Classifier For ความหมาย

[loong]

When asked "How to say in English" and the Thai word has several meanings, would you use..

ความหมาย kwaam măai (Noun) or แปลความหมาย bplae kwaam măai (Verb) or is there a better way?

What is the classifier for ความหมาย kwaam măai ?

I usually say มี ความหมาย เยอะ Mee kwaam măai yéh and i feel that this is not correct although understood.

Would a better way be มี ความหมาย หลาย ????(Classifier) Mee kwaam măai lăai ????(Classifier)

Thankyou

[meadish_sweetball]

แปลได้หลายอย่าง

มีความหมายหลายอย่าง/แบบ

มีความหมายหลายความหมาย

It takes itself as the classifier, but you may also use อย่าง and แบบ, both of which would be more common in everyday speech.

Other useful sentences:

แล้วแต่จะใช้อย่างไร 'That depends in which way you (intend to) use it'

แล้วแต่บริบท 'Depends on the context' (If you are speaking with linguists, other Thais may not understand the word บริบท (but may compliment you for using 'difficult' words all the same ). The definition of บริบท is ข้อความแวดล้อมที่ช่วยในการเข้าใจความหมาย (thank you to thai2english.com).

[Rikker]

I concur that อย่าง is often your best bet.

But you could use ความหมาย in the classifier position, too: มีหลายความหมาย.

This is because Thai has "repeater" classifiers, where a word is used as a classifier for itself. But มีความหมายหลายความหมาย is awkward, so you can leave out the first one.

EDIT: Sneaky Meadish, editing your post while I was composing mine!

[loong]

Thanks for the quick reply

I find classifiers one of the biggest headaches so tend to use Ahn for most things - lazy I know!

only a typo I know BTW Meadish, you need to do another quick edit ไช้ should be ใช้ (then you can remove this edit)

[meadish_sweetball]

A genuine mistake, thanks for pointing it out. I often forget which words take ใ and which ones take ไ even though I did learn the complete list in the past. It's just that I don't write or type Thai often enough.

[Briggsy]

มีความหมายหลายนัย

[meadish_sweetball]

Nice one Briggsy - I'd never heard it before, but it appears to be correct, and also used as a separate noun meaning 'sense' (as in 'sense of a word').

[Rikker]

Yes, good one, Briggsy. นัย on its own means "meaning," and is a clever classifier for ความหมาย.

Examples of how I've seen นัย used elsewhere:

ความหมายโดยอรรถ vs. ความหมายโดยนัย = denotation vs. connotation (or explicit meaning vs. implicit meaning)

(พูด)อีกนัยหนึ่งคือ = "to put it another way..."

[In the Rai!]

Yes, good one, Briggsy. นัย on its own means "meaning," and is a clever classifier for ความหมาย.

Examples of how I've seen นัย used elsewhere:

ความหมายโดยอรรถ vs. ความหมายโดยนัย = denotation vs. connotation (or explicit meaning vs. implicit meaning)

(พูด)อีกนัยหนึ่งคือ = "to put it another way..."

Rikker,

I have never heard it used like this

(พูด)อีกนัยหนึ่งคือ = "to put it another way..."

Is it an idiom? (พูด)อีกนัย would take on "say another meaning" but then หนึ่งคือ

is "one crossbeam" I dont quite get it.

I am sure that I am missing something here. (again)

ITR

[Rikker]

It's something I've come across reading, I think. Maybe it's not used much in speaking. I just checked sealang.net, and it includes "อีกนัยหนึ่ง," under the meaning "in other words; in another sense, another way."

That's what อีกนัยหนึ่ง means, "another sense/meaning." The reason หนึ่ง comes after นัย is because Thai commonly inverts the classifier and the number when there's only one. Hence, ผมกินข้าวสองจาน "I ate two plates of rice," but ผมกินข้าวจานหนึ่ง "I ate a (one) plate of rice."

So in the larger phrase อีกนัยหนึ่งคือ... it would be followed by what that other sense was that you were talking about.

Like if you say someone is หน้ากระเพาะแพะ, then you're saying they're ugly. พูดอีกนัยหนึ่งคือ ว่าเขาขี้เหร่ "In other words, you're calling them ugly."

[In the Rai!]

It's something I've come across reading, I think. Maybe it's not used much in speaking. I just checked sealang.net, and it includes "อีกนัยหนึ่ง," under the meaning "in other words; in another sense, another way."

That's what อีกนัยหนึ่ง means, "another sense/meaning." The reason หนึ่ง comes after นัย is because Thai commonly inverts the classifier and the number when there's only one. Hence, ผมกินข้าวสองจาน "I ate two plates of rice," but ผมกินข้าวจานหนึ่ง "I ate a (one) plate of rice."

