Comprehension

[tgeezer]

Does anyone know whether when King Ramkamheng invented the writing system did he also lay down any grammar rules?

I ask because I find comprehension very difficult and knowing that the grammar has been grafted-on and constantly ammended, I would know that in some cases there is no definitive translation possible. This is probably the case with English but, being more familiar with English, I don't find it so difficult.

Take this example from a good source:

ให้นักเรียนตระหนักในคุณค่าของภาษาไทย และซาบซึ้งในความไพเราะของบทร้อยกรอง; here we have คำกริยา in the first sentence and a คำวิเศษณ์ in the second, they are both acting as อกรรมกริยา followed by a คำบุพบท

another example from the RID, and here comprehension matters, although I am on dodgey ground because I don't know what is meant by กริยาสำคาญของประโยค which เป็น being วกตรรถกริยา cannot be.

สถานการณ์ น. เหตุการที่กำลังเป็นไป เช่น สถานการณ์การเมืองเป็นปรกติดี this should be คำนาม surely; ปรกดิ is a คำวิเศษณ์ and ปรกติดี is not a word.

I am not trying to be contentious, I have been learning grammar so I really need to know how to treat it.

I suppose the real question is; does grammar belong in the Thai language?

[DavidHouston]

"ให้นักเรียนตระหนักในคุณค่าของภาษาไทย และซาบซึ้งในความไพเราะของบทร้อยกรอง"

Interesting passage. English may use the English equivalent of two words "ตระหนัก" and "ซาบซึ้ง" in the same way Thai does.

"ตระหนัก" can be translated as "to be aware of" and "ซาบซึ้ง" as "to be grateful for", both verbs followed by a preposition. Thus, the sentence you quoted can be rendered as:

"[You] students should be aware of the value of [our] Thai language and be grateful for the beauty of its poetry."

[Rikker]

The short answer to your first question: no.

The long answer: everything that is known or theorized about King Ramkhamhaeng's role in the creation of the Thai script comes from about four lines of text on the fourth face of the stone inscription generally known as Inscription 1*. Here is the relevant passage (spelling modernized):

เมื่อก่อนลายสือไทยนี้บ่มี 1205 ศก ปีมะแมพ่อขุนรามคำแหงหาใคร่ใจในใจแลใส่ลายสือไทยนี้ลายสือไทยนี้จึ่งมีเพื่อขุนผู้นั้นใส่ไว้

And the English translation by A.B. Griswold and Prasert Na Nagara (Journal of the Siam Society 59/2, July 1971):

Formerly these Dai [Tai] letters did not exist. In 1205 saka, a year of the goat, King Rāma Gaṃhèṅ set his mind and his heart on devising these Dai letters. So these Dai letters exist because that lord devised them.

1205 is the มหาศกราช (aka Saka era) date, corresponding to B.E. 1826, or A.D. 1283.

This interpretation is disputed, and all hangs on the word ใส่ (spelled ใศ่ on the original inscription). Its translation of "devise" or "invent" is widely accepted but conjectural. As far as I know, there are no other examples of this word in this meaning. It should also be noted that this is on face 4 of the inscription, which was quite possibly (though again, disputedly) inscribed after the King's death, or even centuries after. Most of the first face is written in the first person (famously beginning พ่อกูชื่อศรีอินทราทิตย์ แม่กูชื่อนางเสือง "My father's name was Sri Indraditya. My mother's name was Lady Sueang."), but starting towards the bottom of face one and on the remaining three faces, the inscription is in the third person. That's not conclusive of anything, but it's relevant.

To address your other questions:

ซาบซึ้ง is being used in a verb-like role. The classification of words as วิเศษณ์ in Thai is inherited from the Indic grammatical tradition. But Sanskrit is an inflecting language, whereas Thai is not. So while Thai dictionaries like to neatly divide them into groups (e.g. word X is a กริยา, word Y is a วิเศษณ์), if you look at the usage in context it quickly becomes obvious that Thai words don't stick to their neat categories very well. (Because the category-assigning is superimposed on the language.)

ปกติดี is two words, ปรกติ + ดี "good and normal", i.e. not at all out of the ordinary. And the use of ปรกติ here does seem like a noun, unless someone else can offer a different analysis of why it follows เป็น. Grammatical analysis is far from my forte.

[tgeezer]

"ให้นักเรียนตระหนักในคุณค่าของภาษาไทย และซาบซึ้งในความไพเราะของบทร้อยกรอง"

Interesting passage. English may use the English equivalent of two words "ตระหนัก" and "ซาบซึ้ง" in the same way Thai does.

