Dictionary of Meaning

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Thai Language

*** Shopping-Tip: Thai Language
{{Infobox Language |name=Thai |nativename=ภาษาไทย ''phasa thai'' |familycolor=Tai-Kadai |pronunciation=pÊ°aË?saË?tÊ°É‘j |states=Thailand |speakers=46–50 million |rank=24 |fam2=Kam-Tai languages Kam-Tai |fam3=Be-Tai languages Be-Tai |fam4=Tai-Sek languages Tai-Sek |fam5=Tai languages Tai |fam6=Southwestern Tai languages Southwestern |fam7=East Central Tai languages East Central |fam8=Chiang Saeng languages Chiang Saeng |nation=Thailand |agency=The Royal Institute |iso1=th|iso2=tha|iso3=tha |notice=Indic}} The '''Thai language''' (ภาษาไทย, Royal Thai General System of Transcription transcription: ''phasa thai''; IPA {{IPA|[pÊ°aË?saË?tÊ°É‘j]}}), is the national language national and official language official language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai (ethnic group) Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai languages Tai group of the Tai-Kadai languages Tai-Kadai language family. The Tai-Kadai languages are thought to have originated in what is now southern China, and some linguists have proposed links to the Austroasiatic languages Austroasiatic, Austronesian languages Austronesian, or Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Tibetan language families. It is a tonal language tonal and analytic language analytic language. The combination of tonality, a complex orthography, relational markers and a distinctive phonology can make Thai difficult to learn for those who do not already speak a related language.

Languages and dialects
'''Standard Thai''', also known as '''Central Thai''' or '''Siamese''', is the official language of Thailand, spoken by about 25 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 Isan language Isan on a dialect continuum, and may be considered a variety (linguistics) variant or dialect of either. In addition to Standard Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages, including: *Isan language Isan (Northeastern Thai), the language of the Isan region of Thailand, is considered by some to be a dialect of the Lao language, which it very closely resembles (although it is written in 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. *Tai Lü language Lü (Tai Lue, Dai), spoken by about 78,000 (1993) in northern Thailand. *Northern Thai language Northern Thai (Lanna, Kam Meuang, or Thai Yuan), spoken by about 6 million (1983) in the formerly independent kingdom of Lanna (Chiang Mai). *Phuan language Phuan, spoken by an unknown number of people in central Thailand and Isan. *Phu Thai language Phu Thai, spoken by about 156,000 around Nakhon Phanom province (1993). *Shan language 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 language Song, spoken by about 20,000 to 30,000 in central and northern Thailand(1982). *Suay Language, spoken around Surin province. It is a mixture of the Thai and Khmer languages. *Southern Thai language Southern Thai (Pak Dtai), spoken about 5 million (1990). *Tai Dam language Thai Dam, spoken by about 20,000 (1991) in Isan and Saraburi province. ''Statistics are from [http://www.ethnologue.com/ Ethnologue 2003-10-4].'' Many of these languages are spoken by larger numbers outside of Thailand. 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. Standard Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts: *Street Thai: informal, without polite terms of address, as used between close relatives and friends.(ภาษาพูด) *Elegant Thai: official and written version, includes respectful terms of address; used in simplified form in newspapers.(ภาษาเขียน) *Rhetorical Thai: used for public speaking. *Religious Thai: used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks. *Royal Thai: used when addressing members of the royal family or describing their activities. (ราชาศัพท์) Less-educated Thais usually can speak at only the first and second levels, though they will understand the others.

Script
{{main|Thai alphabet}} The Thai alphabet derived from the Khmer alphabet (อั�ขระเขมร), which is modeled after the Brahmic script from the Indic family. Much like the Burmese adopted the Mon alphabet Mon script (which also has Indic origins), the Thais adopted and modified 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/ for consonants standing alone and a short /o/ if the initial consonant or cluster is followed by another consonant. #Tone markers are placed above the initial consonant of a syllable or on the last consonant of an initial consonant cluster. #Vowels associated with consonants are nonsequential: they can be located before, after, above or below their associated consonant, or in a combination of these positions. The latter in particular causes problems for computer encoding and text rendering. 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. Guide books, text books and dictionaries may each follow different systems. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners master the Thai alphabet. In scholarly usage, French scholars tend to romanize Thai with a letter-for-letter transcription according to the original Sanskrit value of the characters. Anglophone scholars generally prefer either a simplified phonetic rendering or some variation on the International Phonetic Alphabet. This article uses a simplified International Phonetic Alphabet IPA system which does not indicate tone or vowel length. The Thai Royal Institute [http://www.royin.go.th/] publishes sets of rules for transliterating Thai words into the Roman alphabet and vice versa (the Royal Thai General System of Transcription), but these are far from universally applied. The International Organization for Standardization ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2003 [http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=20574&ICS1=1&ICS2=140&ICS3=10]. From Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, there is an online tool available which romanizes Thai texts, see [http://www.arts.chula.ac.th/~ling/tts/].

