Tones For Foreign Words

[mynextgig]

When foreign words are written in Thai, how are the tones decided.

Some examples :-

กะหรี่ - Curry (Ga)L (Ree)L

เป็ปซี่ - Pepsi (Pep)F (See)F

I personally wouldnt put these inflections on these words in english so is there some system used for the translation that defaults to a particular tone ? Otherwise why use tone markers for any foreign word.

[mangkorn]

If I'm not mistaken, the official rule is to not use tone marks with (recent) foreign loanwords, unless it is necessary to avoid confusion with the spelling of an existing word in Thai language. But that doesn't mean that people follow the rules: how many people are even aware that the RID exists; how many average folks have ever consulted such rules?

In cases of English loanwords such as เป็ปซี่, for example, it seems to be a matter of form following function. That's the way most people pronounce it, thus the writing reflects that reality.

In cases of Indic words such as กะหรี่, those have been in the language for a long time, and are fundamental to Thai; I doubt that most people would consider them to be loanwords in the same sense as English loanwords. Of course, I could be wrong...

Many English loanwords are pronounced with a falling (or high) tone on the last syllable - not, as you note, in the way they would be pronounced in English. But if one wants to speak Thai well, it is best to pronounce those words in the way that Thai people do, rather than the way that English or North Americans, methinks.

Cheers.

[PeaceBlondie]

Taking about eight hours of group Thai lessons last week, I was amused at how our Thai teacher inflected English words, especially our given names. Danny has to be pronounced with a very high, loud ending tone, Da-NEE! simply because that is how Thais think a word like Danny should sound. In the West, such mispronunciation is considered culturally insensitive, even rude. It is understandable that Central department store is Centran, due to the Thai's inability to end a word with an l. Koreans may not mind being kon gowli, but I get angry when they think my language is angrit.

[mangkorn]

Rather than insensitive, I think it is probably a way of giving those loanwords and names a more "Thai" sound.

Or, why do English people pronounce "toilet" the way they do, instead of keeping to the original French pronunciation?

[Johpa]

First, the tones existed long before the Thai alphabet was created. The Thai alphabet was created to reflect the natural phonetic environment that lent itself to specific tones. Things got a bit muddled up when Thai borrowed copiously from neighboring languages without tones such as Khmer and Pali, not to mention borrowing words from these languages that included consonants that do not exist in Thai.

Second, English has both tones and vowel length, but these phonetic features are not used to convey meaning. As Thais are "tuned" to pick up such things, all things considered, actually this is done subconsciously, they, or their brains neural wiring, tend to plug in the most likely Thai phonetic context. Its basically the same neural wiring that causes many Westerners to hear Ko Kai as a /g/ sound, in this case the most likely English phonetic context.

[mangkorn]

Koreans may not mind being kon gowli, but I get angry when they think my language is angrit.

That makes you angry? Do you say Sweden, instead of Sverige? Do you say Bangkok, instead of กรุงเทพฯ ? Do you say Spanish, instead of español? How do you pronounce Mexico? Should everyone else get angry at that "cultural insensitivity?" The mind reels...

[PeaceBlondie]

Koreans may not mind being kon gowli, but I get angry when they think my language is angrit.

That makes you angry? Do you say Sweden, instead of Sverige? Do you say Bangkok, instead of กรุงเทพฯ ? Do you say Spanish, instead of español? How do you pronounce Mexico? Should everyone else get angry at that "cultural insensitivity?" The mind reels...

Sorry, it was more of a pun on angry/angrit, and we still do not have a tongue-in-cheek emoticon, do we? Thanks for maybe making the point that if you know how to pronounce a language or country in its native tongue, that is better than butchering it. At least that was what I did in May-hee-co speaking ays-pahn-yol.

[meadish_sweetball]

I've seen these patterns (which are not absolute rules by any means):

Multisyllabic words borrowed from English that end on a live syllable tend to get a falling tone on the last syllable.

Monosyllabic words from English can end in both the high tone or the low tone, but the high tone tends to be more common.

If a new foreign language word is non-Asian, Thais who are not familiar with the language of origin will tend to try to pronounce them as if they were English, hence the two above rules will often be applied to those words as well.

[NaiGreg]

My kids understand well that their names (Ami and Kenny) are pronounced differently at school and at home. For them it is quite natural and they, themselves, will alternate pronounciations of their own names depending on their language focus at the moment.

They even switch tones when talking to or about our dog name Brownie. [brow(m)-nee(m) and brow(m)-NEE(f)]

-NG

(okay, I'll have to come up with a new naming pattern)

Edited January 12, 2009 by NaiGreg

[DavidHouston]

When foreign words are written in Thai, how are the tones decided.

Some examples :-

กะหรี่ - Curry (Ga)L (Ree)L

เป็ปซี่ - Pepsi (Pep)F (See)F

I personally wouldnt put these inflections on these words in english so is there some system used for the translation that defaults to a particular tone ? Otherwise why use tone markers for any foreign word.

