Talk:Thai script

Unicode character U+0E5A ๚

Unicode character U+0E5A ๚ is not defined; googled it and found: 'THAI CHARACTER ANGKHANKHU' (U+0E5A) ... used in combination with U+0E30 to mark end of a verse. here Pawyilee (talk) 18:00, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I added it and other symbols to Thai_script#Other_symbols, based on information from Thai wiki pages. Wikky Horse (talk) 23:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

ฺBird's eye ๏ (Thai: ตาไก่, ta kài)

Obsolete bird's eye ๏ (Thai: ตาไก่, ta kài), officially called (ฟองมัน, fong man), formerly indicated paragraphs, but is now used for that purpose in poetry. I have an example from มติชน ฉบับประจำวันที่ 16-22 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2553 ปีที่ 30 บับที่ 1548 หน้าที่ 59 สุสัปดาห์

“ ...... ๏ นายรักไพร่ไพร่พร้อม รักนาย

มีศึกสู้จนตาย ..............ต่อแย้ง

นายเบียนไพร่กระจาย...จากหมู่

นายบ่รักไพร่แกล้ง .......ล่อล้างผลาญนาย ฯ

”

--สมเด็จกรมพระยาเดชาดิศร th.wikisource

The end of the verse is marked as shown, not with the character ๚ --Pawyilee (talk) 16:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I did my best to cross reference some sources (official ones and Thai wikipedia) and have updated the wiki. Wikky Horse (talk) 02:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Nyaw

Alphabetic table entry for ญ หญิง yo ying (woman) lists Initial as y and Final as n. Next, Plosives (วรรค vargaḥ) Table lists ญ yá as nasal equivalent of palatal จ cà, and for the IAST value in square brackets [ca] and [ña]. The article does not say the IAST value is historical, and corresponds to Spanish ñ as in cañon, English canyon. In Thai and most of Isan, ny has separated into y- initial and -n terminal, but the historical value is preserved among the Nyaw people (Thai/Isan: ไทญ้อ, IPA: tʰɑj ɲɔː) .--15:32, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Live vs. dead syllables

I don't see any mention of the critical difference between

• live syllables คำเป็น that end either with a long vowel or short vowels ใ- ไ-; or liquid or nasal ง, ญ, ณ, น, ม, ย, ร, ล, ว, ฬ, and -อ
• dead syllables คำตาย that end all the rest, including short vowels ending in a glottal stop -ะ --Pawyilee (talk) 16:00, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

It makes a big difference in choice of tone markers, and for low class consonants, whether a dead syllable has a short or long vowel. Counting no marker as 0 and the rests as 1-4, only middle-class live consonants take all five tone markers 0-4; the rest use 0-2, 0-1 or only 0

• middle-class live syllables have 0 = even กง, 1 = low ก่ง, 2 = falling ก้ง , 3 = high ก๊ง, 4 = rising ก๋ง
• middle-class dead have 0 = low กัก, 2 = falling กั้ก, 3 = high กั๊ก, 1 & 4 not used
• high class live 0 = rising ขา, 1 = low ข่า, 2 = falling ข้า, 3 & 4 not used
• High class dead have 0 = low ขบ, 1-4 not used
• Low class live 0 = even คา, and shift 1&2 down to 1 = falling ค่า, 2 = high ค้า, 3 & 4 not used
• low class dead with short vowel, 0 = falling คะ, 1 = low ค่ะ 2-4 not used
• low class dead with long vowel, 0 = falling คาด, 1-4 not used

--Pawyilee (talk) 16:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Section diacritics has a complete explanation of the tone marking system. It makes a three way distinction of the case of no tone mark;

• long vowel or vowel plus sonorant: the "live" syllable (sonorant = liquid or nasal)
• long vowel plus plosive: "long dead" syllable
• short vowel at end or plus plosive: "short dead" syllable

−Woodstone (talk) 17:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

So it does. I have eye and browser trouble, and scanned right over it. Meanwhile, I found a Thai wiki that, while it has no name for the 0 tone marker, DOES name tones so marked as พื้นเสียง ground tone

พื้นเสียง คือ คำที่ไม่มีรูปวรรณยุกต์แต่มีเสียงวรรณยุกต์

1. คำเป็น คือ คำที่ประสมกับสระเสียงยาว หรือเสียงสั้นที่มีตัวสะกดในแม่ กง กน กม เกย และ เกอว เช่น มา กิน ข้าว ฯลฯ
2. คำตาย คือ คำที่ประสมกับสระเสียงสั้น หรอเสียงยาวที่มีตัวสะกดในแม่ กก กด กบ เช่น เด็ก นะ จาก ฯลฯ
3. คำตาย ผันได้ 3 คำ ใช้วรรณยุกต์ เอก โท จัตวา แบ่งออกเป็น 2 ชนิด ดังนี้

It also names the five tones

เสียงวรรณยุกต์ที่ใช้อยู่ในภาษาไทย มี 5 เสียง

1. เสียงสามัญ คือเสียงกลาง ๆ เช่น กา มา ทา เป็น ชน
2. เสียงเอก ก่า ข่า ป่า ดึก จมูก ตก หมด
3. เสียงโท เช่น ก้า ค่า ลาก พราก กลิ้ง สร้าง
4. เสียงตรี เช่น ก๊า ค้า ม้า ช้าง โน้ต มด
5. เสียงจัตวา เช่น ก๋า ขา หมา หลิว สวย หาม ปิ๋ว จิ๋ว

link I do not know the usual translation of พื้นเสียง tone ground'.--Pawyilee (talk) 13:06, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

"Base tone" would be my best guess. Wikky Horse (talk) 05:49, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

ฟ is used as an ending only in loanwords.

This is true. --Pawyilee (talk) 13:00, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

syllables

Why is ถนน transcribed as "tha-non" and not "thon-an"? Angry bee (talk) 06:53, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

There are some ambiguous cases concerning implied vowels, but generally if there are three consonants in a row, not starting with a cluster, the insertion is "a-o". Don't ask for logic, it's just a convention. −Woodstone (talk) 11:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll give it a go. The inherent vowel always follows the consonant, it never precedes it. Therefore, the split with thon-an cannot be correct, since there is no consonant to give the inherent a vowel. Secondly, inherent a is always the final sound of a syllable, whereas inherent o is always a medial sound, i.e. it can only occur when two consonant signs follow each other, and there is no written vowel diacritic. Although words previously could end with an inherent a that is no longer the case: Inherent a cannot be the last syllable of a word. We therefore end up with Woodstone's simple conclusion: Three consonants in a row give a-o. V85 (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

References

I think most will agree that this article is sorely in need of proper referencing. There's this paper from Journal of the International Phonetic Association to start with, but it doesn't seem like any library in Thailand carries it. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

An example is in the section on Orthography. In that section, without a reference, it is stated that: "... This stems from a major change (a tone split) that occurred historically in the phonology of the Thai language." However, in Diachronic Tone Splits and Voicing Shifts in Thai (Haskins Laboratories, Yale University), the statement is not so strong: "Proto-Tai is said to have had three phonemic tones and four consonantal voicing characters ...". The current, stronger statement could be true and I have not found the right reference, but with a claim like that needs to be justified. Stephen.G.McAteer (talk) 10:27, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Move from Thai script to Thai alphabet

The article was previously renamed Thai script based on Talk:Thai alphabet/Archive 1#Thai script is not an alphabet. User:Kwamikagami today moved the page back to Thai alphabet because "we use 'alphabet' for the main segmental scripts; we should be consistent with the others". I'm not disputing his position, but seeing as this was previously disputed thought that this should be discussed here first. If no one objects I'll re-do the move in a few days. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:19, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

As Kwamikagami stated in his comment, the current state is more consistent with other languages. For example, the articles for Arabic, Hebrew, and Devanagari are all under the name "alphabet" (with a redirect from "script"). Also, people looking for this article or more likely to type "alphabet" than "script". −Woodstone (talk) 09:07, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The one person objecting so far argues that marking vowels like Thai does means a script is not an alphabet, but that not marking them at all means that it *is*. I'm not sure that naming articles on non-prototypical alphabets "scripts" is a good idea, since they are alphabets in the popular conception as Woodstone says, but if we do call them that, we should call them all "scripts", and not make exceptions for familiar or influential scripts like Arabic and Hebrew.

