Why is "application" multisyllabic.

[uhuh]

Thai is a monosyllabic language. 

Many multisyllabic foreign words are abbreviated to one syllable in Thai (dic for dictionary,  mo cy for motor cycle,  com for computer...)

 

But the monosyllabic English word "app" becomes "application" in Thai.

And I hear it pronounced like this a lot, not just app.

Why? 

 

 

[FritsSikkink]

"Thai is a monosyllabic language"

No it isn't, there are loads of words with more than 1 syllable.

[uhuh]

For heavens sake.

I didnt want to start this discussion. 

So "Thai is basically a monosyllabic language".

Care to stick to the topic? 

[katana]

I don't think it's correct to say that the other English loan words you mention aren't used in full in Thai eg

ดิคชันนารี is also used. Try Googling it eg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ96rHQujms

 

Same for คอมพิวเตอร์ eg see
https://www.advice.co.th/product/desktop-pc-server :
...ช้อปคอมพิวเตอร์ตั้งโต๊ะ PC Server รุ่นใหม่ ราคาพิเศษ...
...จัดสเปคคอมพิวเตอร์...

 

มอเตอร์ไซค์ for motorcycle is probably shortened to just 'motocy' for ease of pronunciation because Thai doesn't have the 'cle' sound at the end of a word.

 

แอป vs. แอปพลิเคชัน - both are used as you say
eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm6pSWRzbgI
ฯลฯ

 

[FritsSikkink]

5 hours ago, uhuh said:

For heavens sake.

I didnt want to start this discussion. 

So "Thai is basically a monosyllabic language".

Care to stick to the topic? 

That is the topic and it still isn't (even basically)

[Oxx]

10 hours ago, uhuh said:

But the monosyllabic English word "app" becomes "application" in Thai.

 

It doesn't.  It's แอป /ɛ̀ɛp/

[Briggsy]

แอบ may be pronounced identically to แอป. (English loan words in Thai often omit tone markers and have unspelt tones and even vowel length so I cannot be sure.) แอบ has a negative meaning. Thai speakers wanted to avoid any negative misunderstanding. This is one possible explanation.

[tgeezer]

Thai is a monosyllabic language. 
Many multisyllabic foreign words are abbreviated to one syllable in Thai (dic for dictionary,  mo cy for motor cycle,  com for computer...)
 
But the monosyllabic English word "app" becomes "application" in Thai.
And I hear it pronounced like this a lot, not just app.
Why? 
 
 

I agree, that is very odd, I wouldn’t expect anyone to think of ‘app’ as the short form of application because it is a very modern use of the word and been shortened to App almost from its adoption. If you look it up often it doesn’t indicate that it is an abbreviation. Are you sure that you are not listening to very pedantic people, a bit like me?


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[tgeezer]

Incidentally on the subject, I believe that Thai is fundamentally a monosyllabic language and it is often apparent. Often the words syllable and word are used interchangeably in primary school books. I have encountered English speakers who are so familiar with Thais that they speak English like Thais. This is a very good foundation for learning to speak Thai but many feel that they are communicating adequately so don’t bother with Thai.



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[Percy Penguin]

1 hour ago, tgeezer said:

I agree, that is very odd, I wouldn’t expect anyone to think of ‘app’ as the short form of application because it is a very modern use of the word and been shortened to App almost from its adoption. If you look it up often it doesn’t indicate that it is an abbreviation.

I've got to say that I still think of app as short for application even though I use the word all the time, just like I think of phone as short for telephone, even though I hardly ever say telephone and would expect to find phone in a dictionary.

1 hour ago, tgeezer said:

Incidentally on the subject, I believe that Thai is fundamentally a monosyllabic language and it is often apparent.

That pretty much fits with what I've learnt so far. It also ties in with the fact that written Thai shows syllable boundaries fairly clearly, but doesn't show word boundaries at all. Saying that, there are obviously some two-syllable words, and the way they shorten longer words might be telling:

9 hours ago, katana said:

มอเตอร์ไซค์ for motorcycle is probably shortened to just 'motocy' for ease of pronunciation because Thai doesn't have the 'cle' sound at the end of a word.

don't they also say mo-cy though, even though they can pretty much say the extra bit they've left out? If so, it looks as though they are seeing two two-syllable words and dropping the second syllable in each case. That would fit with the idea that it's basically a monosyllabic language - it can live with two-syllable words, but native speakers will revert if possible. I can't think of any examples of English words being shortened this way.

