The Most Flexible Letter

[sutnyod]

Hi,

just for starters: I have never formally learned Thai, hence my question: what is the reason the letter "r" (ro) is so flexible? I mean historically? It can be pronounced an "r", "n", "t", "s"? Why? And why the "r" only? No other letter in the Thai alphabet behaves like this one. Has any of you learned about this?

Thanks

s.

[meadish_sweetball]

I've been trying to rack my brains for examples where ร is pronounced /s/ or /t/ but only draw blanks.

Which words are you thinking of?

[withnail]

Do you mean the ทร cluster as in ทราบ ? I'm not sure that really counts. /t/ I can't think what you mean.

[Torv]

You're going to have to give us an example, op. I'm drawing a blank too.

The only time that "r" or "ร" sounds differently is when it combines with other letters.

[tgeezer]

Hi,

just for starters: I have never formally learned Thai, hence my question: what is the reason the letter "r" (ro) is so flexible? I mean historically? It can be pronounced an "r", "n", "t", "s"? Why? And why the "r" only? No other letter in the Thai alphabet behaves like this one. Has any of you learned about this?

Thanks

s.

'r' at the beginning 'n' as an ending And as the vowel 'อะ' when two are put together 'กรร' read 'กัน' that is it as far as I know.

[sutnyod]

Yes, it depends on whether it is used at the start of a word or at the end. Or in the middle alone or with other letters.

And why isn't it transliterated? We write "Suvarnabhumi", but then not Udor (for Udorn). Or Mahanakor. And then when two "r"s are together it's either "an" or "am" depending on the following consonant.

Why? I mean I am darn happy that we only have this one letter that refuses to behave properly, but why the "r"? I am really interested in the reasons for that. Did anyone of you learn WHY?

[mangkorn]

The "ror reua" is not the only letter with similar characteristics. Many Thai letters change in pronunciation when they come at the end of the syllable. Check it out, and you'll see.

That's why we suffer the abomination Sawasdee - because that hideous transcription negates the essential rule that "sor seua" is pronounced like a "t" at the end of a syllable, not an "s".

But the "ror reua" does have some special characteristics, due to its use in words derived from Khmer and Sanskrit.

When you see what looks like a "double r" that is pronounced as "ahn" (or "ahm" if followed by the "mor mai" - that construction is a representation of some Khmer words.

The "rn" sound of a few words with "ror reua" at the end of a syllable is a representation of Sanskrit (e.g., "Mahanakorn").

Studying Thai is great loads of fun. You should try it - being in Thailand, and all...

[Richard W]

When you see what looks like a "double r" that is pronounced as "ahn" (or "ahm" if followed by the "mor mai" - that construction is a representation of some Khmer words.

Please give me an example of ro han (รร) being pronounced "ahm". I presume you are not referring to words like ธรรม [M]tham.

I have heard an interesting explanation of the primary origin of ro han. Where Sanskrit has /r/ plus a consonant, Pali has a double consonant. Now, before these double consonants, the implicit vowel retained its pronunciation of /a/, rather than becoming /o/ as in most closed syllables. The convention thus arose that a double consonant indicated that the immediately preceding implicit vowel was pronounced /a/, not /o/. The next step is the Sanskritisation of loan words from Pali. Where Sanskrit had an /r/, Thai spelling has tended to restore the ร. The doubling convention was then, in Thai at least, applied to the silent ร.

Now Khmer has some very clear doublets with Sanskrit and Pali spellings, e.g. for ธรรม. The Sanskit-based form, transliterating the vowels etymologically, was pronounced /thar/, with the ม being silent, while the Pali-based form is pronounced /tham/, written with double ม. Thai has a few doublets like this, e.g. พรรค์ [M]phan and พรรค [H]phak.

The "rn" sound of a few words with "ror reua" at the end of a syllable is a representation of Sanskrit (e.g., "Mahanakorn").

What do you mean by a "rn" sound? Is it the same as /n/, or do you mean something more complex, e.g. a modification fo the vowel?

[tgeezer]

Yes, it depends on whether it is used at the start of a word or at the end. Or in the middle alone or with other letters.

And why isn't it transliterated? We write "Suvarnabhumi", but then not Udor (for Udorn). Or Mahanakor. And then when two "r"s are together it's either "an" or "am" depending on the following consonant.

Why? I mean I am darn happy that we only have this one letter that refuses to behave properly, but why the "r"? I am really interested in the reasons for that. Did anyone of you learn WHY?