At WP writing systems, there is a suggestion to use 'script' for the collection of characters, and 'alphabet' for particular instantiations/codifications of those letters. So the Vietnamese and Spanish alphabets belong to the Latin/Roman script. I think that's a useful distinction myself, though I'm not sure how useful it would be in the case of Thai. (But it would seem to apply at least to Nagari and Bengali.) — kwami (talk) 12:36, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Not that it's a RS, but Omniglot also uses Thai alphabet, as they do with other 'syllabic alphabets'. — kwami (talk) 00:56, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this argument is pointless, as long as the redirects don't go in circles. Historically, this and similar writing systems were called Dhamma Letters, sometimes with two sets, one for scripture, the other for more mundane script. See:

Joel John Barlow. "History of Lanna - Ancient Immigrations". Retrieved 15 July 2011. These T'ai/Lao became the "People of the Dhamma Letters," with their several (at least six) similar alphabets and many dialects.... Lanna people used a variety of scripts, which varied over time and distance, and according to intended usage. One adapted from ancient Mon was used for secular matters. Another called Tham, Dhamma letters or Tua Muang, was used with many Pali words, for religious purposes. Similar secular/religious dichotomy existed in northwest Laos (Luang Prabang, Lan Xang), parts of northeast Burma (with the Khuen peoples of Keng Tung) and parts of Yunnan (especially with the Tai Lue of SipsongPanna). The oldest known palm leaf manuscript has been dated to 1471 AD.

Thai combines sacred and secular script in one alphabet. --Pawyilee (talk) 08:05, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

PS: “Culture of the Region of the Dhamma Letters” – expression coined by Dr. Hans Penth (1937-2009)

Hans Penth (1994). "A Brief History of Lan Na: Civilizations of North Thailand". Retrieved 1 August 2011. The Yuan began to use two scripts and two languages for two different purposes: secular and religious. They used their own traditional Thai script, once probably adapted from old Mon, for secular matters in their Yuan dialect; and the then modern Mon script called Tham Dhamma letters for religious purposes, for instance in Buddhist Pali texts. Later, they used the Tham letters also for secular purposes. Their traditional Thai alphabet, which was similar to the Thai alphabet used in central Thailand, fell into disuse in the decades after 1850 and was replaced by the modern central Thai alphabet. But the rounded Tham letters, because of their use in religious texts, continued to be widely read and written until two to three decades ago. Though nowadays no longer officially in use, they are still regarded as one of the characteristics of north Thailand; they are found on nearly all of the many surviving palm leaf manuscripts and they are taught for scholarly purposes at university level and in some monasteries to uphold the tradition.

--Pawyilee (talk) 08:55, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Liquid consonants

Copied from Talk:Thai language

Article needs a sub-heading on liquid consonants, which, in the periodic table of consonants below, are those in row 8 and in column 6, with these properties in common.

1. "Live" syllables end in one of these, the variant forms of -ัม and -ัย, or a long vowel. All other endings are "dead."
2. Those in row 8 columns 1–5 are nasalized versions of the corresponding consonants in row 1, with the seeming exception of column 2. The row 8 character is still a nasalized version of its row one parent in the dialect and name of the Nyaw people, but in most other dialects is usally pronounced /y-/ when leading and /-n/ when ending a syllable; if the character both ends one and begins another syllable in Thai, it is doubled as in ปัญญา intellect.
3. Also changing to /-n/ when ending a syllable are ร ล and ฬ; a single ร or ล may end one syllable with /-n/ and begin the next with /l-/.
4. ร when initial in Thai may be a trill consonant or rhotic consonant R, but is usually pronounced as alveolar lateral approximant /l-/. In the Isan language, corresponding words may be aspirated as /h-/. See Lao script consonant chart: the final character corresponds to the final character of Thai script, but the example word is also Thai but written as ร - เรื่อง. Five lines up are rōt (car) and rākʰáŋ (bell) but Thai, Isan and Lao regularly pronounce these words lōt and lākʰáŋ.

BTW, all rows and and all columns in this periodic table have properties in common. --Pawyilee (talk) 14:57, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

PS: Rhotic and non-rhotic accents in Thai makes no sense to me. --Pawyilee (talk) 15:17, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

--Pawyilee (talk) 05:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what the intention of table is, nor its origin or its composition, but it seems to me that ก does not belong with ด and บ, but should be with ต and ป, as it shares the "unvoiced" property with the latter. −Woodstone (talk) 13:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm the originator and its original intention was to go on the back page of all my Thai dictionaries as a guide to placing thumb marks on the edges of pages so I could find entries quickly — no other system works for that, and if you see a Thai using one, you'll find they have a heck of time finding entries. I posted it on this talk page as a convenient way to talk about periodic elements of the 44 consonants (moved down here.)

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	ก	จ	ฎ	ด	บ			อ
2			ฏ	ต	ป
3	ข	ฉ	ฐ	ถ	ผ		ศษส
4	ฃ				ฝ		ห
5	ค	ช	ฑ	ท	พ	ย		ฮ
6	ฅ	ซ			ฟ	ร
7	ฆ	ฌ	ฒ	ธ	ภ	ล	ฬ
8	ง	ญ	ณ	น	ม	ว

1. Midlle-class consonants, rows 1–5 begin at the back of the throat and work forward to the lips: GAW-JAW-DAW-DAW-BAW. All of row 1 were once Voiced when initial, though you are correct that 1/1 in modern Thai pronunciation is semi-voiced, as is 1/2; you might further object that 1/8 has no voice — but no consonants have voice until a vowel gives it to them, unless they are liquids in row 8 or semi-vowels column 6.
2. Middle-class-consonany semi-voiced when initial, and like row 1, become voiceless stops when final. Rows 1 & 2 take tone markers 0-4 in live syllables; in dead syllables, 0 marker replaces 1 which is not used, nor is 4.
3. High-class-consonant equivalents of row one, except for col. 7. 3/7 are crammed in one box with the 3rd having its low-class equivalent in 2/6, (where it functions as a dialectical substitute for its cousin in 2/5.)
4. High-class consonants in need of a home; 4/7's low-class equivalent is in 8/5. In live syllables, 0 replaces 4 with 1 & 2 the same a row 1; in dead syllables 0 replaces 1, & 2 remains the same.
5. Low-class-consonant equivalents of 3/1–5. All low-class consonants, if used in consonant clusters, are 'promoted' to the class of its partner; otherwise, in live syllables 0 tone marker is mid-tone as for middle class, with 1 & 2 shifted down to replace 2 & 3; 3 & 4 are not used. In short dead syllables, 1 marks the falling tone & high tone by 0; in long dead one allowed is falling, so has 0 tone marker.
6. Low-class consonants needing a home: 6/1 equivalent to 4/1; 6/5 to 6/4; 6/2 being a dialectical substitute for its cousin in 5/2 as noted at 3/7(3).
7. Low-class additional consonants: 7/1–5 and 7/7 are mostly used to spell words of Pali/Sanscrit origin with no exact equivalent in Thai, 7/1–5 sound the same as 5/1–5; the sound of 7/6 often replaces that of its cousin 6/6, and has a sister in 7/7 for words in Pali/Sanscrit origin. Except for col.7 and row 8, low class consonants are unvoiced and, if final, end in a stop. Any syllable ending in a stop is dead. Any ending in an unstopped vowel or a liquid consonant are live.
8. Low-class liquid consonants, 8/1–5 are nasalized versions of 1/1–5. All of column 6 and 7/7 belong on this row, or better yet, have the same background color if only I took the trouble. As noted in the article, these are also promoted if used in consonant clusters, two special cases being when a silent 4/7 leads, or a silent 8/1 leading 5/6 in only 4 words.