Grammar
From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. The word order is Subject_Verb_Object Subject Verb Object, although the subject is often omitted. Thai pronominal system varies according to the sex and relative status of speaker and audience.

Adjectives
Adjectives ''follow'' the noun. A duplicated adjective is used to mean "very" (with the first occurrence at a higher pitch) or "rather" (with both at the same pitch), e.g. คนอ้วนๆ (''khon uan uan'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[kÊ°on uÉ‘n uÉ‘n]}}) "a very/rather fat person." (Higbie 187-188) Comparatives take the form "A X à¸?ว่า (''kwa'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[kwaË?]}}) B" (A is more X than B). The superlative is expressed as A X ที่สุด (''thisut'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[tÊ°iË?sut]}})).

Verbs
Verbs do not inflected language 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 a lot. The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of ถูà¸? (''thuk'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[tÊ°uË?k]}})) before the verb. Tense is conveyed by tense markers before or after the verb: à¸?ำลัง (''kamlang'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[kÉ‘mlÉ‘Å‹]}}) before the verb for ongoing action (like English -ing form) or อยู่ (''yuu'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[juË?]}}) after the verb for the Present_tense present; จะ (''cha'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[tÉ•aÊ”]}}) before the verb for the Future_tense future; ได้ (''dai'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[dÉ‘Ë?j]}}) before the verb (or a time expression) for the Past_tense past.

Adverbs
Many adverbs are the same as adjectives. Intensity can be expressed by a duplicated adjective. Adverbs usually follow the verb.

Nouns
Nouns are uninflected and have no Grammatical gender gender; there are no plural forms or article (grammar) articles. Plurals are expressed by adding "nouns of multitude" (ลั�ษณนาม) or Classifier (linguistics) classifiers in the form of noun-number-classifier, e.g. "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").

Pronouns
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: {|class="wikitable" !word || Royal Thai General System of Transcription RTGS || International phonetic alphabet IPA || meaning |- | ผม || phom || {{IPA|[pÊ°Ç’m]}} || I/me (masculine; formal) |- | ดิฉัน || dichan || {{IPA|[dìË?tÉ•Ê°É‘Ì?n]}}) || I/me (feminine; formal) |- | ฉัน || chan || {{IPA|[tÉ•Ê°É‘Ì?n]}} || I/me (masculine or feminine; informal) |- | คุณ || khun || {{IPA|[kÊ°un]}} || you (polite) |- | เธอ || thoe || {{IPA|[tʰɤË?]}} || you (informal) |- | เรา || rao || {{IPA|[raw]}} || we |- | เขา || khao || {{IPA|[kÊ°ÇŽw]}} || he/she |- | มัน || man || {{IPA|[mÉ‘n]}} || it |- | พวà¸?เขา || phuak-khao || {{IPA|[pʰûɑk kÊ°ÇŽw]}} ||they |- | พี่ || phi || {{IPA|[pʰîË?]}} ||older brother or sister (also often used loosely for older non-relatives) |- | น้อง || nong || {{IPA|[nÉ”Ì?Ë?Å‹]}} ||younger brother or sister (also often used loosely for younger non-relatives) |}

Particles
The Grammatical_particle 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 written Thai. The most common particles indicating respect are ครับ (''khrap'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[kÉ”rÉ‘p]}} with a high tone) for a man, and ค่ะ (''kha'', International phonetic alphabet IPA {{IPA|[kÉ”a]}}with a falling tone) for a woman; these can also be used to indicate an affirmative. Other common particles are: {|class="wikitable" !word || Royal Thai General System of Transcription RTGS || International phonetic alphabet IPA || meaning |- | จ๊ะ || cha || {{IPA|[tÉ•aÊ”]}} || indicating a request |- | จ้ะ, จ้า or จ๋า || cha || {{IPA|[tÉ•aË?]}} || indicating emphasis |- | ละ or ล่ะ || la || {{IPA|[laÊ”]}} || indicating emphasis |- | สิ || si || {{IPA|[siÊ”]}} || indicating emphasis or an imperative |- | นะ || na || {{IPA|[naÊ”]}} || softening; indicating a request |}

