เจ้ากรรมนายเวร Spiritual Creditor

[JHicks]

2 hours ago, tgeezer said:

This is an interesting topic. When I first set out to explain the problem of ไม้ needing ไม้โท when we were taught that ไ is a short vowel I thought that I had to fudge it but as I wrote I saw that it was logical as I think you will agree.  

 

It's a vowel symbol that usually has a short sound, so I see where they were going with that (but also why it would be confusing). I think the confusion stems from:

 

1. Implying that what makes a syllable like แตะ dead is the duration of the vowel, when it is the fact that the vowel is terminated by a glottal stop,

 

2. Not differentiating between vowel symbols and vowel sounds.

 

ไ is the same as อัย, which makes it a vowel plus a final consonant (as discussed above, it's phonetically a semiconsonant, and could potentially be treated either as a vowel or a consonant, but it so happens that in the Thai sound system it is treated as a consonant). The glottal stop that cuts off short vowels is for syllables with no final consonant, so doesn't apply to ไ. That means that it will always be live, no matter how short you make it.

 

The fact that ไ incorporates a final consonant means that it is a vowel only in the sense that it is written with a vowel symbol (like อำ). It is not a vowel in the sense of being entirely made up of vowel sounds... so I agree that the analogy you originally made with อำ is important, but I don't think it has much to do with duration.

 

2 hours ago, tgeezer said:

When I first learnt, I was told that there were six endings k,p,t,m,n,g and it wasn't until I started reading Thai that I learned that there are three more แม่ก.กา , แม่เกอว, แม่เกย so the real answer to your question is ย is not in the family of แม่ กน is because...

 

Something seems to have gone wrong with this list. I think you mean ng at the end of the English list, but then there are only two more. I also don't understand why anyone would think that ย was in แม่กน, i.e. the set of consonants that are pronounced /n/ in final position.

 

2 hours ago, tgeezer said:

it belongs to แม่เกย  in fact the only child! 

 

Yes exactly. The fact that it has a แม่ shows you that it is treated in traditional Thai grammar as a consonant ending. Traditional English grammar has been fairly well blown apart, so you can't always assume that what generations of kids have been taught is right, but what I've been saying is within the sound system / phonology of this particular language, final /y/ is much better seen as a consonant ending than part of a vowel sound. This was in response to your original comment that it was part of the vowel, but I've now seen your edit. I agree that ย is not a final consonant in เอีย. If it was then the final sound would have to be /y/, and you would be able to have e.g. เอีก. The three elements make up one vowel symbol.

 

2 hours ago, tgeezer said:

It doesn't come naturally to a native Thai speaker to say "line" because the ending comes before the closing consonant. Out is unnatural for similar reasons, แม่กด is not แม่ดา . Thais have to learn only that they must say dead endings live and they have no trouble.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "the ending comes before the closing consonant". If you mean that it has two final consonants, so is already supposed to have ended by the time you get to the second, that's what I've been saying. I don't think it matters whether they're live or dead endings - any combination is a final cluster and the sound system just doesn't accommodate final clusters.

[tgeezer]

JHicks: I am afraid that I have none of the tech. terms  that you have because I haven’t studied English books. I think that we agree because  you say that you don’t understand then put it in your own words! To me คำตาย means just that, I may be enunciating a glottal stop but I don’t see it in those terms. 
 

I have just looked out a schoolbook หลักภาษาไทย to see if I can find glottal stop explained. . I haven’t found that but I was surprised to find คำเป็น and คำตาย explained, they have listed อำ ไ ใ เอา as คำเป็น, obviously the readers are not expected to be able to work it out! 
 

[Farang123]

I have personal experience of karma as well so I know that without a doubt it is true.  This knowledge is very beneficial as you will be determined to do many good deeds in this life to ensure a good future.

 

Best luck to everyone...

 

[JHicks]

7 hours ago, tgeezer said:

JHicks: I am afraid that I have none of the tech. terms  that you have because I haven’t studied English books. I think that we agree because  you say that you don’t understand then put it in your own words! To me คำตาย means just that, I may be enunciating a glottal stop but I don’t see it in those terms. 
 

