in the formerly independent kingdom of Lanna (Chiang Mai).
Phuan, spoken by an unknown number of people in central Thailand, Isan and Northern Laos.
Phu Thai, spoken by about 156,000 around Nakhon Phanom Province (1993).
Shan (Thai Luang, Tai Long, Thai Yai), spoken by about 56,000 in north-west Thailand along the border with the Shan States of Burma (1993).
Song, spoken by about 20,000 to 30,000 in central and northern Thailand (1982).
Southern Thai (Phasa Tai), spoken about 5 million (1990).
Thai Dam, spoken by about 20,000 (1991) in Isan and Saraburi Province.
Statistics are from Ethnologue 2003-10-4.
Many of these languages are spoken by larger numbers outside of Thailand.[citation needed] Most speakers of dialects and minority languages speak Central Thai as well, since it is the language used in schools and universities all across the kingdom.
Numerous languages not related to Thai are spoken within Thailand by ethnic minority hill tribespeople. These languages include Hmong-Mien (Yao), Karen, Lisu, and others.
Standard Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts:
Street Thai (, spoken Thai): informal, without polite terms of address, as used between close relatives and friends.
Elegant Thai (, written Thai): official and written version, includes respectful terms of address; used in simplified form in newspapers.
Rhetorical Thai: used for public speaking.
Religious Thai: (heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Pli) used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks.
Royal Thai (): (influenced by Khmer) used when addressing members of the royal family or describing their activities.
Most of the Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts. Street and Elegant are the basis of all conversations;[citation needed] rhetorical, religious and royal Thai are taught in schools as the national curriculum.
Script
Main article: Thai alphabet
Many scholars believe that the Thai alphabet is derived from the Khmer alphabet, which is modeled after the Brahmic script from the Indic family. However, in appearance, Thai is closer to Thai Dam script, which may have the same Indian origins as Khmer script. The language and its alphabet[citation needed] are closely related to the Lao language and alphabet. 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. Much like the Burmese adopted the Mon script (which also has Indic origins), the Thais adopted and modified the Khmer script to create their own writing system. 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 is an abugida script, in which the implicit vowel is a short /a/ in a syllable without final consonant and a short /o/ in a syllable with final consonant.
Tone markers are placed above the consonant just before the vowel sound of the syllable.
Vowels sounding after a consonant are nonsequential: they can be located before, after, above or below the consonant, or in a combination of these positions.
Transcription
There is no universal standard for transcribing Thai into the Latin alphabet. For example, the name of King Rama IX, the present monarch, is transcribed variously as Bhumibol, Phumiphon, phuuM miH phohnM, or many other versions. Guide books, text books and dictionaries may each follow different systems. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners master the Thai alphabet.
What comes closest to a standard is the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), published by the Thai Royal Institute. This system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments,[citation needed] especially for road signs. Its main drawbacks are that it does not indicate tone or vowel length. Retro-transliteration, that is, reconstruction of Thai spelling from RTGS romanisation, is not possible.
Transliteration
The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2003 (ISO 11940) . By adding diacritics to the Latin letters, it makes the transcription reversible, making it a true transliteration. This system is intended for academic use, but is rarely used in any context.
Grammar
From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. The word order is subject-verb-object, although the subject is often omitted. Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.
Adjectives and adverbs
There is no morphological distinction between adverbs and adjectives. Many words can be used in either function. They follow the word they modify, which may be a noun, verb, or another adjective or adverb. Intensity can be expressed by a duplicated word, which is used to mean "very" (with the first occurrence at a higher pitch) or "rather" (with both at the same pitch) (Higbie 187-188). Usually, only one word is duplicated per clause.
(khon uan, IPA: [kon uan ]) a fat person
(khon uan uan, IPA: [kon uan uan]) a very/rather fat person
(khon thi uan reo mak) a person who becomes/became fat very quickly
(khon thi uan reo mak mak) a person who becomes/became fat very very quickly
Comparatives take the form "A X B" (kwa, IPA: [kwa]), A is more X than B. The superlative is expressed as "A X " (thi sut, IPA: [tisut]), A is most X.
(khao uan kwa chan) S/he is fatter than me.
(khao uan thi sut) S/he is the fattest (of all).