So in the larger phrase อีกนัยหนึ่งคือ... it would be followed by what that other sense was that you were talking about.

Like if you say someone is หน้ากระเพาะแพะ, then you're saying they're ugly. พูดอีกนัยหนึ่งคือ ว่าเขาขี้เหร่ "In other words, you're calling them ugly."

Thanks Rikker,

I now see where my confussion was from.

คือ as in your example means [ V ] be ; is ; am ; are ; mean

I was mistaken with ขื่อ crossbeam ; joist ; lintel

hence I didnt quite get it.

Would you say that that phrase would be used alot?

ITR

[Rikker]

I think it's more formal than not, something I've more read than heard. That's hard to gauge, though..

[In the Rai!]

I think it's more formal than not, something I've more read than heard. That's hard to gauge, though..

cheers

[aanon]

It's something I've come across reading, I think. Maybe it's not used much in speaking. I just checked sealang.net, and it includes "อีกนัยหนึ่ง," under the meaning "in other words; in another sense, another way."

So in the larger phrase อีกนัยหนึ่งคือ... it would be followed by what that other sense was that you were talking about.

Like if you say someone is หน้ากระเพาะแพะ, then you're saying they're ugly. พูดอีกนัยหนึ่งคือ ว่าเขาขี้เหร่ "In other words, you're calling them ugly."

i've heard this used quite often in spoken thai, usually just as อีกนัย....and then whatever the following view is going to be.

but i seem to remember it being used more like "looking at it in another sense...." than "in other words". i suppose the difference is only slight, but your example above doesn't feel quite right to me, because if you do describe someone as หน้ากระเพาะแพะ, no one is going to take you literally, and so there is no "other sense".

in which case, you'd just be saying, in effect: "another phrase which also means ugly is ขี้เหร่", and you'd use something other than นัย for that.

suppose i'm a prospective employer, and i call mr a for a reference for bill. mr a confirms that bill worked with him for 20 years, and when i ask for his comments, mr a says only that bill was very punctual. after thinking about it, i say, "อีกนัยหนึ่ง, เขากำลังบอกเราว่า bill เป็นลูกจ้างที่ไม่เอาไหนเลย".

or, "we won the war. in another sense, there were no winners".

that's my feeling about how i've heard it used, but maybe i've got it mixed up.

also, in this sort of context i've only ever heard it pronounced ไนยะ. is ไน also used interchangeably?

[Rikker]

That's a good point, you're right about my example. Thanks for the clarification, and the better example.

You're saying people pronounce it อีกนัยยะหนึ่ง, or what context do you mean? I don't recall hearing that, but that doesn't prove much.

Anyhow, the Royal Institute Dictionary reveals that you're right. Here's the entry in its entirety:

นัย [ไน, ไนยะ] น. ข้อสำคัญ เช่น นัยแห่งเรื่องนี้; ความ, ความหมาย, เช่น หลายนัย; แนว, ทาง, เช่น ตีความได้หลายนัย; แง่ เช่น อีกนัยหนึ่ง. (ป. นย) นัยว่า [ไนย-] ว. มีเค้าว่า.

It gives ไนยะ as one pronunciation, and there's no dash after นัย, which means that it doesn't have to be in a compound to get that extra (semi-)syllable. Interesting.

I love learning new stuff about Thai.

[aanon]

That's a good point, you're right about my example. Thanks for the clarification, and the better example.

You're saying people pronounce it อีกนัยยะหนึ่ง, or what context do you mean? I don't recall hearing that, but that doesn't prove much.

Anyhow, the Royal Institute Dictionary reveals that you're right. Here's the entry in its entirety:

นัย [ไน, ไนยะ] น. ข้อสำคัญ เช่น นัยแห่งเรื่องนี้; ความ, ความหมาย, เช่น หลายนัย; แนว, ทาง, เช่น ตีความได้หลายนัย; แง่ เช่น อีกนัยหนึ่ง. (ป. นย) นัยว่า [ไนย-] ว. มีเค้าว่า.

It gives ไนยะ as one pronunciation, and there's no dash after นัย, which means that it doesn't have to be in a compound to get that extra (semi-)syllable. Interesting.

