fbpx
Wikipedia

Thai language

Thai,[a] or Central Thai[b] (historically Siamese;[c][d] Thai: ภาษาไทย), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai, Mon people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand.[2][3]

Thai
Central Thai, Siamese
ภาษาไทย, Phasa Thai
"Phasa Thai" (literally meaning "Thai language") written in Thai script
Pronunciation[pʰāːsǎːtʰāj]
Region
EthnicityCentral Thai, Thai Chinese, Mon
Native speakers
L1: 21 million (2000)[1]
L2: 40 million (2001)[1]
Total: 61 million (2000–2001)[1]
Kra–Dai
Official status
Official language in
 Thailand
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byRoyal Society of Thailand
Language codes
ISO 639-1th
ISO 639-2tha
ISO 639-3tha
Glottologthai1261
Linguasphere47-AAA-b
Dark Blue: Majority Light Blue: Minority
A native Thai speaker, recorded in Bangkok

Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon[4] and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao, Isan, and some fellow Thai topolects. These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.[5]

Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020.) Moreover, most Thais in the northern and the northeastern (Isaan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because (Central) Thai is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media.[6] A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language (also known as Phasa Mueang or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai, so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the "Kham Mueang" accent.[7] Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and Mon people in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis.[8][9]

In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although most of linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai".[10] As a dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as a second language among the country's minority ethnic groups from the mid-late Ayutthaya period onward.[11][12] Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect.

Classification edit

Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Tai Lanna, Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages. The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family, which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border.

Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand. The standard is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai script.

 
Example of divergence among the Kra-Dai Languages

History edit

Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modern orthography.

Early spread edit

According to a Chinese source, during the Ming dynasty, Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433), Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xiānluó (暹羅) or Ayutthaya kingdom,[e] saying that it somewhat resembled the local patois as pronounced in Guangdong[13]: 107  Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai and Khmer. Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer-speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369, 1388 and 1431.[14] Gradually toward the end of the period, a language shift took place. Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great-grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In the process of language shift, an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai, was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Khmer expressions, sayings, and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference.

Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer.[15] 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 that three languages, Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse. In fact, Khmero-Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to the Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed.

Old Thai edit

Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on "live syllables" (those not ending in a stop), with no possible distinction on "dead syllables" (those ending in a stop, i.e. either /p/, /t/, /k/ or the glottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel).

There was a two-way voiced vs. voiceless distinction among all fricative and sonorant consonants, and up to a four-way distinction among stops and affricates. The maximal four-way occurred in labials (/p b ʔb/) and dentals (/t d ʔd/); the three-way distinction among velars (/k ɡ/) and alveolo-palatals (/tɕ tɕʰ dʑ/), with the glottalized member of each set apparently missing.

The major change between old and modern Thai was due to voicing distinction losses and the concomitant tone split. This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE, possibly occurring at different times in different parts of the Thai-speaking area. All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction:

  • Plain voiced stops (/b d ɡ dʑ/) became voiceless aspirated stops (/pʰ tɕʰ/).[f]
  • Voiced fricatives became voiceless.
  • Voiceless sonorants became voiced.

However, in the process of these mergers, the former distinction of voice was transferred into a new set of tonal distinctions. In essence, every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones, with a lower-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant, and a higher-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant (including glottalized stops). An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops/affricates (original /p t k ʔb ʔd/) also caused original tone 1 to lower, but had no such effect on original tones 2 or 3.

The above consonant mergers and tone splits account for the complex relationship between spelling and sound in modern Thai. Modern "low"-class consonants were voiced in Old Thai, and the terminology "low" reflects the lower tone variants that resulted. Modern "mid"-class consonants were voiceless unaspirated stops or affricates in Old Thai—precisely the class that triggered lowering in original tone 1 but not tones 2 or 3. Modern "high"-class consonants were the remaining voiceless consonants in Old Thai (voiceless fricatives, voiceless sonorants, voiceless aspirated stops). The three most common tone "marks" (the lack of any tone mark, as well as the two marks termed mai ek and mai tho) represent the three tones of Old Thai, and the complex relationship between tone mark and actual tone is due to the various tonal changes since then. Since the tone split, the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship between lower and higher tonal variants has been completely obscured. Furthermore, the six tones that resulted after the three tones of Old Thai were split have since merged into five in standard Thai, with the lower variant of former tone 2 merging with the higher variant of former tone 3, becoming the modern "falling" tone.[g]

Early Old Thai edit

Early Old Thai also apparently had velar fricatives /x ɣ/ as distinct phonemes. These were represented by the now-obsolete letters ฃ kho khuat and ฅ kho khon, respectively. During the Old Thai period, these sounds merged into the corresponding stops /kʰ ɡ/, and as a result the use of these letters became unstable.

At some point in the history of Thai, a palatal nasal phoneme /ɲ/ also existed, inherited from Proto-Tai. A letter ญ yo ying also exists, which is used to represent a alveolo-palatal nasal in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali, and is currently pronounced /j/ at the beginning of a syllable but /n/ at the end of a syllable. Most native Thai words that are reconstructed as beginning with /ɲ/ are also pronounced /j/ in modern Thai, but generally spelled with ย yo yak, which consistently represents /j/. This suggests that /ɲ/ > /j/ in native words occurred in the pre-literary period. It is unclear whether Sanskrit and Pali words beginning with /ɲ/ were borrowed directly with a /j/, or whether a /ɲ/ was re-introduced, followed by a second change /ɲ/ > /j/.

Proto-Tai also had a glottalized palatal sound, reconstructed as /ʔj/ in Li Fang-Kuei (1977[full citation needed]). Corresponding Thai words are generally spelled หย, which implies an Old Thai pronunciation of /hj/ (or /j̊/), but a few such words are spelled อย, which implies a pronunciation of /ʔj/ and suggests that the glottalization may have persisted through to the early literary period.

Vowel developments edit

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[full citation needed]), however, many Thai dialects have only one such short–long pair (/a aː/), and in general it is difficult or impossible to find minimal short–long pairs in Thai that involve vowels other than /a/ and where both members have frequent correspondences throughout the Tai languages. More specifically, he notes the following facts about Thai:

  • In open syllables, only long vowels occur. (This assumes that all apparent cases of short open syllables are better described as ending in a glottal stop. This makes sense from the lack of tonal distinctions in such syllables, and the glottal stop is also reconstructible across the Tai languages.)
  • In closed syllables, the long high vowels /iː ɯː uː/ are rare, and cases that do exist typically have diphthongs in other Tai languages.
  • In closed syllables, both short and long mid /e o oː/ and low ɛː ɔ ɔː/ do occur. However, generally, only words with short /e o/ and long /ɛː ɔː/ are reconstructible back to Proto-Tai.
  • Both of the mid back unrounded vowels ɤː/ are rare, and words with such sounds generally cannot be reconstructed back to Proto-Tai.

Furthermore, the vowel that corresponds to short Thai /a/ has a different and often higher quality in many of the Tai languages compared with the vowel corresponding to Thai /aː/.

This leads Li to posit the following:

  1. Proto-Tai had a system of nine pure vowels with no length distinction, and possessing approximately the same qualities as in modern Thai: high /i ɯ u/, mid /e ɤ o/, low a ɔ/.
  2. All Proto-Tai vowels were lengthened in open syllables, and low vowels were also lengthened in closed syllables.
  3. Modern Thai largely preserved the original lengths and qualities, but lowered /ɤ/ to /a/, which became short /a/ in closed syllables and created a phonemic length distinction /a aː/. Eventually, length in all other vowels became phonemic as well and a new /ɤ/ (both short and long) was introduced, through a combination of borrowing and sound change. Li believes that the development of long /iː ɯː uː/ from diphthongs, and the lowering of /ɤ/ to /a/ to create a length distinction /a aː/, had occurred by the time of Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but the other missing modern Thai vowels had not yet developed.

Not all researchers agree with Li. Pittayaporn (2009[full citation needed]), for example, reconstructs a similar system for Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but believes that there was also a mid back unrounded vowel /ə/ (which he describes as /ɤ/), occurring only before final velar /k ŋ/. He also seems to believe that the Proto-Southwestern-Tai vowel length distinctions can be reconstructed back to similar distinctions in Proto-Tai.

Phonology edit

Consonants edit

Initials edit

Standard Thai distinguishes three voice-onset times among plosive and affricate consonants:

Where English makes a distinction between voiced /b/ and unvoiced aspirated /pʰ/, Thai distinguishes a third sound – the unvoiced, unaspirated /p/ that occurs in English only as an allophone of /pʰ/, for example after an /s/ as in the sound of the p in "spin". There is similarly a laminal denti-alveolar[citation needed] /d/, /t/, /tʰ/ triplet in Thai. In the velar series there is a /k/, /kʰ/ pair and in the postalveolar series a /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/ pair, but the language lacks the corresponding voiced sounds /ɡ/ and /dʑ/. (In loanwords from English, English /ɡ/ and /d͡ʒ/ are borrowed as the tenuis stops /k/ and /tɕ/.)

In each cell below, the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the second indicates the Thai characters in initial position (several letters appearing in the same box have identical pronunciation). The letter ห, one of the two h letters, is also used to help write certain tones (described below).

Labial Dental/
Alveolar
(Alveolo-)
Palatal
Velar Glottal
Nasal /m/
/n/
ณ, น
/ŋ/
Plosive/
Affricate
voiced /b/
/d/
ฎ, ด
tenuis /p/
/t/
ฏ, ต
//
/k/
/ʔ/
[h]
aspirated //
ผ, พ, ภ
//
ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ถ, ท, ธ
/tɕʰ/
ฉ, ช, ฌ
//
ข, ฃ, ค, ฅ, ฆ[i]
Fricative /f/
ฝ, ฟ
/s/
ซ, ศ, ษ, ส
/h/
ห, ฮ
Approximant /w/
/l/
ล, ฬ
/j/
ญ, ย
Rhotic/Liquid /r/

Finals edit

Although the overall 44 Thai consonant letters provide 21 sounds in case of initials, the case for finals is different. For finals, only eight sounds, as well as no sound, called mātrā (มาตรา) are used. To demonstrate, at the end of a syllable, บ (/b/) and ด (/d/) are devoiced, becoming pronounced as /p/ and /t/ respectively. Additionally, all plosive sounds are unreleased. Hence, final /p/, /t/, and /k/ sounds are pronounced as [p̚], [t̚], and [k̚] respectively.

Of the consonant letters, excluding the disused ฃ and ฅ, six (ฉ ผ ฝ ห อ ฮ) cannot be used as a final and the other 36 are grouped as following.

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal /m/
/n/
ญ, ณ, น, ร, ล, ฬ
/ŋ/
Plosive /p/
บ, ป, พ, ฟ, ภ
/t/
จ, ช, ซ, ฌ, ฎ, ฏ, ฐ, ฑ,
ฒ, ด, ต, ถ, ท, ธ, ศ, ษ, ส
/k/
ก, ข, ค, ฆ
/ʔ/[j]
Approximant /w/
/j/

Clusters edit

In Thai, each syllable in a word is articulated independently, so consonants from adjacent syllables (i.e. heterosyllabic) show no sign of articulation as a cluster. Thai has specific phonotactical patterns that describe its syllable structure, including tautosyllabic consonant clusters, and vowel sequences. In core Thai words (i.e. excluding loanwords), only clusters of two consonants occur, of which there are 11 combinations:

  • /kr/ (กร), /kl/ (กล), /kw/ (กว)
  • /kʰr/ (ขร, คร), /kʰl/ (ขล, คล), /kʰw/ (ขว, คว)
  • /pr/ (ปร), /pl/ (ปล)
  • /pʰr/ (พร), /pʰl/ (ผล, พล)
  • /tr/ (ตร)

The number of clusters increases in loanwords such as /tʰr/ (ทร) in อินทรา (/ʔīn.tʰrāː/, from Sanskrit indrā) or /fr/ (ฟร) in ฟรี (/frīː/, from English free); however, these usually only occur in initial position, with either /r/, /l/, or /w/ as the second consonant sound and not more than two sounds at a time.

Vowels edit

The vowel nuclei of the Thai language 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 script, where a dash (–) indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant follows.

 
Monophthongs of Thai. From Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)
 
Diphthongs of Thai. From Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)
  Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close /i/
 -ิ 
//
 -ี 
/ɯ/
 -ึ 
/ɯː/
 -ื- 
/u/
 -ุ 
//
 -ู 
Mid /e/
เ-ะ
//
เ-
/ɤ/
เ-อะ
/ɤː/
เ-อ
/o/
โ-ะ
//
โ-
Open /ɛ/
แ-ะ
/ɛː/
แ-
/a/
-ะ, -ั-
//
-า
/ɔ/
เ-าะ
/ɔː/
-อ

Each vowel quality occurs in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming distinct words in Thai.[16]

The long-short pairs are as follows:

Long Short
Thai IPA Example Thai IPA Example
–า /aː/ ฝาน /fǎːn/ 'to slice' –ะ /a/ ฝัน /fǎn/ 'to dream'
–ี  /iː/ กรีด /krìːt/ 'to cut' –ิ  /i/ กริช /krìt/ 'kris'
–ู  /uː/ สูด /sùːt/ 'to inhale' –ุ  /u/ สุด /sùt/ 'rearmost'
เ– /eː/ เอน /ʔēːn/ 'to recline' เ–ะ /e/ เอ็น /ʔēn/ 'tendon, ligament'
แ– /ɛː/ แพ้ /pʰɛ́ː/ 'to be defeated' แ–ะ /ɛ/ แพะ /pʰɛ́ʔ/ 'goat'
–ื-  /ɯː/ คลื่น /kʰlɯ̂ːn/ 'wave' –ึ  /ɯ/ ขึ้น /kʰɯ̂n/ 'to go up'
เ–อ /ɤː/ เดิน /dɤ̄ːn/ 'to walk' เ–อะ /ɤ/ เงิน /ŋɤ̄n/ 'silver'
โ– /oː/ โค่น /kʰôːn/ 'to fell' โ–ะ /o/ ข้น /kʰôn/ 'thick (soup)'
–อ /ɔː/ กลอง /klɔ̄ːŋ/ 'drum' เ–าะ /ɔ/ กล่อง /klɔ̀ŋ/ 'box'

There are also opening and closing diphthongs in Thai, which Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993) analyze as /Vj/ and /Vw/. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Long Short
Thai script IPA Thai script IPA
–าย /aːj/ ไ–*, ใ–*, ไ–ย, -ัย /aj/
–าว /aːw/ เ–า* /aw/
เ–ีย /ia/ เ–ียะ /iaʔ/
–ิว /iw/
–ัว /ua/ –ัวะ /uaʔ/
–ูย /uːj/ –ุย /uj/
เ–ว /eːw/ เ–็ว /ew/
แ–ว /ɛːw/
เ–ือ /ɯa/ เ–ือะ /ɯaʔ/
เ–ย /ɤːj/
–อย /ɔːj/
โ–ย /oːj/

Additionally, there are three triphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

Thai script IPA
เ–ียว* /iaw/
–วย* /uaj/
เ–ือย* /ɯaj/

Tones edit

 
 
 
 
 
The five phonemic tones of Standard Thai pronounced with the syllable '/naː/':

There are five phonemic tones: mid, falling, high, rising, and low-rising, sometimes referred to in older reference works as rectus, gravis, circumflexus, altus, and demissus, respectively.[17] The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA. Moren & Zsiga (2006)[18] and Zsiga & Nitisaroj (2007)[19] provide phonetic and phonological analyses of Thai tone realization.

