Most Thais do not know number of vowels in Thai

Just days ahead of the National Thai Language Day, a survey shows that most Thais do not know how many vowels their national language has.

Of 2,452 respondents, only 13.3 per cent correctly answer that there are 21 vowels in Thai language.

The National Thai Language Day falls on July 29 every year. Only 9.9 per cent know about this fact.

"Most Thais don't know Thai language well," Dr Noppadon Kannika said Thursday as the head of ABAC Academic Network for Community Happiness Observation and Research.

-- The Nation 2008-07-24

that's right.

i'm one in the majority

It does kind of depend what you're counting/classing as a different vowel. The Fundamentals of the Thai Language, for example lists 38 different combinations/possibilities. Certainly as foreigners learning the language we have to learn a lot more than 21.

It does kind of depend what you're counting/classing as a different vowel. The Fundamentals of the Thai Language, for example lists 38 different combinations/possibilities. Certainly as foreigners learning the language we have to learn a lot more than 21.

Withnail I believe quotes "The Fundamentals of the Thai Language" by Kumchai Thonglaw for the proposition that there are 21 vowels in Thai. Indeed this is true but Kumchai carefully distinguishes between "vowel symbols" or "รูปสระ" and "vowel sounds" or "เสียงสระ". As for the latter, he counts 32. In other words, the question of "how many vowels" is a trick question. See Kumchai pages 42 - 44 (current edition).

Thanks, Withnail.

It does kind of depend what you're counting/classing as a different vowel. The Fundamentals of the Thai Language, for example lists 38 different combinations/possibilities. Certainly as foreigners learning the language we have to learn a lot more than 21.

It seems like it's referring to strictly vowel characters (รูปสระ) rather than the combinations. Knowing the various combinations would actually seem to be a lot more useful for foreigner learners though, as (according to Thai Wikipedia) the 21 vowels are:

ะ -ั า -ํ -ิ ' "

-ุ -ู เ โ ใ ไ -็

อ ว ย ฤ ฤๅ ฦ ฦๅ

Of the first line, the potentially unfamiliar looking ones are (again, from Wikipedia):

-ํ is the symbol used in the -ำ diphthong or when writing Pali words in Thai.

' (not the 'mai ek' tonemark) is the symbol used in อี เอียะ and เอีย

" is the symbol used in อื เอือะ and เอือ

Of the bottom line, ฤๅ , ฦ and ฦๅ are (all-but?) archaic. I guess this partly explains why relatively few people are aware of this list in its entirety, as it doesn't have the combinations vowels that you need to know to be able to read, but does include characters that you either never encounter or only come across as part of longer vowels.

Edited July 24, 200817 yr by mike_l

If one took a similar survey of native English speakers (or most other languages), no doubt it would produce very similar results.

Never overestimate the intelligence of the masses, especially those in the so-called "developed" countries.

This is a trick question, and Thais should not be criticized (by fellow Thais or foreigners) for not having been taught to remember an arbitrary number.

English has five vowels, we'll all swear it up and down. Until you realize that in linguistics, a vowel is a sound, not a written character. All of a sudden English has a boatload more vowels than five. Good luck counting them and getting everyone to agree on the count, though. There's too much variation.

And even in canonical standard Thai, it's not cut-and-dried. The figure 21 is really a count of symbols, and even then it's highly fishy to include ฦ and ฦๅ, and even ฤๅ (as Mike points out).

So, yeah. This is a non-news story, one of the variety that like to perpetuate the false notion that the Thai language is becoming corrupted by its speakers' ignorance of arbitrary language rules. Cf. things like split infinitives, dangling participles, and ending a sentence with a preposition in English. Much ado about nothing.

Edited July 24, 200817 yr by Rikker

Excellent, Khun Rikker.

Indeed, English has only five vowels (or six, with "sometimes y")?

Uh-uh. Lots more than that, and as you say, good luck counting them all...

Good on ya, sir.

I always wondered why it's called sometimes y? Yes it's not common but as a minority it shouldn't be discriminated against. Quite a shame in this day and age.

I always wondered why it's called sometimes y? Yes it's not common but as a minority it shouldn't be discriminated against. Quite a shame in this day and age.

You're probably having a lark, but in case anyone doesn't know, the "y" in "why" is a vowel, but the "y" in "yes" is a consonant.

Etcetera, etcetera...

And even in canonical standard Thai, it's not cut-and-dried. The figure 21 is really a count of symbols, and even then it's highly fishy to include ฦ and ฦๅ, and even ฤๅ (as Mike points out).

21 is also a basic phonetic count - 9 short vowels, 9 long monophthongs, and the three high-low monophthongs.

As for the symbol count, lakkhangyao is at best a single symbol, and one should not count it twice through ฤๅ and ฦๅ. But lakhangyao is just a contextual version of lakkhang (า). However, if ว and ย are to be counted as vowels, one should also count รร.

Richard.

Of course, it doesn't make much sense not to count diphthongs, though--at least the ones that aren't broken down any further, either phonemically or orthographically. That is to say, Thais don't think of เี-ีย as a combination of monophthongs, nor do its constituent symbols (เ- -ี and -ย) in any way logically results in the sound /ia/.

Triphthongs, on the other hand, are considered in Thai pedagogical (and much academic) literature to be a simple combination of diphthong + ย or ว.

But then that's also contradicted by the fact that RTGS uses vowels to represent them (e.g. เร็ว = reo and เหนื่อย = nueai).

Edited July 28, 200817 yr by Rikker

That is to say, Thais don't think of เี-ีย as a combination of monophthongs, nor do its constituent symbols (เ- -ี and -ย) in any way logically results in the sound /ia/.

I've heard that the order of symbols used to be different. Does anyone here know what it used to be?

But then that's also contradicted by the fact that RTGS uses vowels to represent them (e.g. เร็ว = reo and เหนื่อย = nueai).

I'd always assumed that that was because the final vowels worked better with less sophisticated English speakers. Indeed, the key driver may be the single vowel <ao> เ-า.

Richard.

I've heard that the order of symbols used to be different. Does anyone here know what it used to be?

Well, in the Ramkhamhaeng inscription (which is not universally accepted as authentic), there are no superscript vowels. Instead, vowels which correspond to modern superscript vowels are placed before the rest of the syllable. For เ-ีย and เ-ือ, that means the order is ืเ-อ. Pho Khun Ramhkamhaeng's mother, นางเสือง is written นาง ืเสอง (but all symbols are flush on the line--I'll post a scan later).

Which is, in fact, one of the reasons its authenticity has been challenged. I'll look into how that compares to vowel ordering in other inscriptions, because I don't know enough off the top of my head.

I'd always assumed that that was because the final vowels worked better with less sophisticated English speakers. Indeed, the key driver may be the single vowel <ao> เ-า.

Yes, I think that's the likely reason, but I do see it as an admission that interpreting those as true dipthongs/triphthongs is a valid alternate interpretation.

Edited July 28, 200817 yr by Rikker