Phonology
{{IPA notice}}

Tones
There are five phonemic tones: middle, low, high, rising and falling. The table shows an example of both the phoneme phonemic tones and their phonetics phonetic realization, in the IPA. {| class=wikitable !Tone!!Thai!!Phonemic!!Phonetic!!English |- |high|| น้า ||{{IPA|/náË?/}}||{{IPA|[naË?˧˥]}}||''aunt/uncle'' |- |mid|| นา ||{{IPA|/nÄ?Ë?/}}||{{IPA|[naË?˥˧]}}||''a paddy'' |- |low|| หน่า ||{{IPA|/nàË?/}}||{{IPA|[naË?˧˩]}}||''(a nickname)'' |- |rising|| หนา ||{{IPA|/nÇŽË?/}}||{{IPA|[naË?˨˩˧]}}||''thick'' |- |falling|| หน้า ||{{IPA|/nâË?/}}||{{IPA|[naË?˥˩]}}||''face'' |} Tones are indicated in the written script by a combination of the class of the initial consonant (high, mid or low), vowel length (long or short), closing consonant (unvoiced/Stop_consonant plosive or voiced/sonorant) and sometimes one of four tone marks. The tonal rules are shown in the following chart: {|class="wikitable" !colspan="2" style="background: #ffc;"|tone of syllable !colspan="3"|initial consonant |- !align="left"|tone mark||syllable composition||high class||mid class||low class |- ||none||long vowel or vowel plus sonorant |style="background: #ffc;"|rising |style="background: #ffc;"|mid |style="background: #ffc;"|mid |- |none||long vowel plus plosive |style="background: #ffc;"|low |style="background: #ffc;"|low |style="background: #ffc;"|falling |- |none||short vowel at end or plus plosive |style="background: #ffc;"|low |style="background: #ffc;"|low |style="background: #ffc;"|high |- |mai ek (–่)||any |style="background: #ffc;"|low |style="background: #ffc;"|low |style="background: #ffc;"|falling |- |mai tho (–้)||any |style="background: #ffc;"|falling |style="background: #ffc;"|falling |style="background: #ffc;"|high |- |mai tri (–๊)||any |style="background: #ffc;"|high |style="background: #ffc;"|high |style="background: #ffc;"|high |- |mai chattawa (–๋)||any |style="background: #ffc;"|rising |style="background: #ffc;"|rising |style="background: #ffc;"|rising |} The letters ห (high class) and sometimes อ (mid class) are used as silent letters before another consonant to produce the correct tone. In polysyllabic words, an initial high class consonant with an implicit vowel renders the following syllable also high class. There are a few exceptions to this system, notably the pronouns ''chan'' and ''khao'', which are both pronounced with a high tone rather than the rising tone indicated by the script (in an informal conversation, generally when these words are recited or read in public, they are pronounced in rising tone).