Because adjectives can be used as complete predicates, many words used to indicate tense in verbs (see Verbs:Tense below) may be used to describe adjectives.
(chan hiu) I am hungry.
(chan cha hiu) I will be hungry.
(chan kamlang hiu) I am hungry right now.
(chan hiu laeo) I am already hungry.
Remark mostly means "I am hungry right now" because normally, (laeo) is a past-tense marker, but has many other uses as well. For example, in the sentence, (laeo thoe cha pai nai): So where are you going?, (laeo) is used as a discourse particle.
Verbs
Verbs do not inflect (i.e. do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number) nor are there any participles. Duplication conveys the idea of doing the verb intensively.
The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of (thuk, IPA: [tuk])) before the verb. For example:
(khao thuk ti, IPA: [kw tuk ti]), He is hit. This describes an action that is out of the receiver's control and, thus, conveys suffering.
To convey the opposite sense, a sense of having an opportunity arrive, (dai, IPA: [daj], can) is used. For example:
(khao cha dai pai thiao mueang lao, IPA: [kw ta dj paj tow ma law]), He gets to visit Laos.
Note, dai (IPA: [daj] and IPA: [daj]), though both spelled , convey two separate meanings. The short vowel dai (IPA: [daj]) conveys an opportunity has arisen and is placed before the verb. The long vowel dai (IPA: [daj]) is placed after the verb and conveys the idea that one has been given permission or one has the ability to do something. Also see the past tense below.
(khao ti dai, IPA: [kw ti dj]), He is/was allowed to hit or He is/was able to hit
Negation is indicated by placing (mai, not) before the verb.
, (khao mai ti) He is not hitting. or He doesn't hit.
Tense is conveyed by tense markers before or after the verb.
Present can be indicated by (kamlang, IPA: [kamla], currently) before the verb for ongoing action (like English -ing form), by (yu, IPA: [ju]) after the verb, or by both. For example:
(khao kamlang wing, IPA: [kw kamla wi]), or
(khao wing yu, IPA: [kw wi ju]), or
(khao kamlang wing yu, IPA: [kw kamla wi ju]), He is running.
Future can be indicated by (cha, IPA: [ta], will) before the verb or by a time expression indicating the future. For example:
(khao cha wing, IPA: [kw ta wi]), He will run or He is going to run
Past can be indicated by (dai, IPA: [daj]) before the verb or by a time expression indicating the past. However, (laeo, :IPA: [lw], already) is more often used to indicate the past tense by being placed behind the verb. Or, both and are put together to form the past tense expression, i.e. Subject + + Verb + . For example:
(khao dai kin, IPA: [kw daj kin]), He ate
(khao kin laeo, IPA: [kw kin lw], He (already) ate or He's already eaten
(khao dai kin laeo, IPA: [kw daj kin lw]), He (already) ate or He's already eaten
Thai exhibits serial verb construction, where verbs are strung together. Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases.
(khao pai kin khao) He went out to eat, literally He go eat food
(chan fang mai khao chai) I don't understand what was said, literally I listen not understand
(khao ma) Come in, literally enter come
! (ok pai) Leave! or Get out!, literally exit go
Nouns and pronouns
Nouns are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles.
Nouns are neither singular nor plural. Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: (dek, child) is often repeated as (dek dek) to refer to a group of children. The word (phuak, [pak]) may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word. (, phuak phom, [pak pm], we, masculine; phuak rao, [pak raw], emphasised we; phuak ma, (the) dogs) Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers, used as measure words (), in the form of noun-number-classifier (, "teacher five person" for "five teachers"). While in English, such classifiers are usually absent ("four chairs") or optional ("two bottles of beer" or "two beers"), a classifier is almost always used in Thai (hence "chair four item" and "beer two bottle").
