Johpa

I believe that a basic understanding of some introductory linguistics is a very helpful tool for many, actually for most of us who, as adults, embark on learning Thai, especially when it comes to correct pronunciation. Now I am the frist to admit that the linguistic sciences can be rather droll, OK, down right boring. But due to some quirks of the brain’s still mysterious wiring, most of us will not be able to detect some aspects of Thai phonology without being explicitly told that those aspects exist. I will begin with consonants and then later pull back to the larger picture, the difference between phonetics and phonemics, the etics vs emics distinction, implications which extend well beyond linguistics.

(All this is greatly simplified and can be expanded and further complexed ad nauseum)

Let’s keep this conversation to consonants. In their most basic form consonants have two primary physical aspects, a point of articulation and a manner of articulation. The point of articulation is the easiest to grasp. Some consonants are formed at the lips (labials) such as /p/. Some are formed on that little ridge behind your teeth such as /t/, the alveolars. Some are formed towards the read of mouth where the tissue gets softer towards the throat, the velars such as /k/. And in Thai we can get a little further back into the throat with one consonant formed at the glottis, that notorious glottal stop, represented by /อ/. Now look at the Thai alphabet and notice that the consonants are pretty much listed in order from back to front relative to point of articulation. This is not coincidence.

Now for each consonant at each point of articulation, the human body can also select from a number of manners of articulation. We can stop the airflow as we pronounce the airflow (p,t,k) or we can merely constrict the airflow and in effect hiss out a sound like a /s/, which happens to be known as a sibilant.. We can choose to use our vocal cords when articulating a sound and thus get voiced vs unvoiced consonants. The major difference between a /p/ and a /b/ is voicing.. And then we can choose to regulate the amount of aspiration, the breathiness so to speak, involved with a consonant, a feature that is not utilized in English to distinguish between consonants but is used in Thai and that will lead us back out to the bigger picture between etics and emics.

Any specific consonant can be utilized in a language's speech and thus it exists phonetically, it can be physically measured. However that sound may not be used to create a difference in meaning. In English we use both voiced and unvoiced consonants to distinguish between pairs of words: Kate/gate, time/dime, pat/bat. The primary difference between the initial consonants in these words pairs is voicing, the first word begins with an unvoiced consonant and the second word in the pair begins with a voiced consonant. The English language has selected voicing to be phonemic, to provide differences in meaning between two words.

Thai does the same thing with aspiration. The following pairs of consonants differ by the presence or absence of aspiration: ก/ข, ต/ถ/ผ. To every Thai the phonetic difference between these pairs is as great as the difference to every English speaker as the voiced/unvoiced consonants listed in the preceding paragraph. As a native English speaker, I do not readily hear the difference in the Thai pairs. But get this, those unaspirated consonants do exist in many everyday English words. Every time English inserts a /p/, /t/, or /k/ after an /s/, in words such as spot, stop, or Scott, why by golly it is as unaspirated as are the ก, ต, ป in Thai. But if you were to insert one of the Thai unaspirated consonants into English words like pot, top, or cot, the meaning of the word would not change. The sound, unaspirated unvoiced stops are not phonemic in English, they play no role in the creation of meaning. They exist phonetically in English, but not phonemically. And thus they are not represented in the English alphabet.

So one needs to recognize that the unaspirated consonants ก, ต, ป are as different from their aspirated counterparts ข, ถ, ผ as they are from their voiced counterparts ด or บ.

For most adult learners of Thai, we need to find someone who is willing to patiently model the sound for us. But the first step is to acknowledge that a difference exists that we are unlikely to hear in the beginning stages. I can't tell you how many ex-pats I have met who speak pretty darn good Thai, who have a wide vocabulary, and who can create fairly complex sentences, yet still grossly mispronounce the unaspirated consonant stops.

Last guy killed a cop is now a government aide. And is on a meteoric rise to the top in the Army. Sub Lieutenant to Major in 4 months. Helps if your Dad is famous though, I suppose the man in the report was not connected

And there are long standing rumors of scions far higher up the Sakdina ladder having perpetrated similar dastardly deeds whilst receiving slight slap-on-the-wrist punishments such as temporary exile abroad. There is little new in modern day barons and their sons finding a way to be above the law, or as is done more overly by the corporate barons, having the laws written in your favor.

--Technical aside--

Johpa, do you think glottal stop is phonemic in Thai, though? In connected speech it gets dropped regularly. There are some phonetic environments in which it's forced to appear -- like when อ follows short vowels (which end in a glottal stop in citation form, anyway), as in สะอาด, and sometimes following open vowels (but that's not universal -- "มีอะไร" is fine with no glottal stop).

