'for Safe' - Tapsap Or Bad English?

[farangnahrak]

I occasionally hear Thais use the words 'for safe' to mean 'just in case' or 'to be safe'.

For example:

ดูเหมือนฝนจะตก ขอปิดหน้าต่างฟอเสฟ์นะ

Looks like it'll rain. Please close the window just to be safe.

I'm not entirely sure how to spell ฟอเสฟ์ . . . Google turned up zero results, so its probably some permutation of it.

So the question is, am I just hearing really bad english, or is this official tapsap? I'd like to know as its a useful phrase I'd like to use, if Thais generally understand it . . .

[azcrilez]

there is no "ฟอเสฟ์" in thai language.

maybe he/she mistyped that.

[anchan42]

It is a perfect example of people who mix their Thai with English just to show that they can speak a bit of English.

We do use the word "safe" quite often and most people understand the word. We usually tabsab content words like nouns and verbs but not functional word like "for"

Edited June 1, 2010 by anchan42

[farangnahrak]

there is no "ฟอเสฟ์" in thai language.

maybe he/she mistyped that.

I've only heard it verbally, never seen it written. Thats why I didn't know how to spell it

It is a perfect example of people who mix their Thai with English just to show that they can speak a bit of English.

We do use the word "safe" quite often and most people understand the word. We usually tabsab content words like nouns and verbs but not functional word like "for"

ok, I'll file it away as bad English . . .

[Peppy]

I've never heard it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It might just be a flash in the pan though, since a lot of borrowed English phrases in Thai come and go like Priya Suandokmai's boyfriends.

It is a perfect example of people who mix their Thai with English just to show that they can speak a bit of English.

We do use the word "safe" quite often and most people understand the word. We usually tabsab content words like nouns and verbs but not functional word like "for"

What about "อินเทร็นด์/in-tren"--in trend? And incidently, where did this word come from? It sounds quite unorthodox to me--"in fashion", or "trendy" would be better, I'd think--but then, so does "for safe". Or is there actually a dialect of English that I'm unaware of where saying something like "Tight jeans are very in trend this season", or "He's so in trend" is considered acceptable?

(Just did a Google search for "in trend"; it seems it only exists as part of the phrase "back in trend", as in "Tight jeans are back in trend this season." Perhaps "for safe" was butchered out of the phrase "for safekeeping" in a similar manner.)

[anchan42]

I've never heard it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It might just be a flash in the pan though, since a lot of borrowed English phrases in Thai come and go like Priya Suandokmai's boyfriends.

It is a perfect example of people who mix their Thai with English just to show that they can speak a bit of English.

We do use the word "safe" quite often and most people understand the word. We usually tabsab content words like nouns and verbs but not functional word like "for"

What about "อินเทร็นด์/in-tren"--in trend? And incidently, where did this word come from? It sounds quite unorthodox to me--"in fashion", or "trendy" would be better, I'd think--but then, so does "for safe". Or is there actually a dialect of English that I'm unaware of where saying something like "Tight jeans are very in trend this season", or "He's so in trend" is considered acceptable?

(Just did a Google search for "in trend"; it seems it only exists as part of the phrase "back in trend", as in "Tight jeans are back in trend this season." Perhaps "for safe" was butchered out of the phrase "for safekeeping" in a similar manner.)

Some of those words or tabsab baffle me as well. I think "for safe" is direct translation from เพื่อความปลอดภัย ie เพื่อ = for and ความปลอดภัย =safe. I don't think it is as widely accepted as "in-trend". "In-trend" probably started and spread out because of the telly and advert.

[meadish_sweetball]

Should not ความปลอดภัย be translated as 'safety' as it's a noun?

[bhoydy]

Should not ความปลอดภัย be translated as 'safety' as it's a noun?

Yeah, so for safety then.

Anyway i want to know what tapsap is, never heard of it

[farangnahrak]

Anyway i want to know what tapsap is, never heard of it

ทับศัพท์

Its what they call words that were stolen from English.

