Campaign For Plain Thai

[12DrinkMore]

Altho there is no way that I can fined rime or reason for the way English is spelled, wen it comes to riteing Ty fonetically using the English alfabet, wy do we hav to fite ower way thru

Sawasdee instead of sawatdee

Khun instead of kune

Khrap instead of krap

Kha instead of ka

Phuket instead of Pucket

Phi Phi instead of Pee Pee

Khor Thot instead of Kore Tort

Thaksin instead of Taxin

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

Phattaya instead of Puttuyaa

etc etc.

Maybe the Thai Culture guys could come up with a system that would enable us Farang to be able to pronounce the words more or less correctly. I have been asked several times if I had ever been to Fookay. The first time I had to ask, "what country are we talking about?"

Edited August 18, 2008 by 12DrinkMore

[Boater]

good idea those

[HASSELHOFF]

Altho there is no way that I can fined rime or reason for the way English is spelled, wen it comes to riteing Ty fonetically using the English alfabet, wy do we hav to fite ower way thru

Sawasdee instead of sawatdee

Khun instead of kune

Khrap instead of krap

Kha instead of ka

Phuket instead of Pucket

Phi Phi instead of Pee Pee

Khor Thot instead of Kore Tort

Thaksin instead of Taxin

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

Phattaya instead of Puttuyaa

etc etc.

Maybe the Thai Culture guys could come up with a system that would enable us Farang to be able to pronounce the words more or less correctly. I have been asked several times if I had ever been to Fookay. The first time I had to ask, "what country are we talking about?"

Probably the same reason they do it in english? I have no idea really. But we have silent letters and many other words that are pronounced different to what they read.

Also it probably wasnt the Thais who wrote all the above originally

[kiakaha]

Altho there is no way that I can fined rime or reason for the way English is spelled, wen it comes to riteing Ty fonetically using the English alfabet, wy do we hav to fite ower way thru

Sawasdee instead of sawatdee

Khun instead of kune

Khrap instead of krap

Kha instead of ka

Phuket instead of Pucket

Phi Phi instead of Pee Pee

Khor Thot instead of Kore Tort

Thaksin instead of Taxin

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

Phattaya instead of Puttuyaa

etc etc.

Maybe the Thai Culture guys could come up with a system that would enable us Farang to be able to pronounce the words more or less correctly. I have been asked several times if I had ever been to Fookay. The first time I had to ask, "what country are we talking about?"

learn to read and write thai like countless other foreigners have. it's not that difficult.

[Carib]

True, breaking my neck too sometimes trying to figure out if it is the same word, or place name we are talking about.

But I don't know if it is up too the Thai culture guys to do something about it or come up with a solution, after all it is all very clear to them ( not always I found out).

There is the Thai language and there is English . But the Tinglish in between is a grey area, nobody really is responsible for, to my knowledge.

Looking at English, there are some of these problems too, depending on where you live and the kind of English you speak. English spoken on Jamaica for instance.... Hope you know what I mean. But agree with you that it can be a pain in the ass or was it arse or butt, or behind or...

I think we cause the same kind of confusion sometimes too.

[12DrinkMore]

learn to read and write thai like countless other foreigners have. it's not that difficult.

I was thinking more about the tourist rather than the long term inmate.

And it is also not that easy, for example give a dictionary to a Thai and ask them to look up a word. I have also never understood why they can't separate the words in the sentence.

[wolf5370]

It doesn't always help reading the Thai script. If you are using something like Google Maps etc to look somewhere up, the you need the Latin script. Road and place names are a real pain in this context.

I belive this all come from the Dutch transliteration. A book was written about 1920 or so (I have it, but it boxed up - so can't give great details). Most of the Thai transliterations (including the semi-official Govt one) comes from this. Its also why most phrase books use 'K' for Gor Gai (end up with eggs instead of chicken ) etc. Too far down the line to chance it now, and a massive concerted effort to create an almost infinite set of different trasnliteration system doesn't help unify either

[JetsetBkk]

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

It's pronounced Sue-wunna-poom

The V becomes a W

The B becomes a 'soft' P

The I is silent.

It's quite easy, especially if you read Thai. You just need a bit of an education.

[tw25rw]

It's not really written in English but into a Roman alphabet transliteration using a "standard" devised by Thais.

What bothers me is that they left in a lot of silent letters and those that have different sounds on the end of a syllable.