--I have to quit for supper. --Pawyilee (talk) 11:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC) --Corrected some typos and added the bits on tone. --Pawyilee (talk) 14:28, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Well there's the Pali/Sanskrit comparison table already in the article; you understand, of course, that your table, while probably useful, doesn't merit inclusion in the article by itself? Anyway, I don't think liquid consonant is the correct term here (according to the corresponding article, the liquid consonants would be just ร and ล), but it does seem that info on closing consonant sounds is a bit lacking. Closing consonants should probably be expanded under a their own section, with explicit mention of the nine closing consonant sounds (มาตรา แม่ ก กา (none), แม่กก (-k), แม่กด (-t), แม่กบ (-p), แม่กง (-ŋ), แม่กน (-n), แม่กม (-m), แม่เกย (-j) and แม่เกอว (-w)) --Paul_012 (talk) 22:44, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, the original Greek definition of liquid consonant did include em and en, and spelling their names that way emphasizes that, when ending a syllable, their sound does not die. Closing sounds do indeed need better explication, but not by me as I would classify /ะ/ as a glottal-stop-consonant. I wouldn't dream of putting that or my periodic table in any wiki'd article but Talk, but my putting it here does mean that I have released my contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL.--Pawyilee (talk) 08:37, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Overlap with Thai language article

Parts of this and the Thai language article overlap, most being discussions regarding phonation. Both articles probably should be rearranged to clearly mark which article the content belongs in. --Paul_012 (talk) 22:51, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Good luck.--Pawyilee (talk) 08:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

"pai-yan noi"

ฯ ไปยาลน้อย symbol pai-yan noi is attached to a phrase that has been shortened according to an established convention (norm), as Bangkok's formal name กรุงเทพ มหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุทธยา มหาดิลกภพ นพรัตนราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์ is shortened by a long-established convention to กรุงเทพมหานครฯ — but it is abbreviated กทม

Abbreviations, on the other hand, tend to follow English writing conventions — no periods where not clearly needed — thus กทม equivalent to BKK, and both spoken by naming the letters; ตจว in a newspaper headline is an abbreviation for ตั้งจังหวัด outlying provinces as opposed to กทม Bangkok. The period (.) is generally used where it would be used in English writing — i.e., usage varies — except that there is no space following the dot: thus นส.ยิ่งลักษณ์ is equivalent to either Mrs. or Ms. Yingluck (Shinawatra.)

I've already changed the table definition for pai-yan noi, but don't know where best to add a paragraph on conventional abbreviations — I am awaiting suggestions.

Also, I came here in the first place preparatory to adding a brief statement about use of pai-yan noi with Bangkok's shortened name. However, the article presently states that the shortened form is now "official" though it doesn't give a cite for that. Nor does the parallel Thai article use pai-yan noi; I don't read Thai well enough to determine if it gives a reason for its omission. As for the phrase itself, pai clearly means go and noi a bit, but yan doesn't translate. Still, I suspect the phrase means goes on a bit. Before I add anything to Bangkok's article, does anybody know anything about the either the omission or the tentative translation? In the context of how long Bangkok's formal name is, it is almost too good to pass up. --Pawyilee (talk) 14:55, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Corrections: กทม. is always punctuated with a full stop (period in American English); it is always shortened to กรุงเทพฯ. Almost all abbreviations include one or multiple full stops; the Royal Institute has guidelines on how to tell whether just one or multiple full stops are needed, but actual use varies, although most abbreviations are standardised (i.e. กทม and ก.ท.ม. are both incorrect). "ตจว" is not standard; you also got the word ต่างจังหวัด wrong. A half-width space is supposed to precede and follow the abbreviation in proper typesetting, hence " น.ส. ยิ่งลักษณ์". (Note that it's น.ส. not นส.)

As for the etymology of the name of the punctuation mark, again I must advise against trying to break down words and assuming simple roots or meanings. According to the Royal Institute's dictionary, ไปยาล is derived from peyyāla (เปยฺยาล) in Pali, which means repetition, succession, formula.[1] น้อย distinguishes it from ไปยาลใหญ่. As for Bangkok, its modern official name is กรุงเทพมหานคร and just that. The full ceremonial name is never used anywhere nowadays. กรุงเทพฯ and กทม. are both abbreviations of กรุงเทพมหานคร. Also, information about the punctuation mark should not be duplicated in the Bangkok article, as it is irrelevant to the city itself. Much as the article on Washington, D.C. does not contain an explanation of why the name contains a comma and two full stops/periods. --Paul_012 (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your corrections, and for saving me a lot of work that would've just been reverted. ---Pawyilee (talk) 04:02, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

"ต่างจังหวัด" not "ตั้งจังหวัด". Juidzi (talk) 05:28, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

/* Other symbols */ Reduplication

Changed mai ya-mok definition to link to Reduplication, which for 3.9 Austro-Asiatic has 3.9.1 Vietnamese and 3.9.2 Khmer, but it is my bedtime so won't be adding 3.9.3 Thai write now. --Pawyilee (talk) 15:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Reduplication equates to the Thai concept of คำซ้ำ, which may or may not use mai yamok. If a section is added to that page, it should concern the concept rather than just the punctuation mark. Reduplication in Thai serves many purposes, e.g. to denote plurality, to generalise, to intensify or de-intensify adjective meaning, etc. --Paul_012 (talk) 17:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I defer to your greater expertise and will let you do it. --Pawyilee (talk) 03:57, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Historical transliterations.

Most if not all articles give historically preserved transliterations as well as the modern, such as Mae Ji Mae Jo University, Jessadabodindra, House of Sundarakul na Jolburi and good old Abhisit Vejjajiva, for example. Does the article already mention this in passing, and I just overlooked it? --Pawyilee (talk) 08:47, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The article does mention it, but you have to know where to look. All of these, except Mae Jo University, seem to be, not Thai words, but derivates from Sanskrit/Pali. If you look at the Romanisations for Sanskrit/Pali in that section, you will be able to find out why those names are transliterated as they are.

Thai names often (always?) have Sanskrit/Pali rules, and are transliterated more according to the original Sanskrit/Pali than Thai pronounciation. Therefore we get Abhisit Vejjajiva, rather than Aphisit Vetchachiwa. The same goes for the other names. As for Mae Ji, I would guess that it's a combination of Thai Mae with the added suffix -ji.

The only word that doesn't fit that pattern (of the ones you mention) is Mae Jo University, if it were a Sanskrit/Pali word, transliterated as such, it should be Mae Co. My guess it that this is an ad hoc phonetic transliteration, by a specific Thai/English speaker at a given time, meant only to transliterate that one name, rather than creating a system capable of transcribing all Thai words, consistently every time. V85 (talk) 09:44, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

ไ...ย and ไ...