 
Thai language tone chart

Notes:

  1. Five-level tone value: Mid-level [33], Low-falling [21], High-falling [41], High-rising [45], Low-rising [24]. 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.[20][21]
  2. For the diachronic changes of tone value, please see Pittayaporn (2007).[22]
  3. The full complement of tones exists only in so-called "live syllables", those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant (/m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /j/, /w/).
  4. For "dead syllables", those that end in a plosive (/p/, /t/, /k/) 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, and have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables.

Unchecked syllables edit

Tone Thai Example Phonemic Phonetic Gloss
Mid-level สามัญ คา /kʰāː/ [kʰäː˧˧] 'stick'
Low-falling เอก ข่า /kʰàː/ [kʰäː˨˩] or [kʰäː˩] 'galangal'
High-falling โท ค่า /kʰâː/ [kʰäː˥˩] 'value'
High-rising ตรี ค้า /kʰáː/ [kʰäː˦˥] or [kʰäː˥] 'to trade'
Low-rising จัตวา ขา /kʰǎː/ [kʰäː˩˩˦] or [kʰäː˨˥] 'leg'

Checked syllables edit

Tone Thai Example Phonemic Phonetic Gloss
Low-falling (short vowel) เอก หมัก /màk/ [mäk̚˨˩] 'marinate'
Low-falling (long vowel) เอก หมาก /màːk/ [mäːk̚˨˩] 'areca nut, areca palm, betel, fruit'
High-rising ตรี มัก /mák/ [mäk̚˦˥] 'habitually, likely to'
High-falling โท มาก /mâːk/ [mäːk̚˦˩] 'a lot, abundance, many'

In some English loanwords, closed syllables with a long vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a high-rising tone, and closed syllables with a short vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a high-falling tone.

Tone Thai Example Phonemic Phonetic Gloss
High-rising ตรี มาร์ก /máːk/ [mäːk̚˦˥] 'Marc, Mark'
High-rising ตรี ชาร์จ /tɕʰáːt/ [t͡ɕʰäːt̚˦˥] 'charge'
High-falling โท เมกอัป /méːk ʔâp/ [me̞ːk̚˦˥.ʔäp˥˩] 'make-up'
High-falling โท แร็กเกต /rɛ́k kêt/ [rɛk̚˦˥.ke̞t̚˥˩] 'racket'

Grammar edit

From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. The word order is subject–verb–object,[23] although the subject is often omitted. Additionally, Thai is an isolating language lacking any form of inflectional morphology whatsoever.[24] Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.

Adjectives and adverbs edit

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.

คน

khon

/kʰōn

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan/

คน อ้วน

khon uan

/kʰōn ʔûan/

'a fat person'

คน

khon

/khōn

ที่

thi

tʰîː

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan

เร็ว

reo

rēw/

คน ที่ อ้วน เร็ว

khon thi uan reo

/khōn tʰîː ʔûan rēw/

'a person who became fat quickly'

Comparatives take the form "A X กว่า B" (kwa, /kwàː/), 'A is more X than B'. The superlative is expressed as "A X ที่สุด" (thi sut, /tʰîː sùt/), 'A is most X'.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan

กว่า

kwa

kwàː

ฉัน

chan

tɕʰǎn/

เขา อ้วน กว่า ฉัน

khao uan kwa chan

/kʰǎw ʔûan kwàː tɕʰǎn/

'S/he is fatter than me.'

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

อ้วน

uan

ʔûan

ที่สุด

thi sut

tʰîː sùt/

เขา อ้วน ที่สุด

khao uan {thi sut}

/kʰǎw ʔûan tʰîː sùt/

'S/he is the fattest (of all).'

Adjectives in Thai can be used as complete predicates. Because of this, many words used to indicate tense in verbs (see Verbs:Tense below) may be used to describe adjectives.

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

หิว

hio

hǐw/

ฉัน หิว

chan hio

/tɕʰǎn hǐw/

'I am hungry.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

จะ

cha

tɕàʔ

หิว

hio

hǐw/

ฉัน จะ หิว

chan cha hio

/tɕʰǎn tɕàʔ hǐw/

'I will be hungry.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

กำลัง

kamlang

kām.lāŋ

หิว

hio

hǐw/

ฉัน กำลัง หิว

chan kamlang hio

/tɕʰǎn kām.lāŋ hǐw/

'I am hungry right now.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

หิว

hio

hǐw

แล้ว

laeo

lɛ́ːw/

ฉัน หิว แล้ว

chan hio laeo

/tɕʰǎn hǐw lɛ́ːw/

'I am already hungry.'

  • Remark ฉันหิวแล้ว mostly means 'I am hungry right now' because normally, แล้ว (/lɛ́ːw/) marks the change of a state, but แล้ว has many other uses as well. For example, in the sentence, แล้วเธอจะไปไหน (/lɛ́ːw tʰɤ̄ː tɕàʔ pāj nǎj/): 'So where are you going?', แล้ว (/lɛ́ːw/) is used as a discourse particle.

Verbs edit

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.

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

1SG

ตี

ti

tīː

hit

เขา

khao

kʰǎw/

3SG

ฉัน ตี เขา

chan ti khao

/tɕʰǎn tīː kʰǎw/

1SG hit 3SG

'I hit him.'

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ตี

ti

tīː

hit

ฉัน

chan

tɕʰǎn/

1SG

เขา ตี ฉัน

khao ti chan

/kʰǎw tīː tɕʰǎn/

3SG hit 1SG

'S/He hit me.'

In order to convey tense, aspect and mood (TAM), the Thai verbal system employs auxiliaries and verb serialization.[25][24] TAM markers are however not obligatory and often left out in colloquial use. In such cases, the precise meaning is determined through context.[25] This results in sentences lacking both TAM markers and overt context being ambiguous and subject to various interpretations.

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

กิน

kin

kīn

ที่

thi

tʰîː

นั่น

nan

nân/

ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น

chan kin thi nan

/tɕʰǎn kīn tʰîː nân/

'I eat there.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕǎn

กิน

kin

kīn

ที่

thi

tʰîː

นั่น

nan

nân

เมื่อวาน

mueawan

mɯ̂a wāːn/

ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น เมื่อวาน

chan kin thi nan mueawan

/tɕǎn kīn tʰîː nân mɯ̂a wāːn/

'I ate there yesterday.'

ฉัน

chan

/tɕǎn

กิน

kin

kīn

ที่

thi

thîː

นั่น

nan

nân

พรุ่งนี้

phrungni

pʰrûŋ níː/

ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น พรุ่งนี้

chan kin thi nan phrungni

/tɕǎn kīn thîː nân pʰrûŋ níː/

'I'll eat there tomorrow.'

The sentence chan kin thi nan 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.[25] These markers could appear either before or after the verb. The following list describes some of the most commonly used aspect markers. A number of these aspect markers are also full verbs on their own and carry a distinct meaning. For example yu (อยู่) as a full verb means 'to stay, to live or to remain at'. However, as an auxiliary it can be described as a temporary aspect or continuative marker.[25]

  • Imperfective
    • อยู่ yu /jùː/
    • ไป pai /pāj/
    • ยัง yang /jāŋ/
    • กำลัง kamlang /kām lāŋ/
  • Perfective
    • ได้ dai /dâːj/
  • Perfect
    • แล้ว laeo /lɛ́ːw/
    • มา ma /māː/
  • Prospective/Future
    • จะ cha /tɕàʔ/

The imperfective aspect marker กำลัง (kamlang, /kām lāŋ/, currently) is used before the verb to denote an ongoing action (similar to the -ing suffix in English). Kamlang is commonly interpreted as a progressive aspect marker.[26][27] Similarly, อยู่ (yu, /jùː/) is a post-verbal aspect marker which corresponds to the continuative or temporary aspect.[25]

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

กำลัง

kamlang

kām.lāŋ

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ/

เขา กำลัง วิ่ง

khao kamlang wing

/kʰǎw kām.lāŋ wîŋ/

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ

อยู่

yu

jùː/

เขา วิ่ง อยู่

khao wing yu

/kʰǎw wîŋ jùː/

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

กำลัง

kamlang

kām.lāŋ

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ

อยู่

yu

jùː/

เขา กำลัง วิ่ง อยู่

khao kamlang wing yu

/kʰǎw kām.lāŋ wîŋ jùː/

'He is running.'

The marker ได้ (dai, /dâːj/) is usually analyzed as a past tense marker when it occurs before the verb.[24] As a full verb, dai means 'to get or receive'. However, when used after a verb, dai takes on a meaning of potentiality or successful outcome of the main verb.[25]

ex:

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

ได้

dai

dâːj

ไป

pai

pāj

เที่ยว

thiao

tʰîaw

เมือง

mueang

mɯ̄aŋ

ลาว

lao

lāːw/

เขา ได้ ไป เที่ยว เมือง ลาว

khao dai pai thiao mueang lao

/kʰǎw dâːj pāj tʰîaw mɯ̄aŋ lāːw/

He visited Laos. (Past/Perfective)

ex:

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ตี

ti

tīː

hit

ได้

dai

dâːj/

POT

เขา ตี ได้

khao ti dai

/kʰǎw tīː dâːj/

3SG hit POT

'He is/was allowed to hit' or 'He is/was able to hit.' (Potentiality)

แล้ว (laeo, /lɛ́ːw/; 'already') is treated as a marker indicating the perfect aspect.[26] That is to say, laeo marks the event as being completed at the time of reference. Laeo has to other meanings in addition to its use as a TAM marker. Laeo can either be a conjunction for sequential actions or an archaic word for 'to finish'.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ได้

dai

dâːj

PST

กิน

kin

kīn/

eat

เขา ได้ กิน

khao dai kin

/kʰǎw dâːj kīn/

3SG PST eat

He ate.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

กิน

kin

kīn

eat

แล้ว

laeo

lɛ́ːw/

PRF

เขา กิน แล้ว

khao kin laeo

/kʰǎw kīn lɛ́ːw/

3SG eat PRF

He has eaten.

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ได้

dai

dâːj

PST

กิน

kin

kīn

eat

แล้ว

laeo

lɛ́ːw/

PRF

เขา ได้ กิน แล้ว

khao dai kin laeo

/kʰǎw dâːj kīn lɛ́ːw/

3SG PST eat PRF

He's already eaten.

Future can be indicated by จะ (cha, /tɕàʔ/; 'will') before the verb or by a time expression indicating the future. For example:

ex:

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

จะ

cha

tɕàʔ

FUT

วิ่ง

wing

wîŋ/

run

เขา จะ วิ่ง

khao cha wing

/kʰǎw tɕàʔ wîŋ/

3SG FUT run

'He will run' or 'He is going to run.'

The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of ถูก (thuk, /tʰùːk/) before the verb. For example:

ex:

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

3SG

ถูก

thuk

tʰùːk

PASS

ตี

ti

tīː/

hit

เขา ถูก ตี

khao thuk ti

/kʰǎw tʰùːk tīː/

3SG PASS hit

'He got hit.'

This describes an action that is out of the receiver's control and, thus, conveys suffering.

Negation is indicated by placing ไม่ (mai, /mâj/; not) before the verb.

  • เขาไม่ตี, (khao mai ti) 'He is not hitting' or 'He doesn't hit'.

Thai exhibits serial verb constructions, where verbs are strung together. Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases.

ex:

เขา

khao

/kʰǎw

he

ไป

pai

pāj

go

กิน

kin

kīn

eat

ข้าว

khao

kʰâːw/

rice

เขา ไป กิน ข้าว

khao pai kin khao

/kʰǎw pāj kīn kʰâːw/

he go eat rice

'He went out to eat'

ex:

ฉัน

chan

/tɕʰǎn

I

ฟัง

fang

fāŋ

listen

ไม่

mai

mâj

not

เข้าใจ

khao chai

kʰâw tɕāj/

understand

ฉัน ฟัง ไม่ เข้าใจ

chan fang mai {khao chai}

/tɕʰǎn fāŋ mâj kʰâw tɕāj/

I listen not understand

'I don't understand what was said'

ex:

เข้า

khao

/kʰâw

enter

มา

ma

māː/

come

เข้า มา

khao ma

/kʰâw māː/

enter come

'Come in'

ex:

ออก

ok

/ʔɔ̀ːk

exit

ไป!

pai

pāj/

go

ออก ไป!

ok pai

/ʔɔ̀ːk pāj/

exit go

'Leave!' or 'Get out!'

