Thai language

Thai (th. ภาษาไทย (paasaa thai), lit. the language of Thai) is the official language of Thailand, and of no other country. It is part of the Tai/Daic language family, whose origin is uncertain but which is sometimes linked to the Austroasiatic, the Austronesian or Sino-Tibetan language families. Thai is a tonal language, with both lexical and grammatical uses of tones.

Table of contents

1 Dialects 2 Thai alphabet 3 Grammar 3.1 Tones 3.2 Word-Order 3.3 Adjectives 3.4 Verbs 3.5 Nouns 3.6 Pronouns 3.6.1 For conversational use 3.6.2 For sacred and royal use 3.7 Adjectives 3.8 Adverbs 3.9 Polite Particles 3.10 Classes of Thai 4 Six-hour clock 5 Reference 5.11 Learn Thai

Dialects

The status of many of these dialects is debated.

• Standard or Central Thai, spoken by about 25 million (1990), is the official dialect of Thailand.
• Bangkok Thai can be included in Standard Thai or considered as a separate dialect.
• Korat. Spoken by about 400,000 (1984) in Ratchasima.
• Isaan (north-eastern). The dialect of the Isaan region of Thailand is sometimes considered a dialect of the Laotian language, which it closely resembles. Spoken by about 15 million (1983).
• Thai Yuan or Lanna (northern), spoken by about 6 million (1983).
• Southern, Pak Thai, or Dambro: spoken about 5 million (1990).
• Malay or Pattani. Spoken by 3 million (1998) in southern Thailand.
• Tai Dam. Spoken by about 500,000 (1990) in Vietnam.
• Tai Daeng. Spoken by about 125,000 (1990) in Vietnam and elsewhere.
• Phuan or Phu Thai. Spoken by about 400,000 (1993), mostly outside Thailand.
• Lue(Dai). Spoken by about 78,000 (1993) in Thailand, and 250,000 to 1 million in China.
• Song. Spoken by about 20,000 to 30,000 (1982).
• Shan. Spoken by about 3 million (1993) in Myanmar.

Statistics from Ethnologue 2003-10-4.

Thai alphabet

The Thai alphabet (q.v. for full details) originates from the Devanagari script via Pali, and is quite complex from the perspective of Unicode and computer text rendering, because:

1. It is an abugida script, in which the default vowel is a long O.
2. Vowels associated with consonants are nonsequential: they can precede, follow, or surround their associated consonant(s).
3. Tone markers can occur at several places relative to the vowel grapheme.

There is no universal standard for transliterating Thai into English. For example, the name of King Rama IX, the present monarch, is transliterated variously as Bhumibol, Phumiphon, or many other versions. Each guide book, text book and dictionary invents its own system. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners master the Thai alphabet before attempting the language.

The Thai Royal Institute [1] publishes a set of rules for transliterating English words into the Thai alphabet, but these rules are not intended to be used in reverse.

Grammar

From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. Like many Asian languages, the Thai pronomial and inflectional system includes markers for the sex and relative status of both speaker and audience. This combination of tonality, complex orthography, relational markers, in addition to a complex phonology, can make Thai a difficult language for many Europeans to learn.

Tones

There are five tones: middle, low, high, rising and falling. The last four are hinted at in written Thai by tone marks, although these are not sufficient to define the correct tone unambiguously, and may be absent if the tone is implicit.

Word-Order

The word-order is Subject-Verb-Object.

Adjectives

Adjectives follow the noun. The are no definite or indefinite articles.

Verbs

Verbs do not change with person (I, you, they etc.) or with tense.

Nouns

Nouns are uninflected, and there are no plural forms. Plurals are expressed by adding "nouns of multitude".

Pronouns

For conversational use

• ผม ("pom", rising tone) = I/me (masculine)
• ดิฉัน ("di-chan", middle-rising) = I/me (feminine)
• ฉัน ("chan", rising) = I/me (masculine or feminine; informal)
• คุณ ("khun") = you (polite)
• เธอ ("ter") = you (informal)
• เรา ("rao") = we
• เขา ("kao", rising tone) = he/she
• มัน ("man") = it
• พวกเขา ("puak-kao", falling-rising) = they
• พี่ ("pee", falling tone) = older brother or sister (often used loosely for older non-relatives)
• น้อง ("norng", high tone) = younger brother or sister (often used loosely for younger non-relatives)

For sacred and royal use

To be continued.

Adjectives

Adjectives do not change with number (singular or plural).

Adverbs

Many adverbs are expressed by repeating the adjective. Adverbs usually follow the verb.

Polite Particles

The so-called polite particles are untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect for the listener. They are not used in written Thai. A man finishes a sentence with ครับ (pronounced "krup", with a high tone) and a woman with ค่ะ (pronounced "ka" with a falling tone).

Classes of Thai

The Thai langauge can be spoken in different forms depending on the social context. These can be listed as:

• Street Thai: informal, without polite terms of address, as used between close relatives and friends.
• Elegant Thai: official and written version, includes respectful terms of address; used in simplified form in newspapers.
• Rhetorical Thai: used for public speaking.
• Sacred Thai.
• Royal Thai.

Less educated Thais can speak only at the first level. Few Thais can speak the Sacred or Royal versions.

Six-hour clock

Thais use two systems for telling the time: the 24-hour clock and the traditional Thai six-hour clock. The latter system has been used in some form since the days of the Ayutthaya kingdom, but was codified in its present form in 1901 by King Chulalongkorn (in Royal Gazette 17:206) and is widely used in colloquial speech. It works by dividing the day into four equal parts, then counting the hours within each part. The hours are named as follows:

12-hour	Pronunciation	Thai	Notes
1 am	ti 1	ตีหนึ่ง	ti = strike
2 am	ti 2	ตีสอง
3 am	ti 3	ตีสาม
4 am	ti 4	ตีสี่
5 am	ti 5	ตีห้า
6 am	6 meung chao	หกโมงเช้า	chao = morning
7 am	7 meung chao	เจ็ดโมงเช้า	meung = chime
8 am	8 meung chao	แปดโมงเช้า
9 am	9 meung chao	เก้าโมงเช้า
10 am	10 meung	สิบโมง
11 am	11 meung	สิบเอ็ดโมง
12 noon	thiang wan	เที่ยงวัน
1 pm	bai meung	บ่ายโมง	bai = slant, i.e. setting sun
2 pm	bai 2 meung	บ่ายสองโมง
3 pm	bai 3 meung	บ่ายสามโมง
4 pm	4 meung yen	สี่โมงเย็น	yen = cool, i.e. late afternoon
5 pm	5 meung yen	ห้าโมงเย็น
6 pm	6 meung yen	หกโมงเย็น
7 pm	1 thum	หนึ่งทุ่ม	thum = drumbeat
8 pm	2 thum	สองทุ่ม
9 pm	3 thum	สามทุ่ม
10 pm	4 thum	สี่ทุ่ม
11 pm	5 thum	ห้าทุ่ม
12 midnight	tieng keun	เที่ยงคืน

Note: These pronunciations are approximate, and would probably not be understood by native Thais.

Reference

• Segaller, Denis: Thai Without Tears, BMD Book Mags, ISBN 9748711528

Learn Thai

Check out http://www.kisa.ca/thai