Is there any difference in pronunciation between ไทย and ไท ? — kwami (talk) 04:03, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

No, they are pronounced the same. The Royal Institute's dictionary lists ไท firstly as an archaic spelling of ไทย—which it defines as the name of the ethnic group, freedom, or person—and secondly as person of power. ไ-ย also appears in certain Pali loanwords which contain or end with -eyya. The ย is redundant but not marked with a thanthakhat (◌์), but may be pronounced in a compound word when joined by samāsa. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:31, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'll add a note to that effect to the article. Since it's the orthography of the name of the language, I think we should mention it somewhere. — kwami (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

So Sethaputra, สอ เสถบุตร [in Thai] (2542 BE/AD 1999). New Model Thai-English Dictionary. Bangkok: ไทยวัฒนาพานิช : Thai Watthanā Phānit. p. 148. ISBN 974-08-3253-9. [entry 14]ไท, ไท้ n. (P = poetic, literary, archaic, literary ภาษาเก่า) a lord, a boss เป็นไท vi. to be lord, to be boss S. ใหญ๋ [15]ไทย (ไท) n. a. free, freedom-loving; Thai, pertaining to the Thai or Thailand, a Thailander; the Thai language เป็นไทยแก๋ตัว vi. to be free, to be independent S. อิสระ; สายม [16]ไทยทาน (ไทยะทาน) n. (P) offerings, charity, gifts {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help); Text "สอ เสถบุตร" ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

Note [14] has two spellings/tones. Many years ago, I read that English Tai was first coined by a RC priest transferred from Thailand to Yunnan just in time to be trapped by the Great Pacific War [WWII]. The natives he encountered shared Mongkut's opionion of Catholicism, so devoted himself to learning their language and ethnography, and concluded that he should get the h out and call them Tai people. --Pawyilee (talk) 07:31, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

สระ pronunciation

I don't want to mess with the article as I'm not good at composition, but Thai has two (presumably unrelated) words both spelled สระ but differing in pronunciation:

สะระ noun vowel

สะ verb wash or rinse cloth, clothes or hair.

See also sadao dab for neem, where the Thai transliteration is given as sadao; Khmer, sdao.

--Pawyilee (talk) 08:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

My "educated guess" is that the word for vowel comes from the sanskrit "स्वर" (svara) with the v sound having fallen out of modern spelling and pronounciation, while the r has been kept but is not pronounced. (As far as I know, the final -ะ in Pali/Sanskrit loan words is relatively recent, it therefore makes sense to drop the ว: The word would otherwise be spelt สวร giving the pronounciation suan.)

The word สระ (pronounced สะ) meaning lake/pond is probably related to the Khmer word 'ស្រះ' (sra) meaning lake/pond. The r has fallen out of pronounciation, but has been kept in the spelling.

I don't know how this links to the word sadao, as it is clearly stated in the article neem that it is spelled phonetically as สะเดา. Though I would guess that this, like sra is a word related to the Khmer sdao. V85 (talk) 16:22, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The 'pond' word comes from Sanskrit saraḥ as probably in the river name Sarasvati. Khmer dropped the first /a/, and the Khmer cluster sr- is normally pronounced /s/ in Thai. The v of svara is omitted in Pali. RichardW57 (talk) 00:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Consonant/vowel combinations

The sub-section on Consonants, under the header 'Alphabet listing' includes the sentence: 'There are in addition four consonant-vowel combination characters not included in the tally of 44.' I am very tempted to say that this sounds like there are four ligatures, however, I have never come across any such ligatures in my study of Thai. What are these four combination characters, and how frequently are they used? V85 (talk) 17:38, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like referring to ฤ ฤๅ ฦ and ฦๅ. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:47, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Paul! When you say it, it sounds so obvious! V85 (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

The article now says that ฤ and ฤๅ are typographic ligatures? Is this true? What are the letters that form this ligature? V85 (talk) 04:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Vocabulary entries treat the first pair as following ร where short-vowel ฤ = รึ and long-vowel ฤๅ = รือ. Or not. Thai for or is spelled long-vowel หรือ and colloquially shortened to short-vowel รึ.

The other pair are no longer used; however, ฦ = ลึ and ฦๅ = ลือ. --Pawyilee (talk) 14:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

In other words, they're not ligatures. (They're the old syllabic consonants, which in most languages are now realized as CV syllables.) — kwami (talk) 20:54, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Given that their origin is not as ligatures, I have removed the statement that they are ligatures, nor are they considered as such by Thais. V85 (talk) 11:49, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Put it back. Here are the references, from a Thai authoritative source..

--Pawyilee (talk) 14:02, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Those sources do not know what a ligature is. They are not two Thai letters fused into one, they simply have an inherent vowel—that is, they are syllabograms. We need to apply some common sense when citing sources. — kwami (talk) 21:26, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you don't know what a ligature is, much less what is a reliable source. Mr. So, despite not having an English Wikipedia article to echo the one in Thai, was Thailand's best lexicographer when he was alive; even though he died in a WWII-era political prisoners camp, no one has ever bettered him, certainly not you. So uses English ligature to name the blending of sounds represented by a new charterer, not by a merging of characters as in typographical ligatures. As for the one source where So defines English ligature as he uses it, and his use of the word ligature as it was used before you moved it:

What counts as a reliable source for Wikipedia The word "source" in Wikipedia has three meanings: the work itself (a document, article, paper, or book), the creator of the work (for example, the writer), and the publisher of the work (for example, Oxford University Press). All three can affect reliability. Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must have been published (made available to the public in some form); unpublished materials are not considered reliable. Sources should directly support the material presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made. The appropriateness of any source depends on the context. In general, the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments; as a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source....

So's works meet all of those criteria. Also, this one: a Sanskrit ligature (consonant and vowel combination) which can be pronounced as ริ (ฤทธิ์) or รึ (พฤกษา) or เรอ (ฤกษ์ ). The character is not normally listed in the Thai alphabet although appearing between ร and ล in Thai alphabetical order --Pawyilee (talk) 08:45, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if he's simply wrong, or if he's using a minor alternative meaning of the word, one so obscure that it's not listed in the OED, which might know more about the meanings of English words than So. Assuming he's right, this is jargon so obscure that it has no place in WP. Since removing the word has no effect on content, why should we use it? See WP:jargon. — kwami (talk) 08:43, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

It is you who are simply wrong. #1 definition at Wiktionary of noun ligature is (uncountable) act of tying or binding something. The other OED, the Online Etymology Dictionary also gives as #1, c.1400, "something used in tying or binding." You use singular "he" though I gave you a second, on-line source here→ http://www.thai-language.com/id/143095

Thai Wikipedia article ฤ has it in its list of vowels. --Pawyilee (talk) 10:09, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

This is just silly. Letters don't tie anything. You might as well say the Thai language is a "ligature" because it ties the country together. Even if I could provide a source that uses that metaphor, we'd hardly start the language article with the line "Thai is a ligature spoken in Thailand". Unless you have a sensible comment, I'm done here. The word stays out of the article unless you can demonstrate that it adds something worthwhile. — kwami (talk) 10:35, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Generally reliable sources can contain errors. The entry at Thai-language.com seems to be copied from So Sethaputra. When these usually-reliable sources contain statements that are clearly wrong, they shouldn't be used to push the issue. --125.25.128.234 (talk) 13:04, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

In Thai sources (including the Royal Institute Dictionary) ฤ, ฤๅ, ฦ and ฦๅ are usually treated as vowels, reflecting their original Sanskrit usage (represented in IAST as ṛ, ṝ, ḷ and ḹ), although their function in the Thai language has changed. --125.25.128.234 (talk) 13:04, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

We have here a wonderful opportunity here to expand our knowledge base. --Pawyilee (talk)

1. Letter (alphabet), is "a written element of an alphabet that represents a single phoneme." Only by convention is Thai script called an alphabet.
2. Religion#Etymology uses the same -lig- as ligature, with a discussion of the concept of "binding."
3. Jargon "is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event." That would seem to preclude calling a variation of the core meaning of ligature in favor of a meaning peculiar to metal type casting as "jargon," rather than the other way around.