Wouldn't hurt if they were to use French style accents as tone markers as well so we can make a better attempt to pronounce it correctly.

Edited August 18, 2008 by tw25rw

[dave111223]

I'd love some "cool wHip"; am i the only one who thought that family guy episode was classic?

[billp]

The thing is, the romanizations are only an imperfect approximation of the original Thai. Not everybody reading the romanizations speaks English, and not all English speakers pronounce things the same way. (For example, British people have no problem with the name Somporn. To my ear it should be spelled Som-PAWN. I would normally pronounce the "r", but a British person wouldn't. So who's right? The answer: we both are.)

So any approach to romanization is valid just as long as you learn the rules. For instance, "ph" does not make an "f" sound as it would in English. There's no "th" sound in just about any language but English, so Thai words like "Thaksin" obviously aren't pronounced with a th as in "the." "My" would only rhyme with "why" in English, so why would you use that basis to romanize Thai?

Words like Suvarnabhumi are exceptions for sure, but that's due to roots in Sanskrit. Makes it more interesting.

My attitude is, it's their language, so they can romanize any way they want to.

[kiakaha]

learn to read and write thai like countless other foreigners have. it's not that difficult.

I was thinking more about the tourist rather than the long term inmate.

And it is also not that easy, for example give a dictionary to a Thai and ask them to look up a word. I have also never understood why they can't separate the words in the sentence.

I can used a thai dictionary with ease. So can the thais in my office.

[dotcom]

I am searching for the person who decided that i will be pronounced e.

It was not an American.

Tipco make an orange juice which they call Si Thong.

Wife tells me this is See Tong. (Gold Color)

Siam. Most Americans can pronounce. But do it to a Thai & they get highly offended. SeeYam.

Since I am not Swedish I don't wear "yeans". I don't swap the V & the w in Sukhumvit. They wrote it. They can live with the pronunciation.

You don't even want to know about the chinese & beginning words with X. Lash up of the first order.

Anyway we now have a situation where i is e, e is e & y is e. So to spell a word & get a long I sound you place an a in front of the i. Makes the second vowel long!!! get it????? Pai Nai?????

Nuts.

[kiakaha]

there is an "official" government transliteration standard, but even this gets subjected to interpretation. then there are the countless vocabulary books which all tend to use their own transliteration schemes for those who can't read thai script.the thai transliteration world is really just a big jumbled mess.

i'm not 100% familiar with chinese, but i believe that PinYin is much more structured and adhered to.

[Richard W]

I am searching for the person who decided that i will be pronounced e.

It was either a Greek, or at least a Greek speaker, if you accept that the alphabet came purely from Phoenicians using their original spelling, or it was some Semite on the Mediterranean coast if you believe that the change from representing the 'y' of yod is connected to matres lectionis.

It's not unknown in English, either - think of words like machine.

Anyway we now have a situation where i is e, e is e & y is e. So to spell a word & get a long I sound you place an a in front of the i. Makes the second vowel long!!! get it????? Pai Nai?????

That's the original way of representing that sound. It frequently gets reinvented - 'ai'in English was once pronunced that way - and is in the broadest Cockney and Strine.

Besides, have you never heard of the goal of 'Consonants as in English, vowels as in Italian'?.

[Thai at Heart]

Altho there is no way that I can fined rime or reason for the way English is spelled, wen it comes to riteing Ty fonetically using the English alfabet, wy do we hav to fite ower way thru

Sawasdee instead of sawatdee

Khun instead of kune

Khrap instead of krap

Kha instead of ka

Phuket instead of Pucket

Phi Phi instead of Pee Pee

Khor Thot instead of Kore Tort

Thaksin instead of Taxin

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

Phattaya instead of Puttuyaa

etc etc.

Maybe the Thai Culture guys could come up with a system that would enable us Farang to be able to pronounce the words more or less correctly. I have been asked several times if I had ever been to Fookay. The first time I had to ask, "what country are we talking about?"

An official English transliteration for Thai has been discussed, revised, thought of, and messed up 20 times.

Chiangmai

Chiengmai

Chiang Mai

Ekaamai

Ekkamai

Ekaa-mai

They aren't interested in getting it standardised, but then that may actually help school kids to learn English, much in the way that every primary school kid in China learns pinyin.