I love learning new stuff about Thai.

yes, ไนยะ is how i've heard it said, and basically on its own as you said. actually i thought it was นะยะ when i first heard it spoken. anyway, it is interesting that นัย gets pronounced like this, i can't really think of any other words off the top of my head that get this particular treatment. then again, there are lots of interesting features of written thai which stop it from being perfectly phonetically descriptive - i wonder where they all come from? why is ก็ not ก้อ? why not stick a vowel on ณ ? of course there are many more.

lately i've been thinking about foreign words (mostly english) rendered into thai. every thai seems to know the rules for (thai style) pronunciation but they're not written down. for example, coat is โคด but everyone will say โค้ด and no one would ever pronounce it like โคตร. i'm not sure why this worries me, maybe that the contradictions between pronunciation and tone rules will actually cause native thai speakers problems with writing their own language? anyway, that adds another set of exceptions to the spelling/pronunciation rules.

on a related note, i'm often told by thais that the lao writing system is actually phonetically descriptive. ie. no galan or other silent letters, homonyms all written the same, etc. is that actually true?

[Rikker]

You're right about the "rules" of English loan pronunciation. I've thought a lot about that exact issue. As I've studied the contents of RID, I began to pay attention to which words it gives a pronunciation guide for, and which it doesn't. On the surface it appears that they only give you the pronunciation for words with ambiguous spellings, but then I noticed that English loans are often not given a pronunciation guide, despite the fact that they're not spelled phonetically. So, for example, I just randomly opened the dictionary to the entry for กิโล, and กิโลไซเกิล has no pronunciation given, neither does กิโลเฮิรตซ์. While we might rationalize that these words aren't ambiguous to a native speaker, that's not the point of the dictionary, to assume you already know what it's supposed to be telling you. So while the spelling would tell us these words should be pronounced [กิ-โล-ไซ-เกิน] and [กิ-โล-เฮิด] (or, heaven forbid, [กิ-โล-เฮิน], since there *is* a ร in there), these "rules" tell us it should really be [กิโลไซเก้น] (or possibly with a ว in there to approximate an l, but เกิว is not a valid Thai syllable) and [กิโลเฮิ้ด].

This is all a rambling way of getting around to my point: I think the Royal Institute is consciously avoiding to "canonize" or empower these implicit rules for pronouncing English loanwords in Thai. Why? Because it makes the language less systematic, and maybe they're worried that then schools will have to teach it, instead of just letting people assimilate it naturally. The Thai language conservativists would have a fit at the thought of that.

And it's not just English loanwords. Anyone who knows 10 words in Thai knows the word for water, and unless it's the first element in a compound, it's pronounced [น้าม]. And yet, it does not *say* that in the Royal Institute Dictionary. Same goes for all of those ugly hidden long vowels ได้ = [ด้าย], เช้า = [ช้าว], etc. RID doesn't give pronunciations for any of these, and Thais are taught that they are in fact short vowels! (We had a rehash of this argument on the forum a couple months back.) Thais value order, and they want the language to be tidier than it is. The king has even spoken out on this issue, essentially giving permission to pronounce these words *like everyone already pronounces them*, saying not to worry about a few words that don't match their spellings.

So however it is that the conventions for pronouncing English loanwords developed, that the rules are still acquired subconsciously (or consciously by observant non-natives), it's part of a strong ongoing trend of linguistic conservatism.

The myth of a "pure" language in any country is pure fantasy, but many Thais hold on to the idea as strong as any country does.

----Warning: Abrupt change of subject-----

Yes, Lao writing was reformed and systematized at some point, I think it was fairly recently, like around WW2, but I haven't looked into it specifically. Might have been even more recent.

For example, the words จันท์ (sandalwood) and จันทร์ (moon) are both simply จัน in Lao. All clusters have been simplified to their initial consonant, except in some older books and scriptures. And all finals are spelled phonetically, So any ด-final sound is spelled with ด. Compare Thai ประเทศ with Lao ปะเทด.

Thai went through a phase like this in the 40s, during the "reign" of Field Marshal Plaek Phibulsongkhram, the military dictator who mandated such cultural changes as Thai woman being required to wear tops when out in public and Thai men wearing pants instead of wraps. This is why that famous Thai lexicographer, So Sethaputra himself, still spells his name in Thai as เสถบุตร. People's names were mandatorily spelled according to the new simplified system, and after he got famous from his dictionary, he didn't bother to change it back to เศรษฐบุตร, even though the spelling reform died out in Thailand after Field Marshal Plaek was ousted.

I could be wrong on some of the details, but that's what I know in a nutshell.

[Rikker]

Oops. Lexicographer, not lexicography. That's what I get for composing posts in the middle of the night. Sheesh!