(and possibly from other languages, but not sure if the definition includes that or not)

[Peppy]

The literal definition of ทับศัพท์/tapsap is "transliteration" (like writing "เฮา อาร์ ยู" so people who don't read English can say "How are you"), but as farangnahrak says it's most often used in reference to words used in Thai which were borrowed from English. Perhaps this is to encourage the idea that using borrowed words is somehow "wrong", since they're "not real Thai words, they're transliterations of English words". I've never heard ทับศัพท์ used in reference to the myriad of Thai words borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Khmer, and despite their best efforts, I don't think the guardians of the Thai language are having much success in their efforts to stop the flow of English words into Thai. There are even some who go so far as to suggest that Thais should say "คณิตกรณ์/kanit-gorn" instead of "คอมพิวเตอร์/computer", or "การละเล่น/gahn la-len" instead of "เกม/game", but have you ever heard anyone use these words?

[farangnahrak]

I've never heard ทับศัพท์ used in reference to the myriad of Thai words borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Khmer

Same here.

I occasionally 'hang out' with monks and they'll either say เป็นทับศัพท์ for words taken from English, or มาจากภาษา... for words of any other language.

As for 'เฮา อาร์ ยู', I've only heard that referred to as เขียนเป็นอักษรไทย (if I remember right).

[anchan42]

I've never heard ทับศัพท์ used in reference to the myriad of Thai words borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Khmer

Same here.

I occasionally 'hang out' with monks and they'll either say เป็นทับศัพท์ for words taken from English, or มาจากภาษา... for words of any other language.

As for 'เฮา อาร์ ยู', I've only heard that referred to as เขียนเป็นอักษรไทย (if I remember right).

I think tabsab means loan words from any language. We hear it more often with English loan words simply because most of the recent loan words are from English.

[DavidHouston]

Per the online version of the RID:

"ทับศัพท์ ว. ที่รับเอาคําของภาษาหนึ่งมาใช้ในอีกภาษาหนึ่งโดยวิธีถ่ายเสียง และถอดอักษร เช่น เขียนทับศัพท์ แปลทับศัพท์. "

Apparently, "ทับศัพท์" is the process of transcribing the sounds of one language into the writing system of another language.

Edited June 3, 2010 by DavidHouston

[Peppy]

Per the online version of the RID:

"ทับศัพท์ ว. ที่รับเอาคําของภาษาหนึ่งมาใช้ในอีกภาษาหนึ่งโดยวิธีถ่ายเสียง และถอดอักษร เช่น เขียนทับศัพท์ แปลทับศัพท์. "

Apparently, "ทับศัพท์" is the process of transcribing the sounds of one language into the writing system of another language.

In a word, transliteration, no?

[DavidHouston]

Per the online version of the RID:

"ทับศัพท์ ว. ที่รับเอาคําของภาษาหนึ่งมาใช้ในอีกภาษาหนึ่งโดยวิธีถ่ายเสียง และถอดอักษร เช่น เขียนทับศัพท์ แปลทับศัพท์. "

Apparently, "ทับศัพท์" is the process of transcribing the sounds of one language into the writing system of another language.

In a word, transliteration, no?

Peppy,

I don't think so. I think it is "transcription". "Transliteration" attempts to apply letter by letter equivalents, irrespective of the sounds. Transliteration is

"The rendering of the written glyphs of a spoken language into a foreign writing system. This is usually achieved in a manner such that the original script can be reconstructed from the transliteration result."

What do you think? Thanks.

[Peppy]

 I think it is "transcription". "Transliteration" attempts to apply letter by letter equivalents, irrespective of the sounds. Transliteration is

"The rendering of the written glyphs of a spoken language into a foreign writing system. This is usually achieved in a manner such that the original script can be reconstructed from the transliteration result."

