รักภาษา

[DavidHouston]

I would like to tell you about a new book I just purchased at the Chula bookstore at Siam Square in Bangkok. The name of the book is "รักภาษา” (Loving Language) and the author is "นววรรณ พันธุเมธา" (Nawawan Panthumetha), a well-known professor at Chulalongkorn University. It was originally published in 2538 (1995) and was reprinted in 2549 (2006). This book is also available by mail order at http://www.chulabook.com/cgi-bin/main/2007...e=9789743333200.

The book is a series of short essays in Thai on topics that many of us have questions about every day. Here is a short list if topics from the table of contents:

"ก็ดี-ก็ตาม", "กระแส", "ก็อก", "กาลเทศะ", "เก้าอ้", "เข้มแข็ง-แข็งเกร่ง", "ค่า-มลค่า-ราคา . . .", "ตำรับ-ตำรา", "ฐาน-ฐานะ", "มังกร" (in honor of one of our posters), "มากๆ-มากมาย", "รั้ว-กำแพง", "ราด-ลาด", and "รู้-ทราบ", among many others. This is a 614 page book and no entry exceeds one page.

You might wish to go out and but this book right away since the 2006 printing was a run of only 2,000 volumes!

[Rikker]

The same author has written a set of three books พินิจภาษา "Investigating Language", published by the Ministry of Education a while back. I bought me copies at the well-known คุรุสภา (Teacher's Council of Thailand) store near Democracy monument.

There are many books by many authors which follow this same format (short essays on specific Thai words or phrases).

At David's request, as it happens, I recently made a post about books of this type, including links to some free online collections of them:

Transcripts from Prof. Chamnong Thongprasert's ภาษาไทย ๕ นาที radio program.

Archives of Karnchana Nacaskul's ภาษาไทยวันนี้ column from Sakul Thai magazine.

Articles from various sources on the Royal Institute website, including their ongoing รู้ รัก ภาษาไทย radio program (updated with a new transcript weekly).

Hope that's useful.

Edited August 16, 2008 by Rikker

[mangkorn]

While we're at it, might as well also plug Khun Nawawan's other classic: "Thai Grammar" - which I'm happily delving into now (available at Chula, limited copies).

It's in Thai - which I can't reproduce on this site from my computer - but anyone at the required reading level and interest will know how the title is written in Thai.

This is the kind of clearly written examination of Thai parts of speech and their usage that I've been seeking for a long time, from a Thai expert.

Thanks David for this tip on "Loving Language," and Rikker for those other resources.

[DavidHouston]

While we're at it, might as well also plug Khun Nawawan's other classic: "Thai Grammar" - which I'm happily delving into now (available at Chula, limited copies).

It's in Thai - which I can't reproduce on this site from my computer - but anyone at the required reading level and interest will know how the title is written in Thai.

This is the kind of clearly written examination of Thai parts of speech and their usage that I've been seeking for a long time, from a Thai expert.

Thanks David for this tip on "Loving Language," and Rikker for those other resources.

“ไวยากรณ์ไทย” (Thai Grammar) by “นววรรณ พันธุเมธา” (Nawawan Panthumetha)

[Rikker]

I ordered a copy of her book ไวยากรณ์ไทย online from Chulabook last week, as it happens. Haven't received it yet.

And อาจารย์นววรรณ's other must-buy work is คลังคำ 'Word Treasury', a 'dictionary' sorted by topic (basically it's a thesaurus). It's a very useful book.

Edited August 17, 2008 by Rikker