 

3 hours ago, Briggsy said:

แอบ may be pronounced identically to แอป. (English loan words in Thai often omit tone markers and have unspelt tones and even vowel length so I cannot be sure.) แอบ has a negative meaning. Thai speakers wanted to avoid any negative misunderstanding. This is one possible explanation.

Also, they often seem to use a letter that reflects the original spelling, so maybe another reason for using ป is that it represents a p.

[digbeth]

application sounds more formal and in professional setting like when someone talk in a professional setting they wouldn't contract

 

you need to get out  more if you haven't heard a thai use โหลดแอป แอปไลน์ ฯลฯ in conversation, even in forum post

 

also many seem to misspell it to แอฟ and posts becomes โฟส instead of โพสต์ sometime

[uhuh]

I have heard these things and i was wondering whether i just got the wrong impression (because "application" sounds so incredibly stilted to me and i really hear it a lot)

[DogNo1]

I have heard considerable variation in the way the foreign words are rendered in Thai.  For example I have heard the word motorcycle pronounced "mo- cy" quite a bit by the bellboys at my hotel and at the motorcycle taxibdrivers at the  stand nearby refer to the machine as " mo-to-SAI" with the emphasis on the last syllable.  A similar thing happens to the rendering of super highway.  It becomes "su-PAH." I recently encountered the situation of not being understood when I asked to have Equal put into my coffee.  When I showed the sweetener to the server, she said, "Oh! eQUAL!  The linguistic rule seems to that a foreign loan word will be rendered as simply as possible into Thai following the syllabic rules of the Thai language but, if necessary, the rendering will be altered for the purposes of disambiguation and the avoidance of having the rendering of the loan word coincide with an unpleasant Thai Word.  Similar things happen in English.

I will look into how the IT technicians in my hotel use the Thai rendering for a software application.  There may some reasoning for the particular rendering.  Of course, I assume that Westernerses know that before the advent of small devices, what we now call apps were known as programs

[Oxx]

5 hours ago, DogNo1 said:

refer to the machine as " mo-to-SAI" with the emphasis on the last syllable.

 

What you are describing as "emphasis" is not emphasis (a.k.a. stress), but rather a falling tone.  Because it starts higher than mid tone it will tend to sound like stress to non-native speakers of a stressed language, such as English.  The falling tone on the final syllable of loan words from English is very common.

[tifino]

appen, 2 syllable loan word - and the thai mod to use the 'n' in place of the 'L'; but still the last bit does fall off 

 

but, then the next loan word:

falang, 2 syllable, but the trailing part, is spoken sharper than the 1st part

 

 

would a Thai 'app' another coat of paint?

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by tifino

[Percy Penguin]

I don't think I know any two-syllable Thai words with the stress on the first syllable (I think I do hear stress in Thai words, even though it is easy to mix it up with tone).

 

In English it can go either way - today vs suitcase, but in Thai it always seems to on the second syllable.

 

I guess you can test whether there is such a thing as stress in Thai, and not just tones that English speakers can mistake for stress, by looking at some two-syllable words that have the same tone on both syllables. How about ทำไม?

[tgeezer]

 
What you are describing as "emphasis" is not emphasis (a.k.a. stress), but rather a falling tone.  Because it starts higher than mid tone it will tend to sound like stress to non-native speakers of a stressed language, such as English.  The falling tone on the final syllable of loan words from English is very common.

I have been studying Thai for many years and have managed quite well without considering stress at all so I suspect that what you say is the answer.




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[SuperTed]

1. Earlier in this thread, a poster answered the original question - the word App is avoided because it sounds like a derogatory term. That is why polite people will say something which sounds like Application or Program.

2. English and Thai are different in many ways. Primarily English uses multisyllabic words, with heavy use of syllabic emphasis; Thai is tonal and nasal.

3. It is wrong to say Thai is monosyllabic. Most words are composed of multiple sound and meaning particles. We think of those sound and meaning particles as words. But some of them aren’t, like อะ in อะไร.

4. When thinking about the composition of words in written Thai, one realizes it is analogous to written Chinese - multiple characters are used to form words, some characters do not stand on their own as words. All characters can bring both sound and meaning to the word. The same is true for Thai sound and meaning particles.

5. Most sound and meaning particles in Thai are monosyllabic, although there can be two syllables for words with silent ะ and the other exceptions.