Seems like an odd idea to me--how would you suggest that English words be written in Thai script in such a way that the English spelling could be reconstructed by someone unfamiliar with the particular English word? As in my earlier example of the transliteration of English into Thai, how would you write "How are you" in Thai so that the O and W in "how" could be reconstructed, the E in "are", and the OU in "you"?

What about homophones?

meat = มีท, and meet = มีท. If a Thai reads the word มีท out of context, how would they know which one it is? Of course, you could add something to differentiate them and show that one uses "ea" for อี and the other uses "ee", but then it wouldn't be the Thai writing system anymore, would it?

Anyway, if copying the sounds of a language into writing is called "transcription", and copying the letters is called "transliteration", then I guess ทับศัพท์ is "transcription". So a transcribed version of the word ทับศัพท์ would look like this:

tap-sap, tab-sab, tup-sup, or tub-sub

While a transliterated version might look like this:

tha!b-sha!phth*  (using "th" to represent ท, "a!" to represent อะ, "b" for บ, "sh" for ศ, "ph" for พ, and the asterisk for การันต์)

I've always called the tap-sap/tab-sab/tup-sup stuff transliteration. Perhaps I'm wrong, but the idea of transliteration as presented above as seems a bit wacky to me, as it's impossible to capture the letters or glyphs of one writing system in another without practically creating a new writing system which is all but unreadable by the native users of the system you're "transliterating" into (take "tha!b-sha!phth*" for example).

[DavidHouston]

I think you have that distinction correct. From the article I mentioned:

"Transliteration is the process which consists of representing the characters of an alphabetical or syllabic system of writing by using the characters of a conversion alphabet. The use of a conversion alphabet is the easiest way to ensure the complete and unambiguous reversibility of the conversion alphabet into the converted system."

"Transcription is the process whereby the sounds of a given language are represented by a system of signs contained in a conversion language. A transcription system is of necessity based on the orthographical conventions of the conversion language. Transcription is not strictly reversible."

The article continues with discussions on the Rama VI, Romanization, Anglicization systems. He concludes with this opinion:

"However, the system that may be used more extensively in the future on a global scale to exchange information is the ISO 11940 Information and Documentation –

Transliteration of Thai which was developed from 1998 in tandem with the universally popular Unicode computer encoding system." This ISO system can be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_11940

All this stuff is way above my head; I'd rather stick with real Thai orthography.

[luckyfarang]

The literal definition of ทับศัพท์/tapsap is "transliteration" (like writing "เฮา อาร์ ยู" so people who don't read English can say "How are you"), but as farangnahrak says it's most often used in reference to words used in Thai which were borrowed from English. Perhaps this is to encourage the idea that using borrowed words is somehow "wrong", since they're "not real Thai words, they're transliterations of English words". I've never heard ทับศัพท์ used in reference to the myriad of Thai words borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Khmer, and despite their best efforts, I don't think the guardians of the Thai language are having much success in their efforts to stop the flow of English words into Thai. There are even some who go so far as to suggest that Thais should say "คณิตกรณ์/kanit-gorn" instead of "คอมพิวเตอร์/computer", or "การละเล่น/gahn la-len" instead of "เกม/game", but have you ever heard anyone use these words?

Peppy -

I have found that many Thais will totally deny that a tapsap is borrowed and claim that

it is a Thai word.

They have seen it spelled in Thai and heard it pronounced in Thai since birth, so

they just assume it is Thai.

[Peppy]

Peppy -

I have found that many Thais will totally deny that a  tapsap is borrowed and claim that

it is a Thai word.

They have  seen it spelled in Thai and heard it pronounced in Thai since birth, so  

they just assume it is Thai.

Yes, I once had a fellow explain to me that the word บอมบ์ means ระเบิด...

[Briggsy]

In answer to the initial question, this is a poor rendering of the English phrase, "just to be safe", so the answer is 'bad English'.

I have lost count of the times Thais use an English word when speaking to their friends simply because they see a farang and know he/she is within earshot. It seems to be an almost reflex reaction.