Phonotactics

Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences by means of phonotactical constraints. Thai has phonotactical constraints, but I don't have a list or reference. --Pawyilee (talk) 14:36, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

PS: Review my change at Thai_language#Clusters. --Pawyilee (talk) 14:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Consonants

I propose making the following change to the second paragraph

• Consonants are divided into three classes — in alphabetic order these are middle ([เสียงกลาง, sǐang klang] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help),) high ([เสียงสูง, sǐang sǔng] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help),) and low ([เสียงต่ำ, sǐang tam] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) class — as shown in the table below. These class designations reflect phonetic qualities of the sounds to which the letters originally corresponded in Old Thai. In particular, "middle" sounds were voiceless unaspirated stops; "high" sounds, voiceless aspirated stops or voiceless fricatives; "low" sounds, voiced. Subsequent sound changes have obscured the phonetic nature of these classes. Today, the class of a consonant without a tone mark, along with the short or long length of the accompanying vowel, determine the base accent ([พื้นเสียง, pheun siang] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help).) Middle class consonants with a long vowel spell an additional four tones with one of four tone marks over the controlling consonant: mai ek, mai tho, mai tri, and mai chattawa. High and low class consonants are limited to mai ek and mai tho, as shown in the Tone table. Differing interpretations of the two marks or their absence allow low class consonants to spell tones not allowed for the corresponding high class consonant. In the case of digraphs where a low class follows a higher class consonant, the higher class rules apply, but the marker, if used, goes over the low class one; accordingly, [ห นำ ho nam] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and [อ นำ o nam] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) may be considered to be digraphs as such, as explained below the Tone table.

Notes

or start a new Notes section above References. Making this change would also involve changing the "alphabetic order" of the tone table.--Pawyilee (talk) 09:03, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

No objections being offered, I made the change to the paragraph, but not the table. --Pawyilee (talk) 05:31, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

What alphabet are you using when alphabetising like this: 'middle ([เสียงกลาง, sǐang klang] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help),) high ([เสียงสูง, sǐang sǔng] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help),) and low ([เสียงต่ำ, sǐang tam] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)'. The Latin alphabet would alphabetise the English words as 'high-low-middle' while the Thai alphabet would alphabetise them as 'กลาง-ต่ำ-สูง'. I would also point out (as is a pet peeve of mine), that the RTGS transcription for พื้นเสียง should be phuen siang. V85 (talk) 19:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm using the alphabetical order of the characters in each family. Families are ordered by how they are formed in the mouth.

1. back: middle class ก; ข and ฃ are high class equvalents except for voalization; ค, ฅ and ฆ are low class equvalents of the preceeding high class sounds; ง concludes this family with a low class nasalized version of intial letter.
2. middle: middle class จ; high class ฉ; low class ช; ซ, a low class variation due to historical changes from /ch/ to /s/, followed by rarely used ฌ for which the example word is loaned from Khmer; concluding with low-class ญ, which is still a nasalzied version of the inital middle class family header in the eponymous dialect, but in all others split into the sound of ย if initial or if final น.
3. back of the teeth, and reflecting the retroflex positioning of the tongue in loan words from Pali, a postioning absent in Thai: middle class ฎ and ฏ; high class ฐ; low-class equivalents ฑ and rarely used ฒ; concluding with nasalized version of family header ณ.
4. back of the teeth: middle class ด and ต; high class un-voiced equvalent ถ; low-class equvalents ท and ธ; concluding with nasalized version of family header น.
5. in front of the teeth: middle class บ and ป; high class ผ and ฝ; low-class equivalents พ, ฟ and ภ; concluding with nasalized version of family header ม.
6. slack-mouth low-class family with no middle or high-class equivalents: ย ร ล ว
7. split-mouth high-class group with no middle or low class equivalents: ศ ษ ส and ห. The role of the low-class equivalent of ส is filled by the จ family low class variation ซ, and of ห, in the next family, with low-class ฬ concluding this group.
8. whole mouth middle class อ is followed concluding low-class equivalent of the last character of the preceeding high-class group ฮ.

--Pawyilee (talk) 14:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

So, as you point out, if you are going to alphabetise the words กลาง สูง ต่ำ, according to the Thai alphabet, the order should be 'กลาง-ต่ำ-สูง', as ส comes after ต in the Thai alphabet. V85 (talk) 19:58, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

You still don't get the point. Thai script is only called an alphabet by convention, so only has an "alphabetical" order by similar convention. The script is ordered by sound, which each sound grouping ordered into middle, high and low class consonants. It is mere coincidence that กลาง begins with ก. In the back-to-front ordering, ต is the second charter in the non-retro-flex dentala, where both the first and second are middle class, while ส is the third of the high-classed sibilant sounds that don't neatly fit into the back-to-front order. The พื้นเสียง )or if you prefer, phuen siang) is determined by rules I've been unable to discern. It is a middle sound (or as I prefer, unaccented) only for middle and low class consonants ending in live syllables. The 5 remaining พื้นเสียง are all accented. --Pawyilee (talk) 08:33, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thai encoding

In the vowel section where examples of vowel combinations are displayed with the IPA, for any superposed vowel symbol such as ั I was seeing ◌ั◌ (3 circles, empty circle, vowel circle, empty circle). I justified it in my head that this was to show if the first consonant was a true cluster and many other justifications. However, after checking this same wiki on my phone, ofcourse this example appears ั◌ (2 circles) which makes more sense and eliminates all the worries I had. So my question is, is this how everyone is seeing it from a computer, what encoding should I use? I am on windows 8 using chrome, but both chrome and internet explorer show it this way, so is there any resolve to view it how it was intended? 82.20.5.197 (talk) 12:32, 19 October 2013 (UTC)Jake

The circles are very erratic, showing differently depending on browser, system and font. It is very difficult to make it consistent. −Woodstone (talk) 15:58, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Would it be possible to link me a picture displaying how it SHOULD be displayed, just so I know for as it's different on every device I use. For example how SHOULD (or how was it desired to be) for sara a using ั? 82.20.5.197 (talk) 16:53, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I think there should be only one or two circles. The first circle represents the initial consonant or cluster of the syllable, and shows the position of the vowel relative to it, which can be before, after, above, below, or a combination of those. The second circle, if present, represents the final consonant(s), to show how vowels symbols can occur in closed syllables. −Woodstone (talk) 19:00, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

That's what I believed, that's how it shows up on my smartphone. Is there any method to correct this. I have that expect for when I have a floating vowel (above or below), it has the circle it is positioned above of or below and an additional circle infront, which I originally believed was to show consonant clusters and how you don't put the vowel on the first one in this case... but now I know it's an error, is there any way to resolve this?

82.20.5.197 (talk) 19:21, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

We're discussing the problem on the Unicode list now. The archive is at http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2013-m10/. RichardW57 (talk) 01:20, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks RichardW57, I looked at the discussion there. The problem seems to be that the Thai combining marks combine only with other Thai characters, not spaces, dashes and circles. So in those cases the browser generates an additional dotted circle. However some browsers merge the circles. I tried also a variety of empty boxes, but none combine (I'm using Chrome on Windows). It seems no solution is in sight. −Woodstone (talk) 07:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

A workaround may be to use Thai consonants in place of the dotted circles, and make clear in the description that the consonants are serving as placeholders (as in Woodstone's comment in the below section)? --Paul_012 (talk) 09:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I really can't understand why this would even happen. Looking at the character map, Dotted circle is one character, then the diacritic marks are other characters which INCLUDE the dotted circle. So why would entering them, for some reason prompt another dotted circle, who decided that was a good idea :P is there any explanation, it should just be treated as a character if used in isolation should it not, like any other? Any explanation of this to help me understand? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.5.197 (talk) 14:00, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

PS. is there any reason why the acute accent in languages like icelandic do not cause this exact same problem? áéíóú — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.5.197 (talk) 15:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes. These accented combinations occur in normal languages. The original idea of the inserted dotted circle was to show that there was a vowel mark or similar which seemed to be lacking a letter. The whys and wherefores probably belong in the Wikipedia article on the dotted circle, but for the risk that it will be original research. I've been told that the problem is actually a widespread font error. I'm going to investigate that claim, for it offers a solution. If we can't find a cure, I suggest doing something like ก for the first consonant and น for the second, as these letters are not used as vowel symbols. In the mean time, I suggest waiting. It's interesting that the Unicode charts are 'not' generating using the sequence of dotted circle character and combining mark - they're really pictures! RichardW57 (talk) 20:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Alphabet letter names

I just noticed it seems pretty odd that in the vowel examples you can see a stand alone consonant represents "sara a" and it clearly states in the english that for example ก is KO KAI.

