Jay_Jay

5tash - I take my hat off to whoever transcribed the Wikipedia version.

Rikker - Thanks ... now I wonder if it will fly at the Royal Institute 5555

I know you're looking for real specimens - I have a book that I bought years ago called หลักการภาษาไทย by กำชัย ทองหล่อ that has quite a good section on many different scripts that have been used in and around Thailand ... and scripts that those were based on. Scripts that it covers include:

Phoenecian

Brahmi

Sanskrit - Pahlava

Devanagari

Mon

Burmese

Khmer c พ.ศ. 1100

Khmer c พ.ศ. 1800

Khmer current

Lao

Lao (Alternative)

Thai - พ.ศ. 1835

Thai - พ.ศ. 1900

Thai - พ.ศ. 2223

Thai - Current

Thai Sign Language Alphabet

Thai Braille

As a reference to reading the scripts, it's ok.

I wish we still had อักศรตัวซ้อน - compound letters left in Thai like there still are in Burmese, Hindi, Khmer, Javanese etc. How many Thais do you know that know where the Pintujut key is on a keyboard... let alone what its role is

The พอร์ชูกีส rendition sounds a little more like the English version of Portuguese... I think a hybrid of the two might be more fitting for the adjective Portuguese - ปอร์ตุเกส

Hmm... ok, I'm feeling inspired. Here are some new entries for the next พจนานุกรม ฉบับราชบัณฑิตยสถาน พ.ศ. ???? (Royal Institute Dictionary) - based on how natives of the countries might pronounce the name of their countries:

China จุงกว๋อ

Portugal ปอร์ตุกัล

France ฟรองส

Germany โดยช์ลานด์

Holland ไนธลานด์ส

Denmark แดนมาร์ค

oh yeah, and two more

Australia สไจรญา ... the adjectival form is สไจรน์

and of course:

USA เซนเตอร์อ๊อฟเดอะยูนิเวอร์ส ... sorry, that was just a joke! ... In the fine words of Borat, I LOVE THE USA.

... the Australian one was not a joke

That's right! ... and now I think of it, you have 'French' 'française' - ฝรั่งเศษ instead of France.

I think you're right Richard. The โปร might have intended to be 'Por', but in Thai, would be naturally read in this way of writing as 'Pro'. The other problem is that they've used the adjective 'Portuguese' as the base rather than Portugal.

As for how is 'เก็ต' pronounced, it's as Rikker mentioned above - เก๊ต ... (like 'get' in English with a high tone) though it's said with a short 'เอะ' vowel (+high tone ๊) - using the standard 1xsyllable English ->Thai paradigm - i.e. - put a high tone over the word

ป็อป / ป๊อป = Pop

บุ๊ค / บุ๊ก = Book

โค้ก = Coke ... Though I heard a rumour once that with 'Coke', someone tried to address this issue by taking the Mai Tho tone marker out โคก - giving it a 'more natural in English' sound ... but then realised that it had become something that could well sum up images that deserve an R rating. If you ask me, they could have sold more bottles under the revised spelling!

เก็ต has a number of uses in Thai based on the word 'get'. A common one you will here is

คนนี้ไม่เก็ต - 'khon ni mai get' = This guy doesn't get the joke, understand the situation at hand, oblivious to the innuendo that's at play in the room etc.

I was really happy two when they called me in from the beginning to work on this project. Over the past year or so, we have been in some very interesting discussions, and there have been many 'aha' moments along the way from all sides. Like you said, just the fact that these things are being spoken about is a good thing.

I was in a similar discussion last week with a group of people - please note that the person that I'm about to quote is NOT a civil servant. This person's response I feel is just the tip of the iceberg of a number of issues floating out there in the Kingdom. We were on the topic of 'Thainess' ความเป็นไทย - as the conversation went on, I posed the question:

Question

"ก็..ถ้างั้น พี่น้องอยู่สามจังหวัดชายแดนภาคใต้เป็นคนไทยหรือเปล่า?"