[aanon]

You're right about the "rules" of English loan pronunciation. I've thought a lot about that exact issue. As I've studied the contents of RID, I began to pay attention to which words it gives a pronunciation guide for, and which it doesn't. On the surface it appears that they only give you the pronunciation for words with ambiguous spellings, but then I noticed that English loans are often not given a pronunciation guide, despite the fact that they're not spelled phonetically. So, for example, I just randomly opened the dictionary to the entry for กิโล, and กิโลไซเกิล has no pronunciation given, neither does กิโลเฮิรตซ์. While we might rationalize that these words aren't ambiguous to a native speaker, that's not the point of the dictionary, to assume you already know what it's supposed to be telling you. So while the spelling would tell us these words should be pronounced [กิ-โล-ไซ-เกิน] and [กิ-โล-เฮิด] (or, heaven forbid, [กิ-โล-เฮิน], since there *is* a ร in there), these "rules" tell us it should really be [กิโลไซเก้น] (or possibly with a ว in there to approximate an l, but เกิว is not a valid Thai syllable) and [กิโลเฮิ้ด].

This is all a rambling way of getting around to my point: I think the Royal Institute is consciously avoiding to "canonize" or empower these implicit rules for pronouncing English loanwords in Thai. Why? Because it makes the language less systematic, and maybe they're worried that then schools will have to teach it, instead of just letting people assimilate it naturally. The Thai language conservativists would have a fit at the thought of that.

And it's not just English loanwords. Anyone who knows 10 words in Thai knows the word for water, and unless it's the first element in a compound, it's pronounced [น้าม]. And yet, it does not *say* that in the Royal Institute Dictionary. Same goes for all of those ugly hidden long vowels ได้ = [ด้าย], เช้า = [ช้าว], etc. RID doesn't give pronunciations for any of these, and Thais are taught that they are in fact short vowels! (We had a rehash of this argument on the forum a couple months back.) Thais value order, and they want the language to be tidier than it is. The king has even spoken out on this issue, essentially giving permission to pronounce these words *like everyone already pronounces them*, saying not to worry about a few words that don't match their spellings.

So however it is that the conventions for pronouncing English loanwords developed, that the rules are still acquired subconsciously (or consciously by observant non-natives), it's part of a strong ongoing trend of linguistic conservatism.

The myth of a "pure" language in any country is pure fantasy, but many Thais hold on to the idea as strong as any country does.

----Warning: Abrupt change of subject-----

Yes, Lao writing was reformed and systematized at some point, I think it was fairly recently, like around WW2, but I haven't looked into it specifically. Might have been even more recent.

For example, the words จันท์ (sandalwood) and จันทร์ (moon) are both simply จัน in Lao. All clusters have been simplified to their initial consonant, except in some older books and scriptures. And all finals are spelled phonetically, So any ด-final sound is spelled with ด. Compare Thai ประเทศ with Lao ปะเทด.

Thai went through a phase like this in the 40s, during the "reign" of Field Marshal Plaek Phibulsongkhram, the military dictator who mandated such cultural changes as Thai woman being required to wear tops when out in public and Thai men wearing pants instead of wraps. This is why that famous Thai lexicographer, So Sethaputra himself, still spells his name in Thai as เสถบุตร. People's names were mandatorily spelled according to the new simplified system, and after he got famous from his dictionary, he didn't bother to change it back to เศรษฐบุตร, even though the spelling reform died out in Thailand after Field Marshal Plaek was ousted.

I could be wrong on some of the details, but that's what I know in a nutshell.

rikker,

although i don't have time to say much more at this stage, i just wanted to say that was a great post. thanks for your response.

[In the Rai!]

You're right about the "rules" of English loan pronunciation. I've thought a lot about that exact issue. As I've studied the contents of RID, I began to pay attention to which words it gives a pronunciation guide for, and which it doesn't. On the surface it appears that they only give you the pronunciation for words with ambiguous spellings, but then I noticed that English loans are often not given a pronunciation guide, despite the fact that they're not spelled phonetically. So, for example, I just randomly opened the dictionary to the entry for กิโล, and กิโลไซเกิล has no pronunciation given, neither does กิโลเฮิรตซ์. While we might rationalize that these words aren't ambiguous to a native speaker, that's not the point of the dictionary, to assume you already know what it's supposed to be telling you. So while the spelling would tell us these words should be pronounced [กิ-โล-ไซ-เกิน] and [กิ-โล-เฮิด] (or, heaven forbid, [กิ-โล-เฮิน], since there *is* a ร in there), these "rules" tell us it should really be [กิโลไซเก้น] (or possibly with a ว in there to approximate an l, but เกิว is not a valid Thai syllable) and [กิโลเฮิ้ด].