I have just looked out a schoolbook หลักภาษาไทย to see if I can find glottal stop explained. . I haven’t found that but I was surprised to find คำเป็น and คำตาย explained, they have listed อำ ไ ใ เอา as คำเป็น, obviously the readers are not expected to be able to work it out! 
 

 

A stop is anything that blocks the airflow through the mouth and nose. * You can create the blockage with the lips (p), the tongue (t, k) or by pressing the vocal cords together so that no air can get through (a glottal stop). If you say butter cockney style, like ba'uh, the bit in the middle is a glottal stop.

 

If you can keep a sound going, as in ammmmmmm, aayyyyyyyyyyyy, oowwwwwwww, that's a sure sign it's not a stop.

 

Stops can be voiced or unvoiced and aspirated or unaspirated, but in Thai, only the unvoiced unaspirated type is allowed at the end of a syllable.

 

Everything that ends in a stop is a dead syllable. Everything else is a live syllable.

 

Where a short vowel has no final consonant it is cut off by a glottal stop instead. ** That's why a short vowel with no final consonant is a dead syllable. ไ has a final consonant built in, so this rule does not apply.

 

* On some definitions it's just the airflow through the mouth that counts, and it doesn't matter if the nose is still open. You can define the term either way but the first way works better for Thai.

 

** The glottal stop may be deleted in speech but it is still there "underneath" or "in principle". Different claims have been made about what happens to the tones in this situation.

[tgeezer]

16 hours ago, Neeranam said:

 

Regarding Anonymous, I would offer  ไม่ระบุชื่อ as authour unknown. 

 

ไทย is an intersting word.  I've heard some foreigners say that ผัดไทย means "fried freedom"  ???? when it obviously(well to me as I used to teach Thai history at high school) means noodles of the people. ไท means คน, in the past  Paw Piboonsongkhram invented Phad Tai ผัดไท in 1932 when Nationalism/Protectionism were rampant, especially among some of his cronies in Europe. It was to encourage Thais to not eat Chinese noodles, in an act of Deglobalisation, similar to Hitler and the car of the people, Volkswagen. many Pad Thai stall do omit the ย.

I see a verb, กลุมผู้ติดสุรานิรนาม Alcoholics who do not reveal their name.  That works. 
I didn't know that that dictator promoted Thainess with ผัดไทย .  I see it as Thai fry up! I suppose that there was a ผัดจีน . There is a very good museum dedicated to Rama 7th and his wife near Sanam Luang. I learned that he came to England after he was reinstated as monarch in the thirties claiming that the government that replaced him was worse than absolute monarchy.   But isn't that the stuff of revolutions,  "The working class can kiss my ass I've got the boss's job at last." ...but I digress. 
 

I asked about นิรนาม this morning and my mate said that when he encountered Anon. in literature, he thought, how lovely, a Thai author.  Thai version would be กวีนิรนาม ผู้เขียนนิรนาม which I maintain wouldn't be used without the word anonymous, in the nature of Thai an explanation is required ไม่รู้ที่มา . 

[tgeezer]

JHicks: As I said, we agree but explain differently,.   My Cockney favourite glottal stop is  "What?"  which when criticized by a parent  ," Don't say what" leaves the kid unsure whether the fault is in diction (wha')or grammar.  I am from the Isle of Wight, our speech was influenced by Cockney visitors of whom there were many in the fifties. 
 

If you want to understand my point of view you need to know that Thai books don't explain as you do.  I have re discovered a book หลักภาษาไทย and see how the production of vowels is dealt with. Incidentally, I see that all vowels are ก้อง , vibrating vocal chords, which may be useful to new learners reading my posts. 
On vowels the book says สระเสียงสั้น (รัสสระ)สระเสียงยาว (ทีฆสระ) .   No special thing to be done to produce a short vowel, How do you stop a vowel cut off with a glottal stop becoming a แม่กก ending?  
a,e,i,o,u,  we are told in English.  Do you see "i" as ไอ ? Is the "open i"  not a diphthong to some degree?  I see ไ more so than "i" . 

 

[JHicks]

3 hours ago, tgeezer said:

How do you stop a vowel cut off with a glottal stop becoming a แม่กก ending?

 

It's not in danger of becoming a final ก sound - just doesn't sound similar. Final glottal stops are probably easiest to hear when a word is pronounced in isolation (as I say, they're often deleted in connected speech). There's an example on the link here.