Subject pronouns are often omitted, while nicknames are often used where English would use a pronoun. There are specialised pronouns in the royal and sacred Thai languages. The following are appropriate for conversational use:
Word
RTGS
IPA
Meaning
phom
[pm]
I/me (masculine; formal)
dichan
[dtn])
I/me (feminine; formal)
chan
[tn]
I/me (masculine or feminine; informal)
khun
[kun]
you (polite)
than
[tn]
you (polite to a person of high status)
thoe
[t]
you (informal), she/her (informal)
rao
[raw]
we/us, I/me/you (casual)
khao
[kw]
he/him, she/her
man
[mn]
it
phuak khao
[pak kw]
they/them
phi
[p]
older brother, sister (also often used loosely for older cousins and non-relatives)
nong
[n]
younger brother, sister (also often used loosely for younger cousins and non-relatives)
luk phi luk nong
[luk pi luk n]
cousin (male or female)
The reflexive pronoun is (tua eng), which can mean any of: myself, yourself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves. This can be mixed with another pronoun to create an intensive pronoun, such as (tua phom eng, lit: I myself) or (tua khun eng, lit: you yourself).
Thai does not have a separate possessive pronoun. Instead, possession is indicated by the particle (khong). For example, "my mother" is (mae khong phom, lit: mother of I). This particle is often implicit, so the phrase is shortened to (mae phom).
Above is only a short list. Thai language has many more pronouns. Their usage is full of nuances. For example:
" " all translate to "I", but each word expresses different gender, age, politeness, status, and relationship between the speaker and listener.
(rao) can be first person (I), second person (you), or both (we), depending on the context.
When speaking to someone older, (nu) is a feminine first person (I). However, when speaking to someone younger, the same word is a neuter second person (you).
The second person pronoun (thoe) (lit: you) is semi-feminine. It is used only when the speaker or the listener (or both) are female. Males usually don't address each other by this pronoun.
Both (khun) and (thoe) are polite neuter second person pronouns. However, (khun thoe) is a feminine derogative third person.
Instead of a second person pronoun such as "" (you), it's 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 " " (each means teacher) rather than (you). Teachers, monks, and doctors are almost always addressed this way.
Particles
The particles are often untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect, a request, encouragement or other moods (similar to the use of intonation in English), as well as varying the level of formality. They are not used in elegant (written) Thai. The most common particles indicating respect are (khrap, IPA: [krp], with a high tone) for a man, and (kha, [k], with a falling tone) for a woman; these can also be used to indicate an affirmative, though the (falling tone) is changed to a (high tone).
Other common particles are:
Word
RTGS
IPA
Meaning
cha
[ta]
indicating a request
, or
cha
[ta]
indicating emphasis
or
la
[la]
indicating emphasis
si
[si]
indicating emphasis or an imperative
na
[na]
softening; indicating a request
Phonology
Tones
There are five phonemic tones: middle, low, falling, high and rising, sometimes referred to in older reference works as rectus, circumflexus, gravis, altus and demissus, respectively. The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA.
Tone
Thai
Example
Phonemic
Phonetic
Example meaning in English
mid
/n/
[na]
a paddy
low
/n/
[na]
(a nickname)
falling
/n/
[na]
face
high
/n/
[na]
aunt/uncle (younger than one's parents)
rising
/n/
[na]
thick
Consonants
Thai distinguishes among three voice/aspiration patterns for plosive consonants:
unvoiced, unaspirated
unvoiced, aspirated
voiced, unaspirated
Where English has only a distinction between the voiced, unaspirated /b/ and the unvoiced, aspirated /p/, Thai distinguishes a third sound which is neither voiced nor aspirated, which occurs in English only as an allophone of /p/, approximately the sound of the p in "spin". There is similarly an alveolar /t/, /t/, /d/ triplet. In the velar series there is a /k/, /k/ pair and in the postalveolar series the /t/, /t/ pair.
In each cell below, the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the second indicates the Thai characters in initial position (more letters appearing in the same box have identical pronunciation).
Bilabial
Labio-
dental
Alveolar
Post-
alveolar
Palatal
Velar
Glottal
Nasal
[m]
[n]
,
[]
Plosive
[p]
[p]
,,
[b]
*
[t]
,
[t]
,,,,,
[d]
,*
[k]
[k]
,,,,
[]
**
Fricative
[f]
,
[s]
,,,
[h]
,
Affricate
[t]
[t]
, ,
Trill
[r]
Approximant
[j]
,
[w]
Lateral
approximant
[l]
,
* At the end of a syllable and are devoiced, becoming pronounced as [p] and [t] respectively
** The glottal plosive is implied after a short vowel without final, or the silent before a vowel.
Vowels
The basic vowels of the Thai language, from front to back and close to open, are given in the following table. The top entry in every cell is the symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet, the second entry gives the spelling in the Thai alphabet, where a dash () indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant must follow.