"ตระหนัก" can be translated as "to be aware of" and "ซาบซึ้ง" as "to be grateful for", both verbs followed by a preposition. Thus, the sentence you quoted can be rendered as:

"[You] students should be aware of the value of [our] Thai language and be grateful for the beauty of its poetry."

Hi David, don't you agree that if we had to find the meaning from the Thai the classification would be important?

The reason that ซาบซึ้ง is now a คำวิเศษณ์ (since the latest RID anyway) it used to be one of those-verbs showing how we feel. ตระหนัก is still a คำกริยา they both act as คำกริยา here and interestingly T_L dict shows them both as verbs.

[tgeezer]

The short answer to your first question: no.

Thanks for that, (I can't handle the long answer), so the only way to know for sure is to have a native speaker looking over my shoulder.

To address your other questions:

ซาบซึ้ง is being used in a verb-like role. The classification of words as วิเศษณ์ in Thai is inherited from the Indic grammatical tradition. But Sanskrit is an inflecting language, whereas Thai is not. So while Thai dictionaries like to neatly divide them into groups (e.g. word X is a กริยา, word Y is a วิเศษณ์), if you look at the usage in context it quickly becomes obvious that Thai words don't stick to their neat categories very well. (Because the category-assigning is superimposed on the language.)

ปกติดี is two words, ปรกติ + ดี "good and normal", i.e. not at all out of the ordinary. And the use of ปรกติ here does seem like a noun, unless someone else can offer a different analysis of why it follows เป็น. Grammatical analysis is far from my forte.

I think that ซาบซั้ง is used as a คำกริยา is because classification as a คำวิเศษณ์ is recent and wrong, this book is used n schools and is publist after the latest RID.

I should have written บ้านเมือง sorry, but we agree it should be a noun describing a noun; maybe it should be ความปกติดี and where the meaning is obvious it is ommited. My gooodness I do seem to need rules!

[tgeezer]

"ให้นักเรียนตระหนักในคุณค่าของภาษาไทย และซาบซึ้งในความไพเราะของบทร้อยกรอง"

Interesting passage. English may use the English equivalent of two words "ตระหนัก" and "ซาบซึ้ง" in the same way Thai does.

I get the impression that you find this refreshingly easy to understand which is as it should be, those rambling passages which you find in Matichon Weekly definitely are not!

[Johpa]

Does anyone know whether when King Ramkamheng invented the writing system did he also lay down any grammar rules?

There is at least one school of thought that claims that the grammatical rules of any language are a function of the wiring of the brain and not the result of prescriptive grammarians attempting to lay down artificial rules.

[tgeezer]

Does anyone know whether when King Ramkamheng invented the writing system did he also lay down any grammar rules?

There is at least one school of thought that claims that the grammatical rules of any language are a function of the wiring of the brain and not the result of prescriptive grammarians attempting to lay down artificial rules.

I agree with that, I can imagine asking how do you say ไปing in Thai.

The grammarians have to work hard to keep up if the culture's role-models have no education to speak of.

Edited September 23, 2009 by tgeezer

[DavidHouston]

Does anyone know whether when King Ramkamheng invented the writing system did he also lay down any grammar rules?

There is at least one school of thought that claims that the grammatical rules of any language are a function of the wiring of the brain and not the result of prescriptive grammarians attempting to lay down artificial rules.

TGeezer,

I agree with Johpa on this one, and, he needn't be so shy. Try this experiment. Find a statistically significant number of reasonably well- educated Thai adults and conduct a survey. Ask them about five questions regarding Thai grammar and see what their answers are. That is, are they aware of the grammar "rules" and "principles which underly their language? I suggest that you will find that they speak Thai fluently and write correctly and literately without reference to the rules of Thai grammar.

I would go a bit further and suggest that grammar is purely descriptive, and not prescriptive at all. Let's take several examples from English: a. the illegality of splitting an infinitive and b. the proscription against ending a word with a preposition. These were hard and fast rules, at least in the standard American dialect of English. If rules were prescriptive we would not be seeing a disuse of these rules. (Winston Churchill famously said when confronted by rule b. above, "This is a rule up with which I will not put.") Linnaean taxonomy as a descriptive mechanism is interesting for life forms; I am not so enamored with taxonomic constructs in my learning of Thai expression.

