The Thai language reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Thai language

The Thai language 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. It is a tonal and analytic language.

Thai is the official language of Thailand, and of no other country. The Thai name for the language is ภาษาไทย (paasaa thai), literally meaning "the language of Thai".

Thai (ภาษาไทย [paasaa thai])
Spoken in: Thailand
Region: --
Total speakers: 15-23 Million
Ranking: 47
Genetic
classification: 		Tai-Kadai
 Kam-Tai
  Be-Tai
   Tai-Sek
    Tai
     Tai-Sek
      Southwestern
       East Central
        Lao-Phutai
         Thai
Official status
Official language of: Thailand
Regulated by: --
Language codes
ISO 639-1 th
ISO 639-2 tai
SIL TTS

Table of contents
1 Dialects
2 Thai alphabet
3 Grammar
4 Phonology
5 Six-hour clock
6 Reference

Dialects

The status of many of these dialects is debated. Statistics from Ethnologue 2003-10-4. Most speakers of dialects and minority languages speak Central Thai in addition.

Thai alphabet

The Thai alphabet (q.v. for full details) is probably derived from the Old Khmer (อักขระเขมร) script, which is a southern Brahmic script of the Indic family, 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. As in many Asian languages, the Thai pronominal system varies according to the sex and relative status of speaker and audience. The combination of tonality, complex orthography, relational markers and a different phonology, can make Thai a difficult language for many Europeans to learn.

Word-Order

The word-order is Subject-Verb-Object.

Adjectives

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

Verbs

Verbs do not inflect (i.e. do not change with person, tense, number etc).

Nouns

Nouns are uninflected, and there are no plural forms. Plurals are expressed by adding "nouns of multitude" (ลักษณนาม) or classifiers in the form of noun-number-classifier, e.g. "teacher five person" for "five teachers".

While in English, such a classifier is usually nonexistent ("four chairs") or often optional ("two beers"), a classifier is almost always used in Thai (hence "chair four tua" and "beer two bottle").

Pronouns

For conversational use

(Note: A rare exception to the pronunciation system involves the word for he/she, เขา. Actual spoken Thai uses the high tone, despite the rules.)

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 language can be spoken in different forms depending on the social context: Less educated Thais can speak only at the first level. Few Thais can speak the Sacred or Royal versions.

Phonology

Tones

There are five tones: middle, low, high, rising and falling. The last four are sometimes indicated in written Thai by tone marks, and in other cases implicit, determined by initial consonant, vowel length and closing consonant. There is moderate ambiguity in the tonality of many loan words, but virtually none in native monosyllables.

Consonantal voicing and aspiration

Unlike most Western languages, Thai distinguishes among three rather than two voice/aspiration patterns for consonants: unvoiced, unaspirated; unvoiced, aspirated; and voiced, unaspirated. Where English has only unvoiced, aspirated "p" and voiced, unaspirated "b," Thai distinguishes a third sound, roughly "bp," which is neither voiced nor aspirated, approximately the sound of the "p" in "spliced." There is similarly a "d","t","dt" triplet, and in place of voiced "g" Thai has an unvoiced "gk."

Vowel length

Of some 32 vowels and diphthongs recognized in Thai orthography, the great majority are members of long-short pairs. These are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Thai, but usually transliterated the same: เขา ("khao", rising) = s/he vs. ขาว ("khao",more properly but very seldom "khaao", rising, white).

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-hourPronunciationThaiNotes
1 amti neungตีหนึ่งti = strike
2 amti songตีสอง
3 amti samตีสาม
4 amti seeตีสี่
5 amti haตีห้า
6 amhok mohng chaoหกโมงเช้าchao = morning
7 amjet mohng chaoเจ็ดโมงเช้าmohng = chime
8 amphet mohng chaoแปดโมงเช้า
9 amgao mohng chaoเก้าโมงเช้า
10 amsip mohngสิบโมง
11 amsip et mohngสิบเอ็ดโมง
12 noonthiang wanเที่ยงวัน
1 pmbai mohngบ่ายโมงbai = slant, i.e. setting sun
2 pmbai song mohngบ่ายสองโมง
3 pmbai sam mohngบ่ายสามโมง
4 pmsee mohng yenสี่โมงเย็นyen = cool, i.e. late afternoon
5 pmha mohng yenห้าโมงเย็น
6 pmhok mohng yenหกโมงเย็น
7 pmneung thumหนึ่งทุ่มthum = drumbeat
8 pmsong thumสองทุ่ม
9 pmsam thumสามทุ่ม
10 pmsee thumสี่ทุ่ม
11 pmha thumห้าทุ่ม
12 midnighttieng keunเที่ยงคืน
Note: The Romanised pronunciations are approximate, and would probably not be understood by native Thais.

Reference

External links