Royal Institute Announces Simplifications To Thai Alphabet

[Rikker]

Royal Institute announces simplifications to Thai alphabet

Thailand's Royal Institute (ราชบัณฑิตยสถาน), the government agency charged with promoting the proper use of Standard Thai, announced this morning the first major changes to the basic Thai writing system since the aborted spelling reforms of the Phibunsongkhram administration during World War II.

In a move that mirrors those changes, starting today, ten consonants will become officially obsolete, in addition to the two already no longer used, ฃ ขวด and ฅ คน. The newly retired letters are: ฆ ระฆัง, ฌ เฌอ, ญ หญิง, ฎ ชฎา, ฏ ปฏัก, ฐ ฐาน, ฑ มณโฑ, ฒ ผู้เฒ่า, ณ เณร, and ฬ จุฬา. This brings the total number of defunct consonants to twelve, paring the Thai alphabet down from 44 to 32, which is considered an auspicious number in Thai culture.

The choices, they explained in a press conference this morning, are based on a careful study of letter and word frequency in Thai. Only the least commonly used consonants are being retired, in an effort to boost literacy, without sacrificing the breadth of expression that makes Thai the elegant and diverse language it is.

The consonants ฆ ฌ ญ ฎ ฏ ฐ ฑ ฒ ณ and ฬ are to be replaced with their sound-alike counterparts ค ช ย ด ต ถ ท น and ล. For example, under the reform the word ญาติ will now be spelled ยาติ, ปฏิรูป will become ปติรูป, and so forth.

This announcement was made jointly with the Ministry of Education and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, as part of a new push to reinvigorate the flagging tourism industry. It is believed that the simplifications to the writing system will boost foreign interest in Thailand and the Thai language, which is frequently cited as one of the most difficult languages to learn, in large part due to the complicated script.

All Ministry of Education textbooks are required to be updated within the end of calendar year 2010, and the government is expected to offer tax concessions and other incentives to publishers to help defray the large costs of updating their publications over the next several years. The public sector deadline is longer, set at the end of calendar year 2015.

Whether this initiative will be successful remains to be seen, but clearly this is a huge step for Thailand.

[source: Complete transcript of the Royal Institute press conference]

[hunterdavies]

hmmm sounds interesting,i wonder how many people will continue writing the same way/or if people will change...?

personally i think its a good idea!!

Edited April 1, 2009 by hunterdavies

[sorensen]

April 1st.....

[toptuan]

April 1st.....

I pray you're wrong!

[hunterdavies]

Oh yeh...that would be right April 1st!!! Amazes me how much trouble some people go to i couldnt be bothered writing that much.

[desi]

Hah! Good one.

[george]

Excellent!

[skippybangkok]

hmmm sounds interesting,i wonder how many people will continue writing the same way/or if people will change...?

personally i think its a good idea!!

We feel sorry for ya !

Just put it down as morning drowsiness !

[Slip]

Haha.

The second April 1st trick I've seen on TV today. The 1st rather obvious one was suggesting that expats will be taxed on how long they've been in country and didn't trick me for a second. This, however had me hook, line and...

I was just telling my (farang) girlfriend about it when the penny dropped. D'oh!

Thanks Rikker

[EDIT to add:

Today, 2009-04-01 14:19:35

However. doesn't this rather make you* the fool?]

Edited April 1, 2009 by Slip

[Rionoir]

hahaha dam_n I have a final exam for Basic 2 on Friday I was wondering what they would do about this... giggle

[Richard W]

Whether this initiative will be successful remains to be seen, but clearly this is a huge step for Thailand.

Well, it failed two generations ago. Have you yet found out why? There's very little on the internet - a reference to your blog entry came at the top of the list when I googled for it.

[source: Complete transcript of the Royal Institute press conference]

I knew this would be the clincher, but I didn't expect such an obvious one.

[Rikker]

Well, it failed two generations ago. Have you yet found out why? There's very little on the internet - a reference to your blog entry came at the top of the list when I googled for it.

I've only come to my own presumed conclusions. My father-in-law was in primary school during those years, so I asked him what he remembered. He tells me the reform never even entered the school curricula as far as he knew. He was never taught anything but the complete alphabet and normal spelling. In fact, he only vaguely knew that it had happened at all, and he's relatively well-educated -- dual bachelor's degrees, lifelong educator (math teacher and later school director).

From this I draw that it wasn't popularly supported, never really caught on, and was thus doomed from the start. Phibunsongkhram enjoyed great popularity, and is still remembered quite fondly for a military dictator. But there were factions in politics, and I imagine that this was viewed by many as a betrayal of Thai cultural heritage, just as it would be viewed by many today. But then again, P. was able to carry out an impressive number of other cultural reforms -- changing the way Thais behaved dressed and acted in many fundamental ways. Given time the spelling reform may have caught on, but he was ousted in August 1944, and government documents quietly reverted to pre-reform spellings in December of that year, as I recall. I haven't located the formal announcement revoking the reform, but it's probably out there.

I'd love to do more research on this, but don't have any new leads nor a lot of time to devote to it.

[source: Complete transcript of the Royal Institute press conference]

I knew this would be the clincher, but I didn't expect such an obvious one.

Well, I didn't want to make it too good a prank. If it got spread too far, it might make important people unhappy!

[DavidHouston]

And, here I was, wondering if I would have to learn to retype Thai and get used to a new Thai keyboard all over again!

[yoot]

Rikker,

You might be interested in reading this article.

[Rikker]

Yoot, thanks for the link. I don't think I've seen that synopsis before. It mostly repeats what is found in the primary documents I've been able to locate, but it was very useful in pointing me to the Royal Gazette announcement on adopting Thai numerals in place of Arabic numerals. Cool!

I've written two blog posts on the topic. The first one was in February 2008. Through a helpful comment I learned of the scans of the complete Royal Gazette archive -- 125 years! -- and was able to track down the original announcement, which I posted about in June 2008. The actual reform announcement is titled ประกาศสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง การปรับปรุงตัวอักษรไทย (PDF), dated May 29, 1942, and published in the Royal Gazette on June 1.

And wouldn't you know it -- serendipity! I just found the announcement which formally revokes the spelling reform (and the numeral reform):

ประกาศสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง การปรับปรุงตัวอักษรไทย และการใช้เลขสากลเป็นเลขไทย (PDF)

Cool.

[Lithobid]

Hook, Line, and Sinker! - and I was only unhappy because I've just spent the last 15 months of my life learning to spell the @#$@#$ language properly!

Well done, though no suprise really, I am Polish.

Cheers

Lithobid!