The Thai Political Word Thread. ..

[uppalux]

Davidhouston

I think กระดาน is a separate with เผชิญหน้า

กระดาน (in the article is เรียงแถวหน้ากระดาน) is line-up formation that troops come to front and spread wide (I don't know this word) like this

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

it's a shallow but wide formation in order to block a protesters. or barricade a road to maintain/stand ground or even push back.

เผชิญหน้า is mean confront (like a phrase สถานการณ์เสี่ยงต่อการเผชิญหน้า prone to confrontation situation)

[321niti123]

Great thread, Tod.

One minor correction: นายกรัฐมนตรี (prime minister) is often shortened to นายก. รัฐมนตรี is a cabinet minister, shortened from รัฐมนตรีว่าการ.

ผู้ว่า is kind of a broad term for government bigshot/senior official, usually the governor of a province, or mayor (e.g., กรุงเทพฯ). ผู้ว่า sounds a lot like the term that Latino street gangs use for boss (literally translated from Spanish as "he who speaks"), but the Thai is actually a short form of ผู้ว่าราชการ

As for ศาลฎีกา - wasn't that a hi-so discotheque that burned down on New Years Eve? (Who would name a disco The Supreme Court, anyway?)

different pronounciation ศาลฎีกา is pronounced Sarn(Sarn like court) Dee(Dee like good-long sound and spelled with dor dek) Kaa (kaa like crow-Low and long sounds) which means The Supreme Court of Justice

Santika is the pub

the "ti" pronounced as a short sound and spelled with tor tao and not dor dek

the ka is also a short sound and has a higher intonation than the kaa in ศาลฎีกา which has a long low sound

[321niti123]

ระบอบประชาธิปไตยโดยมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุข (ra borb prachatipathai doy mee pramaha kasat pben pramuk)

Democratic form of government with a monarch as head of state (Constitutional Monarchy)

ระบอบรัฐสภา (Ra borb ratta sapa)

Parliamentary form of government (this word is used by abhisit to state that his becoming PM is legal through Parliamentary form of govt)

ระเบิด(ra bert)

Bomb

การประท้วง(karn Pra tuang)-there is also another word which i dont know how to spell its pronounce karn chum num

to Protest

สถานะการฉุกเฉิน (stanakarn chukchern)

State of emergency

ความมั่นคงภายใน (kwam mun kong pai nai)

internal/domestic security

กองทัพบก (Kong Tub Bok)

Army

การเลือกตั้ง (luak tung)

election

เจ้าหน้าที่ตำรวจ (Jao na tee tum ruaj)

police officers

บัญชาการกองทัพบก (Puu ban cha karn kong tub bok)

Head of Army (currently- Army General Anupong Paochinda)

ประชาชนพล (Pra Cha Chon)

citizens

ศูนย์อำนวยการแก้ไขสถานะการฉุกเฉิน (Suun aum nuay karn gae kai stanakarn chuk chern)

Center/Organization to fix/improve state of emergency-its an organization set up to fix the state of emergency, part of state of emergency decree

[Irene]

Red T-shirts with ไพร่ printed large on them. My dictionaries translate as citizens, commoners, also vulgar wretch. I suppose in this context it is pride in being one of the people?

No, no.

It is "Peasant". You can sometimes see protest T-shirts that write it in English.

What a lovely thread! So surprised with so much interest!

"Prai" can also mean crude and unrefined. I think its origin was from lives in palace between those ruling masters and those who served. The latter are less educated. With that connotation, I was surprised with the red leaders' initiation of this word when all of them and especially that Dubai man couldn't hardly be classified as "peasant" or "common man". But unwittingly they could fall under the definition of "crude".

[Tod Daniels]

The 'PAD Pink No Color' shirts are called เสื้อหลักสี.

I asked a bunch of Thai friends, and they all believe the 'no color' shirts are just the PAD in disguise . . . hence what I called them . . .

spelling correction: เสื้อหลากสี

My Thai friends apparently can't spell . . .

Out on my soi the 'many color shirts' are called หลายดอก (many flowers) or หลายสี (many color).. In fact some of my friends went to the many color rally the other day, just as some of my friends after drinking on my soi go to the red rally at Rajaprasong, and some of them went to the PAD get together.

FWIW: even though my thai friends are composed of redz, yellowz, dark bluez (Newin) and many colors we all sit together talk about what's going on politics-wise and get drunk in a friendly manner . What I (as an outsider find even more interesting is); even when they are piss drunk, they are respectful of each persons views. I honestly feel if more thais would share this; "okay your opinion is different from mine but I'm not gonna fight over it" viewpoint this entire fiasco would be a moot. These friends ALL share strong political convictions but won’t let politics get in the way of their friendships. Truly admirable. ..