--end of technical aside--

I don't think it is phonemic. If a person drops the glottal stop I doubt a person fails to understand the word. I have been misunderstood by making tonal errors and I have been misunderstood by voicing when an unvoiced stop is required, but I don't remember being misunderstood when I failed to insert the glottal stop in syllable initial position, an error I know I have made more than a few times over the years. But Svenske notes an excellent example where a common misunderstanding takes place between 11 (sip et) and 18 (sip paet) so one could well argue that the 11/18 difference creates a phonemic pair.

I think it might take an instrument to see if the stop is completely dropped in casual Thai speech or whether it just gets shortened to the point of not quite being heard. I just don't know whether the dropping of a syllable initial glottal stop is a common historical linguistic change and I am too far removed from academia to do the research.

And for you beginners, although some of the technical jargon is out there a bit, this is important, it is a fundamental of the Thai language. Some aspects of the Thai language for many learners, such as the syllable initial glottal stop, can only be taught via a technical linguistic explanation. Or you can decide to be one of the many ex-pats in Thailand who speak quite good Thai but who continue to make fundamental errors in speech.

This leads me to the conclusion that a Thai word never can begin with a vowel. At least not in the spoken language.

Should be: "At least not in the written language." Many Thai words begin with a vowel sound; when those are written, the vowel attaches to อ - which is a silent consonant in such cases.

Good luck.

อ is not a silent consonant, it represents a glottal stop which is considered a real consonant and is used in some languages including some of the Semitic languages. Thai language does indeed not allow a syllable to begin with a vowel and so inserts a glottal stop if no other consonant is present. One of the defining characteristics of a foreign accent when speaking Thai is the absence of this consonant. Another defining characteristic of a foreign accent when speaking Thai is the absence of the glottal stop after a short vowel in a syllable with no other final consonant. Syllables with short vowels and no other final consonant are ended with a glottal stop and thus become closed syllables. This is not captured in the writing system as is the syllable initial glottal stop of อ.

The phonetic sound of อ is not perceived by speakers of English and other Indo-European languages because the sound is not utilized to create meaning although the sound is used in some utterances in English such as the interjections like oh-oh or uh-uh.

Thai Rath newspaper article (in Thai)

http://www.thairath.co.th/online.php?secti...;content=105769

And I remember the good old days when Thai Rath would not only NOT digitally obscure the corpse but would outline it to more clearly show the victim, as would the old 191 snuff magazine. Only some visible secondary sexual characteristics of a victim would be censored. So there all you fellow doubters, tiny progressive steps are occasionally visible in Thailand.

Chaiyo!

Bottom line: Anyone who wants to get beyond school-room conversation in Thai language, will need to be fluent in the tone rules.

And I would argue that anyone fluent in Thai will have long forgotten the tone rules. And good luck finding a single Thai who can explain a single tone rule. I am far from fluent in Thai, and fading slowly in competency, but I too have long forgotten the tone rules. But one is well served by studying them in the beginning of the long and winding road toward that competency.

When I try and learn and speak Thai, I try and get their consonants right, I try and pronounce their weird vowels correctly and I even try and get the tones right to the best of my ability.

However, when Thais pronounce English words with an aspirated ending they just give up and do not even bother to try.

Why is that? Why is it so hard for them? Is it because it sounds really ugly to them or what?

Well golly, how many Farangs, who actually speak fairly decent Thai, seem to have given up long ago on trying to pronounce an unaspirated syllable initial unvoiced stops such as ก, ต, or ป correctly??? Is it so hard for them? Is it really because it sounds ugly to them?

Of course not. The simple fact is that these sounds do not exist in their native language and thus, due to the still mysterious workings of the brain, we don't always hear sounds that are not allowed phonetically in our native language (input) and we have similar issues with reproducing those sounds as speech (output). It takes a lot of effort and training to overcome the brain's built-in programming (OK, a little loose with the metaphor here).

Crikey, our brains don't even acknowledge sounds that do exist in our native language but convey no meaning, sounds that are not phonemic. For example, English does allow those same unvoiced stop consonants after a syllable initial /s/ (sibilant) consonant (skit, stop, spot) but native English speakers still do not "hear" the phonetic difference. A slightly different situation exists for ง, a sound which exists in syllable final position in English, but a sound which many competent English speakers of Thai simply can not produce correctly at the beginning of a word.

So pick up any introductory linguistics textbook to become a wee bit more educated on the subject so that you don't make such naive comments about "weird vowels" or "ugly" sounds.

The Youtube video spoils it all. Instead of the expected hilarious video we are treated to a pathetic video.

In my post above I tried to persiflage the connection that the article assumes between flashing gays......