Would it not make more sense in the thai name section to write it as such กอ ไก่? I could be wrong and I am unsure if it is ever written as such, or this is just a usage to explain how it sounds phonetically. Either way if it was an english alphabet and it said letter name... it would go "a" "bee" etc... the acutal spelling of the letter and not just the grapheme.

82.20.5.197 (talk) 18:16, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

In Thailand it's always spelled ก ไก่, never with an อ. Also in English it is: A for Apple, B for Ball. (If you intend to edit more, it might be useful to make a WP account, so you have a fixed name). −Woodstone (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay will do :) So basically the กอ is just a phonetic spelling to explain it but is in actual fact never used? It's just strange as some letters standalone such as ธ which could be pronounced as the letter ธอ or the word "he" ธะ. I guess it's just context which dictates it then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.5.197 (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, in Thai teaching, the vowels are sometimes written with อ as a place holder for the position of the initial consonant (instead of the first circle in the section above, but not a second one). For example เอ, อา, อี, อู, เอะ, เอีย (and even ออ). For international use this would be very confusing. −Woodstone (talk) 05:21, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Pali/Sanskrit

"The main difference is that each consonant is followed by an implied short a (อะ), not the 'o', or 'ə' of Thai:"

For one this sentence makes it sound like thai only uses implied O's rather than stating something along the lines of "is followed always by an implied a, unlike thai which can imply both a and o".

Implied ə? I am fairly certain this doesn't exist, assuming the ə is referring to the IPA value ə.

--82.20.5.197 (talk) 21:52, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation of final ช

I read that the letter ช, when in a final consonant position, is read as [t̚]. However, in at least one word (เอช), it is pronounced [ɕ], just like its initial position. OosakaNoOusama (talk) 04:55, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Foreign words sometimes have pronunciations that do not fit in the borrowing language. They will then often form exceptions to the normal spelling rules. −Woodstone (talk) 07:28, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with @Woodstone, don't fit it, foreign language in thai can pronounced like that. But pronunciations system of thai don't use it. Juidzi (talk) 16:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Sanskrit visarga (อะ)

The Thai Wikipedia article on the character ะ states that this symbol is used for the visarga (अः) in Sanskrit. OosakaNoOusama (talk) 04:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Purpose of lakkhangyao ("ๅ")

"ๅ" (lakkhangyao) redirects here. But it is not explicitly described here. In the article text, it always appears as part of a vowel. Does it have a function by itself or are some vowels just split up in two characters? If the former, what is its function? If the latter, is there a reason for splitting them up? — Sebastian 02:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Each of the ฤๅ and ฦๅ special vowels are actually single graphemes. I'd guess the split originated during the early development of modern Thai typography (i.e. to save space on typewriters). --Paul_012 (talk) 12:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Lakkhangyao is a form of the length mark. The length mark also appears as sara aa (า), as vertical strokes in sara ii (อี) and sara uue (อื), and as the up stroke of sara uu (อ๊). It may even appear as part of sara ai malaai (ไ). RichardW57 (talk) 23:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

uu (อู)* Juidzi (talk) 03:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Indus script

There's been a few attempts to change the origin of this script to the Indus script based on [2]. I don't think this is warranted. The source itself notes that the conclusions it makes are only hypothetical and that the authors "have not a shred of concrete evidence for this." That means it doesn't support addition here. agtx 04:22, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Ogress _smash! 04:30, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

จ is j not ch?

I'm a little bit confused. wikipedia and also some other pages say that จ is cho chan, others say jor jaan. Also the sound is obviously (when it's right) not ch, it is j. Like Monday: วันจันทร์ (wan jan). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Notlocalhorst (talk • contribs) 11:45, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia generally follows RTGS for transcription of Thai. This system writes both "cho chan" and "cho chang", although in Thai these consonants sound different. Some other systems may use "j" for จ. WP prefers to use a published and officially recognised system over an informal one. −Woodstone (talk) 14:45, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Most systems use "ch" for จ because จ is a voiceless sound (the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate represented in IPA by /tɕ/). If you are pronouncing/hearing it as English "j", you are way off. English "j" is the voiced affricate /dʒ/. Likewise, Thai ช, ฉ, ฌ are not the same as English "ch". They represent the aspirated version of จ shown in IPA as /tɕʰ/ whereas English "ch" is /tʃ/.

จ = /tɕ/

ช, ฉ, ฌ = /tɕʰ/

"j" = /dʒ/

"ch" = /tʃ/

The RTGS is an adaptation of Sanskrit transcription where "c" is used to represent the palatal stop and "ch" is used to represent its counterpart, the aspirated palatal stop. RTGS, however (unfortunately), uses "ch" for both analogous Thai sounds. See also: Romanization of Thai, Thai phonology.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 21:51, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

It will confused to use "ch" for "ช" group and "จ", but if you use "j" that is an allophone (Phoneme: /tɕ/, Allophone: “[c]”, “[t͡s(ʲ)]”, etc.), sorry for say that. Juidzi (talk) 04:05, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

If you dig into the history of the RTGS, you'll find that a lot of compromises have been made in choosing the transliteration of "จ". ISO 11940-2 has settled on 'c', but only the cognoscenti will immediately understand that, and that is why the choice of 'c' was rejected in the first place. The English accents that Thais were familiar with 3 generations ago seem not to have devoiced English <j>. However, if we choose to use the RTGS, and we have so chosen, then we must use the RTGS as it is, not as we might wish it were. RichardW57 (talk) 09:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Please pardon my ignorance, but how did we decide to use the RTGS? Is that decision set in stone? If that source is demonstrably inaccurate (as it clearly is in this case), surely there are numerous modern Thai language textbooks that could be used instead. Krychek (talk) 19:10, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I think RTGS is generally what's used in signs and documents in Thailand (except for some Pali & Sanskrit names), and there's not a more-accurate, well-known system. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used when detailed pronunciation is necessary. Injecting my personal opinion in here: Ideally RTGS would be updated to differentiate /tɕ/ and /tɕʰ/ (along with fixing other things like lack of tones) or a new, better transcription system would be created and used widely. Then we wouldn't have this issue. Wikky Horse (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Old Thai values in consonant table?

I was thinking of adding an extra column for the Old Thai values of the consonant letters in the table at Thai alphabet#Alphabetic. The extra info would be relevant of itself, but it would also help make heads and tails of the letter–sound correspondences of Modern Thai. Any objections anyone? I don't have any sources at hand now so I'm planning to source that from the rest of this article and from Thai language#History. Uanfala (talk) 20:38, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea. Modern Thai orthography was standardized as we know it only relatively recently. See this paper about a Siamese letter from 1776, which is late Middle or early Modern Thai, but even then the orthography used now-obsolete ligatures, inconsistent spelling of vowels, different tone markers, etc. The current Thai script was a continued evolution of an earlier script used in South East Asia to write the Siamese/Lao languages. Both the previous script (which continued to evolve into the Lao script) and the innovation of the 13th century were based on the Khmer script of the time. The phonology of both Old Khmer and Old Thai were vastly different than the modern languages. Ferlus' paper "The Origin of the Graph <b> in the Thai Script" describes many of the Thai consonants' "original" values and from which Khmer consonants they derived as well as the ways existing Khmer letters were modified to represent the Old Thai sounds not present in Old Khmer, such as the velar fricatives /x ɣ/. Also notable is that some Old Thai consonants represented values we wouldn't necessarily expect today. Closer to their immediate Old Khmer origins, Old Thai ผ was /pʰ/, ฝ was /f/, พ was /b/, ฟ was /v/ and บ was "imploded" or glottalized /ɓ/. Furthermore, modern combinations such as หย, อย, หม and หน, which today are used to indicate tone, probably represented now-obsolete sounds--either voiceless or glottalized versions of today's corresponding sounds. To be complete any chart should include all of these values. I recently wrote the article on Middle Khmer and have a list of all my sources, which include many on Old Thai. I will try to find time to post the relevant ones here when I get home from work.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 22:58, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