In fact I printed this thread to show them the foreign interest in their politics and the vocabulary needed to actually talk coherently in thai to a thai about it. They were amazed we cared as much as we do. .

Edited April 25, 2010 by tod-daniels

[DavidHouston]

What's in a Name?

"THE NATION: Nuttawut: we won't call ourselves multicolour. We r colour-less and non-privilege group. (mai me see, mai me sen in Thai).TT @jin_nation"

I have not seen the Thai but I am assuming that "เสื้อหลากสี" has become "เสื้อไม่มีสี ไม่มีเส้น"

I guess we can call this "แม่ชี" garb.

Edited April 25, 2010 by DavidHouston

[mangkorn]

different pronounciation ศาลฎีกา is pronounced Sarn(Sarn like court) Dee(Dee like good-long sound and spelled with dor dek) Kaa (kaa like crow-Low and long sounds) which means The Supreme Court of Justice

Santika is the pub

the "ti" pronounced as a short sound and spelled with tor tao and not dor dek

the ka is also a short sound and has a higher intonation than the kaa in ศาลฎีกา which has a long low sound

I don't understand this post. I don't know where you got a "dor dek" from, either. Why don't you just write it in Thai? (Also, กา is เสียงสามัญ - not "low.")

[farangnahrak]

Kinda related . . . I just saw a white T-shirt that says:

เสื้อตัวนี้สีเดียวกะมึง

I was told that if I wear it, I'll be ปลอดภัย . . .

[Tod Daniels]

spelling correction: เสื้อหลากสี

My Thai friends apparently can't spell . . .

I apologize to the above poster known as "farangnahrak"and stand humbly 'erected' , err corrected!!

I 'mis-remembered' the word for many colors and it is indeed; หลากสี...

What's in a Name?

"THE NATION: Nuttawut: we won't call ourselves multicolour. We r colour-less and non-privilege group. (mai me see, mai me sen in Thai).TT @jin_nation"

I have not seen the Thai but I am assuming that "เสื้อหลากสี" has become "เสื้อไม่มีสี ไม่มีเส้น"

I guess we can call this "แม่ชี" garb.

David; I think the REAL 'many colored shirts' (เสื้อหลากสี) would not take too kindly to be lumped in with the former redz, (เสื้อแดง) recently turned colorless (เสื้อไม่มีสี) just because the redz took off their shirts so as to not stand out like sore thumbz in a crowd.

(Now if they were yellowz disguised as many colors, reds disguised as yellowz, the ever popular fake redz, or if on the odd chance they were yellowz actually wearing yellow but under that shirt they wore a red shirt because they were somewhat sympathetic to the red cause... .ARGH!! I give up!!! There are just too many frickin' colors to keep track of )

Strange, I've always heard the phrase มีเส้น used more like "to have connections". When a problem arises like if a thai gets into a jamb with Police or some other problem, they have a number to call or a "connection" high enough up the food chain to remedy the situation. Interesting that ไม่มีเส้น can mean non-privileged.

[Tod Daniels]

Kinda related . . . I just saw a white T-shirt that says:

เสื้อตัวนี้สีเดียวกะมึง

I was told that if I wear it, I'll be ปลอดภัย . . .

Does that translate in to "This is the only frickin' color shirt I have!!"???

Is that like the bumper stickers on cars which say; รถคันนี่สีเขียว "This car is green", no matter what color car the sticker happens to be affixed to?

[chantorn]

Kinda related . . . I just saw a white T-shirt that says:

เสื้อตัวนี้สีเดียวกะมึง

I was told that if I wear it, I'll be ปลอดภัย . . .

Does that translate in to "This is the only frickin' color shirt I have!!"???

Is that like the bumper stickers on cars which say; รถคันนี่สีเขียว "This car is green", no matter what color car the sticker happens to be affixed to?

No it say "The shirt has the same colour as <deleted> yours"

[farangnahrak]

Is that like the bumper stickers on cars which say; รถคันนี่สีเขียว "This car is green", no matter what color car the sticker happens to be affixed to?

hmmm off subject but . . .

Sounds like its eluding to the fact that its 'environmentally friendly' . . .

[SimonN]

Is that like the bumper stickers on cars which say; รถคันนี่สีเขียว "This car is green", no matter what color car the sticker happens to be affixed to?

hmmm off subject but . . .

Sounds like its eluding to the fact that its 'environmentally friendly' . . .