Persiflage,,,,,persiflage?!? Using a word like persiflage is the posting equivalent of flashing your genitals in the public baths. Crikey, I haven't encountered that word in print since I tool my SAT back in 1969.

Please, pretty please, post if a video gets onto Youtube or LiveLeak, dam_n funny and yes, great boots. I bet she has some fishnet stockings too.

It's too bad the facts do not support your perception of what you would like Thailand to be. With a workforce of some 37 million people, about 14 million work in agriculture, almost 22 million work in "non-agriculture". Doesn't sound "predominately rural" to me.

TH

Depends on your perspective I guess. And rest assured my perception is not based merely upon my likes or hopes. Many of those who work in the non-agricultural areas are workers from rural areas who still maintain legal residences, tabian baan, in the rural areas. In the cities they tend to live in dorms or, as we read in the newspapers all too often, temporary slums. Some of these folks will be successful and become urban dwellers. But most remain rural folks who will return to the rural areas. I suppose that my perception is different than many here as the vast majority of my time in-country has been spent living and interacting amongst those rural folks.

There is plenty of manufacturing in Thailand. The automotive industry is the largest sector of the economy and is worth twice what tourism is. They manufacture almost 1.5 million vehicles per year, as well as millions of motorbikes as well, and the numbers for both are only going to increase.

There is indeed plenty of small manufacturing, but Thailand remains predominately rural. And most of the people farming the land do not actually own the land but rent it Thai style, which means they pay 50% of the harvest to the landlord. Over the past 30 or so years many of those who owned land outside the major cities, like Chiang Mai, sold their padi land to land developers who built all those red tiled roof housing developments favored by the new middle class and ex-pats. These folks, those who did not squander their windfall, then went out and bought agricultural land further afield from struggling rural families. Their main daytime job is to drive over once or twice a year to check on their tenants and collect their yearly income.

If they had a male Chinese connection they might have invested into manufacturing in town as they would have also perhaps had access to credit. And either way, if they preferred to reside in the more rural areas alongside family, usually the wife's family, her sisters, then they would stay and avoid any ostentatious life style for a number of reasons. Besides, being wealthy up-country is not the same as being wealthy in Bangkok. They can afford a nice car while residing in the countryside where there are few expenses and the house land was often inherited, but would not be able to do so if they were to move into an urban environment.

Yes, the moat is longer around in the daytime than at night. It expands slightly as a result of the heat of the day, and shrinks again with the cool of the evening.

The moat only appears to contract at night as those of us in the majority persuasion instinctively walk far more quickly past the Thapae Gate area at night than during the day.

I use to live in a rural area growing--we called these dog and pony shows!

Once upon a time Bangkok was home to some dog and pony shows, as was Tijuana in Mexico.

A post in Bangkok says you're laidback, not very focus on your professional career, maybe even a pervert.

Is it really what professionals think?

And you think that in the corporate world being a pervert is a bad thing?!? It never hurts to have on your resume the unstated yet implied ability to take your potential new boss on the Bangkok tour of his (wet)dreams and have it written off as a business expense.

Government response reaches dramatic new level: U.S. will take 80% stake in nation's largest insurer to prevent global financial chaos

The chaos would have been mostly felt by the upper 1% of the income ladder and for those of us below the upper 10% of income the chaos would simply have been a little more belt tightening. So I imagine chaos is defined as having some of the very wealthy losing a substantial part of their wealth for having made foolish investment decisions, such as investing in hedge funds that invested into voodoo derivatives, and thus then perhaps falling into the upper brackets of the upper middle class, a fate clearly worse than death and thus requiring the use of the tax dollars of the masses to intervene to protect them from such an undignified calamity. Sort of like the Baat collapse in Thailand a decade ago when the chaos of the time really had little bearing on the vast majority of the population: they were poor before the collapse and they were poor after the collapse.

Alas, there is still plenty of economic doggy doo doo to hit the fan as the American version of cowboy capitalism, titularly founded by Ronald Reagan and his overseas cowgirl Maggie, has always been a big pyramid scheme that is only now beginning to unravel. Amway is the American way.

If memory serves me correctly, one of Achaan Phasuk's earlier works published by the ILO, From Peasant Girls to Bangkok Masseuse, noted that, and hold on to your hats, that at the time of publishing (1982) that 30% of all women in Thailand between the ages of 15 and 50, or there about as I have not read the book in decades, had at one time or another worked in the sex industry. And within that industry only about 10% worked with the foreign tourists while the other 90% worked with local and regional clients. I would imagine that with the rise of the middle class over the intervening decades that the per cent of Thai women having worked in the industry has dropped a bit. But I would also imagine that with the regional importation of women from across the borders to replace the Thai women, that the percentage of foreign to regional business has remained the same. The Thai media as well as the international media always like to focus on the foreign, especially Farang customer base, especially when it comes to child prostitution. It is all a smoke screen to avoid looking into the mirror.