Nouns edit

Nouns are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles. Thai nouns are bare nouns and can be interpreted as singular, plural, definite or indefinite.[28] Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: เด็ก (dek, 'child') is often repeated as เด็ก ๆ (dek dek) to refer to a group of children. The word พวก (phuak, /pʰûak/) may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word. (พวกผม, phuak phom, /pʰûak pʰǒm/, 'we', masculine; พวกเรา phuak rao, /pʰûak rāw/, emphasised 'we'; พวกหมา phuak ma, '(the) dogs'). Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers, used as measure words (ลักษณนาม), in the form of noun-number-classifier:

ครู

khru

/kʰrūː

teacher

ห้า

ha

hâː

five

คน

khon

kʰōn/

person

ครู ห้า คน

khru ha khon

/kʰrūː hâː kʰōn/

teacher five person

"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").

Possession in Thai is indicated by adding the word ของ (khong) in front of the noun or pronoun, but it may often be omitted. For example:

ลูก

luk

/lûːk

child

ของ

khong

kʰɔ̌ːŋ

belonging to

แม่

mae

mɛ̂ː/

mother

ลูก ของ แม่

luk khong mae

/lûːk kʰɔ̌ːŋ mɛ̂ː/

child {belonging to} mother

"mother's child"

นา

na

/nāː

field

อา

a

ʔāː/

uncle

นา อา

na a

/nāː ʔāː/

field uncle

"uncle's field"[29]

Nominal phrases edit

Nominal phrases in Thai often use a special class of words classifiers. As previously mentioned, these classifiers are obligatory for noun phrases containing numerals e.g.

ผู้หญิง

phuying

/pʰûː.jǐŋ

woman

สอง

song

sɔ̌ːŋ

two

คน

khon

kʰōn/

CL

ผู้หญิง สอง คน

phuying song khon

/pʰûː.jǐŋ sɔ̌ːŋ kʰōn/

woman two CL

two women[30]

In the previous example khon (คน) acts as the classifier in the nominal phrase. This follows the form of noun-cardinal-classifier mentioned above. Classifiers are also required to form quantified noun phrases in Thai with some quantifiers such as ทุก ('all'), บาง ('some'). The examples below are demonstrated using the classifier khon, which is used for people.

นักเรียน

nak rian

/nák rīan

student

ทุก

thuk

tʰúk

every

คน

khon

kʰōn/

CL

{นักเรียน} ทุก คน

{nak rian} thuk khon

/nák rīan tʰúk kʰōn/

student every CL

"every student"

ครู

khru

/kʰrūː

teacher

บาง

bang

bāːŋ

some

คน

khon

kʰōn/

CL

ครู บาง คน

khru bang khon

/kʰrūː bāːŋ kʰōn/

teacher some CL

"some teacher"

However, classifiers are not utilized for negative quantification. Negative quantification is expressed by the pattern ไม่มี (mai mi, /mâj mīː/) + NOUN. Classifiers are also used for demonstratives such as นี้ (ni, /níː/; 'this/these') and นั่น (nan, /nán/; 'that/those'). The syntax for demonstrative phrases, however, differ from that of cardinals and follow the pattern noun-classifier-demonstrative. For example, the noun phrase "this dog" would be expressed in Thai as หมาตัวนี้ (literally 'dog (classifier) this').[30]

Pronouns edit

Subject pronouns are often omitted, with nicknames used where English would use a pronoun. See Thai name#Nicknames for more details. Pronouns, when used, are ranked in honorific registers, and may also make a T–V distinction in relation to kinship and social status. Specialised pronouns are used for royalty, and for Buddhist monks. The following are appropriate for conversational use:

Word RTGS IPA Meaning
กระผม kraphom /kràʔ pʰǒm/ I/me (masculine; formal)
ผม phom /pʰǒm/ I/me (masculine; common)
ดิฉัน dichan /dìʔ tɕʰǎn/ I/me (feminine; formal)
ฉัน chan /tɕʰǎn/ I/me (mainly used by women; common) Commonly pronounced as [t͡ɕʰän˦˥]
ข้า kha /kʰâː/ I/me (from high-status to low-status and used among close friends; informal)
กู ku /kūː/ I/me (impolite/vulgar)
หนู nu /nǔː/ I/me (used by women when speaking to people much older than themselves)[31]
เรา rao /rāw/ we/us, I/me (casual), you (sometimes used but only when older person speaks to younger person)
คุณ khun /kʰūn/ you (formal)
ท่าน than /tʰâːn/ you (very formal) Commonly pronounced as [tʰän˦˩]
แก kae /kɛ̄ː/ you (informal, used among close friends)[32]
เอ็ง eng /ʔēŋ/ you (from high-status to low-status and used among close friends; informal)
เธอ thoe /tʰɤ̄ː/ you (informal), she/her (informal)
พี่ phi /pʰîː/ older brother, sister (also used for older acquaintances)
น้อง nong /nɔ́ːŋ/ younger brother, sister (also used for younger acquaintances)
เขา khao /kʰǎw/ he/him, she/her
มัน man /mān/ it, he/she (offensive if used to refer to a person)
มึง mueng /mɯ̄ŋ/ you (impolite/vulgar)

The reflexive pronoun is ตัวเอง (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 ตัวผมเอง (tua phom eng, lit: I myself) or ตัวคุณเอง (tua khun eng, lit: you yourself). Thai also does not have a separate possessive pronoun. Instead, possession is indicated by the particle ของ (khong). For example, "my mother" is แม่ของผม (mae khong phom, lit: mother of I). This particle is often implicit, so the phrase is shortened to แม่ผม (mae phom). Plural pronouns can be easily constructed by adding the word พวก (phuak) in front of a singular pronoun as in พวกเขา (phuak khao) meaning 'they' or พวกเธอ (phuak thoe) meaning the plural sense of 'you'. The only exception to this is เรา (rao), which can be used as singular (informal) or plural, but can also be used in the form of พวกเรา (phuak rao), which is only plural.

Thai has many more pronouns than those listed above. Their usage is full of nuances. For example:

  • "ผม เรา ฉัน ดิฉัน หนู กู ข้า กระผม ข้าพเจ้า กระหม่อม อาตมา กัน ข้าน้อย ข้าพระพุทธเจ้า อั๊ว เขา" all translate to "I", but each expresses a different gender, age, politeness, status, or relationship between speaker and listener.
  • เรา (rao) can be first person (I), second person (you), or both (we), depending on the context.
  • Children or younger female could use or being referred by word หนู (nu) when talking with older person. The word หนู could be both feminine first person (I) and feminine second person (you) and also neuter first and neuter second person for children.
    • หนู commonly means rat or mouse, though it also refers to small creatures in general.
  • The second person pronoun เธอ (thoe) (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.
  • Both คุณ (khun) and เธอ (thoe) are polite neuter second person pronouns. However, คุณเธอ (khun thoe) is a feminine derogative third person.
  • Instead of a second person pronoun such as คุณ ('you'), it is much more common for unrelated strangers to call each other พี่ น้อง ลุง ป้า น้า อา ตา or ยาย (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 ครู, คุณครู or อาจารย์ (each meaning 'teacher') rather than คุณ ('you'). Teachers, monks, and doctors are almost always addressed this way.

Particles edit

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 ครับ (khrap, /kʰráp/, with a high-rising tone) when the speaker is male, and ค่ะ (kha, /kʰâʔ/, with a low-falling tone) when the speaker is female. Used in a question or a request, the particle ค่ะ (low-falling tone) is changed to a คะ (high-rising tone).

Other common particles are:

Word RTGS IPA Meaning
จ้ะ, จ้า or จ๋า cha /tɕâʔ/, /tɕâː/ or /tɕǎː/ indicating emphasis. Used in a less formal context when speaking to friends or someone younger than yourself[33]
ละ or ล่ะ la /láʔ/ or /làʔ/ indicating emphasis.
สิ si /sìʔ/ indicating emphasis or an imperative. It can come across as ordering someone to do something[33]
นะ na /náʔ/ softening; indicating a request or making your sentence sound more friendly.

Register edit

Central Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts:

  • Street or Common Thai (ภาษาพูด, phasa phut, spoken Thai): informal, without polite terms of address, as used between close relatives and friends.
  • Elegant or Formal Thai (ภาษาเขียน, phasa khian, 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 Pāli) used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks.
  • Royal Thai (ราชาศัพท์, racha sap): influenced by Khmer, this is used when addressing members of the royal family or describing their activities. (See Monarchy of Thailand § Rachasap.)

Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts. Street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations.[34][citation needed] 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 กิน (kin; common), แดก (daek; vulgar), ยัด (yat; vulgar), บริโภค (boriphok; formal), รับประทาน (rapprathan; formal), ฉัน (chan; religious), or เสวย (sawoei; royal), as illustrated below:

"to eat" IPA Usage Note
กิน /kīn/ common
แดก /dɛ̀ːk/ vulgar
ยัด /ját/ vulgar Original meaning is 'to cram'
บริโภค /bɔ̄ː ríʔ pʰôːk/ formal, literary
รับประทาน /ráp pràʔ tʰāːn/ formal, polite Often shortened to ทาน /tʰāːn/.
ฉัน /tɕʰǎn/ religious
เสวย /sàʔ wɤ̌ːj/ royal

Thailand also uses the distinctive Thai six-hour clock in addition to the 24-hour clock.

Vocabulary edit

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.[35][36][37]

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. [38]


Later, most vocabulary was borrowed from Sanskrit and Pāli; 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.

Origin Example IPA Gloss
Native Tai ไฟ [fāj] fire
น้ำ [náːm] water
เมือง [mɯ̄aŋ] town
รุ่งเรือง [rûŋ.rɯ̄aŋ] prosperous
Indic sources:
Pāli or Sanskrit
อัคนี (agni) [ʔàk.kʰa.nīː] fire
ชล (jala) [t͡ɕʰōn] water
ธานี (dhānī) [tʰāː.nīː] town
วิโรจน์ (virocana) [wí(ʔ).rôːt] prosperous

Arabic-origin edit

Arabic words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
الْقُرْآن (al-qurʾān) or قُرْآن (qurʾān) อัลกุรอาน or โกหร่าน [ʔān.kù.ra.ʔàːn] or [kōː.ràːn] Quran
رجم (rajm) ระยำ [ra.jām] bad, vile (vulgar)

Chinese-origin edit

From Middle Chinese or Teochew Chinese.

Chinese words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
交椅 Teochew: gao1 in2 เก้าอี้ [kâw.ʔîː] chair
粿條 / 粿条 Min Nan: kóe-tiâu ก๋วยเตี๋ยว [kǔaj.tǐaw] rice noodle
Hokkien: chiá/ché
Teochew: 2/zia2
เจ้ or เจ๊ [t͡ɕêː] or [t͡ɕéː] older sister (used in Chinese community in Thailand)
Hokkien:
Teochew: ri6
ยี่ [jîː] two (archaic, but still used in word ยี่สิบ [jîː.sìp]; 'twenty')
Middle Chinese: dəuH ถั่ว [tʰùa] bean
Middle Chinese: ʔɑŋX/ʔɑŋH อ่าง [ʔàːŋ] basin
Middle Chinese: kˠau กาว [kāːw] glue
Middle Chinese: kˠæŋX ก้าง [kâːŋ] fishbone
Middle Chinese: kʰʌmX ขุม [kʰǔm] pit
Middle Chinese: duo/ɖˠa ทา [tʰāː] to smear
退 Middle Chinese: tʰuʌiH ถอย [tʰɔ̌j] to step back

English-origin edit

English words Thai rendition IPA Remark
apple แอปเปิล [ʔɛ́p.pɤ̂n]
bank แบงก์ [bɛ́ŋ] means 'bank' or 'banknote'
bill บิล [bīn] or [bīw]
cake เค้ก [kʰéːk]
captain กัปตัน [kàp.tān]
cartoon การ์ตูน [kāː.tūːn]
clinic คลินิก [kʰli(ː).nìk]
computer คอมพิวเตอร์ [kʰɔ̄m.pʰíw.tɤ̂ː] colloquially shortened to คอม [kʰɔ̄m]
corruption คอร์รัปชัน [kʰɔ̄ː.ráp.tɕʰân]
countdown เคานต์ดาวน์ [kʰáw.dāːw]
dinosaur ไดโนเสาร์ [dāj.nōː.sǎw]
duel ดวล [dūan]
email อีเมล [ʔīː.mēːw]
fashion แฟชั่น [fɛ̄ː.tɕʰân]
golf กอล์ฟ [kɔ́p]
shampoo แชมพู [tɕʰɛ̄m.pʰūː]
slip สลิป [sa.líp]
taxi แท็กซี่ [tʰɛ́k.sîː]
technology เทคโนโลยี [tʰék.nōː.lōː.jīː, -jîː]
valve วาล์ว [wāːw]
visa วีซ่า [wīː.sâː]
wreath (พวง)หรีด [rìːt]

French-origin edit

French words Thai rendition IPA English translation
buffet บุฟเฟต์ [búp.fêː]
café กาแฟ [kāː.fɛ̄ː] coffee
คาเฟ่ [kʰāː.fêː] coffee shop, restaurant serving alcoholic drinks and providing entertainment (dated)
caféine กาเฟอีน [kāː.fēː.ʔīːn] caffeine
chauffeur โชเฟอร์ [t͡ɕʰōː.fɤ̂ː]
consul กงสุล [kōŋ.sǔn]
coupon คูปอง [kʰūː.pɔ̄ŋ]
croissant ครัวซ็อง [kʰrūa.sɔ̄ŋ]
gramme กรัม [krām]
litre ลิตร [lít]
mètre เมตร [méːt] metre
parquet ปาร์เกต์ [pāː.kêː]
pétanque เปตอง [pēː.tɔ̄ŋ]