This is all a rambling way of getting around to my point: I think the Royal Institute is consciously avoiding to "canonize" or empower these implicit rules for pronouncing English loanwords in Thai. Why? Because it makes the language less systematic, and maybe they're worried that then schools will have to teach it, instead of just letting people assimilate it naturally. The Thai language conservativists would have a fit at the thought of that.

And it's not just English loanwords. Anyone who knows 10 words in Thai knows the word for water, and unless it's the first element in a compound, it's pronounced [น้าม]. And yet, it does not *say* that in the Royal Institute Dictionary. Same goes for all of those ugly hidden long vowels ได้ = [ด้าย], เช้า = [ช้าว], etc. RID doesn't give pronunciations for any of these, and Thais are taught that they are in fact short vowels! (We had a rehash of this argument on the forum a couple months back.) Thais value order, and they want the language to be tidier than it is. The king has even spoken out on this issue, essentially giving permission to pronounce these words *like everyone already pronounces them*, saying not to worry about a few words that don't match their spellings.

So however it is that the conventions for pronouncing English loanwords developed, that the rules are still acquired subconsciously (or consciously by observant non-natives), it's part of a strong ongoing trend of linguistic conservatism.

The myth of a "pure" language in any country is pure fantasy, but many Thais hold on to the idea as strong as any country does.

----Warning: Abrupt change of subject-----

Yes, Lao writing was reformed and systematized at some point, I think it was fairly recently, like around WW2, but I haven't looked into it specifically. Might have been even more recent.

For example, the words จันท์ (sandalwood) and จันทร์ (moon) are both simply จัน in Lao. All clusters have been simplified to their initial consonant, except in some older books and scriptures. And all finals are spelled phonetically, So any ด-final sound is spelled with ด. Compare Thai ประเทศ with Lao ปะเทด.

Thai went through a phase like this in the 40s, during the "reign" of Field Marshal Plaek Phibulsongkhram, the military dictator who mandated such cultural changes as Thai woman being required to wear tops when out in public and Thai men wearing pants instead of wraps. This is why that famous Thai lexicographer, So Sethaputra himself, still spells his name in Thai as เสถบุตร. People's names were mandatorily spelled according to the new simplified system, and after he got famous from his dictionary, he didn't bother to change it back to เศรษฐบุตร, even though the spelling reform died out in Thailand after Field Marshal Plaek was ousted.

I could be wrong on some of the details, but that's what I know in a nutshell.

Rikker,

you never cease to amaze me..

[Rikker]

There are a bunch of typos in it that I didn't see at 5am (what was I doing up?!), but anyhow I'm glad if it's helpful. It's certainly a lot to digest.

[aanon]

There are a bunch of typos in it that I didn't see at 5am (what was I doing up?!), but anyhow I'm glad if it's helpful. It's certainly a lot to digest.

hey rikker,

perhaps you already know about it, but if not i thought you might be interested in reading the official line on transliteration from english to thai. it is sourced from the RID standards.

th.wikipedia.org/wiki/การเขียนคำทับศัพท์ภาษาอังกฤษ

amongst other things, it shows why the thai version may often have an arbitrary tone marker, or shortened vowel sound (to distinguish transliterated english words from thai words).

i've just discovered thai wikipedia, and i'm loving it. i think i may be able to learn a lot in there and thereby lighten the burden of answering my questions for my thai friends!

all the best.

[Rikker]

Cool. I haven't seen that specific page on Thai Wikipedia before, though I've browsed the Royal Institute's rules before. Tends not to stick though, so this is a good refresher.

There is lots of good stuff in Thai Wikipedia, it's true. After just over two years, they're already pushing 20,000 articles. Vietnamese and Malay are close behind, though.

And for anyone wanting to learn/practice Lao, there's Wikipedia Lao, too:

lo.wikipedia.org

It has 50 articles.

[In the Rai!]

There are a bunch of typos in it that I didn't see at 5am (what was I doing up?!), but anyhow I'm glad if it's helpful. It's certainly a lot to digest.

hey rikker,

perhaps you already know about it, but if not i thought you might be interested in reading the official line on transliteration from english to thai. it is sourced from the RID standards.

th.wikipedia.org/wiki/การเขียนคำทับศัพท์ภาษาอังกฤษ

amongst other things, it shows why the thai version may often have an arbitrary tone marker, or shortened vowel sound (to distinguish transliterated english words from thai words).

i've just discovered thai wikipedia, and i'm loving it. i think i may be able to learn a lot in there and thereby lighten the burden of answering my questions for my thai friends!

all the best.

Hey thanks Aanon,

That is a source of infortation. cheers

ITR