[Richard W]

Seems like an odd idea to me--how would you suggest that English words be written in Thai script in such a way that the English spelling could be reconstructed by someone unfamiliar with the particular English word? As in my earlier example of the transliteration of English into Thai, how would you write "How are you" in Thai so that the O and W in "how" could be reconstructed, the E in "are", and the OU in "you"?

A first stab would be โหว อาเร โยอุ.

...but then it wouldn't be the Thai writing system anymore, would it?

The traditional ways of writing Pali and Sanskrit are quite the Thai writing system either, nor is the way of writing Kuy, with phinthu being used in composite vowel symbols. Academic transliteration of Kam Mueang into Thai often uses a special ligature of อย for the corresponding single consonant, and one might wonder about such writings as ผ๋ะ (letter name) or เกิด็.

I've always called the tap-sap/tab-sab/tup-sup stuff transliteration.

The terms 'transcription' and 'transliteration' are generally not well distinguished. Transliteration has the implication that the starting point is writing, but when palaeographers copy texts paying attention to the shapes of letters, that is 'transcription'. The distinction of 'transcription' as representing sound and 'transliteration' as representing writing is however useful when one needs to distinguish the two ideas.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but the idea of transliteration as presented above as seems a bit wacky to me, as it's impossible to capture the letters or glyphs of one writing system in another without practically creating a new writing system which is all but unreadable by the native users of the system you're "transliterating" into (take "tha!b-sha!phth*" for example).

Or using straight copying from Welsh or Scots Gaelic to English!

Most systems use the principle of 'consonants as in English, vowels as in Italian'. But yes, you do end up with a new writing system, but one that is easier to write by hand. Writing arbitrary diacritics on computers is generally ill-supported, but display is improving.

The graphic transliteration of ทับศัพท์ is dăp śăbda, which is quite comprehensible if you know how to write Pali in Thai.

[Peppy]

RichardW: Thank you very much for your reply. I'm not very knowledgeable about the academic terminology for this sort of stuff, but thanks to you and DavidHouston I feel I'm a little better informed.

I'm still not entirely convinced as to the value of what you call graphic transliteration, since it seems that learning any particular system would be nearly as much work as learning the system used by natives, but without any of the benefits that come with knowing the native system. Perhaps it is, as you say, easier to write quickly by hand, when taking notes for example, and if this is the way the experts choose to write the foreign languages they study, then who am I to judge?

Edited June 20, 2010 by Peppy

[Richard W]

RichardW: Thank you very much for your reply. I'm not very knowledgeable about the academic terminology for this sort of stuff, but thanks to you and DavidHouston I feel I'm a little better informed.

I'm still not entirely convinced as to the value of what you call graphic transliteration, since it seems that learning any particular system would be nearly as much work as learning the system used by natives, but without any of the benefits that come with knowing the native system. Perhaps it is, as you say, easier to write quickly by hand, when taking notes for example, and if this is the way the experts choose to write the foreign languages they study, then who am I to judge?

When I said 'easier to write by hand', I was primarily making a comparison against typing into a computer. The standards for printed Indic transliteration have competing ASCIIfications just to get round these problems. (Indic? - remember that Thai is an Indic script, but one of the few that allow you to type characters in left to right order. Modern Thai doesn't get any more 'complex' than the 3-character word น้ำ.)

Graphic transliteration becomes useful when you are working with multiple scripts - Northern and North East Thailand have inscriptions and old manuscripts in various varieties of the Thai, Khmer and Mon scripts even for the same native languages, and not everyone can read all the relevant varieties quickly - and even when printed, you may have to calibrate some signs against known words. (Just think of ว อ จ ง in Thai.) There is already a standard (or close enough) for Sanskrit and Pali, and it is therefore helpful to use a compatible system across the different languages. For computer searchability, even now Unicode lacks one Lao consonant for the Tham script (one of the variants of the Mon script) and a few Thai (and archaic Cambodian) vowels and arguably a few Thai consonants for the Khmer script, whose Khom subscript was long used for Thai.