Japanese-origin edit

Japanese words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
カラオケ ([kaɾaoke]) คาราโอเกะ [kʰāː.rāː.ʔōː.kèʔ] karaoke
忍者 ([ɲiꜜɲd͡ʑa]) นินจา [nīn.t͡ɕāː] ninja
寿司 ([sɯɕiꜜ]) ซูชิ [sūː.t͡ɕʰíʔ] sushi

Khmer-origin edit

From Old Khmer

Khmer words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
ក្រុង (/kroŋ/) กรุง [krūŋ] capital city
ខ្ទើយ (/kʰtəːj/) กะเทย [ka.tʰɤ̄ːj] kathoey
ខ្មួយ (/kʰmuəj/) ขโมย [kʰa.mōːj] to steal, thief
ច្រមុះ (/crɑː.moh/) จมูก [t͡ɕa.mùːk] nose
ច្រើន (/craən/) เจริญ [t͡ɕa.rɤ̄ːn] prosperous
ឆ្លាត or ឆ្លាស
(/cʰlaːt/ or /cʰlaːh/)
ฉลาด [t͡ɕʰa.làːt] smart
ថ្នល់ (/tʰnɑl/) ถนน [tʰa.nǒn] road
ភ្លើង (/pʰləːŋ/) เพลิง [pʰlɤ̄ːŋ] fire
ទន្លេ (/tɔn.leː/) ทะเล [tʰa.lēː] sea

Malay-origin edit

Malay words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
kelasi กะลาสี [ka.lāː.sǐː] sailor, seaman
sagu สาคู [sǎː.kʰūː] sago
surau สุเหร่า [sù.ràw] small mosque

Persian-origin edit

Persian words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
گلاب‎ (golâb) กุหลาบ [kù.làːp] rose
کمربند‎ (kamarband) ขาวม้า [kʰǎːw.máː] loincloth
ترازو (tarâzu) ตราชู [trāː.t͡ɕʰūː] balance scale
سقرلات (saqerlât) สักหลาด [sàk.ka.làːt] felt
آلت (âlat) อะไหล่ [ʔa.làj] spare part

Portuguese-origin edit

The 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.

Portuguese words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
carta / cartaz กระดาษ [kra.dàːt] paper
garça (นก)กระสา [kra.sǎː] heron
leilão เลหลัง [lēː.lǎŋ] auction, low-priced
padre บาท(หลวง) [bàːt.lǔaŋ] (Christian) priest[39]
pão (ขนม)ปัง [pāŋ] bread
real เหรียญ [rǐan] coin
sabão สบู่ [sa.bùː] soap

Tamil-origin edit

Tamil words Thai rendition IPA Gloss
கறி‎ (kaṟi) กะหรี่ [ka.rìː] curry, curry powder
கிராம்பு‎ (kirāmpu) กานพลู [kāːn.pʰlūː] clove
நெய் (ney) เนย [nɤ̄ːj] butter

Writing system edit

 
"Kingdom of Thailand" in Thai script.

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:

  1. 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.
  2. Tone markers, if present, are placed above the final onset consonant of the syllable.
  3. Vowels sounding after an initial consonant can be located before, after, above or below the consonant, or in a combination of these positions.

Transcription edit

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 may each follow different systems. For this reason, many language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script.[40][41][42][43]

Official standards are the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), published by the Royal Institute of Thailand,[44] and the almost identical ISO 11940-2 defined by the International Organization for Standardization. The RTGS system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments, especially for road signs.[45] Its main drawbacks are 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.

Transliteration edit

The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2005 (ISO 11940).[46] 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.

See also edit

Explanatory notes edit

  1. ^ In Thai: ภาษาไทย Phasa Thai
  2. ^ In Thai: ภาษาไทยกลาง RTGSPaasaa Thai Klang; Not to be confused with Central Tai
  3. ^ In Thai: ภาษาสยาม Paasaa Sayam
  4. ^ Although "Thai" and "Central Thai" have become more common, the older term, "Siamese", is still used by linguists, especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages (Diller 2008:6[full citation needed]). "Proto-Thai" is, for example, the ancestor of all of Southwestern Tai, not just Siamese (Rischel 1998[full citation needed]).
  5. ^ Xiānluó was the Chinese name for Ayutthaya, a kingdom created by the merger of Lavo and Sukhothai or Suphannabhumi
  6. ^ The glottalized stops /ʔb ʔd/ were unaffected, as they were treated in every respect like voiceless unaspirated stops due to the initial glottal stop. These stops are often described in the modern language as phonemically plain stops /b d/, but the glottalization is still commonly heard.
  7. ^ 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. For example, in standard Lao, both the high and low variants of Old Thai tone 2 merged; however, the mid-class variant of tone 1 became pronounced differently from either the high-class or low-class variants, and all three eventually became phonemic due to further changes, e.g. /kr/ > /kʰ/. For similar reasons, Lao has developed more than two tonal distinctions in "dead" syllables.
  8. ^ Initial อ is silent and therefore considered as a glottal stop.
  9. ^ ฃ and ฅ are no longer used. Thus, modern Thai is said to have 42 consonant letters.
  10. ^ The glottal plosive appears at the end when no final follows a short vowel

References edit

Citations edit

  1. ^ a b c Thai at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)  
  2. ^ Diller, A.; Reynolds, Craig J. (2002). "What makes central Thai a national language?". In Reynolds (ed.). National identity and its defenders : Thailand today. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. ISBN 974-7551-88-8. OCLC 54373362.
  3. ^ Draper, John (2019), "Language education policy in Thailand", The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 229–242, doi:10.4324/9781315666235-16, ISBN 978-1-315-66623-5, S2CID 159127015
  4. ^ Baker, Christopher (2014). A history of Thailand. Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-1-316-00733-4.
  5. ^ Enfield, N.J. "How to define 'Lao', 'Thai', and 'Isan' language? A view from linguistic science". Tai Culture. 3 (1): 62–67.
  6. ^ Peansiri Vongvipanond (Summer 1994). . paper presented to a workshop of teachers of social science. University of New Orleans. p. 2. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2011. The dialect one hears on radio and television is the Bangkok dialect, considered the standard dialect.
  7. ^ Kemasingki, Pim; Prateepkoh, Pariyakorn (1 August 2017). "Kham Mueang: the slow death of a language". Chiang Mai City Life: 8. there are still many people speaking kham mueang, but as an accent, not as a language. Because we now share the written language with Bangkok, we are beginning to use its vocabulary as well
  8. ^ Andrew Simpson (2007). Language and national identity in Asia. Oxford University Press. Standard Thai is a form of Central Thai based on the variety of Thai spoken earlier by the elite of the court, and now by the educated middle and upper classes of Bangkok. It ... was standardized in grammar books in the nineteenth century, and spread dramatically from the 1930s onwards, when public education became much more widespread
  9. ^ Thepboriruk, Kanjana (2010). "Bangkok Thai tones revisited". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society. 3 (1). University of Hawaii Press: 86–105. Linguists generally consider Bangkok Thai and Standard Thai, the Kingdom's national language, to be one and the same.
  10. ^ Antonio L. Rappa; Lionel Wee (2006), Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, Springer, pp. 114–115
  11. ^ Lieberman, Victor (2003). Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800–1830. Studies in Comparative World History (Kindle ed.). ISBN 978-0-521-80086-0.
  12. ^ Wyatt, David K. (2003). Thailand: A Short History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08475-7.
  13. ^ Ying-yai Sheng-lan: The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores (1433), Hakluyt Society at the University Press, 1970, ISBN 0-521-01032-2
  14. ^ Kasetsiri 1999: 25
  15. ^ Varasarin 1984: 91
  16. ^ Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:25)
  17. ^ Frankfurter, Oscar. Elements of Siamese grammar with appendices. American Presbyterian mission press, 1900 [1] (Full text available on Google Books)
  18. ^ Morén, Bruce; Zsiga, Elizabeth (2006). "The Lexical and Post-Lexical Phonology of Thai Tones*". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 24 (1): 113–178. doi:10.1007/s11049-004-5454-y. ISSN 0167-806X. S2CID 170764533.
  19. ^ Zsiga, Elizabeth; Nitisaroj, Rattima (2007). "Tone Features, Tone Perception, and Peak Alignment in Thai". Language and Speech. 50 (3): 343–383. doi:10.1177/00238309070500030301. ISSN 0023-8309. PMID 17974323. S2CID 18595049.
  20. ^ Teeranon, Phanintra. (2007). "The change of Standard Thai high tone: An acoustic study and a perceptual experiment". SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 4(3), 1–16.
  21. ^ Thepboriruk, Kanjana. (2010). "Bangkok Thai Tones Revisited". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 3(1), 86–105.
  22. ^ Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. (2007). . Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVI).
  23. ^ Warotamasikkhadit, Udom (1972). Thai Syntax. The Hague: Mouton.
  24. ^ a b c Bisang, W. (1991), "Verb serialisation, grammaticalisation, and attractor positions in Chinese, Hmong, Vietnamese, Thai and Khmer", Partizipation: das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten, Tübingen: Narr, pp. 509–562, retrieved 2 May 2021
  25. ^ a b c d e f Jenny, Mathias; Ebert, Karen H.; Zúñiga, Fernando (2001), "The aspect system of Thai", Aktionsart and Aspectotemporality in non-European languages, Zürich: Seminar für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Zürich, pp. 97–140, ISBN 978-3-9521010-8-7, retrieved 2 May 2021
  26. ^ a b Boonyapatipark, Tasanalai (1983). A study of aspect in Thai. University of London.
  27. ^ Koenig, Jean-Pierre; Muansuwan, Nuttanart (2005). "The Syntax of Aspect in Thai". Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 23 (2): 335–380. doi:10.1007/s11049-004-0488-8. ISSN 0167-806X. JSTOR 4048104. S2CID 170429648.
  28. ^ Jenks, Peter (2011). The Hidden Structure of Thai Noun Phrases (PDF) (PhD dissertation). Harvard University. ISBN 978-1-267-10767-1. S2CID 118127511. ProQuest 915016895. (PDF) from the original on 3 May 2015.
  29. ^ . Archived from the original on 17 August 2017. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
  30. ^ a b Smyth, David (2014). Thai (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-97457-4. OCLC 879025983.
  31. ^ "The Many Different Ways To Say "I"". Beginner Thai Speaking. 28 September 2021. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  32. ^ Joanne Tan. "How to say You in Thai Language". Learn Thai in Singapore.
  33. ^ a b "What Do 'krub' And 'ka' Mean In Thai Language & When To Use". 5 October 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  34. ^ "The Languages spoken in Thailand". Studycountry. Retrieved 26 December 2017.
  35. ^ Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (2009). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. p. 611. Thai is of special interest to lexical borrowing for various reasons. The copious borrowing of basic vocabulary from Middle Chinese and later from Khmer indicates that, given the right sociolinguistic context, such vocabulary is not at all immune
  36. ^ Haarmann, Harald (1986). Language in Ethnicity: A View of Basic Ecological Relations. p. 165. In Thailand, for instance, where the Chinese influence was strong until the Middle Ages, Chinese characters were abandoned in written Thai in the course of the thirteenth century.
  37. ^ Leppert, Paul A. (1992). Doing Business With Thailand. p. 13. At an early time the Thais used Chinese characters. But, under the influence of Indian traders and monks, they soon dropped Chinese characters in favor of Sanskrit and Pali scripts.
  38. ^ Khanittanan, Wilaiwan (2004). "Khmero-Thai: The Great Change in the History of the Thai Language of the Chao Phraya Basin". Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. 11.
  39. ^ "S̄yām-portukes̄ ṣ̄ụks̄ʹā: Khả reīyk "chā kāfæ" khır lxk khır thịy h̄rụ̄x portukes̄" สยาม-โปรตุเกสศึกษา: คำเรียก "ชา กาแฟ" ใครลอกใคร ไทย หรือ โปรตุเกส [Siam-Portuguese Studies: The term 'tea, coffee'. Who copied someone, Thai or Portuguese?]. 2010.
  40. ^ Pronk, Marco (2013). The Essential Thai Language Companion: Reference Book: Basics, Structures, Rules. Schwabe AG. p. v. ISBN 978-3-9523664-9-3. learn the Thai alphabet as early as possible, and get rid of romanized transcriptions as soon as you can
  41. ^ Juyaso, Arthit (2015). Read Thai in 10 Days. Bingo-Lingo. p. xii. There have been attempts by Thai language schools to create a perfect phonetic system for learners, but none have been successful so far. ... Only Thai script is prevalent and consistent in Thailand.
  42. ^ Waites, Dan (2014). "Learning the Language: To Write or Not to Write". CultureShock! Bangkok. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 978-981-4516-93-8. you're far better off learning the Thai alphabet
  43. ^ Cooper, Robert (2019). "Learning Thai: Writing Thai in English". CultureShock! Thailand: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 978-981-4841-39-9. take a bit of time to learn the letters. The time you spend is saved many times over when you begin to really learn Thai.
  44. ^ Royal Thai General System of Transcription, published by the Thai Royal Institute only in Thai
  45. ^ Handbook and standard for traffic signs (PDF) (in Thai), Appendix ง, (PDF) from the original on 15 November 2017
  46. ^ ISO 11940 Standard.