Monophthongs of Thai. From Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)
Front
Back
unrounded
unrounded
rounded
short
long
short
long
short
long
Close
/i/
-
/i/
-
//
-
//
-
/u/
-
/u/
-
Close-mid
/e/
-
/e/
-
//
-
//
-
/o/
-
/o/
-
Open-mid
//
-
//
-
//
-
//
-
Open
/a/
-, -
/a/
-
The vowels each exist in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Thai, but usually transliterated the same: (khao) means he or she, while (khao) means white.
The long-short pairs are as follows:
Long
Short
Thai
IPA
Gloss
Thai script
IPA
Gloss
/a/
/fn/
'to slice'
/a/
/fn/
'to dream'
/i/
/krt/
'to cut'
/i/
/krt/
'dagger'
/u/
/st/
'to inhale'
/u/
/st/
'rearmost'
/e/
/n/
'to recline'
/e/
/n/
'ligament'
//
/p/
'to be defeated'
//
/p/
'goat'
//
/kln/
'wave'
//
/kn/
'to go up'
//
/dn/
'to walk'
//
/n/
'silver'
/o/
/kn/
'to fell'
/o/
/kn/
'thick (soup)'
//
/kl/
'drum'
//
/kl/
'box'
Diphthongs of Thai. From Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)
The basic vowels can be combined into diphthongs. Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993) analyze those ending in high vocoids as underlyingly /Vj/ and /Vw/. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are also classified as long:
Long
Short
Thai
IPA
Thai
IPA
/aj/
*, *,
/aj/
/aw/
*
/aw/
/ia/
/ia/
/iw/
/ua/
/ua/
/uj/
/uj/
/ew/
/ew/
/w/
/a/
/j/
/j/
/oj/
Additionally, there are three triphthongs, all of which are long:
Thai
IPA
/iow/
/uj/
/j/
For a guide to written vowels, see the Thai alphabet page.
Vocabulary
Other than compound words and words of foreign origin, most words are monosyllabic. Historically, words have most often been borrowed from Sanskrit and Pli; Buddhist terminology is particularly indebted to these. Old Khmer has also contributed its share, especially in regard to royal court terminology. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the English language has had the greatest influence. Many Teochew Chinese words are also used, some replacing existing Thai words.[citation needed]
Thailand also uses the distinctive Thai six hour clock in addition to the 24 hour clock.
See also
Thai numerals
Literature in Thailand
The Royal Institute of Thailand
Notes
^ Royal Thai General System of Transcription: phasa thai; ISO 11940 transliteration: phsth
^ Ausbau and Abstand languages
^ Royal Thai General System of Transcription, published by the Thai Royal Institute only in Thai.
^ Frankfurter, Oscar. Elements of Siamese grammar with appendices. American Presbyterian mission press, 1900 (Full text available on Google Books)
^ Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)
References
Higbie, James and Thinsan, Snea. Thai Reference Grammar: The Structure of Spoken Thai. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2003. ISBN 974-8304-96-5.
Nacaskul, Karnchana, Ph.D. ( . ) Thai Phonology, 4th printing. (, 4) Bangkok: Chulalongkorn Press, 1998. ISBN 978-9-746-39375-1.
Nanthana Ronnakiat, Ph.D. (. ) Phonetics in Principle and Practical. () Bangkok: Thammasat University, 2005. ISBN 974-571-929-3.
Segaller, Denis. Thai Without Tears: A Guide to Simple Thai Speaking. Bangkok: BMD Book Mags, 1999. ISBN 974-87115-2-8.
Smyth, David. Thai: An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-415-22614-7.
Tingsabadh, M.R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur (1993), "Thai", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (1): 2428
External links
Thai language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thai language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thai proverbs
Ethnologue entry on Thai
Thai phrasebook in wikitravel
The Royal Institute Dictionary, official standard Thai-Thai dictionary
IPA and SAMPA for Thai
thai-language.com English speakers' online resource for the Thai language
Thai-English dictionary
Thai Online Web Application with 40 Interactive Free Lessons
Thai2english.com: LEXiTRON-based Thai-English dictionary
Say Hello in the Thai Language
Thai language school
Thai language pronunciation
Thai Language Wiki (Online lectures)
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