Please visit Khun Rikker's blog, Thai101; his discussion regarding the spelling issue you raise is at:

http://rikker.blogspot.com/2008/10/loanwor...nglish-and.html

Note that the recent publication by the Royal Institute, "Dictionary of New Words", uses explicit tone marks to reflect the way English loan words are most often pronounced by Thais.

[Rikker]

There's an unfortunately obscure paper that touches on this topic, given in 1984 by Christopher Court: Some Remarks on Lexical Modernization in Thai (PDF). I would love to see someone write a 25-years-down-the-road update to it. Maybe I will at some point.

In Thai, tones are given to foreign words as part of the "nativization" process, whereby a word goes from being a foreign word to a Thai word. English (or any language) does the same thing. In English we take croissant and get crew-saunt, or Cambodia and get Cam-bo-dee-uh. Thais take Robert and say โรเบิร์ท, take America and say เมกา, take Danny and say แดนนี่.

It's a given in the field of linguistics that spoken language is primary, and written language is an imperfect and often artificial representation of it. The rules that determine which tones English loanwords will get in Thai are phonological rules, and embedded into the language in a way that isn't the result of book-learning. Native speakers "know" how to pronounce English words and names (granted, with some variation), even if it's a new word to them.

This is why virtually all Thais will pronounce Danny (or what have you) the same way.

This is true even if the tones are not explicitly written. The present trend is to write English words as simply as possible, leaving out diacritics like vowel shorteners and tone markers. Take the company Cadbury. In Thai, they spell the name of their company แคดเบอรี. By strict reading rules, the three syllables of this word would be pronounced: long vowel + falling tone, mid tone, mid tone. But the vast majority of natives will see that and read แค็ดเบอรี่ (short vowel + high tone, mid tone, falling tone). And since natives all "know" this, it's considered by some Thais to be ugly "clutter" to spell the word precisely how it is pronounced. Others strongly oppose this trend, usually Thai language teachers and traditionalists, because it widens the schism between the written and spoken language, making Thai less phonetic and less systematic.

That's my two cents, anyhow. Read Chris Court's article. Still surprisingly relevant a quarter-century later.

[mynextgig]

Another interesting translation i have seen for an english word is ไบค์ for Bike.

Is this a mid or low tone ?

But my point here is why silence the ค when many Thai words end with the k sound.

[mangkorn]

But most Thais do not pronounce a final "k" sound in a word like that the same way that English speakers do; it is a glottal stop, therefore the ค์ makes perfect sense. (Unless you are talking about people in tourist areas who have learned to speak English the way that foreigners do, when they are speaking to farangs. When Thais speak with Thais, the pronunciation is different, e.g., the word "guide" which is now accepted in Thai: the "d" is not pronounced - except by tourist guides when speaking to tourists.)

[Richard W]

Another interesting translation i have seen for an english word is ไบค์ for Bike.

Is this a mid or low tone ?

But my point here is why silence the ค when many Thai words end with the k sound.

Because Thai words can end in no more than one consonant, and ไบค์ already counts as ending in one - /bay/. (OK, /baj/ if you insist on IPA.)

[Rikker]

To put it another way, the vowel ไ ใ (-ัย, etc) always ends the syllable in Thai, and is never followed by a consonant. So Thais don't natively "know how" to say a consonant after this vowel (diphthong, actually). In English such combinations are common, of course (bike, time, fight; also commonly followed by consonants clusters, which are extra difficult for Thais to pronounce: heist, bikes, files).

I'm not sure exactly what you mean with respect to the glottal stop, Mangkorn. Do you mean an unreleased stop? Anyhow, you're right that among Thais, this is part of the nativized pronunciation of foreign loanwords. Since there are no such ไ + final consonant combination in Thai, foreign words like these which "break" Thai phonological rules are simply adapted into the system.

One way around this particular issue is converting the vowel to สระอา. Sometimes you'll see/hear, for example, "time" written/pronounced "ทาย์ม" (pronounced ทาม, of course).

[Richard W]

One way around this particular issue is converting the vowel to สระอา. Sometimes you'll see/hear, for example, "time" written/pronounced "ทาย์ม" (pronounced ทาม, of course).

And ปอนด์ for 'pound'.

[mynextgig]

To put it another way, the vowel ไ ใ (-ัย, etc) always ends the syllable in Thai, and is never followed by a consonant. So Thais don't natively "know how" to say a consonant after this vowel (diphthong, actually). In English such combinations are common, of course (bike, time, fight; also commonly followed by consonants clusters, which are extra difficult for Thais to pronounce: heist, bikes, files).

I'm not sure exactly what you mean with respect to the glottal stop, Mangkorn. Do you mean an unreleased stop? Anyhow, you're right that among Thais, this is part of the nativized pronunciation of foreign loanwords. Since there are no such ไ + final consonant combination in Thai, foreign words like these which "break" Thai phonological rules are simply adapted into the system.

One way around this particular issue is converting the vowel to สระอา. Sometimes you'll see/hear, for example, "time" written/pronounced "ทาย์ม" (pronounced ทาม, of course).

Thanks Rikker, that explains many of nuances i have experienced in Thai's pronouncing only the 1st part of loan or foreign words.

You want some Lai = You want some Rice

Its in the How = Its in the House

etc etc