General and cited sources edit

  • อภิลักษณ์ ธรรมทวีธิกุล และ กัลยารัตน์ ฐิติกานต์นารา. 2549. การเน้นพยางค์กับทำนองเสียงภาษาไทย (Stress and Intonation in Thai) วารสารภาษาและภาษาศาสตร์ ปีที่ 24 ฉบับที่ 2 (มกราคม – มิถุนายน 2549) หน้า 59–76. ISSN 0857-1406.
  • สัทวิทยา : การวิเคราะห์ระบบเสียงในภาษา. 2547. กรุงเทพฯ : สำนักพิมพ์มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์. ISBN 974-537-499-7.
  • Diller, Anthony van Nostrand, et al. 2008. The Tai–Kadai Languages. ISBN 978-070-071-457-5.
  • Gandour, Jack, Tumtavitikul, Apiluck and Satthamnuwong, Nakarin. 1999. Effects of Speaking Rate on the Thai Tones. Phonetica 56, pp. 123–134.
  • Li, Fang-Kuei. A handbook of comparative Tai. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1977. Print.
  • Rischel, Jørgen. 1998. 'Structural and Functional Aspects of Tone Split in Thai'. In Sound structure in language, 2009.
  • Tumtavitikul, Apiluck, 1998. The Metrical Structure of Thai in a Non-Linear Perspective. Papers presented to the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1994, pp. 53–71. Udom Warotamasikkhadit and Thanyarat Panakul, eds. Temple, Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University.
  • Apiluck Tumtavitikul. 1997. The Reflection on the X′ category in Thai. Mon–Khmer Studies XXVII, pp. 307–316.
  • อภิลักษณ์ ธรรมทวีธิกุล. 2539. ข้อคิดเกี่ยวกับหน่วยวากยสัมพันธ์ในภาษาไทย วารสารมนุษยศาสตร์วิชาการ. 4.57–66. ISSN 0859-3485 ISSN 2673-0502.
  • Tumtavitikul, Appi. 1995. Tonal Movements in Thai. The Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Vol. I, pp. 188–121. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University.
  • Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1994. Thai Contour Tones. Current Issues in Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, pp. 869–875. Hajime Kitamura et al., eds, Ozaka: The Organization Committee of the 26th Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, National Museum of Ethnology.
  • Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1993. FO – Induced VOT Variants in Thai. Journal of Languages and Linguistics, 12.1.34 – 56.
  • Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1993. Perhaps, the Tones are in the Consonants? Mon–Khmer Studies XXIII, pp. 11–41.
  • Higbie, James and Thinsan, Snea. Thai Reference Grammar: The Structure of Spoken Thai. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2003. ISBN 974-8304-96-5.
  • Nacaskul, Karnchana (ศาสตราจารย์กิตติคุณ ดร.กาญจนา นาคสกุล) Thai Phonology, 4th printing. (ระบบเสียงภาษาไทย, พิมพ์ครั้งที่ 4) Bangkok: Chulalongkorn Press, 1998. ISBN 978-974-639-375-1.
  • Nanthana Ronnakiat (ดร.นันทนา รณเกียรติ) Phonetics in Principle and Practical. (สัทศาสตร์ภาคทฤษฎีและภาคปฏิบัติ) 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 (2002). , first edition. London: Routledge.
  • Smyth, David (2014). Thai: An Essential Grammar, second edition. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-041-551-034-9.
  • Tingsabadh, M.R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur (1993), "Thai", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 23 (1): 24–28, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004746, S2CID 249403146

Further reading edit

  • Inglis, Douglas. 1999. Lexical conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai-Part 1. Payap Research and Development Institute and The Summer Institute of Linguistics. Payap University.
  • Inglis, Douglas. 2000. Grammatical conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai-Part 2. Payap Research and Development Institute and The Summer Institute of Linguistics. Payap University.
  • Inglis, Douglas. 2003. Conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai. In Eugene E. Casad and Gary B. Palmer (eds.). Cognitive linguistics and non-Indo-European languages. CLR Series 18. De Gruyter Mouton. 223–246. ISBN 978-311-017-371-0

External links edit

  • IPA and SAMPA for Thai
  • Consonant Ear Training Tape
  • Tones of Tai Dialect
Glossaries and word lists
  • Thai phrasebook from Wikivoyage
  • Thai Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
Dictionaries
  • English–Thai Dictionary: English–Thai bilingual online dictionary
  • The Royal Institute Dictionary, official standard Thai–Thai dictionary
  • Thai-English dictionary
  • Thai2english.com: LEXiTRON-based Thai–English dictionary
  • Daoulagad Thai: mobile OCR Thai–English dictionary
  • Thai dictionaries for Stardict/GoldenDict – Thai – English (also French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and others) dictionaries in Stardict and GoldenDict formats
  • Volubilis Dictionary VOLUBILIS (Romanized Thai – Thai – English – French): free databases (ods/xlsx) and dictionaries (PDF) – Thai transcription system.
Learners' resources
  • thai-language.com English speakers' online resource for the Thai language
  • Say Hello in the Thai Language
  • FSI Thai language course (Formerly at thailanguagewiki.com)
  • (30 exercises with audio)