. . . or perhaps the owner of the vehicle has been advised the colour of the vehicle is unlucky... and (in this case) green is lucky.

[mangkorn]

Is that like the bumper stickers on cars which say; รถคันนี่สีเขียว "This car is green", no matter what color car the sticker happens to be affixed to?

hmmm off subject but . . .

Sounds like its eluding to the fact that its 'environmentally friendly' . . .

"Alluding" - not "eluding."

Quite different things, surely...

[kokesaat]

The Bangkok Pundit (at http://www.asiancorrespondent.com/bangkok-pundit-blog) has an interesting piece today that includes a rather helter-skelter diagram of the UDD organization. Might be some handy names/terms for those following the conflict.

The photo of the organization is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/60433209@N00/...064196/sizes/o/

[farangnahrak]

I found a speech by the UDD that basically says all their grievances in a very moving way. You'll probably notice the vocabulary is fairly simple, and very easy to read:

http://arayachon.org/forum/arayachon/992

You can find the translation here, but I don't think it sounds so great the way its said in English:

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2...%99t-televised/

[321niti123]

ระบอบประชาธิปไตยโดยมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุข (ra borb prachatipathai doy mee pramaha kasat pben pramuk)

Democratic form of government with a monarch as head of state (Constitutional Monarchy)

ระบอบรัฐสภา (Ra borb ratta sapa)

Parliamentary form of government (this word is used by abhisit to state that his becoming PM is legal through Parliamentary form of govt)

ระเบิด(ra bert)

Bomb

การประท้วง(karn Pra tuang)-there is also another word which i dont know how to spell its pronounce karn chum num

to Protest

สถานะการฉุกเฉิน (stanakarn chukchern)

State of emergency

ความมั่นคงภายใน (kwam mun kong pai nai)

internal/domestic security

กองทัพบก (Kong Tub Bok)

Army

การเลือกตั้ง (luak tung)

election

เจ้าหน้าที่ตำรวจ (Jao na tee tum ruaj)

police officers

บัญชาการกองทัพบก (Puu ban cha karn kong tub bok)

Head of Army (currently- Army General Anupong Paochinda)

ประชาชนพล (Pra Cha Chon)

citizens

ศูนย์อำนวยการแก้ไขสถานะการฉุกเฉิน (Suun aum nuay karn gae kai stanakarn chuk chern)

Center/Organization to fix/improve state of emergency-its an organization set up to fix the state of emergency, part of state of emergency decree

some edits suggested to me by DavidHouston...Thanks for pointing out my mistakes

his message:

"May I ask you some questions regarding your listing?

For สถานะการฉุกเฉิน, I have seen the spelling as “สถานการณ์ฉุกเฉิน” and the alternative term ภาวะฉุกเฉิน more often.

And, the final term in your posting, I think might be “ศูนย์อำนวยการแก้ไขสถานการณ์ฉุกเฉิน (ศอฉ.)”

I suspect that you mean: ชุมนุม (yes chum num is also, pra tuang also has the same meaning)

บัญชาการกองทัพบก should be prefixed by ผู้

ประชาชนพล: do you mean perhaps “ประชาชนพลเรือน” [N] civilian? ( meant ประชาชน, i dont know why i put พล, but your translation works too)

Thanks for posting this list. "

The red parts are my comments

[farangnahrak]

Hey that reminds me, I just saw ศอฉ. in the newspaper today. Just to verify, it's CRES, right?

Also, เปลี่ยนกำลัง means to rotate, as in 'troop post rotation,' right? The paper was saying the thousands of police moving to Bangkok all at once was just an officer rotation (which is why the red shirts ปิดถนน).

[katana]

Hey that reminds me, I just saw ศอฉ. in the newspaper today. Just to verify, it's CRES, right?

I'd been seeing that one popping up recently, too.

ศูนย์อำนวยการแก้ไขสถานการณ์ฉุกเฉิน (ศอฉ.) - Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation

http://www.capothai.org/capothai/announcem...gency-situation

[DavidHouston]

From Matichon Online:

". . . ตรวจค้นภายในรถพบอาวุธปืน ขนาด 9 มม. 1 กระบอกพร้อมลำกล้องชนิดติดปืนยาว"

"[The police] search the vehicle and found one 9 mm. weapon with a _____ for a rifle."

The context seems to indicate that "ส่วนของปืนที่มีลักษณะยาวกลวง" means some sort of optical gun sight. The RID defines ลำกล้อง inter alia as "ส่วนของปืนที่มีลักษณะยาวกลวง . . . ". This definition seems to indicate that the word ส่วนของปืนที่มีลักษณะยาวกลวง means "gun barrel". If the word means "gun barrel, then the sentence would seem to say that the police found a 9 mm pistol which could be fitted with a barrel. The barrel was also found.