[a2396]

So where is Fookay? It seems there are many problems trying to translate Thai to English & reverse. For example Thai nick names Aim is Im, Golf is Kop. Many sounds are not present in one language or the other.

[kiakaha]

Golf is Kop.

Cant agree with that.I work with a couple of guys called Golf and I write their name in my personal messenger list as กอล์ฟ .

[JetsetBkk]

So where is Fookay? It seems there are many problems trying to translate Thai to English & reverse. For example Thai nick names Aim is Im, Golf is Kop. Many sounds are not present in one language or the other.

My g/f's sister's name is "Dern", spelt "Tle".

[smileplur]

If you know anything about linguistics, it isn't that difficult to figure out at all. The 'h' may have been added to denote some aspect of the pronunciation. Aspiration of the consonant comes immediately to mind. If you want to explore /g/ and /k/ then you should just understand what and allophone is. We have allophones in English, so it only makes sense that Thai would too. For example:

bets - the sound at the end noted by the orthographic s is in fact the sound

begs - here we have another situation ... the sound is in fact [z]

Why the [z] where there is an s? Well, it deals with rules of assimilation. The preceding sound is a [g]. This sound is voiced, so we automatically change the sound to match the voiced quality for ease of articulation. There are many such examples.

If you were to devise another script for English, how would you represent this? For Thai, aspiration (among other things) makes a difference for meaning. Thus, the transliteration is quite difficult.

[elkangorito]

My comments in blue.

Altho there is no way that I can fined rime or reason for the way English is spelled, wen it comes to riteing Ty fonetically using the English alfabet, wy do we hav to fite ower way thru

Sawasdee instead of sawatdee

I never speak the 's' or the 't' in the above. To me, it is "Sarwardee"

Khun instead of kune

Do you mean 'une' as in 'dune'? If so, you are wrong. To me, it is 'kun' (as in "put up with it".)

Khrap instead of krap

If you are hearing "krap", your hearing is floored. To me, it is 'krup' or 'crup'. Then again, many Thais are amused or annoyed about how some Americans say this word. The Thais most amused are those who understand English quite well. They can't understand how someone can mistake a word that clearly sounds like "up" & replace it with a word that sounds like "ap".

Kha instead of ka

Agreed.

Phuket instead of Pucket

'Pucket' as in 'bucket'? No way! To me, it should be 'pooket'.

Phi Phi instead of Pee Pee

Agreed.

Khor Thot instead of Kore Tort

As in 'ka', it should be 'ko tort'.

Thaksin instead of Taxin

It should be 'Tuxin' or 'Tucksin' or 'Tuksin'.

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

To me, it's 'Soovarnaboomy'

Phattaya instead of Puttuyaa

As in 'ka', 'Patayah'.

Maybe the Thai Culture guys could come up with a system that would enable us Farang to be able to pronounce the words more or less correctly. I have been asked several times if I had ever been to Fookay. The first time I had to ask, "what country are we talking about?"

I have a friend from the UK who can speak the Thai vocabulary quite well. Also, he is "tone deaf" & thus cannot sing. My Thai vocabulary is not as extensive as his but his wife always comments that my Thai is very understandable. His wife has great trouble understanding her husband (my UK friend).

I therefore suggest that people who can sing (quite well) are much better at mimicking the sounds & tones of other languages as compared to those who cannot sing.

I encountered the same situation whilst in Argentina & meeting foreigners who tried to speak Spanish. In this situation, I also found that the ones who couldn't sing were the ones who had the most difficulty being understood by Native Spanish speakers. On the other hand, my limited Spanish was considered to be very correct (by pronunciation).

[12DrinkMore]

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

It's pronounced Sue-wunna-poom

The V becomes a W

The B becomes a 'soft' P

The I is silent.

It's quite easy, especially if you read Thai. You just need a bit of an education.

Unfortunately I have always found something slightly more interesting that learning written Thai. Watching my grass grow for example. Actually I can read road signs, but somehow going further and then delving in Thai newspapers and Thai literature does not appeal. There is a huge number of English books still to enjoy. It would be advantage if I went down the cul-de-sac of starting a business, but then to reach the level of understanding legal documents would take another huge effort. Nope the grass is greener this side of the fence.

But here you state that first an understanding of the Thai language is required before the name of the national airport can be pronounced correctly from the anglicised spelling? Is that not a lack of consideration for all the non-Thai readers? If they wrote Suwannapoom, then we could all have a first stab and get it more or less correct. I guess that is the point I was trying to make in the OP.