"So are our brothers and sisters in the far South Thai?"

Answer

"ไม่ใช่ค่ะ เขาเป็นมูสลิม"

"No, they're Muslim"

The scary thing is, that in many of the discussions that I've facilitated over the years, this notion has flavoured IMHO more than I would have liked to have anticipated.

Food for thought.

Thanks guys for turning this into a really interesting thread

Rikker - Thanks for the article. I would tend to agree with the arguments brought up in it. David has some great points as well.

As for what dialect of English should we base a transliteration on, I don't even want to go there on this forum. Too much leaning to one side more than another would have one eaten alive. I think it's interesting how they do it in Mandarin. Take country names for example (following on from David's point of 'vamonos' = 'vamoose'. The characters / PinYin chosen are based on (in most cases) the native speaker's pronunciation of the country name. So where you have Germany = เยอรมัน (yerman) in Thai, based on the English pronunciation of Germany, in Chinese it's 德國 - /de2 guo2/, based on 'Deutschland'. This would avoid phenomenon like 'Portugal' = โปรตุเกส = 'protuke(s)t' (which is a ball of thread waiting to be unraveled in itself). If you look at English though, I guess the whole language is built up on bastardizations of loanwords from other languages .... hmm... that's a bit harsh. But you know what I mean. If we were to use that theory as a base to modify English, the language would probably not be recognised as English anymore.

As both of you mentioned, this is based on the higher argument ... Why should we? In not doing it, a strong national identity is retained, a sense of belonging and it just feels more 'natural' saying them that way - or does it? Playing devil's advocate on that point, I might argue that the pronunciations given to these loanwords have intentional unnatural tone / syllable patterns thrown on them to emphasize that they are indeed foreign - just as was pointed out by Rikker with the Royal Language Institutes version of เก๊ต. As soon as you see Mai Tri or Catawa, it screams ALIEN!!!!

This leads on to another fascinating topic that I've had the privilege of working with several Thai government offices recently of facilitating discussions / debates amongst Thai public servants (behind closed doors of course ) - ความเป็นไทยคืออะไร - 'What is Khwam Bpen Thai' or 'Thainess' in the eyes of Thais. This is a theme that we have running continuously when discussing other language / communication based topics. As for the team at the Royal Institute, they are a fascinating bunch of people. I do feel for them as they have so many political agendas that they are required to be the tip of the spear to, even if it goes against their own personal opinions.

In any case, this is a fascinating topic with many political / social implications. Who woulda thunk a simple request for the spelling of 'Robertson' could have turned into this ^^.

Mangkorn - sorry for my disjointed reply to ur last message.

As for the 'or' thing...

I personally hate using non IPA transcription systems, but I acknowledge that they're needed. Then when you do end up typing in normal latin fonts, I think -'who's the audience' .. linguists, non-linguists, native english speakers, romance language speakers etc.

I have an internal dialogue... do I write อ as /o/ and โอ as /eu/ ...

but then /eu/ could be interpreted as อือ .. so then do i change อ to /aw/ - but then would someone read it as /au/ (อาว) ... probably not. Then i figure อ sounds like how many people would pronounce the english word 'or'. so i just went with the 'or' = อ

In hindsight, i think your /aw/ is a better solution.

OR...... we could go the other way and start a Sanskrit revival here in Thailand where people young and old would be pronouncing the Sanskrit words with their original pronunciation - voiced, retroflex consonants and all!

.... or maybe....

That's right Rikker - The ต is probably more accurate too as it makes it feel like a more palatised 't' at the end.

If it was a professional translation job, I would put my personal opinions aside and submit the โรเบิร์ตสัน / โรเบิร์ทสัน rendition to the client.

As a long term goal though, I'd like to work towards a more natural sounding transliteration system in Thai. If you have a look at the way it's done in Korean nowadays, despite having its many critics, it's obvious someone with a very strong understanding of phonetics for native speakers of English and Korean had a role in putting the standard together.