thai, language, confused, with, languages, central, languages, thai, central, thai, historically, siamese, thai, ภาษาไทย, language, language, family, spoken, central, thai, people, central, thailand, vast, majority, thai, chinese, enclaves, throughout, country. Not to be confused with Tai languages or Central Tai languages Thai a or Central Thai b historically Siamese c d Thai phasaithy is a Tai language of the Kra Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai Mon people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country It is the sole official language of Thailand 2 3 ThaiCentral Thai Siamesephasaithy Phasa Thai Phasa Thai literally meaning Thai language written in Thai scriptPronunciation pʰaːsǎːtʰaj RegionThailand Central Thailand and Thai Chinese enclaves throughout country Cambodia Koh Kong province EthnicityCentral Thai Thai Chinese MonNative speakersL1 21 million 2000 1 L2 40 million 2001 1 Total 61 million 2000 2001 1 Language familyKra Dai TaiSouthwestern TaiChiang SaenSukhothaiThaiWriting systemThai script Thai Braille Khom Thai religious use Official statusOfficial language in ThailandRecognised minoritylanguage in Cambodia Laos Malaysia MyanmarRegulated byRoyal Society of ThailandLanguage codesISO 639 1 span class plainlinks th span ISO 639 2 span class plainlinks tha span ISO 639 3 a href https iso639 3 sil org code tha class extiw title iso639 3 tha tha a Glottologthai1261Linguasphere47 AAA bDark Blue Majority Light Blue Minority source source source source source source source source track track A native Thai speaker recorded in Bangkok Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali Sanskrit Mon 4 and Old Khmer It is a tonal and analytic language Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers Spoken Thai depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age gender class spatial proximity and the urban rural divide is partly mutually intelligible with Lao Isan and some fellow Thai topolects These languages are written with slightly different scripts but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum 5 Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people 2020 Moreover most Thais in the northern and the northeastern Isaan parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because Central Thai is the language of television education news reporting and all forms of media 6 A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language also known as Phasa Mueang or Kham Mueang have become so few as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the Kham Mueang accent 7 Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and Mon people in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis 8 9 In addition to Central Thai Thailand is home to other related Tai languages Although most of linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the same Thai language or as different kinds of Thai 10 As a dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as a second language among the country s minority ethnic groups from the mid late Ayutthaya period onward 11 12 Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect Contents 1 Classification 2 History 2 1 Early spread 2 2 Old Thai 2 2 1 Early Old Thai 2 3 Vowel developments 3 Phonology 3 1 Consonants 3 1 1 Initials 3 1 2 Finals 3 1 3 Clusters 3 2 Vowels 3 3 Tones 3 3 1 Unchecked syllables 3 3 2 Checked syllables 4 Grammar 4 1 Adjectives and adverbs 4 2 Verbs 4 3 Nouns 4 3 1 Nominal phrases 4 4 Pronouns 4 5 Particles 5 Register 6 Vocabulary 6 1 Arabic origin 6 2 Chinese origin 6 3 English origin 6 4 French origin 6 5 Japanese origin 6 6 Khmer origin 6 7 Malay origin 6 8 Persian origin 6 9 Portuguese origin 6 10 Tamil origin 7 Writing system 7 1 Transcription 7 2 Transliteration 8 See also 9 Explanatory notes 10 References 10 1 Citations 10 2 General and cited sources 11 Further reading 12 External linksClassification editFurther information Tai Kadai languages Tai languages and Tai peoples Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages others being Tai Lanna Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao Phutai languages form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra Dai language family which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand The standard is based on the dialect of the central Thai people and it is written in the Thai script nbsp Example of divergence among the Kra Dai Languages Kra Dai Hlai languages Kam Sui languages Kra languages Be language Tai languages Northern Tai languages Central Tai languages Southwestern Tai languages Northwestern Tai languages Khamti language Tai Lue language Shan language others Chiang Saen languages Northern Thai language Sukhothai language Thai language Southern Thai language Lao Phuthai languages Tai Yo language Phuthai language Lao language PDR Lao Isan language History editThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed May 2020 Learn how and when to remove this message Thai has undergone various historical sound changes Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai The Thai writing system has an eight century history and many of these changes especially in consonants and tones are evidenced in the modern orthography Early spread edit According to a Chinese source during the Ming dynasty Yingya Shenglan 1405 1433 Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xianluo 暹羅 or Ayutthaya kingdom e saying that it somewhat resembled the local patois as pronounced in Guangdong 13 107 Ayutthaya the old capital of Thailand from 1351 1767 A D was from the beginning a bilingual society speaking Thai and Khmer Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369 1388 and 1431 14 Gradually toward the end of the period a language shift took place Khmer fell out of use Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai In the process of language shift an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language Consequently the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases Khmer expressions sayings and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer 15 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 that three languages Thai Khmer and Khmero Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse In fact Khmero Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to the Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed Old Thai edit Old Thai had a three way tone distinction on live syllables those not ending in a stop with no possible distinction on dead syllables those ending in a stop i e either p t k or the glottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel There was a two way voiced vs voiceless distinction among all fricative and sonorant consonants and up to a four way distinction among stops and affricates The maximal four way occurred in labials p pʰ b ʔb and dentals t tʰ d ʔd the three way distinction among velars k kʰ ɡ and alveolo palatals tɕ tɕʰ dʑ with the glottalized member of each set apparently missing The major change between old and modern Thai was due to voicing distinction losses and the concomitant tone split This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE possibly occurring at different times in different parts of the Thai speaking area All voiced voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction Plain voiced stops b d ɡ dʑ became voiceless aspirated stops pʰ tʰ kʰ tɕʰ f Voiced fricatives became voiceless Voiceless sonorants became voiced However in the process of these mergers the former distinction of voice was transferred into a new set of tonal distinctions In essence every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones with a lower pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant and a higher pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant including glottalized stops An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops affricates original p t k tɕ ʔb ʔd also caused original tone 1 to lower but had no such effect on original tones 2 or 3 The above consonant mergers and tone splits account for the complex relationship between spelling and sound in modern Thai Modern low class consonants were voiced in Old Thai and the terminology low reflects the lower tone variants that resulted Modern mid class consonants were voiceless unaspirated stops or affricates in Old Thai precisely the class that triggered lowering in original tone 1 but not tones 2 or 3 Modern high class consonants were the remaining voiceless consonants in Old Thai voiceless fricatives voiceless sonorants voiceless aspirated stops The three most common tone marks the lack of any tone mark as well as the two marks termed mai ek and mai tho represent the three tones of Old Thai and the complex relationship between tone mark and actual tone is due to the various tonal changes since then Since the tone split the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship between lower and higher tonal variants has been completely obscured Furthermore the six tones that resulted after the three tones of Old Thai were split have since merged into five in standard Thai with the lower variant of former tone 2 merging with the higher variant of former tone 3 becoming the modern falling tone g Early Old Thai edit Further information Proto Tai Early Old Thai also apparently had velar fricatives x ɣ as distinct phonemes These were represented by the now obsolete letters kh kho khuat and Kh kho khon respectively During the Old Thai period these sounds merged into the corresponding stops kʰ ɡ and as a result the use of these letters became unstable At some point in the history of Thai a palatal nasal phoneme ɲ also existed inherited from Proto Tai A letter y yo ying also exists which is used to represent a alveolo palatal nasal in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali and is currently pronounced j at the beginning of a syllable but n at the end of a syllable Most native Thai words that are reconstructed as beginning with ɲ are also pronounced j in modern Thai but generally spelled with y yo yak which consistently represents j This suggests that ɲ gt j in native words occurred in the pre literary period It is unclear whether Sanskrit and Pali words beginning with ɲ were borrowed directly with a j or whether a ɲ was re introduced followed by a second change ɲ gt j Proto Tai also had a glottalized palatal sound reconstructed as ʔj in Li Fang Kuei 1977 full citation needed Corresponding Thai words are generally spelled hy which implies an Old Thai pronunciation of hj or j but a few such words are spelled xy which implies a pronunciation of ʔj and suggests that the glottalization may have persisted through to the early literary period Vowel developments edit 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 full citation needed however many Thai dialects have only one such short long pair a aː and in general it is difficult or impossible to find minimal short long pairs in Thai that involve vowels other than a and where both members have frequent correspondences throughout the Tai languages More specifically he notes the following facts about Thai In open syllables only long vowels occur This assumes that all apparent cases of short open syllables are better described as ending in a glottal stop This makes sense from the lack of tonal distinctions in such syllables and the glottal stop is also reconstructible across the Tai languages In closed syllables the long high vowels iː ɯː uː are rare and cases that do exist typically have diphthongs in other Tai languages In closed syllables both short and long mid e eː o oː and low ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː do occur However generally only words with short e o and long ɛː ɔː are reconstructible back to Proto Tai Both of the mid back unrounded vowels ɤ ɤː are rare and words with such sounds generally cannot be reconstructed back to Proto Tai Furthermore the vowel that corresponds to short Thai a has a different and often higher quality in many of the Tai languages compared with the vowel corresponding to Thai aː This leads Li to posit the following Proto Tai had a system of nine pure vowels with no length distinction and possessing approximately the same qualities as in modern Thai high i ɯ u mid e ɤ o low ɛ a ɔ All Proto Tai vowels were lengthened in open syllables and low vowels were also lengthened in closed syllables Modern Thai largely preserved the original lengths and qualities but lowered ɤ to a which became short a in closed syllables and created a phonemic length distinction a aː Eventually length in all other vowels became phonemic as well and a new ɤ both short and long was introduced through a combination of borrowing and sound change Li believes that the development of long iː ɯː uː from diphthongs and the lowering of ɤ to a to create a length distinction a aː had occurred by the time of Proto Southwestern Tai but the other missing modern Thai vowels had not yet developed Not all researchers agree with Li Pittayaporn 2009 full citation needed for example reconstructs a similar system for Proto Southwestern Tai but believes that there was also a mid back unrounded vowel e which he describes as ɤ occurring only before final velar k ŋ He also seems to believe that the Proto Southwestern Tai vowel length distinctions can be reconstructed back to similar distinctions in Proto Tai Phonology editThis article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA For the distinction between and see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters Consonants edit Initials edit Standard Thai distinguishes three voice onset times among plosive and affricate consonants voiced tenuis unvoiced unaspirated aspirated Where English makes a distinction between voiced b and unvoiced aspirated pʰ Thai distinguishes a third sound the unvoiced unaspirated p that occurs in English only as an allophone of pʰ for example after an s as in the sound of the p in spin There is similarly a laminal denti alveolar citation needed d t tʰ triplet in Thai In the velar series there is a k kʰ pair and in the postalveolar series a tɕ tɕʰ pair but the language lacks the corresponding voiced sounds ɡ and dʑ In loanwords from English English ɡ and d ʒ are borrowed as the tenuis stops k and tɕ In each cell below the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet IPA the second indicates the Thai characters in initial position several letters appearing in the same box have identical pronunciation The letter h one of the two h letters is also used to help write certain tones described below Labial Dental Alveolar Alveolo Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal m m n n n ŋ ng Plosive Affricate voiced b b d d d tenuis p p t t t tɕ c k k ʔ x h aspirated pʰ ph ph ph tʰ th th th th th th tɕʰ ch ch ch kʰ kh kh kh Kh kh i Fricative f f f s s s s s h h h Approximant w w l l l j y y Rhotic Liquid r r Finals edit Although the overall 44 Thai consonant letters provide 21 sounds in case of initials the case for finals is different For finals only eight sounds as well as no sound called matra matra are used To demonstrate at the end of a syllable b b and d d are devoiced becoming pronounced as p and t respectively Additionally all plosive sounds are unreleased Hence final p t and k sounds are pronounced as p t and k respectively Of the consonant letters excluding the disused kh and Kh six ch ph f h x h cannot be used as a final and the other 36 are grouped as following Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal m m n y n n r l l ŋ ng Plosive p b p ph f ph t c ch s ch d t th th th d t th th th s s s k k kh kh kh ʔ j Approximant w w j y Clusters edit In Thai each syllable in a word is articulated independently so consonants from adjacent syllables i e heterosyllabic show no sign of articulation as a cluster Thai has specific phonotactical patterns that describe its syllable structure including tautosyllabic consonant clusters and vowel sequences In core Thai words i e excluding loanwords only clusters of two consonants occur of which there are 11 combinations kr kr kl kl kw kw kʰr khr khr kʰl khl khl kʰw khw khw pr pr pl pl pʰr phr pʰl phl phl tr tr The number of clusters increases in loanwords such as tʰr thr in xinthra ʔin tʰraː from Sanskrit indra or fr fr in fri friː from English free however these usually only occur in initial position with either r l or w as the second consonant sound and not more than two sounds at a time Vowels edit The vowel nuclei of the Thai language 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 script where a dash indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced A second dash indicates that a final consonant follows nbsp Monophthongs of Thai From Tingsabadh amp Abramson 1993 25 nbsp Diphthongs of Thai From Tingsabadh amp Abramson 1993 25 Front Central Back short long short long short long Close i i iː i ɯ u ɯː u u u uː u Mid e e a eː e ɤ e xa ɤː e x o o a oː o Open ɛ ae a ɛː ae a a aː a ɔ e aa ɔː x Each vowel quality occurs in long short pairs these are distinct phonemes forming distinct words in Thai 16 The long short pairs are as follows Long Short Thai IPA Example Thai IPA Example a aː fan fǎːn to slice a a fn fǎn to dream i iː krid kriːt to cut i i krich krit kris u uː sud suːt to inhale u u sud sut rearmost e eː exn ʔeːn to recline e a e exn ʔen tendon ligament ae ɛː aeph pʰɛ ː to be defeated ae a ɛ aepha pʰɛ ʔ goat u ɯː khlun kʰlɯ ːn wave u ɯ khun kʰɯ n to go up e x ɤː edin dɤ ːn to walk e xa ɤ engin ŋɤ n silver o oː okhn kʰoːn to fell o a o khn kʰon thick soup x ɔː klxng klɔ ːŋ drum e aa ɔ klxng klɔ ŋ box There are also opening and closing diphthongs in Thai which Tingsabadh amp Abramson 1993 analyze as Vj and Vw For purposes of determining tone those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long Long Short Thai script IPA Thai script IPA ay aːj i i i y y aj aw aːw e a aw e iy ia e iya iaʔ iw iw w ua wa uaʔ uy uːj uy uj e w eːw e w ew ae w ɛːw e ux ɯa e uxa ɯaʔ e y ɤːj xy ɔːj o y oːj Additionally there are three triphthongs For purposes of determining tone those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long