It's hard to find good domestic help. A lot of them are petty thieves.

All you lazy arse neo-shaibs should learn to make your own beds.

But ya gots to love the country club tone of the conversation of all these Hampton wannabes.

I found this article on the yahoo Uk website which discusses the many options as to how the Thai political scene will play out.

Thailand politics

I think that its a good unbiased article.

No particular bias, but also no ability by the authors to see that all seven scenarios all add up to more of the same old song. The only public commentator who has any larger perspective on the situation is Giles Ji Ungpakorn. Here is a recent post of his over on New Mandala.

The courts were indeed used to save face by finding some trivial "legal" reason to remove Samak. Alas, by saving face for some they unintentionally caused a loss of face for the nation as the rest of the world is laughing hard at the pathetic antics of this banana republic.

Chaiyo!

Maybe so, it certainly made me laugh, but with the current stalemate between PAD and the PPP, at least it offers the first real opportunity for a step in the right direction.

Loss of face or face saving, it paves a way around the impasse

Oh please, neither the PAD nor the PPP is a step in a good or right direction, both are just more of the same, only with differing groups of beneficiaries.

I agree with you that most of the world will not remember this episode after tomorrow...but for those of us living here and those who care about Thailand the truth and the fact are very simple.

he stood trial and lost his job because he broke the law. further more as the judge said and I quote"There was also an attempt to fabricate evidence "to hide his actions".

The courts position is not to save face for Thailand ....as you suggested.... it is to Uphold the Law!!! and even the PM is not above the law.

On the contrary, the world will remember only that the Mickey Mouse country known as "Thailand" removed a Prime Minister over a minor travesty of the law involving a cooking show. Those of is who live or have lived in Thailand for any length of time and who do care about the people know full well that the Thai courts have little to do with upholding the law but are merely an extension of the political system. The courts were indeed used to save face by finding some trivial "legal" reason to remove Samak. Alas, by saving face for some they unintentionally caused a loss of face for the nation as the rest of the world is laughing hard at the pathetic antics of this banana republic.

Chaiyo!

the management of a shopping centre like siam paragon would not be happy knowing that staff working in the stores or franchises there are behaving like that.

The only thing the management of the shopping center is not happy about is that the clerk did not remove the "free sample" tag on the item thus causing a slight loss of face over an action that they would otherwise give a wink and a nod to.

We are in Buriram and my g/f spoke to her mother yesterday. Her mother, who voted for PPP, in the last election is now considering going to Bangkok to join the PAD demonstrations because she will receive 200 Baht a day if she does so !

She still likes Taksin/Samak but the lure of 200 Baht a day is compelling.

So may we assume that the infamous 1990s Internet translation from English to Thai of the phrase "I love you" remains, despite inflation, "haa roi baat"?

A good read. My first response was a hearty "Chaiyo!". But then I ask why this is being written in flawless English and printed in an English language newspaper? Who was the intended audience? Certainly not Thais. It would be interesting to see how the author would translate her thoughts into Thai. And upon later contemplation, the final, and illegal, by Thai laws, logical line of argument is missing.

The point missed by the OP is that the problems being faced by the current Thai government are a direct result of the poor in Thailand having democratically elected a government that is (like it's predecessor TRK) poised to shift the balance of power in Thai society.

I disagree that it is the poor having elected a government that is then going to shift the power in Thai society, the poor will remain irrelevant in the halls of power. I agree with Handley that it is the various sub-groups within the elite that are, with or without the titular blessings of the poor, busy jockeying for a position of relative strength for when the balance of power will structurally change from within the elite, a change as inevitable as the rising of the sun in the eastern heavens.

As I have long, yet perhaps poorly, argued here on Thai Visa, but as Giles Ji Ungpakorn has been arguing far more effectively (example gratis) arguing in the print media, both sides of the current political conflict are but mirror images of each other. Both sides are striving for future legitimacy. One side is seeking legitimacy by attempting to woo the votes of the "poor" and their opponents are fighting back by wooing the nouveau middle classes while denigrating the poor as being uneducated. My own experience is that the "poor", even the rural "poor", have pretty much the same education as the Thai middle class with the only difference being little else than "there but for the grace of god go I". Of course there are more poor than there are middle class so the one side needs to argue that the "poor" need to have their voter share reduced. But neither side gives a whit about the poor nor the middle class, nor even the Farang (s)ex-pat crowd here other than how they can be exploited for personal financial gain.