The special case of 'ร' ending in Udorn, Nakorn, etc is that it means the sara, referred to as 'dtua Or' has been removed, it is read as ' กอน' The case of 'กรรม' being gam. or gama... is weird I haven't read an explanation of that but have had no trouble just reading it as 'a'. If you are interested enough this is easier to understand in Thai and is in basic primary school books. All the vowels have names and the one we all know 'myhanagaat' is not one, it replaces the vowel 'siwisanchani' used when the sylable is closed. กะ กัน You can learn all this stuff knowing that you are going to forget it all, just as most non- teaching Thais have, same as English grammer. The spelling of replacement as replakment for instance.

[mangkorn]

The "rn" sound of a few words with "ror reua" at the end of a syllable is a representation of Sanskrit (e.g., "Mahanakorn").

What do you mean by a "rn" sound? Is it the same as /n/, or do you mean something more complex, e.g. a modification fo the vowel?

I meant what some people think of as an "rn" sound, and often transliterate that way. I don't; personally, I don't see how it can be represented by anything other than "awn" - exactly as in the English words "lawn" or "sawn" - but then maybe I'm the only one. So I was just trying to go with what others may use in their thinking/transcriptions.

Alas, the eternal problem of romanizing Thai. It is beyond my comprehension why Udon and Ubon are romanized the way they are - being completely different pronunctiations...

The main point was that "ror reua" is only one of several Thai consonants which change in pronuncation at the end of a syllable.

[Rikker]

The form รร = /an/ is a leftover from an archaic spelling rule. Historically, many (all?) of the consonants could be doubled to produce a sequence of /a/ plus that consonant's sound.

For example, อัน in old texts = อนน, ยงง = ยัง (although this would have been written ญงง in very old texts), etc. Just like รร is called "ร หัน" nowadays, นน was called "น หัน", etc. It is theorized that the ไม้หันอากาศ comes from the number 2 (just like the ไม้โท symbol), as an abbreviation for two of that letter. I can't vouch for the validity of that theory, I've just read it.

Hopefully that helps explain this odd spelling rule in modern Thai.

[Joel Barlow]

Jeez - and I thought they were just trying to mimic "high class" Brits and John Kennedy...

great stuff guys - what a step up for TV!

I wonder how kids learn this stuff. Books seem to skip from beginning to advanced!

[mangkorn]

Khun Rikker is the goods.

He is a formidable student of the language, and everyone should check out his blog:

http://rikker.blogspot.com

Ye shall be happy that ye did.

จริง ๆ ซิ

[Richard W]

The "rn" sound of a few words with "ror reua" at the end of a syllable is a representation of Sanskrit (e.g., "Mahanakorn").

What do you mean by a "rn" sound? Is it the same as /n/, or do you mean something more complex, e.g. a modification fo the vowel?

I meant what some people think of as an "rn" sound, and often transliterate that way. I don't; personally, I don't see how it can be represented by anything other than "awn" - exactly as in the English words "lawn" or "sawn" - but then maybe I'm the only one. So I was just trying to go with what others may use in their thinking/transcriptions.

For those brought up with British pronunciation (I'm not sure of its extent in the USA, but it exists there regionally), it's an elegant solution to the inadequacy of the RTGS. If there's a ร in the spelling, either sounded sounded /n/ or silenced, e.g. สามารถ [M]sa [F]maat Samart, use an 'r' to indicate that the vowel is what the little-used forum scheme (building on the RTGS) represents as "aa" or "aw".

It is theorized that the ไม้หันอากาศ comes from the number 2 (just like the ไม้โท symbol), as an abbreviation for two of that letter. I can't vouch for the validity of that theory, I've just read it.

It doesn't much make sense to me. The original Sukhothai systems used a single vertical stroke for mai ek and a cross (i.e. two strokes) for mai tho. (This system is supposed to predate the tone splits, so there was none of the modern complexity of low, mid and high consonants, and no need for mai tri, mai chattawa or even *mai pan/ben.) The claim may be inspired by the fact that many Northern writing styles, especially in the Lanna script, do not distinguish mai tho and mai hanakat.

I'm more inclined to see mai hanakat as a variant of sara a for placing above the consonant. In Lao mai hanakat not only represents /a/ in syllables not ending in a glottal stop, but also serves to shorten vowels in closed vowels, whereas Thai uses maitaikhu. In the Lanna script, the mai hanakat symbol (generally known as mai sat) serves the three roles of vowel letter (= Thai mai hanakat), vowel shortener (role of maitaikhu - but this might be a recent borrowing from Lao) and final /k/. The Lanna equivalent of sara a is also reported to also represent final /k/, and I suspect this arose from a dialect in which final /k/ and glottal stop were not distinguished (cf. Khmer and Malay).

[Rikker]

That makes a lot of sense, Richard. I can't, now, for the life of me remember where I read that theory. The connection with ะ is much stronger, no?