Thai script IPA e iyw iaw wy uaj e uxy ɯaj Tones edit nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp The five phonemic tones of Standard Thai pronounced with the syllable naː source source There are five phonemic tones mid falling high rising and low rising sometimes referred to in older reference works as rectus gravis circumflexus altus and demissus respectively 17 The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization in the IPA Moren amp Zsiga 2006 18 and Zsiga amp Nitisaroj 2007 19 provide phonetic and phonological analyses of Thai tone realization nbsp Thai language tone chart Notes Five level tone value Mid level 33 Low falling 21 High falling 41 High rising 45 Low rising 24 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 20 21 For the diachronic changes of tone value please see Pittayaporn 2007 22 The full complement of tones exists only in so called live syllables those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant m n ŋ j w For dead syllables those that end in a plosive p t k 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 and have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables Unchecked syllables edit Tone Thai Example Phonemic Phonetic Gloss Mid level samy kha kʰaː kʰaː stick Low falling exk kha kʰaː kʰaː or kʰaː galangal High falling oth kha kʰaː kʰaː value High rising tri kha kʰaː kʰaː or kʰaː to trade Low rising ctwa kha kʰǎː kʰaː or kʰaː leg Checked syllables edit Tone Thai Example Phonemic Phonetic Gloss Low falling short vowel exk hmk mak mak marinate Low falling long vowel exk hmak maːk maːk areca nut areca palm betel fruit High rising tri mk mak mak habitually likely to High falling oth mak maːk maːk a lot abundance many In some English loanwords closed syllables with a long vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a high rising tone and closed syllables with a short vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a high falling tone Tone Thai Example Phonemic Phonetic Gloss High rising tri mark maːk maːk Marc Mark High rising tri charc tɕʰaːt t ɕʰaːt charge High falling oth emkxp meːk ʔap me ːk ʔap make up High falling oth aerkekt rɛ k ket rɛk ke t racket Grammar editFrom the perspective of linguistic typology Thai can be considered to be an analytic language The word order is subject verb object 23 although the subject is often omitted Additionally Thai is an isolating language lacking any form of inflectional morphology whatsoever 24 Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience Adjectives and adverbs edit 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 khnkhon kʰōnxwnuanʔuan khn xwnkhon uan kʰōn ʔuan a fat person khnkhon khōnthithitʰiːxwnuanʔuanerwreorew khn thi xwn erwkhon thi uan reo khōn tʰiː ʔuan rew a person who became fat quickly Comparatives take the form A X kwa B kwa kwaː A is more X than B The superlative is expressed as A X thisud thi sut tʰiː sut A is most X ekhakhao kʰǎwxwnuanʔuankwakwakwaːchnchantɕʰǎn ekha xwn kwa chnkhao uan kwa chan kʰǎw ʔuan kwaː tɕʰǎn S he is fatter than me ekhakhao kʰǎwxwnuanʔuanthisudthi suttʰiː sut ekha xwn thisudkhao uan thi sut kʰǎw ʔuan tʰiː sut S he is the fattest of all Adjectives in Thai can be used as complete predicates Because of this many words used to indicate tense in verbs see Verbs Tense below may be used to describe adjectives chnchan tɕʰǎnhiwhiohǐw chn hiwchan hio tɕʰǎn hǐw I am hungry chnchan tɕʰǎncachatɕaʔhiwhiohǐw chn ca hiwchan cha hio tɕʰǎn tɕaʔ hǐw I will be hungry chnchan tɕʰǎnkalngkamlangkam laŋhiwhiohǐw chn kalng hiwchan kamlang hio tɕʰǎn kam laŋ hǐw I am hungry right now chnchan tɕʰǎnhiwhiohǐwaelwlaeolɛ ːw chn hiw aelwchan hio laeo tɕʰǎn hǐw lɛ ːw I am already hungry Remark chnhiwaelw mostly means I am hungry right now because normally aelw lɛ ːw marks the change of a state but aelw has many other uses as well For example in the sentence aelwethxcaipihn lɛ ːw tʰɤ ː tɕaʔ paj nǎj So where are you going aelw lɛ ːw is used as a discourse particle Verbs edit 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 chnchan tɕʰǎn1SGtititiːhitekhakhaokʰǎw 3SGchn ti ekhachan ti khao tɕʰǎn tiː kʰǎw 1SG hit 3SG I hit him ekhakhao kʰǎw3SGtititiːhitchnchantɕʰǎn 1SGekha ti chnkhao ti chan kʰǎw tiː tɕʰǎn 3SG hit 1SG S He hit me In order to convey tense aspect and mood TAM the Thai verbal system employs auxiliaries and verb serialization 25 24 TAM markers are however not obligatory and often left out in colloquial use In such cases the precise meaning is determined through context 25 This results in sentences lacking both TAM markers and overt context being ambiguous and subject to various interpretations chnchan tɕʰǎnkinkinkinthithitʰiːnnnannan chn kin thi nnchan kin thi nan tɕʰǎn kin tʰiː nan I eat there chnchan tɕǎnkinkinkinthithitʰiːnnnannanemuxwanmueawanmɯ a waːn chn kin thi nn emuxwanchan kin thi nan mueawan tɕǎn kin tʰiː nan mɯ a waːn I ate there yesterday chnchan tɕǎnkinkinkinthithithiːnnnannanphrungniphrungnipʰruŋ niː chn kin thi nn phrungnichan kin thi nan phrungni tɕǎn kin thiː nan pʰruŋ niː I ll eat there tomorrow The sentence chan kin thi nan 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 25 These markers could appear either before or after the verb The following list describes some of the most commonly used aspect markers A number of these aspect markers are also full verbs on their own and carry a distinct meaning For example yu xyu as a full verb means to stay to live or to remain at However as an auxiliary it can be described as a temporary aspect or continuative marker 25 Imperfective xyu yu juː ip pai paj yng yang jaŋ kalng kamlang kam laŋ Perfective id dai daːj Perfect aelw laeo lɛ ːw ma ma maː Prospective Future ca cha tɕaʔ The imperfective aspect marker kalng kamlang kam laŋ currently is used before the verb to denote an ongoing action similar to the ing suffix in English Kamlang is commonly interpreted as a progressive aspect marker 26 27 Similarly xyu yu juː is a post verbal aspect marker which corresponds to the continuative or temporary aspect 25 ekhakhao kʰǎwkalngkamlangkam laŋwingwingwiŋ ekha kalng wingkhao kamlang wing kʰǎw kam laŋ wiŋ ekhakhao kʰǎwwingwingwiŋxyuyujuː ekha wing xyukhao wing yu kʰǎw wiŋ juː ekhakhao kʰǎwkalngkamlangkam laŋwingwingwiŋxyuyujuː ekha kalng wing xyukhao kamlang wing yu kʰǎw kam laŋ wiŋ juː He is running The marker id dai daːj is usually analyzed as a past tense marker when it occurs before the verb 24 As a full verb dai means to get or receive However when used after a verb dai takes on a meaning of potentiality or successful outcome of the main verb 25 ex ekhakhao kʰǎwiddaidaːjippaipajethiywthiaotʰiawemuxngmueangmɯ aŋlawlaolaːw ekha id ip ethiyw emuxng lawkhao dai pai thiao mueang lao kʰǎw daːj paj tʰiaw mɯ aŋ laːw He visited Laos Past Perfective ex ekhakhao kʰǎw3SGtititiːhitiddaidaːj POTekha ti idkhao ti dai kʰǎw tiː daːj 3SG hit POT He is was allowed to hit or He is was able to hit Potentiality aelw laeo lɛ ːw already is treated as a marker indicating the perfect aspect 26 That is to say laeo marks the event as being completed at the time of reference Laeo has to other meanings in addition to its use as a TAM marker Laeo can either be a conjunction for sequential actions or an archaic word for to finish ekhakhao kʰǎw3SGiddaidaːjPSTkinkinkin eatekha id kinkhao dai kin kʰǎw daːj kin 3SG PST eatHe ate ekhakhao kʰǎw3SGkinkinkineataelwlaeolɛ ːw PRFekha kin aelwkhao kin laeo kʰǎw kin lɛ ːw 3SG eat PRFHe has eaten ekhakhao kʰǎw3SGiddaidaːjPSTkinkinkineataelwlaeolɛ ːw PRFekha id kin aelwkhao dai kin laeo kʰǎw daːj kin lɛ ːw 3SG PST eat PRFHe s already eaten Future can be indicated by ca cha tɕaʔ will before the verb or by a time expression indicating the future For example ex ekhakhao kʰǎw3SGcachatɕaʔFUTwingwingwiŋ runekha ca wingkhao cha wing kʰǎw tɕaʔ wiŋ 3SG FUT run He will run or He is going to run The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of thuk thuk tʰuːk before the verb For example ex ekhakhao kʰǎw3SGthukthuktʰuːkPASStititiː hitekha thuk tikhao thuk ti kʰǎw tʰuːk tiː 3SG PASS hit He got hit This describes an action that is out of the receiver s control and thus conveys suffering dd Negation is indicated by placing im mai maj not before the verb ekhaimti khao mai ti He is not hitting or He doesn t hit Thai exhibits serial verb constructions where verbs are strung together Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases ex ekhakhao kʰǎwheippaipajgokinkinkineatkhawkhaokʰaːw riceekha ip kin khawkhao pai kin khao kʰǎw paj kin kʰaːw he go eat rice He went out to eat ex chnchan tɕʰǎnIfngfangfaŋlistenimmaimajnotekhaickhao chaikʰaw tɕaj understandchn fng im ekhaicchan fang mai khao chai tɕʰǎn faŋ maj kʰaw tɕaj I listen not understand I don t understand what was said ex ekhakhao kʰawentermamamaː comeekha makhao ma kʰaw maː enter come Come in ex xxkok ʔɔ ːkexitip paipaj goxxk ip ok pai ʔɔ ːk paj exit go Leave or Get out Nouns edit Nouns are uninflected and have no gender there are no articles Thai nouns are bare nouns and can be interpreted as singular plural definite or indefinite 28 Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives edk dek child is often repeated as edk dek dek to refer to a group of children The word phwk phuak pʰuak may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word phwkphm phuak phom pʰuak pʰǒm we masculine phwkera phuak rao pʰuak raw emphasised we phwkhma phuak ma the dogs Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers used as measure words lksnnam in the form of noun number classifier khrukhru kʰruːteacherhahahaːfivekhnkhonkʰōn personkhru ha khnkhru ha khon kʰruː haː kʰōn teacher five person 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 Possession in Thai is indicated by adding the word khxng khong in front of the noun or pronoun but it may often be omitted For example lukluk luːkchildkhxngkhongkʰɔ ːŋbelonging toaemmaemɛ ː motherluk khxng aemluk khong mae luːk kʰɔ ːŋ mɛ ː child belonging to mother mother s child nana naːfieldxaaʔaː unclena xana a naː ʔaː field uncle uncle s field 29 Nominal phrases edit Nominal phrases in Thai often use a special class of words classifiers As previously mentioned these classifiers are obligatory for noun phrases containing numerals e g phuhyingphuying pʰuː jǐŋwomansxngsongsɔ ːŋtwokhnkhonkʰōn CLphuhying sxng khnphuying song khon pʰuː jǐŋ sɔ ːŋ kʰōn woman two CLtwo women 30 In the previous example khon khn acts as the classifier in the nominal phrase This follows the form of noun cardinal classifier mentioned above Classifiers are also required to form quantified noun phrases in Thai with some quantifiers such as thuk all bang some The examples below are demonstrated using the classifier khon which is used for people nkeriynnak rian nak rianstudentthukthuktʰukeverykhnkhonkʰōn CL nkeriyn thuk khn nak rian thuk khon nak rian tʰuk kʰōn student every CL every student khrukhru kʰruːteacherbangbangbaːŋsomekhnkhonkʰōn CLkhru bang khnkhru bang khon kʰruː baːŋ kʰōn teacher some CL some teacher However classifiers are not utilized for negative quantification Negative quantification is expressed by the pattern immi mai mi maj miː NOUN Classifiers are also used for demonstratives such as ni ni niː this these and nn nan nan that those The syntax for demonstrative phrases however differ from that of cardinals and follow the pattern noun classifier demonstrative For example the noun phrase this dog would be expressed in Thai as hmatwni literally dog classifier this 30 Pronouns edit Subject pronouns are often omitted with nicknames used where English would use a pronoun See Thai name Nicknames for more details Pronouns when used are ranked in honorific registers and may also make a T V distinction in relation to kinship and social status Specialised pronouns are used for royalty and for Buddhist monks The following are appropriate for conversational use Word RTGS IPA Meaning kraphm kraphom kraʔ pʰǒm I me masculine formal phm phom pʰǒm I me masculine common dichn dichan diʔ tɕʰǎn I me feminine formal chn chan tɕʰǎn I me mainly used by women common Commonly pronounced as t ɕʰan kha kha kʰaː I me from high status to low status and used among close friends informal ku ku kuː I me impolite vulgar hnu nu nǔː I me used by women when speaking to people much older than themselves 31 era rao raw we us I me casual you sometimes used but only when older person speaks to younger person khun khun kʰun you formal than than tʰaːn you very formal Commonly pronounced as tʰan aek kae kɛ ː you informal used among close friends 32 exng eng ʔeŋ you from high status to low status and used among close friends informal ethx thoe tʰɤ ː you informal she her informal phi phi pʰiː older brother sister also used for older acquaintances nxng nong nɔ ːŋ younger brother sister also used for younger acquaintances ekha khao kʰǎw he him she her mn man man it he she offensive if used to refer to a person mung mueng mɯ ŋ you impolite vulgar The reflexive pronoun is twexng 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 twphmexng tua phom eng lit I myself or twkhunexng tua khun eng lit you yourself Thai also does not have a separate possessive pronoun Instead possession is indicated by the particle khxng khong For example my mother is aemkhxngphm mae khong phom lit mother of I This particle is often implicit so the phrase is shortened to aemphm mae phom Plural pronouns can be easily constructed by adding the word phwk phuak in front of a singular pronoun as in phwkekha phuak khao meaning they or phwkethx phuak thoe meaning the plural sense of you The only exception to this is era rao which can be used as singular informal or plural but can also be used in the form of phwkera phuak rao which is only plural Thai has many more pronouns than those listed above Their usage is full of nuances For example phm era chn dichn hnu ku kha kraphm khapheca krahmxm xatma kn khanxy khaphraphuththeca xw ekha all translate to I but each expresses a different gender age politeness status or relationship between speaker and listener era rao can be first person I second person you or both we depending on the context Children or younger female could use or being referred by word hnu nu when talking with older person The word hnu could be both feminine first person I and feminine second person you and also neuter first and neuter second person for children hnu commonly means rat or mouse though it also refers to small creatures in general The second person pronoun ethx thoe 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 Both khun khun and ethx thoe are polite neuter second person pronouns However khunethx khun thoe is a feminine derogative third person Instead of a second person pronoun such as khun you it is much more common for unrelated strangers to call each other phi nxng lung pa na xa ta or yay 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 khru khunkhru or xacary each meaning teacher rather than khun you Teachers monks and doctors are almost always addressed this way Particles edit 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 khrb khrap kʰrap with a high rising tone when the speaker is male and kha kha kʰaʔ with a low falling tone when the speaker is female Used in a question or a request the particle kha low falling tone is changed to a kha high rising tone Other common particles are Word RTGS IPA Meaning ca ca or ca cha tɕaʔ tɕaː or tɕǎː indicating emphasis Used in a less formal context when speaking to friends or someone younger than yourself 33 la or la la laʔ or laʔ indicating emphasis si si siʔ indicating emphasis or an imperative It can come across as ordering someone to do something 33 na na naʔ softening indicating a request or making your sentence sound more friendly Register editCentral Thai is composed of several distinct registers forms for different social contexts Street or Common Thai phasaphud phasa phut spoken Thai informal without polite terms of address as used between close relatives and friends Elegant or Formal Thai phasaekhiyn phasa khian 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 Pali used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks Royal Thai rachasphth racha sap influenced by Khmer this is used when addressing members of the royal family or describing their activities See Monarchy of Thailand Rachasap Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts Street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations 34 citation needed 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 kin common aedk daek vulgar yd yat vulgar briophkh boriphok formal rbprathan rapprathan formal chn chan religious or eswy sawoei royal as illustrated below to eat IPA Usage Note kin kin common aedk dɛ ːk vulgar yd jat vulgar Original meaning is to cram briophkh bɔ ː riʔ pʰoːk formal literary rbprathan rap praʔ tʰaːn formal polite Often shortened to than tʰaːn chn tɕʰǎn religious eswy saʔ wɤ ːj royal Thailand also uses the distinctive Thai six hour clock in addition to the 24 hour clock Vocabulary editMain articles List of loanwords in Thai and List of Thai language idioms 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 35 36 37 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 38 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 Origin Example IPA Gloss Native Tai if faj fire na naːm water emuxng mɯ aŋ town rungeruxng ruŋ rɯ aŋ prosperous Indic sources Pali or Sanskrit xkhni agni ʔak kʰa niː fire chl jala t ɕʰōn water thani dhani tʰaː niː town wiorcn virocana wi ʔ roːt prosperous Arabic origin edit Arabic words Thai rendition IPA Gloss ال ق ر آن al qurʾan or ق ر آن qurʾan xlkurxan or okhran ʔan ku ra ʔaːn or kōː raːn Quran رجم rajm raya ra jam bad vile vulgar Chinese origin edit From Middle Chinese or Teochew Chinese Chinese words Thai rendition IPA Gloss 交椅 Teochew gao1 in2 ekaxi kaw ʔiː chair 粿條 粿条 Min Nan koe tiau kwyetiyw kǔaj tǐaw rice noodle 姐 Hokkien chia che Teochew ze2 zia2 ec or ec t ɕeː or t ɕeː older sister used in Chinese community in Thailand 二 Hokkien ji Teochew ri6 yi jiː two archaic but still used in word yisib jiː sip twenty 豆 Middle Chinese deuH thw tʰua bean 盎 Middle Chinese ʔɑŋX ʔɑŋH xang ʔaːŋ basin 膠 