Thai Writing Question

[Radius]

Because of advise gotten here on this very forum I am looking into Thai writing to improve my Thai language skills.

I am at the total beginning and know nothing.

I have however been reading up and before I continue I like to know if this is correct:

A vowel can be long, short, open and closed.

Long and short is pretty clear to me (just lengthen the sound of the short version).

Open means it is the last letter in a word

Closed means at least 1 consonant is yet to come.

Vowels never come alone. They are always attached to a consonant coming before it.

Vowels are writting like 'attachements' to a consonant. I don't know how else to describe. It is a little like an "e" with something extra like: "è" or "ë". But in Thai they a sighn to a consonant to add a vowel sound to that consonant.

But they can also be signs before a consonant but it is spoken after the consonant still.

Then there are the vowel combinations. Those work pretty much the same just a little more complicated with signs added to the left and the right of a consonant sometimes.

This leads me to the conclusion that a Thai word never can begin with a vowel. At least not in the spoken language.

Is this correct?

Sorry for the someonewhat clumsy explaination but this Thai writing is so different then what I am used to that it is hard to describe.

If I got this right then at least I understand the construction of vowels and consonants. I do have the feeling I am missing something though. And it has to do with consonants and the tone.

Edited September 29, 2008 by Radius

[mangkorn]

This leads me to the conclusion that a Thai word never can begin with a vowel. At least not in the spoken language.

Should be: "At least not in the written language." Many Thai words begin with a vowel sound; when those are written, the vowel attaches to อ - which is a silent consonant in such cases.

Good luck.

[Radius]

Aaah off course, a silent consonant. I didn't think of that.

Thanks.

Next question:

There are more of these, but I suspect the answer to be the same/similar:

What is the difference between น and ณ ?

Same sound, both initial and final. Same class. When do you use the one and when the other?

Edited September 29, 2008 by Radius

[Johpa]

This leads me to the conclusion that a Thai word never can begin with a vowel. At least not in the spoken language.

Should be: "At least not in the written language." Many Thai words begin with a vowel sound; when those are written, the vowel attaches to อ - which is a silent consonant in such cases.

Good luck.

อ is not a silent consonant, it represents a glottal stop which is considered a real consonant and is used in some languages including some of the Semitic languages. Thai language does indeed not allow a syllable to begin with a vowel and so inserts a glottal stop if no other consonant is present. One of the defining characteristics of a foreign accent when speaking Thai is the absence of this consonant. Another defining characteristic of a foreign accent when speaking Thai is the absence of the glottal stop after a short vowel in a syllable with no other final consonant. Syllables with short vowels and no other final consonant are ended with a glottal stop and thus become closed syllables. This is not captured in the writing system as is the syllable initial glottal stop of อ.

The phonetic sound of อ is not perceived by speakers of English and other Indo-European languages because the sound is not utilized to create meaning although the sound is used in some utterances in English such as the interjections like oh-oh or uh-uh.

[Rikker]

--Technical aside--

Johpa, do you think glottal stop is phonemic in Thai, though? In connected speech it gets dropped regularly. There are some phonetic environments in which it's forced to appear -- like when อ follows short vowels (which end in a glottal stop in citation form, anyway), as in สะอาด, and sometimes following open vowels (but that's not universal -- "มีอะไร" is fine with no glottal stop).

--end of technical aside--

Edited September 29, 2008 by Rikker

[mangkorn]

This leads me to the conclusion that a Thai word never can begin with a vowel. At least not in the spoken language.

Should be: "At least not in the written language." Many Thai words begin with a vowel sound; when those are written, the vowel attaches to อ - which is a silent consonant in such cases.

Good luck.

อ is not a silent consonant, it represents a glottal stop which is considered a real consonant and is used in some languages including some of the Semitic languages. Thai language does indeed not allow a syllable to begin with a vowel and so inserts a glottal stop if no other consonant is present. One of the defining characteristics of a foreign accent when speaking Thai is the absence of this consonant. Another defining characteristic of a foreign accent when speaking Thai is the absence of the glottal stop after a short vowel in a syllable with no other final consonant. Syllables with short vowels and no other final consonant are ended with a glottal stop and thus become closed syllables. This is not captured in the writing system as is the syllable initial glottal stop of อ.

The phonetic sound of อ is not perceived by speakers of English and other Indo-European languages because the sound is not utilized to create meaning although the sound is used in some utterances in English such as the interjections like oh-oh or uh-uh.

Well, gee... pardon me. The response was informed by the OP's statement: "I am at the total beginning and know nothing."

[Radius]

Well, gee... pardon me. The response was informed by the OP's statement: "I am at the total beginning and know nothing."

And YOU made sense.

The rest..... well... not so much.

I have a next question allready.

What is the difference between น and ณ ?

Same sound, both initial and final. Same class. When do you use the one and when the other?

[Rikker]

The difference between น and ณ is only a spelling difference. Pronunciation is identical. You'll need to simply memorize how which words are spelled.