Is it believable to think that this mindset shift about perceived pronunciation of English will change? ... Maybe not in this lifetime ^^ but it's worth a try.

Yup - I think the whole โอ = o, ป = p etc that's embedded into the subconscious of Thai kids from when they begin to read creates a mountain for them later on when it comes to pronouncing English without a Tinglish accent.

Seeing Pepsi = เป็บซี่ from birth really calcifies this p=ป thing. เพ็บสี่ would sound more natural.

There are many others. E.g. - the word

Opal

โอปอ = "oh por" = probably because 'all' is pronounced ออล

BUT

Opel - as in the car brand name becomes

โอเปิ้ล - because 'pel' is like what you'd find in 'gospel' ... or kinda like 'apple' (more common), so it is pronounced 'oh poen'

where in English, both are pronounced the same.

โอเผิ่ล

Actually - saying it with the โอ would sound more like a scottsman saying it -

I have my own transliteration system in thai - hard to render here, but would look something like :

เอิวเผิ่ล - เอิว is not a vowel frame in Thai, but after a minute's explanation most people can adapt to it - sounding something like เออฺอูเผิ่ล (with no glottal close between syllable frames)

Hmmm.... looking back at this, what a can of worms 'Robertson' has brought up! 55555

Was just flicking through the headings this morning and couldn't let this post go by without putting my 2 cents worth in.

You will see an interesting phenomenon happen when you ask Thais to transliterate 'Robertson'

The standard answer would probably be something like

โรเบิร์ทสัน

which would be pronounced -

Row (common / mid tone) (as in row row row your boat), 'Bert' - sounds pretty much like the English - low tone, and then 'San' with a rising tone

I think the psychology is

Ro - when you see 'o', the natural reaction in Thai is to say that it's โอ. The actual sound in English is probably closer to the short อ = เอาะ

If you have some Thais around you, have them try and pronounce this:

ร็อบเบิร์ท - Robert

I think you'll find it closer to the English pronunciation.

This - ร้อเบิร์ท would come even closer, but looks kinda strange in Thai.

Now for the '-son' part.

I've looked at this for many years now. The psychology on THIS one would probably go something like

'son' in English is pronounced the same as 'sun' - the big yellow thing in the sky - so... any time you see 'son' in a word, it is pronounced like 'sun'. - similar to the way that 'er' in an English word is always pronounced like the 'ir' in 'bird' -

so "Cherry" becomes เชอร์รี่ - Choer ree and "Error" becomes เออเริ่อร์ - Oer rerh (pardon my transliteration inconsistencies)

In English, depending what dialect you speak, the -son in Robertson will be something like เสิ่น - /soen/ (like the 'u' in 'blur').

So - Trying to compromise not looking too strange in Thai with having a more accurate pronunciation, I would personally write Robertson as:

ร็อบเบิร์ทเสิ่น - though if you do pronounce the 'o' in 'son' as an 'o', you could get away with ร็อบเบิร์ทสน - and it probably looks a little less strange in Thai.

So - Take your pick!

โรเบิร์ทสัน

ร็อบเบิร์ทเสิ่น

ร็อบเบิร์ทสน

There are a several other permutations, but this is a good start.

55555 ... must be the air in Laem Chabang. Missing Bangkok!

You can attach the short-ee-voweled 'di' ดิ particle to most verbs to make it an emphatic:

กินดิ - 'kin di' - go ahead and eat / let's eat

มาดิ - 'ma di' - 'come on over!'

เอาดิ - 'ao di' - 'of course I want it ' - 'let me have it' ... or a number of other meanings depending on the relationship and 'mood' of the conversation ^^ .

it performs a similar function to 'ซะ' 'sa' - short 'a' sound.