I am against mixing historic data with current data in the main table. It is confusing. It is much better to keep this data separate. −Woodstone (talk) 15:25, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but confusing to whom? If it is properly labeled as historical, it shouldn't be confusing to anybody with an average understanding of the English language. Maybe it would be confusing to people who are trying to learn the Thai alphabet to read the language, but this encyclopedia article isn't here to teach people the Thai alphabet. It's here to cover the academic knowledge about the alphabet; the historical evolution of its current form and values is an important part of that knowledge. Adding an extra column to the main table is the most logical (and convenient) way to display the historical values and allows for easy comparison to current values. The alternative is that a separate table/chart could be made, but it would need to be placed in the History section, which currently precedes the introduction and description of the alphabet, so it wouldn't flow well at all.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 00:25, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

It would fit better near the "Sanskrit and Pali" section, which also deals with former pronunciations and history. The readers you so easily reject as important, are perhaps the majority. They may just want information about current use of Thai script, not an academic treaty on its history. −Woodstone (talk) 02:33, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

@WilliamThweatt: thank you for the papers, I'll have a read and try to compile the table in my spare time in the next couple of weeks. If you have other articles to recommend, I'll appreciate it. Uanfala (talk) 20:10, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I've had a look at two papers by Ferlus and they provide the Old Thai values for 15 letters so far. I hope I can fill the gaps using Li's 1977 Handbook of comparative Tai, which I should have access to in the autumn. As for the usefulness of such a table, I don't think it will confuse learners to see the Old Thai pronunciations of the letters. I'm a learner myself and the table here was helping me, and I can say the Old Thai values would have made it much easier to understand and remember the modern tonal rules, which otherwise look a bit disorienting. Uanfala (talk) 13:34, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

See a slightly different link for the whole of the paper on the 1776 letter. RichardW57 (talk) 02:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

"voiced lla" meaning

Is this supposed to refer to a palatal l sound (ʎ)? The naming here is confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Garfieldnate (talk • contribs) 16:30, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

It's referring to the Pali ḷ, which is described in that article as representing a [ɭ] (retroflex lateral approximant). Don't know where the "lla" is from. The entire section could use quite a bit of clean up. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:27, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Sanskrit and Pali Orthographies

Has any one got any citable sources for how Sanskrit and Pali either are or are to be written? The denial of the vulgar Pali orthography is shocking - especially as the article then goes on to give an example. If no-one can find the references promptly, I am inclined to bring it into accordance with the plain truth and wait for people to find the citable sources. --RichardW57m (talk) 14:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

It would be especially good to find references for intervocalic clusters followed by preposed vowels - we have had debates about these on Wiktionary. The rules are not simple, and Internet evidence is conflicting. It's possible that the rules are different for the Pali abugida (phinthu and implicit vowels) and the Pali alphabet (no phinthu, no implicit vowels). --RichardW57m (talk) 14:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

It would be good to find references to sort out the issue of Sanskrit visarga. --RichardW57m (talk) 14:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

I found this paper by Visudh Busyakul.[3] It describes the development of systems for using Thai script to represent Pali, and how the current system came to be adopted for the printing of the 1893 Tipitaka. More detail of the development is described in the preface of this 2012 "Pali phonetic edition".[4] --Paul_012 (talk) 18:28, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Vowel Count

Given the current near edit-war about the number of vowels, should we have a section explaining how the different numbers for the Thai language come about? We should probably cross-reference it from the introduction, e.g. by adding as a remark "The precise number is debatable". Michell's dictionary apologises for appearing to treat mai han akat as a vowel, and I suspect we can find authorities to cast doubt upon wisanchanai's status as a vowel symbol. (Is that how one gets down to 28 vowel forms?) --RichardW57m (talk) 13:18, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Heh. It appears this has already been discussed, way back in 2005, no less. See Talk:Thai alphabet/Archive 1#Number of vowels. Anyway, are we talking about vowel symbols or vowel sounds? The traditional modern Thai grammar very specifically counts 21 vowel symbols, as already shown in the table currently in the article, and 32 vowel sounds, which I attempted to reflect in the table in this version from 2011. (The "phonetic diphthongs" are not considered vowels in the traditional sense, though the diphthongs and "extra vowels" are.) Subsequent edits to the table have unfortunately broken the grouping. I would restore my version, but maybe there's a better way to present the information? --Paul_012 (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2020‎ (UTC)

But when explaining how to find words in the dictionary, the RID p(๑) (1998? version) lists 14 vowel symbols (ะ อั า อิ อี อึ อื อุ อู เ แ โ ใ ไ)! The RID has already dealt with ฤ ฤๅ ฦ ฦๅ by saying they are sorted as though consonants, but its not obvious to me whether they should be counted as 3 symbols (ฤๅ and ฦๅ are clearly compound), 2 extra symbols (lak khang and lak khang yao are contextual glyph variants of one another, and CLDR Thai collation treats them as minor variants of one another) or just one extra symbol, as ฦ is only used in archaic spellings, so arguably not used in modern Siamese. I think this is how we get the count of 'at least 15'. --RichardW57 (talk) 07:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

By '32 vowel sounds', did you mean the 32 simple and compound symbols for 'just vowel sounds'? If you accept final glottal stop as an elidable final consonant, you get 20 contrasted vowel sounds (/ɤ/ and /ɤː/ are not distinguished in writing) for Thai, or you can go for 24 sounds with the short diphthongs not taking final consonants other than glottal stop. Now, treating ะ as a final consonant (as in Sanskrit), one gets 32 - 9 + (ใ ไ เอา ฤ ฤๅ อำ) = 29 compound vowel symbols, or 28 if one doesn't count the empty symbol. That still leaves รร out of the counting,and one should probably count ไอย. Is there some other way of getting a count of 28? --RichardW57 (talk) 07:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

To answer the latter paragraph first, the 32 traditional vowel sounds are always counted exactly as อะ, อา, อิ, อี, อึ, อือ, อุ, อู, เอะ, เอ, แอะ, แอ, โอะ, โอ, เอาะ, ออ, เออะ, เออ, เอือะ, เอือ, เอียะ, เอีย, อัวะ, อัว, อำ, ใอ, ไอ, เอา, ฤ, ฤๅ, ฦ and ฦๅ (in that order). These include the 9 pairs of sara diao (monophthongs), 3 pairs of sara prasom (diphthongs) and 8 sara koen ("extra" vowels). The term "compound vowel" seems like it could be a translation of sara prasom, but more likely seems to refer to the vowels/diphthongs represented by multiple characters, a concept that doesn't exist in the traditional Thai grammar. (สระเออะ, for example, is a monophthong that is represented by multiple characters.) You'll notice I throw around the word traditional a lot, because it doesn't always agree with phonetic analysis (some "short" vowels actually differing by a glottal stop, as you mentioned, being one example). I suspect the 28 figure came only from excluding ฤ, ฤๅ, ฦ and ฦๅ, though. It appears to have existed since the earliest version of the article and seems to just have stuck.

Regarding your first point, the dictionary sorting order is pretty much unrelated to the definition of what constitutes a vowel symbol/character. For example, mai tai khu (◌็) is obviously without argument a vowel symbol, though its effect on the sort order is the same as that of the tone marks. Another example: ว is a vowel in หวด, though it is a consonant in หวัด, but the dictionary sort order makes no distinction between these uses.