The letter ณ exists to correspond to another consonant in Sanskrit, so that when Thai borrows words from Sanskrit with that letter it uses ณ to spell them.

To give a (not very good) comparison, you might think of it like English borrowed words from French. If French uses ç, as in Français, it would be like English still spelling it with ç, but pronouncing it like a "regular" c. The pronunciation in the original language may be different, but the new host language doesn't maintain the different pronunciation, only the spelling.

[meadish_sweetball]

--Technical aside--

Johpa, do you think glottal stop is phonemic in Thai, though? In connected speech it gets dropped regularly. There are some phonetic environments in which it's forced to appear -- like when อ follows short vowels (which end in a glottal stop in citation form, anyway), as in สะอาด, and sometimes following open vowels (but that's not universal -- "มีอะไร" is fine with no glottal stop).

--end of technical aside--

Even though we're talking basics here, I think Johpa's point is important and practically valid.

I have been sent to soi 18 instead of 11 due to the absence of a glottal stop in สิบเอ็ด (Pronouncing 11, /sìb ?èt/, as */sìbèd/) (and I know that my เอ็ and แอ are pronounced correctly and that my ป and บ are distinct from each other).

[Indra]

Well, I think that explanation from mangkorn is easier to understand, at least for a total beginner as admitted by radius.

อ (aw - aang) is a unique character, which can acts as either a consonant or a vowel.

As consonant, อ is used to help a vowel to be pronounced by itself like อา (aa)

As vowel, อ is pronouced aw like in ร้อน (hot)

[jdinasia]

also from your initial post ...

a vowel can come before, after, above, below, before AND after, and before AND above AND after a letter that is phonetically follows ... not to mention it can be absent entirely

[Johpa]

--Technical aside--

Johpa, do you think glottal stop is phonemic in Thai, though? In connected speech it gets dropped regularly. There are some phonetic environments in which it's forced to appear -- like when อ follows short vowels (which end in a glottal stop in citation form, anyway), as in สะอาด, and sometimes following open vowels (but that's not universal -- "มีอะไร" is fine with no glottal stop).

--end of technical aside--

I don't think it is phonemic. If a person drops the glottal stop I doubt a person fails to understand the word. I have been misunderstood by making tonal errors and I have been misunderstood by voicing when an unvoiced stop is required, but I don't remember being misunderstood when I failed to insert the glottal stop in syllable initial position, an error I know I have made more than a few times over the years. But Svenske notes an excellent example where a common misunderstanding takes place between 11 (sip et) and 18 (sip paet) so one could well argue that the 11/18 difference creates a phonemic pair.

I think it might take an instrument to see if the stop is completely dropped in casual Thai speech or whether it just gets shortened to the point of not quite being heard. I just don't know whether the dropping of a syllable initial glottal stop is a common historical linguistic change and I am too far removed from academia to do the research.

And for you beginners, although some of the technical jargon is out there a bit, this is important, it is a fundamental of the Thai language. Some aspects of the Thai language for many learners, such as the syllable initial glottal stop, can only be taught via a technical linguistic explanation. Or you can decide to be one of the many ex-pats in Thailand who speak quite good Thai but who continue to make fundamental errors in speech.

Edited September 30, 2008 by Johpa

[Rikker]

Well said, Johpa. I had only a very basic foundation in linguistics when I started learning Thai (I'd taken an Intro to Linguistics course at university). I consider that to have made all the difference for me. I already knew what glottal stops were, voicing, aspiration, the basics you have to know when learning IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). Tones were the only completely new concept for me, so that helped flatten the learning curve quite a bit for me. Likewise, I think anyone can similarly benefit at any point in their Thai language career from learning basic principles of linguistics.

So for anyone interested, Wikipedia is a good free place to start for learning about phonemes, morphemes, phonology, etc. And/or one might start a thread asking/discussing how concept X relates to Thai. I always have more to learn, and discussing it helps further solidify my own thoughts on such topics.

Edited September 30, 2008 by Rikker

[mangkorn]

a vowel can come before, after, above, below, before AND after, and before AND above AND after a letter that is phonetically follows ... not to mention it can be absent entirely

jd's final point is very important: absolutely vital to learning how to read. For Radius, and anyone else just starting out, you may notice long strings of consonants that don't seem to jibe with the way you say/hear the words. The short "o" vowel is not written in syllables that end in a consonant; but, what seems to the ear to be a short "a" or "uh" vowel is also not written after many initial consonants - because it isn't really a full-fledged vowel. We had long discussions over this at the other site. I called it a "virtual vowel," but David rightly likened it to a "shwa" in English. That is something that many Thai teachers don't explain, because it is purely natural to them. This is all too complicated to go into here (non-conforming clusters, etc.), but a very good place to begin to understand it, and many other characteristics of Thai syllables and writing, can be found at:

http://www.thai-language.org/id/830221

The explanations may seem quite daunting at first, but stick with it. I wish that I had the benefit of a basic explanatory guide like that when I was trying to learn, instead of having to figure it out for myself - which required much more time than it should have.

Good luck.