If you substituted the 'ดิ' for 'ซะ' it would change the meaning a little (females tend to use 'sa' more than guy guys)

กิซะ 'just go and eat it' - 'go ahead and eat'

มาซะ - sounds a little weird, but would mean 'c'mon over honey'

เอาซะ - again - could have a lot of meanings depending on who and how it's said. Meanings could range from 'go ahead and take it' to 'let's get it on'. ... though you'd probably word that last one a little differently... something like

เรามาเอากันเหอะ 'rao ma ao kan hoeh'

or maybe it was ไปดิ (short 'i' sound)- which would mean 'c'mon ... let's go', or 'go'on, git'... depending on the mood it was said in, it could change the meaning.

The word durian actually came from Malay Duri = Hard Spike + 'an' a suffix that turns it in to a noun - or something that is ___... so durian = something that is spiky. Then.. the origin of 'duri' i suspect is from Sanskrit .. which is linked to the same root in latin and greek to where we get the word durable etc.

Chedi is also Sanskrit. Aanon- just realised that about Phar Lap! .. amazing

quick and nasty way of getting that point across :

ทึ่งมาก theung mak

Thanks for the link..

just checked my blog through a proxy and can get in.

my blog is

http://stujay.blogspot.com

I've just received a message from a number of people telling me that my language blog (with a heavy focus on Thai) has been blocked in Thailand? Has something happened in Thailand over the past week that has caused them to shut things down?.. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this before using a blogger blog?? Trying to figure out whether it's a network problem, or its because I've written something in there that I shouldn't have.

Danny

I learned a couple of really valuable lessons from my grandfather when I was a kid learning a bunch of languages.

The first was to try and avoid saying 'How do you say X in Y language?'... Instead, try and elicit how the native speakers of a language would respond to a given situation - the facial expressions, rhythms, body language, velocity, pitch, tones of voice - everything. Sometimes, words mightn't even be used. He told me that we're not learning the language to express ourselves in the language. We're learning it to understand people expressing themselves in their own language and THEN express who I am wrapped up in a way that they will understand, accept and not considered so foreign that I'd be spat out before they even had a chance to digest me (a scary thought).

The second lesson was that the goal in learning a language should be to not have people compliment me anymore. I've found that although in different parts of the world initial reactions might cause people to assume they're not going to understand you, if pronunciation - rhythm, vowel placement (adjusting diphthongs, glides etc), throat positions, tones etc are good, people will start speaking to you as one of them and the paradigm of being a Farang / Bule / Lao Wai / Gui Lo is put aside.

Bottom line - If they're still correcting me, I'm saying it wrong.

One of the big complaints I hear is that Farang speak about things that are in Thais minds ไร้สาระ - 'not worth talking about' (with a bit of poetic license). Even if they speak Thai 'well', great selection of words, decent pronunciation etc... all it takes is a Farang to come into a conversation and drop a verbal bombshell that totally kills the atmosphere. I personally think it's better to get a foot in the door to the heart of someone first before having them shut the door on us.

Rikker - just watched through the videos and think you've summed them up pretty well.

From listening to his pronunciation, looking at the 'samples' he's used and looking at the selection of words he's used in a bit of banter in the comments section on youtube would lead me to think that this guy hasn't actually lived in Thailand. The production on the other hand is great.

You will also often here girls use the word เค้า to refer to themselves -

เค้าไม่อยากไปกินข้าวกับเขาแล้ว /khao mai yak pai kin khao kap khao laew/ - "I don't want to go to dinner with him anymore"

ปลอยเค้า! /ploy khao/ - let go of me!

Ahhh...it wouldn't be the first time! 5555

just woke up to see the continuation of this thread... has been getting interesting.

Sorry about my '2 cents' worth last night. เจ้าทำให้ข้ากรอบ ...

the translation - 'like the sun, you make me crispy' is a good translation..

In Thai, the word 'กรอบ' (krob) - crispy can be used to mean 'skint' - no money.

So maybe with a bit of poetic license...

ดั่งแสงสุริยันต์ เจ้าทำให้ข้ากรอบ

'Like the sun's rays, you burn me dry'.