เงิน And เดิน Different Vowel Length?

[kriswillems]

I just spent a while looking around on www.thai-language.com and I think it recently improved a lot, although many articles might be a bit overwhelming for beginners now. I saw that Glen got some inspiration from some people on this forum.

Anyway

http://www.thai-language.com/ref/vowels

tells that the word เงิน has a short vowel while the same vowel in เดิน is long.

My question is simple.

Why?

And are there other examples where เ-ิ- is short?

[Rikker]

For some reason the ones that come to my mind right now are from foreign languages: เบิ้ล (as in double), เปิ้ล (as in apple), เฉินหลง (Jackie Chan), etc.

As for why.. well because.

There are lots of "hidden" short vowels like this, though. Often it goes along with certain tones (I've noticed it a lot with falling tones, but I haven't done any systematic checking).

เปลี่ยนเลน 'lane' like a traffic lane = long vowel /leen/

เล่น 'play' = short vowel /len/

ทอง 'gold' = long vowel

ทอม 'tomboy/butch lesbian' = short vowel

กระท่อม 'shack/cottage' = short vowel

(รามคำ)แหง 'Ramkhamhaeng' = long vowel

แห่ง 'place' = short vowel

ทาน 'eat' = long vowel

ท่าน polite pronoun = short vowel

etc. etc.

[kriswillems]

Thanks Rikker.

You gave a few examples that I didn't know. I only knew mai eek and the vowel shortener -็ can't be combined, causing some words to have a short vowel instead of a long vowel.

[Richard W]

For some reason the ones that come to my mind right now are from foreign languages: เบิ้ล (as in double), เปิ้ล (as in apple), เฉินหลง (Jackie Chan), etc.

As for why.. well because.

It's all down to Khmer, isn't it?

The oe vowel sound is limited to loanwords, generally restricted to the languages closely related to Thai. Words this vowel seem to have been mostly borrowed from Mon-Khmer languages. Now, in Khmer, the vowel seems not to have anciently had a corresponding short vowel. (The series 2 vowels are the best ones to consider, becuase they seem to be more conservative.) Thus, the reason seems to go back to Mon-Khmer phonology.

เงิน seems to be an intra-Tai loan, ultimately from Chinese. Li seems not to reconstruct a Proto-Tai from for it, for there are many discrepancies in the vowel. It may well have be borrowed from a dialect where short ue had become short oe.

[Rikker]

Thanks for that, Richard. I didn't know the สระเออ-Khmer connection, other than to know that certain words with that vowel were from Khmer. I don't have it with me today, but tomorrow I'll check the new Gedney's Comparative Tai Source Book to see what we can find out about เงิน.

[Rikker]

As promised from William Gedney's Comparative Tai Source Book (University of Hawai'i Press, 2008):

0250 - silver, money, A4, (cf. 0986)

SW - S ŋɤn¹; W ŋɯn⁴; B ŋɤn⁴; Sh ŋɯn⁴; LNK ŋɤn⁶; LCH, LMY ŋɯn⁴; CM ŋɤn¹

CN - LP, LM ŋɤn⁴; WN ŋan⁴; LC, PS ŋɤn⁴; NM ŋen⁴

N - Y ŋan⁴; Sk ɲɛn⁴; WM ŋan²

To interpret a bit: this is divided into three lines for each of Gedney's major divisions of the Tai family, and each line has several dialects/languages from that branch. The first is standard Thai (S is for Siamese). I've listed the rest of the abbreviations at the bottom of this post.

I don't have any sophisticated analysis to give, but comparing this word with others in the source book, I strongly suspect it's a loan (most likely Chinese, as Richard says). The cognates show much more predictable variation among this broad range of dialects.

In this book,

ɤ stands for สระเออะ, the short vowel in เงิน.

ɯ stands for สระอึ, the vowel in, say, ถึง.

Notice it says cf. 0986, which I've also copied below:

0986 - money, A4, (cf. 0250)

SW - W, B cɛn⁴

CN - LP cheen⁴; LM ceen⁴; WN cen⁴; LC ceen⁴ (Li says < Chinese); PS ceen⁴; NM seen⁴

There is no Siamese cognate of this second one, but it's interesting to see that Li connects it with Chinese.

The full list of dialects/languages Gedney surveyed:

SW = Southwestern Tai

• S = Siamese (Standard Thai)
  
• W = White Tai (Tai Khaw)
  
• B = Black Tai (Tai Dam)
  
• Sh = Shan
  
• LNK = the Tai dialect of Nong Khai
  
• LCH = Lue of Chieng Hung
  
• LMY = Lue of Muong Yong
  
• CM = the Tai dialect of Chiengmai
  

CN = Central Tai

• LP = the Tai dialect of Lei Ping
  
• LM = the Tai dialect of Lungming
  
• WN = the Tai dialect of Western Nung
  
• BV = the Tai dialect of Bac Va
  
• LC = the Tai dialect of Lungchow
  
• PS = the Tai dialect of Ping Siang
  
• NM = the Tai dialect of Ning Ming
  

N = Northern Tai

• Y = Yay
  
• Sk = Saek
  
• WM = the Tai dialect of Wuming
  
• P = the Tai dialect of Po-ai