[tgeezer]

I don't think I know any two-syllable Thai words with the stress on the first syllable (I think I do hear stress in Thai words, even though it is easy to mix it up with tone).
 
In English it can go either way - today vs suitcase, but in Thai it always seems to on the second syllable.
 
I guess you can test whether there is such a thing as stress in Thai, and not just tones that English speakers can mistake for stress, by looking at some two-syllable words that have the same tone on both syllables. How about ทำไม?

When I try comparing ทำไม >ทำไม้ >ทำใหม่ the meanings change. ใช้กระเพราทำไม ทำไม is common tone.
This is because Thai words are written without spaces but spoken with spaces, or should be.
ทำไม is one word, probably from ทำอะไร. I believe that you can get away with ทำไหม่ in the right place but a teacher would probably not agree because of ทำใหม่ .




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[uhuh]

2 hours ago, SuperTed said:

3. It is wrong to say Thai is monosyllabic. Most words are composed of multiple sound and meaning particles. We think of those sound and meaning particles as words.

It's the morphemes (meaning particles) that are usually monosyllabic.

Morphemes are not words. 

There are many words composed of 2 or more morphemes.

 

I am not talking about foreign loanwords (e.g. from Sanskrit).

[SuperTed]

It's the morphemes (meaning particles) that are usually monosyllabic.
Morphemes are not words. 
There are many words composed of 2 or more morphemes.
 
I am not talking about foreign loanwords (e.g. from Sanskrit).

You dropped the last sentence of my paragraph 3, which agrees with your statement that morphemes are not words. My point is that we Westerners want to think of morphemes, or individual Chinese characters, as words, when in fact some of them are not.

[tgeezer]

It's the morphemes (meaning particles) that are usually monosyllabic.
Morphemes are not words. 
There are many words composed of 2 or more morphemes.
 
I am not talking about foreign loanwords (e.g. from Sanskrit).

That there appears to be many more single syllable words in Thai and that one can manage quite well without two, or more, syllable words is where we are now. How true is that I wonder.
สาร for example. weave is what we find in the dictionary but when not used for making things ประสาน but if you said สานมือ > weave hands, it would do as well it seems to me.
I bet this could be done with any language because there are really very few things which must be said when context and body language are included in the conversation.
Linguists will be able to shoot my ‘kitchen grammar’ to hell I hope, but please try to avoid obscure words like morpheme.




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[uhuh]

No this cannot be done with any language. 

Are there languages except English or Thai that you are familiar with? 

 

I give you some examples from Spanish:

"Hasta" cannot be parsed into 2 meaningful syllables, you have to use the whole bunch of 2 syllables 

Same for "reloj", "pared" and many, many more. 

The same applies for all Romance languages (i didn't use the english word "office" because it is derived from French) like French and Italian, but also for Slavonic languages like Russian and Serbocroatic and Germanic languages like German and Swedish. (Within all these indogermanic languages,  English is an exception as it has so many meaningful particles of just one syllable, e.g. all those 4-letter words).

Japanese is another good example. 

 

Now take for example Chinese. Every Chinese character is a syllable,  and almost every character/syllable has a meaning. The famous exception being "húdié"蝴蝶 the butterfly  (hú蝴 has no meaning,  dié蝶 has no meaning),  but that is one exception out of tens of thousands of meaningful units in Chinese. 

That's why some people call Chinese monosyllabic. 

 

In this respect,  Thai is a bit similar to Chinese. 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by uhuh

[bendejo]

Monosyllabic language, in a country where it seems most people's names have at least eight syllables.  

 

When words get imported, especially when they involve technology, there may not be any native terms to define it, so they might take the foreign word and massage it so it is easier to pronounce.  On the other hand in Brazil e-mail is "email" and pronounced as such in Portuguese, though there is no word "mail" in the language; correos is there word for postage letters, but no one says

"e-correos."   Why they picked up the word "informatica" instead of "computer" I don't know.

 

But catching the Thais turn a 1-syllable word into 3, that's good catch.

 

 

[Oxx]

42 minutes ago, bendejo said:

Monosyllabic language, in a country where it seems most people's names have at least eight syllables.  

 

Stupid comment.  The individuals with very long family names are from Chinese heritage - not Thai.  (Well, apart from royalty.)

 

The long family names are simply translations of their original Chinese family names.