Middle Chinese kˠau kaw kaːw glue 鯁 Middle Chinese kˠaeŋX kang kaːŋ fishbone 坎 Middle Chinese kʰʌmX khum kʰǔm pit 塗 Middle Chinese duo ɖˠa tha tʰaː to smear 退 Middle Chinese tʰuʌiH thxy tʰɔ j to step back English origin edit English words Thai rendition IPA Remark apple aexpepil ʔɛ p pɤ n bank aebngk bɛ ŋ means bank or banknote bill bil bin or biw cake ekhk kʰeːk captain kptn kap tan cartoon kartun kaː tuːn clinic khlinik kʰli ː nik computer khxmphiwetxr kʰɔ m pʰiw tɤ ː colloquially shortened to khxm kʰɔ m corruption khxrrpchn kʰɔ ː rap tɕʰan countdown ekhantdawn kʰaw daːw dinosaur idonesar daj nōː sǎw duel dwl duan email xieml ʔiː meːw fashion aefchn fɛ ː tɕʰan golf kxlf kɔ p shampoo aechmphu tɕʰɛ m pʰuː slip slip sa lip taxi aethksi tʰɛ k siː technology ethkhonolyi tʰek nōː lōː jiː jiː valve walw waːw visa wisa wiː saː wreath phwng hrid riːt French origin edit French words Thai rendition IPA English translation buffet bufeft bup feː cafe kaaef kaː fɛ ː coffee khaef kʰaː feː coffee shop restaurant serving alcoholic drinks and providing entertainment dated cafeine kaefxin kaː feː ʔiːn caffeine chauffeur ochefxr t ɕʰōː fɤ ː consul kngsul kōŋ sǔn coupon khupxng kʰuː pɔ ŋ croissant khrwsxng kʰrua sɔ ŋ gramme krm kram litre litr lit metre emtr meːt metre parquet parekt paː keː petanque eptxng peː tɔ ŋ Japanese origin edit Japanese words Thai rendition IPA Gloss カラオケ kaɾaoke kharaoxeka kʰaː raː ʔōː keʔ karaoke 忍者 ɲiꜜɲd ʑa ninca nin t ɕaː ninja 寿司 sɯɕiꜜ suchi suː t ɕʰiʔ sushi Khmer origin edit From Old Khmer Khmer words Thai rendition IPA Gloss ក រ ង kroŋ krung kruŋ capital city ខ ទ យ kʰteːj kaethy ka tʰɤ ːj kathoey ខ ម យ kʰmuej khomy kʰa mōːj to steal thief ច រម crɑː moh cmuk t ɕa muːk nose ច រ ន craen ecriy t ɕa rɤ ːn prosperous ឆ ល ត or ឆ ល ស cʰlaːt or cʰlaːh chlad t ɕʰa laːt smart ថ នល tʰnɑl thnn tʰa nǒn road ភ ល ង pʰleːŋ ephling pʰlɤ ːŋ fire ទន ល tɔn leː thael tʰa leː sea Malay origin edit Malay words Thai rendition IPA Gloss kelasi kalasi ka laː sǐː sailor seaman sagu sakhu sǎː kʰuː sago surau suehra su raw small mosque Persian origin edit Persian words Thai rendition IPA Gloss گلاب golab kuhlab ku laːp rose کمربند kamarband khawma kʰǎːw maː loincloth ترازو tarazu trachu traː t ɕʰuː balance scale سقرلات saqerlat skhlad sak ka laːt felt آلت alat xaihl ʔa laj spare part Portuguese origin edit The 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 Portuguese words Thai rendition IPA Gloss carta cartaz kradas kra daːt paper garca nk krasa kra sǎː heron leilao elhlng leː lǎŋ auction low priced padre bath hlwng baːt lǔaŋ Christian priest 39 pao khnm png paŋ bread real ehriyy rǐan coin sabao sbu sa buː soap Tamil origin edit Tamil words Thai rendition IPA Gloss கற kaṟi kahri ka riː curry curry powder க ர ம ப kirampu kanphlu kaːn pʰluː clove ந ய ney eny nɤ ːj butterWriting system editMain articles Thai script and Thai braille nbsp Kingdom of Thailand in Thai script 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 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 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 Transcription edit Main article Romanization of Thai 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 may each follow different systems For this reason many language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script 40 41 42 43 Official standards are the Royal Thai General System of Transcription RTGS published by the Royal Institute of Thailand 44 and the almost identical ISO 11940 2 defined by the International Organization for Standardization The RTGS system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments especially for road signs 45 Its main drawbacks are 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 Transliteration edit Main article Thai transliteration The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2005 ISO 11940 46 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 See also editThai script Thai honorifics Thai literature Thai numerals Thai braille Thai typography Comparison of Lao and ThaiExplanatory notes edit In Thai phasaithy Phasa Thai In Thai phasaithyklang RTGS Paasaa Thai Klang Not to be confused with Central Tai In Thai phasasyam Paasaa Sayam Although Thai and Central Thai have become more common the older term Siamese is still used by linguists especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages Diller 2008 6 full citation needed Proto Thai is for example the ancestor of all of Southwestern Tai not just Siamese Rischel 1998 full citation needed Xianluo was the Chinese name for Ayutthaya a kingdom created by the merger of Lavo and Sukhothai or Suphannabhumi The glottalized stops ʔb ʔd were unaffected as they were treated in every respect like voiceless unaspirated stops due to the initial glottal stop These stops are often described in the modern language as phonemically plain stops b d but the glottalization is still commonly heard 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 For example in standard Lao both the high and low variants of Old Thai tone 2 merged however the mid class variant of tone 1 became pronounced differently from either the high class or low class variants and all three eventually became phonemic due to further changes e g kr gt kʰ For similar reasons Lao has developed more than two tonal distinctions in dead syllables Initial x is silent and therefore considered as a glottal stop kh and Kh are no longer used Thus modern Thai is said to have 42 consonant letters The glottal plosive appears at the end when no final follows a short vowelReferences editCitations edit a b c Thai at Ethnologue 27th ed 2024 nbsp Diller A Reynolds Craig J 2002 What makes central Thai a national language In Reynolds ed National identity and its defenders Thailand today Chiang Mai Silkworm Books ISBN 974 7551 88 8 OCLC 54373362 Draper John 2019 Language education policy in Thailand The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia Abingdon Oxon New York NY Routledge pp 229 242 doi 10 4324 9781315666235 16 ISBN 978 1 315 66623 5 S2CID 159127015 Baker Christopher 2014 A history of Thailand Melbourne Australia Cambridge University Press pp 3 4 ISBN 978 1 316 00733 4 Enfield N J How to define Lao Thai and Isan language A view from linguistic science Tai Culture 3 1 62 67 Peansiri Vongvipanond Summer 1994 Linguistic Perspectives of Thai Culture paper presented to a workshop of teachers of social science University of New Orleans p 2 Archived from the original on 20 November 2012 Retrieved 26 April 2011 The dialect one hears on radio and television is the Bangkok dialect considered the standard dialect Kemasingki Pim Prateepkoh Pariyakorn 1 August 2017 Kham Mueang the slow death of a language Chiang Mai City Life 8 there are still many people speaking kham mueang but as an accent not as a language Because we now share the written language with Bangkok we are beginning to use its vocabulary as well Andrew Simpson 2007 Language and national identity in Asia Oxford University Press Standard Thai is a form of Central Thai based on the variety of Thai spoken earlier by the elite of the court and now by the educated middle and upper classes of Bangkok It was standardized in grammar books in the nineteenth century and spread dramatically from the 1930s onwards when public education became much more widespread Thepboriruk Kanjana 2010 Bangkok Thai tones revisited Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society 3 1 University of Hawaii Press 86 105 Linguists generally consider Bangkok Thai and Standard Thai the Kingdom s national language to be one and the same Antonio L Rappa Lionel Wee 2006 Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia Malaysia the Philippines Singapore and Thailand Springer pp 114 115 Lieberman Victor 2003 Strange Parallels Volume 1 Integration on the Mainland Southeast Asia in Global Context c 800 1830 Studies in Comparative World History Kindle ed ISBN 978 0 521 80086 0 Wyatt David K 2003 Thailand A Short History New Haven Connecticut Yale University Press ISBN 0 300 08475 7 Ying yai Sheng lan The Overall Survey of the Ocean s Shores 1433 Hakluyt Society at the University Press 1970 ISBN 0 521 01032 2 Kasetsiri 1999 25 Varasarin 1984 91 Tingsabadh amp Abramson 1993 25 Frankfurter Oscar Elements of Siamese grammar with appendices American Presbyterian mission press 1900 1 Full text available on Google Books Moren Bruce Zsiga Elizabeth 2006 The Lexical and Post Lexical Phonology of Thai Tones Natural Language amp Linguistic Theory 24 1 113 178 doi 10 1007 s11049 004 5454 y ISSN 0167 806X S2CID 170764533 Zsiga Elizabeth Nitisaroj Rattima 2007 Tone Features Tone Perception and Peak Alignment in Thai Language and Speech 50 3 343 383 doi 10 1177 00238309070500030301 ISSN 0023 8309 PMID 17974323 S2CID 18595049 Teeranon Phanintra 2007 The change of Standard Thai high tone An acoustic study and a perceptual experiment SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics 4 3 1 16 Thepboriruk Kanjana 2010 Bangkok Thai Tones Revisited Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 3 1 86 105 Pittayaporn Pittayawat 2007 Directionality of Tone Change Proceedings of the 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences ICPhS XVI Warotamasikkhadit Udom 1972 Thai Syntax The Hague Mouton a b c Bisang W 1991 Verb serialisation grammaticalisation and attractor positions in Chinese Hmong Vietnamese Thai and Khmer Partizipation das sprachliche Erfassen von Sachverhalten Tubingen Narr pp 509 562 retrieved 2 May 2021 a b c d e f Jenny Mathias Ebert Karen H Zuniga Fernando 2001 The aspect system of Thai Aktionsart and Aspectotemporality in non European languages Zurich Seminar fur Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Universitat Zurich pp 97 140 ISBN 978 3 9521010 8 7 retrieved 2 May 2021 a b Boonyapatipark Tasanalai 1983 A study of aspect in Thai University of London Koenig Jean Pierre Muansuwan Nuttanart 2005 The Syntax of Aspect in Thai Natural Language amp Linguistic Theory 23 2 335 380 doi 10 1007 s11049 004 0488 8 ISSN 0167 806X JSTOR 4048104 S2CID 170429648 Jenks Peter 2011 The Hidden Structure of Thai Noun Phrases PDF PhD dissertation Harvard University ISBN 978 1 267 10767 1 S2CID 118127511 ProQuest 915016895 Archived PDF from the original on 3 May 2015 Thailanguage org Archived from the original on 17 August 2017 Retrieved 18 September 2010 a b Smyth David 2014 Thai 2nd ed Hoboken Taylor and Francis ISBN 978 1 317 97457 4 OCLC 879025983 The Many Different Ways To Say I Beginner Thai Speaking 28 September 2021 Retrieved 12 November 2021 Joanne Tan How to say You in Thai Language Learn Thai in Singapore a b What Do krub And ka Mean In Thai Language amp When To Use 5 October 2021 Retrieved 1 November 2021 The Languages spoken in Thailand Studycountry Retrieved 26 December 2017 Haspelmath Martin Tadmor Uri 2009 Loanwords in the World s Languages A Comparative Handbook p 611 Thai is of special interest to lexical borrowing for various reasons The copious borrowing of basic vocabulary from Middle Chinese and later from Khmer indicates that given the right sociolinguistic context such vocabulary is not at all immune Haarmann Harald 1986 Language in Ethnicity A View of Basic Ecological Relations p 165 In Thailand for instance where the Chinese influence was strong until the Middle Ages Chinese characters were abandoned in written Thai in the course of the thirteenth century Leppert Paul A 1992 Doing Business With Thailand p 13 At an early time the Thais used Chinese characters But under the influence of Indian traders and monks they soon dropped Chinese characters in favor of Sanskrit and Pali scripts Khanittanan Wilaiwan 2004 Khmero Thai The Great Change in the History of the Thai Language of the Chao Phraya Basin Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 11 S yam portukes ṣ ụks ʹa Khả reiyk cha kafae khir lxk khir thịy h rụ x portukes syam oprtuekssuksa khaeriyk cha kaaef ikhrlxkikhr ithy hrux oprtueks Siam Portuguese Studies The term tea coffee Who copied someone Thai or Portuguese 2010 Pronk Marco 2013 The Essential Thai Language Companion Reference Book Basics Structures Rules Schwabe AG p v ISBN 978 3 9523664 9 3 learn the Thai alphabet as early as possible and get rid of romanized transcriptions as soon as you can Juyaso Arthit 2015 Read Thai in 10 Days Bingo Lingo p xii There have been attempts by Thai language schools to create a perfect phonetic system for learners but none have been successful so far Only Thai script is prevalent and consistent in Thailand Waites Dan 2014 Learning the Language To Write or Not to Write CultureShock Bangkok Marshall Cavendish ISBN 978 981 4516 93 8 you re far better off learning the Thai alphabet Cooper Robert 2019 Learning Thai Writing Thai in English CultureShock Thailand A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette Marshall Cavendish ISBN 978 981 4841 39 9 take a bit of time to learn the letters The time you spend is saved many times over when you begin to really learn Thai Royal Thai General System of Transcription published by the Thai Royal Institute only in Thai Handbook and standard for traffic signs PDF in Thai Appendix ng archived PDF from the original on 15 November 2017 ISO 11940 Standard General and cited sources edit xphilksn thrrmthwithikul aela klyartn thitikantnara 2549 karennphyangkhkbthanxngesiyngphasaithy Stress and Intonation in Thai warsarphasaaelaphasasastr pithi 24 chbbthi 2 mkrakhm mithunayn 2549 hna 59 76 ISSN 0857 1406 sthwithya karwiekhraahrabbesiynginphasa 2547 krungethph sankphimphmhawithyalyekstrsastr ISBN 974 537 499 7 Diller Anthony van Nostrand et al 2008 The Tai Kadai Languages ISBN 978 070 071 457 5 Gandour Jack Tumtavitikul Apiluck and Satthamnuwong Nakarin 1999 Effects of Speaking Rate on the Thai Tones Phonetica 56 pp 123 134 Li Fang Kuei A handbook of comparative Tai Honolulu University Press of Hawaii 1977 Print Rischel Jorgen 1998 Structural and Functional Aspects of Tone Split in Thai In Sound structure in language 2009 Tumtavitikul Apiluck 1998 The Metrical Structure of Thai in a Non Linear Perspective Papers presented to the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1994 pp 53 71 Udom Warotamasikkhadit and Thanyarat Panakul eds Temple Arizona Program for Southeast Asian Studies Arizona State University Apiluck Tumtavitikul 1997 The Reflection on the X category in Thai Mon Khmer Studies XXVII pp 307 316 xphilksn thrrmthwithikul 2539 khxkhidekiywkbhnwywakysmphnthinphasaithy warsarmnusysastrwichakar 4 57 66 ISSN 0859 3485 ISSN 2673 0502 Tumtavitikul Appi 1995 Tonal Movements in Thai The Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences Vol I pp 188 121 Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University Tumtavitikul Apiluck 1994 Thai Contour Tones Current Issues in Sino Tibetan Linguistics pp 869 875 Hajime Kitamura et al eds Ozaka The Organization Committee of the 26th Sino Tibetan Languages and Linguistics National Museum of Ethnology Tumtavitikul Apiluck 1993 FO Induced VOT Variants in Thai Journal of Languages and Linguistics 12 1 34 56 Tumtavitikul Apiluck 1993 Perhaps the Tones are in the Consonants Mon Khmer Studies XXIII pp 11 41 Higbie James and Thinsan Snea Thai Reference Grammar The Structure of Spoken Thai Bangkok Orchid Press 2003 ISBN 974 8304 96 5 Nacaskul Karnchana sastracarykittikhun dr kaycna nakhskul Thai Phonology 4th printing rabbesiyngphasaithy phimphkhrngthi 4 Bangkok Chulalongkorn Press 1998 ISBN 978 974 639 375 1 Nanthana Ronnakiat dr nnthna rnekiyrti Phonetics in Principle and Practical sthsastrphakhthvsdiaelaphakhptibti 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 2002 Thai An Essential Grammar first edition London Routledge Smyth David 2014 Thai An Essential Grammar second edition London Routledge ISBN 978 041 551 034 9 Tingsabadh M R Kalaya Abramson Arthur 1993 Thai Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 1 24 28 doi 10 1017 S0025100300004746 S2CID 249403146Further reading editInglis Douglas 1999 Lexical conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai Part 1 Payap Research and Development Institute and The Summer Institute of Linguistics Payap University Inglis Douglas 2000 Grammatical conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai Part 2 Payap Research and Development Institute and The Summer Institute of Linguistics Payap University Inglis Douglas 2003 Conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai In Eugene E Casad and Gary B Palmer eds Cognitive linguistics and non Indo European languages CLR Series 18 De Gruyter Mouton 223 246 ISBN 978 311 017 371 0External links editThis section s use of external links may not follow Wikipedia s policies or guidelines Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references June 2015 Learn how and when to remove this message nbsp Thai edition of Wikipedia the free encyclopedia nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Thai proverbs nbsp Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Thai IPA and SAMPA for Thai Consonant Ear Training Tape Tones of Tai Dialect Glossaries and word lists Thai phrasebook from Wikivoyage Thai Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words from Wiktionary s Swadesh list appendix Dictionaries English Thai Dictionary English Thai bilingual online dictionary The Royal Institute Dictionary official standard Thai Thai dictionary Thai English dictionary Thai2english com LEXiTRON based Thai English dictionary Daoulagad Thai mobile OCR Thai English dictionary Thai dictionaries for Stardict GoldenDict Thai English also French German Italian Russian Chinese and others dictionaries in Stardict and GoldenDict formats Volubilis Dictionary VOLUBILIS Romanized Thai Thai English French free databases ods xlsx and dictionaries PDF Thai transcription system Learners resources thai language com English speakers online resource for the Thai language Say Hello in the Thai Language FSI Thai language course Formerly at thailanguagewiki com Spoken Thai 30 exercises with audio Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Thai language amp oldid 1221476013 Register, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.