I read a letter in a newspaper today about Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram (Phibun) in the 1930/40s.
It said he simplified the Thai script. I wonder if someone might explain exactly what he did (if that is correct?)?

 

It also claimed Phibun “adopted the word sawatdee (from svasti, the Sanskrit word for blessing or wellbeing) in 1943”?

 

He attempted to simply Thai script, but it failed to catch on.  What he proposed was pretty close to how Lao is spelled now.  There's a a Wikipedia article about the reform at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_spelling_reform_of_1942

 

Sawasdee was invented in the mid-1930s by the Chulalongkorn University academic Phraya Upakit Silapasan.  Phlaek promoted its use.  Before then the usual greeting was "have you eaten yet?" which was, by some, considered vulgar.

 

 

Thanks Oxx for the reply.

 

I've read about the simplification of Laos (was that in the 1970s?), but it was the first time I knew Thai had been attempted in modern times, (apart from the dropping of ฃ & ฅ, but that was naturally a 'misunderstanding' in the end)

 

Interesting that สวัสดี has only been in use for seventy years!