A second thought: In Thai grammar, especially, it is generally not possible in Thai for any single word standing alone is generally to deduce its "part of speech" (ชนิดของคำ) or "word class" (หมวดคำ). For the most part, Thai words take their taxonomy by their function in a sentence or clause, and not by an a priori dictionary designation. For this notion I reference you to, for example, "ภาษาศาสตร์ภาษาไทย" (Thai Linguistics) by เรืองเดช ปัีนเขื่อนขัติย์ published by Chulalongkorn University, 2552 (2009), page 191.

Here are several sample sentences he provides using the Thai word ดำ:

ก. ดำเป็นสีที่ฉันไม่ชอบ (ดำ is a noun)

ข. เสื้อตัวนี้ดำหมดแล้ว (ดำ functions as a verb)

ค. พี่สาวไม่ชอบใส่เสื้อดำ (ดำ functions as an adjective.

Let me stress that I am not "dissing" [1] using "parts of speech" as an important tool in learning. This tool has to be used correctly, however. Asking the question "What part of speech is the Thai word ดำ?" is not a relevant question; "What role does the word ดำ play in this sentence?", however is a relevant question.

This is the nature of the Thai language. I find it fascinating and liberating. What do you think?

[1] The American neologism "dissing" is parallel to the Thai neologism "ดิสเครดิต".

Edited September 23, 2009 by DavidHouston

[tgeezer]

Does anyone know whether when King Ramkamheng invented the writing system did he also lay down any grammar rules?

There is at least one school of thought that claims that the grammatical rules of any language are a function of the wiring of the brain and not the result of prescriptive grammarians attempting to lay down artificial rules.

TGeezer,

I agree with Johpa on this one, and, he needn't be so shy. Try this experiment. Find a statistically significant number of reasonably well- educated Thai adults and conduct a survey. Ask them about five questions regarding Thai grammar and see what their answers are. That is, are they aware of the grammar "rules" and "principles which underly their language? I suggest that you will find that they speak Thai fluently and write correctly and literately without reference to the rules of Thai grammar.

I would go a bit further and suggest that grammar is purely descriptive, and not prescriptive at all. Let's take several examples from English: a. the illegality of splitting an infinitive and b. the proscription against ending a word with a preposition. These were hard and fast rules, at least in the standard American dialect of English. If rules were prescriptive we would not be seeing a disuse of these rules. (Winston Churchill famously said when confronted by rule b. above, "This is a rule up with which I will not put.") Linnaean taxonomy as a descriptive mechanism is interesting for life forms; I am not so enamored with taxonomic constructs in my learning of Thai expression.

A second thought: In Thai grammar, especially, it is generally not possible in Thai for any single word standing alone is generally to deduce its "part of speech" (ชนิดของคำ) or "word class" (หมวดคำ). For the most part, Thai words take their taxonomy by their function in a sentence or clause, and not by an a priori dictionary designation. For this notion I reference you to, for example, "ภาษาศาสตร์ภาษาไทย" (Thai Linguistics) by เรืองเดช ปัีนเขื่อนขัติย์ published by Chulalongkorn University, 2552 (2009), page 191.

Here are several sample sentences he provides using the Thai word ดำ:

ก. ดำเป็นสีที่ฉันไม่ชอบ (ดำ is a noun)

ข. เสื้อตัวนี้ดำหมดแล้ว (ดำ functions as a verb)

ค. พี่สาวไม่ชอบใส่เสื้อดำ (ดำ functions as an adjective.

Let me stress that I am not "dissing" [1] using "parts of speech" as an important tool in learning. This tool has to be used correctly, however. Asking the question "What part of speech is the Thai word ดำ?" is not a relevant question; "What role does the word ดำ play in this sentence?", however is a relevant question.

This is the nature of the Thai language. I find it fascinating and liberating. What do you think?

[1] The American neologism "dissing" is parallel to the Thai neologism "ดิสเครดิต".

I think that you write very well.

The point is that all educated Thai learned the basics first which set them up to get it right, and if they are respected enough can say what they like in a similar way to W.C. he split the words 'put up' and ended with 'put' a verb! however I don't want to get bogged down in English, I want to get bogged down in Thai!

The word ดำ is one of those อกรรมกริยา which show the characteristics of a noun and which noone want to discuss หมอดำ สีดำ เสิ้อดำ Now that the classification has changed it makes it possible to find these wonderful discussion points. The first example should perhaps be สีดำ in which case there would be no issue.

Is it worth mentioning that ดำ is also a คำกริยา = มุดลงในคำว่า ดำน้ำ. but we would probably discount it, I don't know how flexible

คุณเรืองเดซ is.

[Harcourt]

I am an elementary learner of Thai, so this thread interested me...I too would like "rules" to get some consistency.... and of course I speak with no authority on the Thai language.