 

3 hours ago, tgeezer said:

Do you see "i" as ไอ ? Is the "open i"  not a diphthong to some degree?  I see ไ more so than "i" . 

 

They're phonetically similar, for sure. I'd say there are some differences in the exact start and end points, but they're fairly minor. The Thai version tends to dwell on the first sound and then quickly switch to the second ,whereas the English one tends to blend the whole thing together. That's probably why you don't get the same impression of two distinct sounds that you often get with ไ. Overall, still very similar sounds.

 

That said, if you call something a diphthong you are saying it consists of two vowels, whereas for all the reasons we've discussed, the ย that it built into ไ is better seen as a consonant ending than as a vowel - so I wouldn't call ไ a diphthong, but this isn't due to the way it sounds so much as the way it functions. A true diphthong like เอือ can be followed by a final consonant like any other vowel, whereas ไ can't (because it's already got one). The English sound is normally regarded as a diphthong (IPA is /aɪ/, so two vowel sounds) and sure enough it acts like a vowel.

[KhaoNiaw]

On 12/15/2020 at 7:54 PM, tgeezer said:

True, but are you making an interpretation? Anonymous means of unknown name, the reason is not the definition. Anon on a book means that the reader doesn't know his/her name.  The name on the clinic is not in the role of an adjective.  The name says that attendees will be คนนิรนาม.  People see it as you do probably because นิรนาม used as an adjective has been used for many years in the translation of Alcoholics Anonymous. กลุ่มติดสุรานิรนาม .  

My interpretation of คนนิรานาม always starts with the Carabao song. Something along the lines of nameless, faceless, one of the masses. But as a fan of spaghetti westerns and Clint Eastwood, I've also come across คาวบอยนิรนาม and มือปืนนิรนาม in Thai movie discussions. 

[tgeezer]

Neeranam :  I think that I understand เจ่ากรรมนายเวร now. I have one observation, เจ้ากรรม is the spirit of some one whom we have wronged so thus must be dead.  You translate "เราเองอาจจะเป็น..." as "You are also.... " I would say "we can also become a เจ้ากรรม.. ourselves..."  People who hurt us in this life risk us becoming a เจ้ากรรม of theirs after we die. 

 

Does this belief explain the extraordinary attendance at village funerals do you think?   

[tgeezer]

JHicks: Two topics running together here.  
In re reading หลักภาษาไทย 
Did you see that the textbook says that all สระ are เสียงก้อง?  I made a point of it.

Later in ลักษณะของเสียงพยัญชนะ  item 2. มีทั้งเสียงก้อและไม่ก้อง item 3. พยัญชนะไม่สามารถออกเสียงตามลำพังได้ ต้องอาศัยเสียงสระช่วย จึงจะสามารถออกเสียงได้ เช่นใช้ สระ ออ ออกเสียง กอ ขอ คอ งอ 

 

How does this compare with your understanding of the character of Thai? 

 

[JHicks]

Well, vowels are normally voiced unless you're whispering. There are some languages where they can be devoiced in specific contexts but the basic form of the vowel is still voiced. It's not totally clear whether there are any languages where the basic form is unvoiced. The linguists Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddison say (in "Sounds of the World's Languages") that some Amer-Indian languages "appear" to have this kind of vowel, and that in other languages the status of unvoiced vowels (i.e. whether they are just variants or vowels in their own right) is "problematic". In the specific case of Thai, the ends of vowels are quite often devoiced (think of ปะ, for example) but I'm not sure whether the devoicing ever covers the whole thing, and anyway it's clear that all the vowels are voiced in their basic / citation form. I think what the book says is fair enough.

 

On point 3, it depends what you think they mean. You can say "mmmmmmmmm", for example, but if they mean that a Thai syllable cannot consist of a consonant by itself, that seems fair enough and I can't think of any exceptions. In principle you can have a "syllabic consonant", but I'm fairly sure there aren't any in Thai.

 

Are you raising this in relation to live / dead endings? What do you think of the ending /s/ that is now relatively common in loanwords? Live or dead? If dead, is it still best to define dead endings and let live endings be "everything else"?

 

[tgeezer]

On 12/13/2020 at 11:53 AM, Neeranam said:

I forgot to add this. 

