Thais Making English Words Their Own

[wilko]

Good point - it is probably the LACK of English in Thai that is notable....

[mangkorn]

All used in Thai day to day........

gig ...

The word "gig" (or "gik") does not come from English.

it comes directly from the Thai vernacular กุ๊กกิ๊ก

๋The idiom may also be expressed in the longer form กุ๊กกิ๊กจู๋จี๋

Cheers.

[Rikker]

Nice call, mangkorn, dispelling the myth of "gig" กิ๊ก having anything to do with English.

I'll follow up by pointing out that ฝรั่ง isn't from "French"--another common misconception. Search the forum here for oodles of detailed discussion. The short version is: it comes ultimately from the word for the Franks, but by way of Persian, if I recall correctly. Too lazy to dig up this debate again.

[mangkorn]

All used in Thai day to day.....

Teewee

Batturlee battery

samart = smart

technologeee

and "same, same"...

Teewee - this makes sense, because it was invented by farangs

Batturlee battery - (same as above)

Technologeee - (same as above)

Same, same - this is never spoken by Thai people to other Thai people; only to farangs

Samart - when Thais say "samart," they are using the Thai word meaning: "to be able" - not the English word "smart"; if otherwise, it is only said to farangs, but not to other Thai people

[aanon]

Samart - when Thais say "samart," they are using the Thai word meaning: "to be able" - not the English word "smart"; if otherwise, it is only said to farangs, but not to other Thai people

hey mangkorn,

agreed on the original thai word 'to be able', but thais can be heard using the english-derived 'sa-mart', as in 'ชุดนี้ดูsmartจัง' (that outfit looks really smart).

all the best.

[mangkorn]

Samart - when Thais say "samart," they are using the Thai word meaning: "to be able" - not the English word "smart"; if otherwise, it is only said to farangs, but not to other Thai people

hey mangkorn,

agreed on the original thai word 'to be able', but thais can be heard using the english-derived 'sa-mart', as in 'ชุดนี้ดูsmartจัง' (that outfit looks really smart).

all the best.

Right you are, aanon - in the sense of "smart-looking, elegant, handsome, etc."

But not in the meaning of "intelligent."

Cheers.

[Rikker]

ฟุตบาท (foot-baht) - ทางเดินเท้า, บาทวิถี. n. foot-part.

Next time please make sure that your girlfriend speak Thai to you, not English before criticising her poor English accent.

For appleman's post.

This is an interesting one. I've done my homework as best I can, and I believe that this is indeed a loanword from English "footpath". This is based on the the presence of the alternate spelling ฟุตปาธ. The Thai-ism บาทวิถี appears to be a syllable-for-syllable calque of "footpath" (keeping Indic modifier+noun order), and ทางเดินเท้า is the native Thai version of that with Thai word order noun+modifier. So my theory is that ฟุตปาธ came first, but the phonological similarity of ปาธ and บาท, combined with the semantic association of ฟุต (foot) and บาท (foot), in addition to influence from the calque บาทวิถี, led to the genesis of the variant ฟุตบาท, and it has grown from there to become the more common of the two forms. Just my theory.

[mangkorn]

ฟุตบาท (foot-baht) - ทางเดินเท้า, บาทวิถี. n. foot-part.

Next time please make sure that your girlfriend speak Thai to you, not English before criticising her poor English accent.

For appleman's post.

This is an interesting one. I've done my homework as best I can, and I believe that this is indeed a loanword from English "footpath". This is based on the the presence of the alternate spelling ฟุตปาธ. The Thai-ism บาทวิถี appears to be a syllable-for-syllable calque of "footpath" (keeping Indic modifier+noun order), and ทางเดินเท้า is the native Thai version of that with Thai word order noun+modifier. So my theory is that ฟุตปาธ came first, but the phonological similarity of ปาธ and บาท, combined with the semantic association of ฟุต (foot) and บาท (foot), in addition to influence from the calque บาทวิถี, led to the genesis of the variant ฟุตบาท, and it has grown from there to become the more common of the two forms. Just my theory.

If that's true, could the dual-combo of ฟุต (foot) and บาท (foot) be something akin to the neologistic combination of เช็คบิล (chek-bin; check-bill)?

[mangkorn]

Nice call, mangkorn, dispelling the myth of "gig" กิ๊ก having anything to do with English.

Actually, I learned that here, from a post by yoot on another thread awhile back.

More precisely, I learned จู๋จี๋ - which fascinated me - and so I decided to check into it a bit further, and that ultimately led me to กุ๊กกิ๊ก

Such a great resource this forum is. Thanks to all.

[wilko]

All used in Thai day to day........

gig ...

The word "gig" (or "gik") does not come from English.

it comes directly from the Thai vernacular กุ๊กกิ๊ก

๋The idiom may also be expressed in the longer form กุ๊กกิ๊กจู๋จี๋

Cheers.

Most Thais - (100%) - I speak to at work seem to disagree with the "lovely" theory.

And the Frank theory is based on the same origin of the word "francais" -

When trying to extablish the origins of a word you have to try and find out when it was first written or recorded in that language amongst other things and this is where the Frank doesn't pan out = allegedly.

[mangkorn]

All used in Thai day to day........

gig ...

The word "gig" (or "gik") does not come from English.

it comes directly from the Thai vernacular กุ๊กกิ๊ก

๋The idiom may also be expressed in the longer form กุ๊กกิ๊กจู๋จี๋

Cheers.

Most Thais - (100%) - I speak to at work seem to disagree with the "lovely" theory.

And the Frank theory is based on the same origin of the word "francais" -

When trying to extablish the origins of a word you have to try and find out when it was first written or recorded in that language amongst other things and this is where the Frank doesn't pan out = allegedly.

What is the "lovely" theory?

[tgeezer]

All used in Thai day to day........

gig ...

The word "gig" (or "gik") does not come from English.

it comes directly from the Thai vernacular กุ๊กกิ๊ก

๋The idiom may also be expressed in the longer form กุ๊กกิ๊กจู๋จี๋

Cheers.

At risk of 'rolling a boulder' over another thread; if by 'gig' I must guess that you mean the pop-group engagement, it definitely was not defined in the English dictionary other than as a 'one horse carriage' and 'rowing boat' until long after I left school, so should be very easy to surmise whether the Thais adopted it. First useage is easily gainsaid so written proof is needed, I use the dictionary where the work has been done for me. It would be understandable that, on hearing that a foreign 'pop music group' is having a 'gig' might have thought that he was hearing กิ๊ก; the sound of things knocking together a feature of all music, and that it was not borrowed at all. กิ๊ก is a slang word for friend who is more than casual, a middle aged freind has told me, that could be out of date by now. Sorry if I sound like I have a degree in 'stating the obvious' and 'no' I don't expect a reply.

[BFD]

Hopefully this topic isn't still something that gets tempers flaring.

I pretty much melt every time I hear a certain girl say 'broccoli'. Call me ethnocentric or insensitive to the plight of ESLers everywhere, but it's just dam_n cute!

And yes, I have a sense of humour about my own ineptitude in the language. I'm making pitifully slow progress, but it's fun!

BFD!