I reflected after reading Johpa and DavidH that I can't verbalise the rules of English grammar....and no doubt I am technically incorrect at times.......although I do know that prepostions should not be used to end a sentence with.

The point being that it sounds as if Johpa's proposition may indeed be correct that grammar is learnt "by instinct within the culture" and can not be precisely imparted.

[tgeezer]

I am an elementary learner of Thai, so this thread interested me...I too would like "rules" to get some consistency.... and of course I speak with no authority on the Thai language.

I reflected after reading Johpa and DavidH that I can't verbalise the rules of English grammar....and no doubt I am technically incorrect at times.......although I do know that prepostions should not be used to end a sentence with.

The point being that it sounds as if Johpa's proposition may indeed be correct that grammar is learnt "by instinct within the culture" and can not be precisely imparted.

A schoolmaster might say that this is the fervent hope of a lazy boy. It is defined by the 'phrase monkey see-monkey do' and an argument against education.

I have forgotten much of the English grammar taught to me, as you would expect of anyone who is not in bookish work. I retain the fundemental principles of English, but now I need the same situation to apply to Thai. I think that I should learn the fundementals in Thai, not in English, in order to better interact with any Thai whom I may meet.

There is a stage in the process of learning where all is defined and immutable, I am at that stage, so somewhat out-of-step with some posters, who for the most part appear to be, past it, never went through or intend to go through it.

I am going to get out my old phrase-books when I return to Bangkok to help me increase my vocabulary and patterns of speech, and hopefully blur the grammatical rules a little.

I have returned to edit this post because I have just received a joke which I would like to share with you and I think argues the value of education.

The answer to the question; which bird does not build its own nest is 'cuckoo' and how do I know?

because a cuckoo lives in a clock.

Edited September 27, 2009 by tgeezer

[Johpa]

The point is that all educated Thai learned the basics first which set them up to get it right,

The point is that all human beings learn to fluently speak their mother tongue, and often a second language native tongue, well before then enter the school system. And there is nothing Lamarckian about the process as any newborn baby can be relocated into any community on the planet and will become a fully functional speaker of that community by the age of three. Education has nothing to do with it apart from prescribing one dialect as being more socially prestigious than another dialect. It is pure happenstance that the "Queen's English" is the dialect that it is and not Cockney. And eventually the local elite organizes an army behind their dialect and declare it a language and the languages spoken by the lower social classes are classified as dialects and not a language. Never underestimate the socio-politics of language and national language policies. There are reasons why governments would rather have kids spend years in high school on quadratic equations and not a single moment on even the most rudimentary aspects of linguistics.

The brain is pre-wired for language. As a native speaker, you can't get it wrong unless you have an abnormal brain or suffer a brain injury. Sure you can make minor errors whilst speaking, spoonerisms being one of the most common examples. But such production errors happen to everyone and are not correlated to education.

Bottom line, as a native speaker you don't need to learn any grammatical rules as a child, your brain's wiring will take care of that for you without conscious effort. (Alas, humans usally lose this innate ability after puberty) The rules written by others are simply their best approximations, usually pretty accurate for basics, but often a bit shaky as you get into more complex syntactical structures. And often these same prescriptive grammarians go off the deep end, as when they try to pretend that because Latin, long the most prestigious language of the western world, has case endings, that case structure in English should also be taught.

[SoftWater]

A second thought: In Thai grammar, especially, it is generally not possible in Thai for any single word standing alone is generally to deduce its "part of speech" (ชนิดของคำ) or "word class" (หมวดคำ). For the most part, Thai words take their taxonomy by their function in a sentence or clause, and not by an a priori dictionary designation.

I believe that's true of English too, David. I'm reminded of Frege's 'a word has meaning only in the context of a sentence' and Wittgenstein's 'to know the meaning of a word is to know how it is used.'

In what seems an uncharacteristic blaze of memory recall thirty seconds before bedtime, I'm also reminded of a classroom favourite for teaching English parts of speech using nonsense words, (I'm happy to say I forget the source

The plomik baskiners pirked the lampik at the simpter cyptically.

Edited September 27, 2009 by SoftWater

[mangkorn]

...Education has nothing to do with it apart from prescribing one dialect as being more socially prestigious than another dialect. It is pure happenstance that the "Queen's English" is the dialect that it is and not Cockney. And eventually the local elite organizes an army behind their dialect and declare it a language and the languages spoken by the lower social classes are classified as dialects and not a language. Never underestimate the socio-politics of language and national language policies...