Any idea of the meaning of the term in this context? Thanks.

[farangnahrak]

From Matichon Online:

". . . ตรวจค้นภายในรถพบอาวุธปืน ขนาด 9 มม. 1 กระบอกพร้อมลำกล้องชนิดติดปืนยาว"

"[The police] search the vehicle and found one 9 mm. weapon with a _____ for a rifle."

The context seems to indicate that "ส่วนของปืนที่มีลักษณะยาวกลวง" means some sort of optical gun sight. The RID defines ลำกล้อง inter alia as "ส่วนของปืนที่มีลักษณะยาวกลวง . . . ". This definition seems to indicate that the word ส่วนของปืนที่มีลักษณะยาวกลวง means "gun barrel". If the word means "gun barrel, then the sentence would seem to say that the police found a 9 mm pistol which could be fitted with a barrel. The barrel was also found.

Any idea of the meaning of the term in this context? Thanks.

I just saw this on BangkokPost, perhaps it'll help you:

"In a search of his vehicle, police found a 9mm handgun, a fully-loaded magazine, a monocular, four fake car licence plates, camouflaged military pouches and 700,000 baht in cash."

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/thaksin-ju...79-cop-arrested

[meadish_sweetball]

"Also, anyone know how to say 'civil rights movement'?"

My best guess would be:

การรณรงค์์เพื่อสิทธิของประชาชน

I've asked around a bit and got these two:

การเคลื่อนไหวของประชะชน

สิทธิในการเคลื่อนไหวของประชะชน

The first suggestion would be something like 'people's movement' which is not too far off, but it does not specify what the movement is demanding. The second expression looks like somebody has tried to translate the individual words without considering/understanding the actual meaning behind the English expression, because it back translates to 'freedom of movement' (as in reducing border formalities, as within the EU for example).

Civil rights: สิทธิพลเมือง

Civil rights movement: ขบวนการเรียกร้องสิทธิของพลเมือง (direct back translation: movement [in the abstract sense] demand right of citizen))

Also, for 'pro-government propaganda', I got นโยบาย . . . but I think its more of a set of posted policies, versus being an advertisement to make the government look good. Similar but not quite . . .

Yes, you are right: นโยบาย in itself is a neutral word, meaning 'policy'.

Propaganda: การโฆษณาชวนเชื่อ (according to Oxford River Books Eng-Thai dictionary)

[klons]

Is anyone familiar with these guys? A group of 11 senators?

กลุ่มสิบเอ็ด ส.ว.

[uppalux]

Is anyone familiar with these guys? A group of 11 senators?

กลุ่มสิบเอ็ด ส.ว.

http://serichon.com/board/index.php?topic=32905.0

this should be able to answer mr.klons.

[rak sa_ngop]

I have just copied this from "The Nation" article (Sunday):

"Persistent jokes about red leaders' strategies - good things we ignore, bad things we copy - are fast turning into a sad motto or slogan."

Does "good things we ignore, bad things we copy" come directly from a Thai slogan??

What is it if so?

[klons]

Is anyone familiar with these guys? A group of 11 senators?

กลุ่มสิบเอ็ด ส.ว.

http://serichon.com/board/index.php?topic=32905.0

this should be able to answer mr.klons.

In that case, I think they are a special crisis management group in the government.

access to data formentioned hold back access temporarily

by residing in the power follows

royal act administer government

in situation emergency Bhuuda era year 2548

follow order of control center fixing the emergency situation

[rak sa_ngop]

How are the media referring to the Red camp? When I try ค่ายเสื้าเเดง or ค่ายสีเเดง I just get blank looks.

[katana]

Not sure if you mean the encampment in BKK or the just reds in general.

A lot of the time they just seem to use เสื้อแดง for the reds

eg

ภาพเสื้อแดงเคลื่อนพล 28 มี.ค.53 - Photos of the red shirt army 28th April 2010.

ภาพเจรจานัดประวัติศาสตร์ รัฐบาล-เสื้อแดง - Photos of the historic meeting between the government and the red shirts.

Edited May 2, 2010 by katana

[rak sa_ngop]

No, I am referring to the Red camp outside Lumphini park that I have to walk through (on quiet days) to get into or out of the park.

[farangnahrak]

Just saw this on Bangkok Post:

"Col Sansern used the term รถหุ้มเกราะ (rod hum gror) -- which generally refers to armoured humvees"

Apparently they are going to use armored vehicles in the coming crackdown to "help avoid violence."