 

 

JHicks.  The book has a similar chart,( thanks Neeranam,) in Thai but with every consonant so I can compare terms.  
 

I was wondering only about the apparent contradiction. A Bee Cee Dee Eee eeF is a little more confusing and I learnt that so, that Thai needs ออ is a breeze. 
I see what you mean by ปะ the consonant takes precedence.  I think that I knew it I just wondered if you had a better way of explaining but perhaps it doesn't need explaining so much as need demonstrating.  On point 3 that is quite amusing but be fair, to say an initial consonant in any language you must open your mouth!  I bet that Is a "sweeping"  statement which you can prove to be wrong. 

 No I am not talking about endings because พยัญชนะ as endings are ตัวสะกด .  Actually so is "mmmmmmmm" is it not? 
 

 

[tgeezer]

8 hours ago, tgeezer said:

Neeranam :  I think that I understand เจ่ากรรมนายเวร now. I have one observation, เจ้ากรรม is the spirit of some one whom we have wronged so thus must be dead.  You translate "เราเองอาจจะเป็น..." as "You are also.... " I would say "we can also become a เจ้ากรรม.. ourselves..."  People who hurt us in this life risk us becoming a เจ้ากรรม of theirs after we die. 

 

Does this belief explain the extraordinary attendance at village funerals do you think?   

Addendum:

 I am not so sure thatI do understand เจ้ากรรมนายเวร now! อาจจะเป็น perhaps should read "might be".  In my experience when something goes awry people say กรรม meaning เจ้ากรรม did it, not a person but punishment for some hurt done.  Dogs are dogs because of their bad behaviour in a previous life, they probably think เจ้ากรรมนายเวร was responsible.  Not hurting a dog shows that we believe that he is being punished enough and needs to live to be deserving of a reincarnation as a human being. 
Farang 123 is interested in this and one other I think, perhaps they can provide some insight. 

[JHicks]

11 hours ago, tgeezer said:

I was wondering only about the apparent contradiction.

I'm not seeing one. Do you mean that if a vowel is followed by a glottal stop then, because the glottal stop is unvoiced, the vowel itself must be unvoiced? Why should that be?

 

It didn't occur to me that it might be controversial to say that, in principle, a short vowel with no final is followed by a glottal stop, but that the glottal stop is sometimes deleted. If I need support for that there is the example from forvo I have already linked to, and A Reference Grammar of Thai says:

 

Glottal stop occurrence is largely predictable; (i) it appears when no initial consonant is present ...  and (ii) when no final consonant appears after a short vowel ... The glottal stop is deleted when a short vowel with no final consonant appears as the first element of a compound word. This is often accompanied by a neutralization of tone especially when the original tone is low ... Tone neutralization sometimes does not occur on a high-tone syllable after glottal stop deletion... Also, glottal stop deletion and tone neutralization do not occur on reduplicated words.

 

11 hours ago, tgeezer said:

No I am not talking about endings because พยัญชนะ as endings are ตัวสะกด .  Actually so is "mmmmmmmm" is it not?

 

Sure but is the /s/ ending live or dead? As long all dead syllables end in stops and all syllables ending in stops are dead, it's easiest to define dead syllables and let live syllables be "the rest". That works for traditional Thai words but there's been a change in the approach to loanwords. There are loads of old loanwords ending with ส/ศ/ษ but of course the pronunciation is /t/. With the more recent English loanwords, the pronunciation is often /s/. /s/ is not a stop (the whole reason it used to be converted to /t/ was to make it into a stop) so if it is dead, that tells us something about what really makes a syllable dead.

[tgeezer]

I am afraid that I confused this topic with ตักบาทรอย่าถามพระ then asked how to spell Niranam' which has culminating in us talking about phonetics.   The topic as far as I am concerned is one of comprehension.  I am not complaining JHicks, you have helped me in comparing the Thai terms with the English and I see now that the science of phonetics (สัทศาสตร์ ) is common to all languages.  Referring to a previous post where I mentioned the criticism of my ต เต่า I see that I wasn't identifying the problem, in English terms ด is voiced (ก้อง)  whereas ต is not (ไม่ก้อง) 

I still see no mention of glottal stops in the Thai but if I produce one in making a short vowel so be it.