Excellent point, Johpa. It is bemusing to consider that many genuine Thai words are considered "vulgar" or ไม่สุภาพ, as opposed to the "approved" Indic words which were imported and then forced upon the free peoples of Thailand. And, as you say, that same thing has happened all over the world throughout history. The Spaniards and their mighty swords certainly come to mind...

[Rikker]

I think you're probably overstating the historical situation, Mangkorn. Linguistic contact naturally begets borrowing, most often from the dominant language into the other, but also sometimes vice versa (English acquired great numbers of loans during the heyday of the British Empire, and in the U.S. the number of American Indian words is also huge). While certainly many neologisms and borrowings have been brought into Thai "unnaturally" (i.e. by prescription), the majority of the time it's natural contact borrowing, affected by social factors like relative prestige.

Now apply that to modern Thai. In the view of many Thai academics and other language conservatives, the "native" terms (which, ironically, are often originally Indic, Khmer, Mon, etc) are being replaced in popular usage by English terms. In this case, the cachet of English makes it like the new prestige language. Now, this may not be a desirable scenario, but it's a natural linguistic process at work. Contact with English begets borrowing from it. And the unnatural part is the attempt by languages like Thai and French to regulate foreign words out of their language.

Language and nationalism are regularly conflated, causing strong feelings on the issue. But your point is well taken. I once posed this question (rhetorically) to some Thai academics who disliked the influence of English on Thai: 1000 years ago, don't you think people were having the same debate over the encroachment of Indic words on Thai?

[tgeezer]

Bottom line, as a native speaker you don't need to learn any grammatical rules as a child, your brain's wiring will take care of that for you without conscious effort. (Alas, humans usally lose this innate ability after puberty) The rules written by others are simply their best approximations, usually pretty accurate for basics, but often a bit shaky as you get into more complex syntactical structures. And often these same prescriptive grammarians go off the deep end, as when they try to pretend that because Latin, long the most prestigious language of the western world, has case endings, that case structure in English should also be taught.

As you say there are differing views, but I cannot believe that language structure is innate, I think that the ability to learn is innate. The child who was hidden from the world by a father in Germany, I think, apparently has a problem becuase the links in the brain were not created and now it is too late to make those links. Education starts in the womb, some say, certainly it starts long before we go to school. Language, as a means of effective communication, is governed by the level of education attained.

Misunderstanding is universal; take the example of Winston Churchill earlier, but in cases like that precision doesn't matter, it sounded ok, made a point, and communication was achieved; I have just reminded myself of what I said there, so, bye.

[SoftWater]

As you say there are differing views, but I cannot believe that language structure is innate, I think that the ability to learn is innate.

I think that's exactly right, tgeezer. The distinction is often overlooked.

Lets' call these

i. The strong claim: language structure is innate

ii. The weak claim: the ability to learn language is innate

Early Chomskian linguistics made a case for the strong claim, but as I understand it (and I'm sure Johpa will correct me if I'm wrong), Chomsky has modified his position in light of criticism over the years to such an extent that his current view is little more than the weaker and almost uncontroversial claim for ii.

[Johpa]

Early Chomskian linguistics made a case for the strong claim, but as I understand it (and I'm sure Johpa will correct me if I'm wrong), Chomsky has modified his position in light of criticism over the years to such an extent that his current view is little more than the weaker and almost uncontroversial claim for ii.

<Disclaimer: I have been out of academia for a long time and do not closely follow current trends in linguistics>

A long and still hotly debated issue by folks far more knowledgeable than myself. Chomsky was always having to modify his models ad nauseum, a boon to the academic publishing trade. But Chomsky was committed to his calling card, serial processing, a la his early work in helping with the creation of the earliest computer languages at MIT and Penn. But I really doubt that the brain is simply a serial processor, probable more akin to a massive parallel processor. Chomsky is also one arrogant SOB the few times I saw him visit for a lecture, always demeaning those with an opposing point of view as trivial or worse. But I continue to subscribe to his old school view (and perhaps also because I am a fan of an even older school child development guy, Piaget) that there is an underlying structure that children are able to utilize during their youngest years to absorb a language, but using a program method we are unable to parse form the final product, speech. Sort of akin to finding the texture of a 3-D object from a projected shadow. Thus we are left to describe our lack of knowledge about the brains programming by stepping back and saying only what we observe, that the ability to learn is innate. That we can not yet fathom the programming does not by iteslf invalidate the hypothesis.

[RickBradford]

It is not surprising that native Thai speakers don't understand the grammar of the language -- they don't need to.

Similarly, how many native speakers of English understand the rules surrounding the use of the subjunctive mood in English?

(No Googling... )