[nebuer]

8 hours ago, tgeezer said:

That there appears to be many more single syllable words in Thai and that one can manage quite well without two, or more, syllable words is where we are now. How true is that I wonder.
สาร for example. weave is what we find in the dictionary but when not used for making things ประสาน but if you said สานมือ > weave hands, it would do as well it seems to me.
I bet this could be done with any language because there are really very few things which must be said when context and body language are included in the conversation.
Linguists will be able to shoot my ‘kitchen grammar’ to hell I hope, but please try to avoid obscure words like morpheme.




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This doesn't work because สาน refers specifically to the act of crafting, and not the verb we would think of in English to "weave something in and out". The definition in Thai makes this more clear. Need to be careful using translations. ประสาน is a distinct word meaning to bring something together. ประสานงาน / ประสานมือ / ประสานรอยแตก

 

In terms of "application", I think which version of a word used would come down to the level of formality you're speaking at. You're more likely to hear แอปพลิเคชัน in the news or a speech, and แอป (pronounced แอ๊พ, short vowel, high tone) in an informal youtube video. Both are used.

 

I think it's pretty clear Thai isn't a monosyllabic language.. being that there are plenty of multi-syllabic words used, with components that have no meaning outside of the word. There's just a trend in making words short and easy to say, especially in informal language

Edited January 26, 2019 by nebuer

[tgeezer]

No this cannot be done with any language. 
Are there languages except English or Thai that you are familiar with? 
 
I give you some examples from Spanish:
"Hasta" cannot be parsed into 2 meaningful syllables, you have to use the whole bunch of 2 syllables 
Same for "reloj", "pared" and many, many more. 
The same applies for all Romance languages (i didn't use the english word "office" because it is derived from French) like French and Italian, but also for Slavonic languages like Russian and Serbocroatic and Germanic languages like German and Swedish. (Within all these indogermanic languages,  English is an exception as it has so many meaningful particles of just one syllable, e.g. all those 4-letter words).
Japanese is another good example. 
 
Now take for example Chinese. Every Chinese character is a syllable,  and almost every character/syllable has a meaning. The famous exception being "húdié"蝴蝶 the butterfly  (hú蝴 has no meaning,  dié蝶 has no meaning),  but that is one exception out of tens of thousands of meaningful units in Chinese. 
That's why some people call Chinese monosyllabic. 
 
In this respect,  Thai is a bit similar to Chinese. 
 
 

I don’t want to get into a points scoring situation, I did say I bet which in my parlance means that I am prepared to lose. I apologise for encroaching into academia.
I did say, in conversation with body language.
I looked up your word and apparently it means until, well that is not a fundamental word. To show until you simply state a future fact; I will be here at five/six/ tomorrow there is no need to use the word until at all. I am talking about language at its most basic, ไป มา ขึ้น ลง บน หน้า หลัง etc.
I know that languages have “just growed”.


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[tgeezer]

 
This doesn't work because สาน refers specifically to the act of crafting, and not the verb we would think of in English to "weave something in and out". The definition in Thai makes this more clear. Need to be careful using translations. ประสาน is a distinct word meaning to bring something together. ประสานงาน / ประสานมือ / ประสานรอยแตก
 
In terms of "application", I think which version of a word used would come down to the level of formality you're speaking at. You're more likely to hear แอปพลิเคชัน in the news or a speech, and แอป (pronounced แอ๊พ, short vowel, high tone) in an informal youtube video. Both are used.
 
I think it's pretty clear Thai isn't a monosyllabic language.. being that there are plenty of multi-syllabic words used, with components that have no meaning outside of the word. There's just a trend in making words short and easy to say, especially in informal language

I think that you must be looking up the wrong word,
the products of สาน are เสื่อ กระบุง กระจาด I think of those as woven.
I agree, both สาน ประสาน involve bringing things together which is why I say at the very basic level you could use either and see if you were understood.

To illustrate my point do you remember Tony Blair and ‘joined up government’ dumbing down ‘coordinated’ .
Whether Thai is mono syllabic or not is only worth mentioning if it makes Thai less daunting for learners. It must be true that compared with non tonal and and single vowel length languages Thai has a greater number of monosyllabic words.


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[Maestro]

On 1/24/2019 at 3:27 AM, DogNo1 said:

Of course, I assume that Westernerses know that before the advent of small devices, what we now call apps were known as programs

I knew them by the full name of "application programs" in the early days of the personal computer. Today, I see applications as programs for computers and apps as programs for smartphones and tablets.

[Percy Penguin]

This page has an interesting discussion of syllable stress in Thai.