Edited August 20, 2008 by 12DrinkMore

[tw25rw]

I'm doing Thai at nightschool in London. I find reading and writing very easy. Still learning all the letters and vowel combinations, but it's not that hard to pick up. You couldn't learn to pronounce Thai properly without knowing the writing system. The Romanised form doesn't allow for long/short vowels or differing tomes.

[Stephen Cleary]

Replying to Campaign for Plain English!

Tomas instead of Thomas

Mykill instead of Michael

Steven instead of Stephen (my name!)

Jorge instead of George

Grayam instead of Graham

Jon instead of John

Malcome instead of Malcolm

Nikolas instead of Nicholas

etc..... etc.... etc......

English spellings have been accepted over time, just as transliteration from one langauge to another has. At least official Thai transliteration of English does have its rules, unlike English!

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it's written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!

Edited August 20, 2008 by Stephen Cleary

[elkangorito]

My comments in red.

Replying to Campaign for Plain English!

Tomas instead of Thomas

Mykill instead of Michael I never pronounce Michael as "Mykill".

Steven instead of Stephen (my name!) Which is your name?

Jorge instead of George Jorge is Spanish & has no comparison to the English name.

Grayam instead of Graham Feel free to pronounce the 'h' in Graham.

Jon instead of John

Malcome instead of Malcolm Feel free to pronounce the difference between 'come' & 'colm'...although the owner of such a name may disagree.

To go against a well established language (English) has no comparison to trying to create NEW English words from an alien language.

[tw25rw]

Jorge instead of George Jorge is Spanish & has no comparison to the English name.

Or Portuguese which sounds a lot more like George...

[JetsetBkk]

...But here you state that first an understanding of the Thai language is required before the name of the national airport can be pronounced correctly from the anglicised spelling? Is that not a lack of consideration for all the non-Thai readers? If they wrote Suwannapoom, then we could all have a first stab and get it more or less correct. I guess that is the point I was trying to make in the OP.

I sympathise with you. However, I did not imply that you could pronounce it correctly from its Anglicized spelling, I merely itemised the three parts of Suvarnabhumi that you have to change to pronounce it correctly, as Suwannaphum.

You often see "phum" at the end of a name, e.g. Chaiyaphum. It too has as "i" at the end, but it's not pronounced. It's something to do with the origin of the name (Pali-Sanskrit) and means "land". However, if the "phumi" appears in the middle of a word, then you do pronounce the "i", e.g. the Thai word for "geography" (ภูมิศาสตร์) is pronounced "poo-mí-sàat" - http://www.thai2english.com/dictionary/19579.html

The Wiki has a good article on Suwannaphum:

Thailand theory

In Thailand, government proclamations and national museums insist that Suwannaphum was somewhere in the coast of central plain, especially at the ancient city of U-Thong, which might be the origin of the Dvaravati Culture. Although they have not based their claims on any historical records, the Thai government named the new Bangkok airport, Suvarnabhumi Airport, after the mythic kingdom of Suwannaphum, in celebration of this tradition. This tradition, however, is doubted by scholars for the same reason as the Burman claim. The migration of the Tai peoples into Southeast Asia did not occur until centuries later, long after the Pyu, Malays, Mons and Khmers had established their respective kingdoms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwannaphum

P.S. There is a 'Suwannaphum' in Roi Et province, and it is spelt 'Suwannaphum'.

[AmeriThai]

Suvarnabhumi instead of Suvarnabummy

It's pronounced Sue-wunna-poom

The V becomes a W

The B becomes a 'soft' P

The I is silent.

It's quite easy, especially if you read Thai. You just need a bit of an education.

You're right about that particular word. I also agree that being able to read Thai is very helpful in understanding Thai words, but not always. My sister-in-law (who is Thai) can't read or write Thai, but she can certainly speak it. To connect written Thai with spoken Thai, you still need to know how those letters sound, among other things.

Regarding the English spellings of Thai words, I agree with the poster who said it isn't always standardized. It's because of that that people who can't read Thai can be confused. It's only natural that people who don't know Thai will try to pronounce it like they see it. Different variations are also confusing, and might be 'seen' as different words.

Wittayu

Vittayu

Jatujak

Chatuchak

Edited August 21, 2008 by AmeriThai