Help With The Silent ห

[mynextgig]

The phrase สวัสดี is pronounced with the tones Low, Low, Mid. However using the tone rules this would need to be spelt สหวัสดี

Does this mean สวัส is written in one tone and spoken in another ?

101 stuff i am sure, but i am a bot confused.

[Jay_Jay]

There are quite a few posts that have covered this before.... i'll try and pull a few out in a minute.

You know the rule of the 'ห' masking to turn a low class into a high class. Think of the classes originally as throat positions. So in the slang way of saying you say หวัดดี from สวัสดี - to keep the low tone / (high class throat position) in there.

It might be easier to think of หว as one high class letter rather than two separate letters - the ห is clustered with the ว

So ส now in สวัสดี - If you have a look at the original, you have a स = ส and a व = ว clustered with each other making the word स्वस्ति 'svasti' The สว are one letter (cluster), and in Thai take on the characteristic of the first letter in the cluster.

In Thai though, you'll noticed that the cluster has been lost and an 'อะ' sound is thrown in (throwing an 'a' in between Sanskrit words in Thai is called 'pra wisanjani'. ... however, the original tone is still kept. Another word where you'll notice this kind of thing happening is in ตำรวจ - police (from the word ตรวจ - to check or investigate).

Btw... just a little note on the meaning of สวัสดี - it comes from the words

สุ - सु - 'su' - good / happy and อสติ अस्ति - asti 'to be' ... so it means 'it is good', or 'may it be good for you' ...

Swastika - a little thing that is good.

Edited October 13, 2008 by Jay_Jay

[mynextgig]

There are quite a few posts that have covered this before.... i'll try and pull a few out in a minute.

You know the rule of the 'ห' masking to turn a low class into a high class. Think of the classes originally as throat positions. So in the slang way of saying you say หวัดดี from สวัสดี - to keep the low tone / (high class throat position) in there.

It might be easier to think of หว as one high class letter rather than two separate letters - the ห is clustered with the ว

So ส now in สวัสดี - If you have a look at the original, you have a स = ส and a व = ว clustered with each other making the word स्वस्ति 'svasti' The สว are one letter (cluster), and in Thai take on the characteristic of the first letter in the cluster.

In Thai though, you'll noticed that the cluster has been lost and an 'อะ' sound is thrown in (throwing an 'a' in between Sanskrit words in Thai is called 'pra wisanjani'. ... however, the original tone is still kept. Another word where you'll notice this kind of thing happening is in ตำรวจ - police (from the word ตรวจ - to check or investigate).

Btw... just a little note on the meaning of สวัสดี - it comes from the words

สุ - सु - 'su' - good / happy and อสติ अस्ति - asti 'to be' ... so it means 'it is good', or 'may it be good for you' ...

Swastika - a little thing that is good.

Wow ! Probably the 1st phrase most people learn in Thai and is one of the complex anomalies in Thai script.

So to confirm, its actually the 2nd ส that is silent ? I seem to remember this now and is why you sometimes see the transliteration as Sawasdee. Is this correct ?

[Jay_Jay]

Again - it all comes back to throat positions. The second 's' in Thai get's caught in the throat - so your glottis stops the sound just as your tongue hits the position that it would normally make an 's' - killing it, making it sound like a stopped 't'.

[mynextgig]

Brilliant explaination Jay Jay - Thank you !

[Jay_Jay]

I once wanted to start a party for the glottaly aware Understanding those principles will take you a long way in languages like Chinese (especially southern dialects), Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Cambodian and more.

[Johpa]

Caution: More explanations from your favorite cunning linguist.

The /s/ consonant, as well as the various /t/ and /d/ consonants are all articulated along the alveolar ridge, that bony structure behind your teeth. One of the phonological rules of the Thai language is that it does not allow a /s/ sound, or any sibilant or fricative, to be in syllable final position, and so such consonants, where they existed in their original language such as Pali, where such a sound rule does not exist, maintain their place of articulation, the alveolar ridge in this instance, but are altered in the manner of articulation to an allowed form, in this case a stop consonant, the closest allowed proximate.

That different languages maintain different phonological rules is what gives rise to foreign accents. Another similar and commonly encountered example is when native German speakers speak English words beginning with /th/ (interdental fricatives) and we here 'dis' and 'dat' for this and that. In this case both the place and manner of articulation are altered to the closest approximate. And note that since Latin did not have those sounds, English must combine two letters of the Roman alphabet to designate the phonemes.

[grandpops]

I once wanted to start a party for the glottaly aware Understanding those principles will take you a long way in languages like Chinese (especially southern dialects), Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Cambodian and more.

Great posts Jay Jay. Makes a change for me to be able to add something to one of yours.

Tha party as left out one of 't biggest users of 't glottal stop. Us yorkies! We goh a geh a invite ant we?

Edited October 16, 2008 by grandpops

[Jay_Jay]

5555 You can be the spokesperson! .. I can see it now... Yorkies, Danes, Southern Chinese, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Thais.. one big happy glottaly rich family! Maybe this is the answer to world peace.