There's a disconnect between the traditional named symbols and the characters that are actually represented in Unicode (or any typographic representation, for that matter). Most obviously there's ◌ี, ◌ึ and ◌ื, which are named sara ii, sara ue and sara uee in Unicode, though this is technically incorrect because those are the names of the vowel sounds they represent, not the characters, which would traditionally be regarded as combinations of phinthu-i with fon thong, yatnamkhang (nikkhahit) and fan nu. The distinction becomes important when you consider vowels such as สระเอีย. It would be illogical to say the sound is a combination of สระเอ, สระอี and ย ยักษ์, since it's a distinct character group by itself (though many laypeople will read it out that way, and some schools have controversially adopted this illogical method in their teaching). ฤ, ฤๅ, ฦ and ฦๅ are also traditionally regarded as four distinct characters and not combinations of anything, i.e. ๅ does not exist as a standalone character. Its existence in Unicode is due to historical limitations of typewriters and their late incorporation into digital typography.

The 32 figure might not make much technical sense, but it's probably used in every Thai grammar textbook since Kamchai Thonglor's seminal work. Are there reliable sources for the other figures? If we're going to say, "The precise number is debatable," there needs to be reliable source supporting the fact that there's a debate at all. --Paul_012 (talk) 15:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Do you mean "Khamchai Thonglor กำชัย ทองหล่อ. 1952. “Lak Pasa Thai” หลักภาษาไทย [Principles of the Thai Language]. Bangkok: Ruam Saan"? We could quench some debate by adjusting to, "The Thai alphabet itself (as used to write Thai) has 44 consonant symbols (Thai: พยัญชนะ, phayanchana), 16 vowel symbols (Thai: สระ, sara) that represent 32 vowel sounds, and four tone diacritics (Thai: วรรณยุกต์ or วรรณยุต, wannayuk or wannayut) to create characters mostly representing syllables." However, that last word 'character' looks like the near lie that Mark Davis of Unicode used to utter, and to be in the spirit that temporarily caused deleting a proposed vowel to delete the following consonant. (I'd like to replace it by 'akshara', but that feels like jargon.) However, "16 vowel symbols (Thai: สระ, sara)" looks wrong - the number is wrong and the Thai looks wrong. We're looking for something like "18 other symbols (Thai: เครื่องหมาย, khrueangmai) that together with 3 particular consonants". --RichardW57 (talk) 20:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

We'll have to footnote this '32' to say that those who believe in phonemic final glottal stops will reckon an extra 5, 6, 8 or 9. That's 9 for the monophthongs, arguably less 1 because /ɤ/ and /ɤː/ are not distinguished in other closed syllables, and arguably less 3 because /i/ v. /iʔ/, /ɯ/ v. /ɯʔ/ and /u/ v. /uʔ/ are not distinguished - marking syllable boundaries is regarded as childish. --RichardW57 (talk) 06:32, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, Lak Phasai Thai is the work i was referring to. I think the "32 vowel sounds" should be established enough to be uncontroversial. However, there doesn't seem to be any agreed number of vowel symbols/characters. Trying a Google Scholar search for 'Thai "44 consonants"', results include:

• "There are 32 vowel forms in Thai, which could be written by combinations of 18 vowel symbols and 3 consonants."[5]
• "19 vowels (in term of ASCII character)"[6]
• "44 consonants, fifteen vowels, and four tone markers"[7]
• "In general, Thai characters consist of 44 consonants, 21 physical vowels, four tone marks..."[8]

Maybe your suggestion to say "The precise number is debatable" (for the number of vowel symbols/characters, not sounds) would be the best approach for the lead. Further explanation could be given in the article body. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:38, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Broken Reference numbering

The cross-referencing system for footnotes is currently broken. If I can cure it by placing the text for references in the body of the text, rather than gathering it into {{reflist}} and similar, are people happy for me to go ahead and do so? The template {{note}} is now deprecated, and appears to have been broken. --RichardW57m (talk) 13:18, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Fixing it wasn't as bad as I had feared. I just changed {{ref}}..{{note}} to {{efn}}..{{notelist}}. The text of the footnotes remains together in the source. --RichardW57 (talk) 17:18, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Interesting. I didn't know that {{notelist}} and {{reflist}} can now be placed multiple times on a single page. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:39, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Asserted problem with image

I've reverted this edit, which asserts that there is a problem with an image in the article. I believe that the proper action in this case is to bring the matter up for discussion here and, optionally, to move the image appearance in the article here for discussion. I've now brought it up here and I'm hoping that an editor who knows something abut the topic will make a judgement ab0ut what further action, if any, is needed. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The flow chart is indeed wildly inaccurate. There's no condition that would lead to a low consonant with a mai ek tone mark to have a high tone (siang tri). Pinging User:Clorox, creator of the image. --Paul_012 (talk) 19:33, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I've done a quick edit to fix the mistake; please adjust the appearance as you see fit. --Paul_012 (talk) 20:05, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Good catch. Thank you for fixing the flowchart. --Clorox (talk) 22:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The word "ก็"

Sorry for this information, but the word "ก็" pronounced like "เก้าะ ⟨[kɔ̂ʔ]⟩/⟨[kɔ̂]⟩" not "ก้อ ⟨[kɔ̂:]⟩". Because "◌็" is make a short vowel (length), not a long vowel. Juidzi (talk) 04:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

While that is regarded as the basis of the word's formation, it no longer reflects actual pronunciation in regular speech. Much like เก้า and น้ำ being pronounced with long instead of short vowels. I'm not quite sure how best to deal with such cases. --Paul_012 (talk) 15:54, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@Paul_12 I'm sure, the vowel "◌ำ, ใ◌, ไ◌, เ◌า" can be short & long length of vowel sounds. But ◌็ is not. Juidzi (talk) 13:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

It actually present by a short sound. Juidzi (talk) 13:12, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

It's just a quirk of the language. No one in their right mind would tell you that ก็ is pronounced เก้าะ and not ก้อ in actual speech. (Also, to ping another user you'll have to link to their user page, like this: User:Juidzi. See Help:Notifications for details.) --Paul_012 (talk) 10:14, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Paul_012 I will read it. Juidzi (talk) 17:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

About the alphabet/letter "ฑ"

"ฑ" this alphabet/letter, in initial position is have 2 sounds. 1) “[tʰ]” when it appear in a live syllable. 2) “[d]” when it appear in a dead syllable. Juidzi (talk) 03:51, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

This appears to be based on an observation from Kamchai Thonglor's grammar, though your wording isn't accurate. The original observation is that the pronunciation of ฑ as [d] is found in dead syllables, and as [tʰ] in both live and dead syllables.[9] I think there are too many exceptions for this "rule" to be useful. --Paul_012 (talk) 15:50, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes! it's rule, too. I forget it. Juidzi (talk) 01:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

What is the topic?

One problem I'm having with this article is that it is not clear what the topic of the various section is. When is it the writing system of the Thai language and when is it the Thai script? The Thai script isn't only used for Thai, or Thai, Pali and Sanskrit. --RichardW57 (talk) 07:46, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

The focus of the article right now is the Thai script used to write the Thai language. The opening paragraph mentions some other languages that the Thai script can be used for. The latter half of the article goes into Sanskrit and Pali words and transcription used in Thai. All this is contained within a single article because the Thai script is used for relatively few languages. In contrast, the Latin_script (Roman script) has many descendants, so there are articles like Latin-script alphabet to describe that grouping, and then individual articles like Italian orthography, English alphabet, and French orthography to describe the writing systems in those particular languages. I'm not sure if my response helps, and it's also a few years later than your question. Wikky Horse (talk) 21:30, 19 June 2022 (UTC)