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 {{IPA|/b/}} and the unvoiced, aspirated {{IPA|/p/}}, Thai distinguishes a third sound which is neither voiced nor aspirated, which occurs in English only as an allophone of {{IPA|/p/}}, approximately the sound of the ''p'' in "spin." There is similarly an alveolar {{IPA|/t/}}, {{IPA|/tÊ°/}}, {{IPA|/d/}} triplet. In the velar series there is a {{IPA|/k/}}, {{IPA|/kÊ°/}} pair and in the postalveolar series the {{IPA|/tÉ•/}}, {{IPA|/tÉ•Ê°/}} 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). {|class="wikitable" !  !colspan="3"|Bilabial consonant Bilabial !colspan="1"|Labiodental consonant Labio-
dental !colspan="3"|Alveolar consonant Alveolar !colspan="2"|Postalveolar consonant Post-
alveolar !colspan="1"|Palatal consonant Palatal !colspan="3"|Velar consonant Velar !colspan="1"|Glottal consonant Glottal |- !style="text-align: left;"|Plosive consonant Plosive |style="text-align: center;background: #ccf;"|{{IPA|[ p ]}}
ป |style="text-align: center;background: #ccf;"|{{IPA|[ pʰ ]}}
ผ,พ,ภ |style="text-align: center;background: #ccf;"|{{IPA|[ b ]}}
บ |  |style="text-align: center;background: #cfc;"|{{IPA|[ t ]}}
�,ต |style="text-align: center;background: #cfc;"|{{IPA|[ tʰ ]}}
�,ฒ,ท,ธ |style="text-align: center;background: #cfc;"|{{IPA|[ d ]}}
ฎ,ฑ,ด |colspan="2"| ||  |style="text-align: center;background: #fcc;"|{{IPA|[ k ]}}
� |style="text-align: center;background: #fcc;"|{{IPA|[ kʰ ]}}
ข,ฃ,ค,ฅ,ฆ |  |style="text-align: center;background: #ccc;"|{{IPA|[ Ê” ]}}
อ^* |- !style="text-align: left;"|Nasal consonant Nasal |colspan="2"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #ccf;"|{{IPA|[ m ]}}
ม |  |colspan="2"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #cfc;"|{{IPA|[ n ]}}
ณ,น |colspan="2"| ||  |colspan="2"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #fcc;"|{{IPA|[ Å‹ ]}}
ง |  |- !style="text-align: left;"|Fricative consonant Fricative |colspan="3"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #ccf;"|{{IPA|[ f ]}}
�,ฟ |style="text-align: center;background: #ffc;"|{{IPA|[ s ]}}
ซ,ศ,ษ,ส |colspan="2"|  |colspan="2"|  |  |colspan="3"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #ccc;"|{{IPA|[ h ]}}
ห,ฮ |- !style="text-align: left;"|Affricate consonant Affricate |colspan="3"|  |  |colspan="3"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #fcf;"|{{IPA|[ tÉ• ]}}
จ |style="text-align: center;background: #fcf;"|{{IPA|[ tɕʰ ]}}
ฉ, ช, ฌ |  |colspan="3"|  |  |- !style="text-align: left;"|Trill consonant Trill |colspan="3"|  |  |colspan="2"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #cff;"|{{IPA|[ r ]}}
ร |colspan="2"|  |  |colspan="3"|  |  |- !style="text-align: left;"|Approximant consonant Approximant |colspan="3"|  |  |colspan="3"|  |colspan="2"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #cff;"|{{IPA|[ j ]}}
à¸?,ย |colspan="2"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #cff;"|{{IPA|[ w ]}}
ว |  |- !style="text-align: left;"|Lateral approximant consonant Lateral
approximant |colspan="3"|  |  |colspan="2"|  |style="text-align: center;background: #cff;"|{{IPA|[ l ]}}
ล,ฬ |colspan="2"|  |  |colspan="3"|  |  |- |} ^* the glottal plosive is implied after a short vowel without final, or the silent อ 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. {|class="wikitable" |- !  !align="center" | '''Front vowel Front''' !align="center" | '''Central vowel Central''' !align="center" | '''Back vowel Back''' |- !align="left" |'''Close vowel Close''' |align="center"|{{IPA|i}}
(–ี, –ิ) |align="center"|{{IPA|ɯ}}
(–ื, –ึ) |align="center"|{{IPA|u}}
(–ู, –ุ) |- !align="left" |'''Close-mid vowel Close-mid''' |align="center"|{{IPA|e}}
(เ–, เ–ะ) |align="center"|{{IPA|ɤ}}
(เ–อ, เ–ิ –, เ–อะ) |align="center"|{{IPA|o}}
(โ–, โ–ะ) |- !align="left" |'''Open-mid vowel Open-mid''' |align="center"|{{IPA|É›}}
(à¹?–, à¹?–ะ) |align="center"|  |align="center"|{{IPA|É”}}
(–อ, เ–าะ) |- !align="left" |'''Open vowel Open''' |align="center"|{{IPA|a}}
(–า, –ะ) |align="center"|  |align="center"| {{IPA|É‘}}
(–ั, รร) |} The vowels each exist in vowel length long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Thai, but usually transliterated the same: เขา (''khao'') means he or she, while ขาว (''khao'') means white. The long-short pairs are as follows: {|class="wikitable" !colspan="3"|Long !colspan="3"|Short |- !Thai !IPA !Explanation !Thai !IPA !Explanation |- |–า |{{IPA|aË?}}||a in "father" |–ะ |{{IPA|a}}||u in "nut" |- |–ี |{{IPA|iË?}}||ee in "see" |–ิ |{{IPA|i}}||y in "greedy" |- |–ู |{{IPA|uË?}}||ue in "blue" |–ุ |{{IPA|u}}||oo in "look" |- |เ– |{{IPA|eË?}}||a in "lame" |เ–ะ |{{IPA|e}}||e in "set" |- |à¹?– |{{IPA|É›Ë?}}