Sanskrit

[zenbangkok]

Hi all, back in England at the mo. Working with a girl from India, she wrote her name in Sanskrit. I know some of you guys are very up on these things. how similar is it too Thai? I couldn't realy see that it looked too similar one letter looked similar for a similar sound, is that just coincidence? How would you right Trupti in Thai script?

Thanks

[meadish_sweetball]

As far as I have learned, the Thai alphabet is based on Mon-Khmer scripts, which in turn are based on Sanskrit. The languages as such are unrelated - Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, and Thai is commonly seen as a member of the Thai-Kadai language group.

There is no way you can decode Thai script on the basis of only knowing Sanskrit, or the other way around.

If Richard Wordingham still reads this forum, he will be able to provide you with all the information you need in this regard, and more...

Still here Richard?

[Neeranam]

I wrote on this forum before about the similarities of Sanskrit and Thai.

I can read Hindi and Thai, and when I was learning there were some Thai ones I remembered because of Hindi.

आ Aa

य़ Y

ख Kh

ज J

न N

म M

र R

ल L

स S

Can anyone else see the similarity?

[wolf5370]

I was of the understanding that Sanskrit was a spoken only language, and later adaptions put it to written script (Pali etc evelves to Hindi, Telagu etc). I may be wrong, but this is what I was told.

Trupti

How is that read phonetically? Troop-tee, Trup-tee, Troop-Ti (short ending vowel), Trup-Ti (short vowel ending) ?

In Thai the TR sound at the beginning would be hard to pronounce, it would tend to come out Tu-roop-tee I think. No Thai keyboard/font here, so leave it to others to script for you - if not, I'll do it when I get home.

[sabaijai]

I wrote on this forum before about the similarities of Sanskrit and Thai.

I can read Hindi and Thai, and when I was learning there were some Thai ones I remembered because of Hindi.

आ Aa 

य़ Y

ख Kh 

ज J

न N

म M

र R

ल L 

स S

Can anyone else see the similarity?

I see the similarities, as I can read Devanagari script (used for Hindi, Nepali and Sanskrit) as well as Thai. Just a few mental adjustments and most of the letters will make one-to-one correspondences. Neeranam, I think the similarities would be more apparent if you wrote the Thai letters alongside the Sanskrit ones.

Just a clarification: Sanskrit is a language, not a script. The main script used to write Skrt in India is Devanagari, although it can also be printed using the Roman alphabet and the Thai alphabet, maybe others? Devanagari is also used to write Hindi and Nepal. I studied Skrt for two years at university, so I can read signs in India and Nepal, and recognise words that are Sankrit or Sanskrit-derived in those two languages. Can't speak either language though ...

[Johpa]

Although Thai script is twice removed from Devanagari script being derived from Khmer, one can see similarities between the two scripts. It helps to have an imagination and remove that line that seeems to connect the lettters from above in Devanagari and to remove some of the other little tailings, but the genetic relationship is clear.

It is interesting to note that Devanagari consonants, as well as derived scripts such as Thai, all follow the correct linguistic course from consonants articulated at the back of the mouth to consonants articulated at the front of the mouth /K/ (velars) to /T/ (alvelors) to /P/(labials)

One still needs to remember that Thai is not genetically related to Sanskrit, it just tries to borrow the script and borrows lots of loans words which is one reason why Thai has so many duplicate consonant symbols that were used to represent phonetic differences that existed in Pali but do not exist in Thai.

[chonabot]

Sanskrit = Mahanyana

Pali = Theravada

Buddhism

[Neeranam]

Sanskrit = Mahanyana

Pali = Theravada

Buddhism

Chonabot, not sure what you mean about this.

I believe that Sanskrit was the languge used by royalty in India around the time of the Buddha. Bali was used by common people and monks "spreading the message". This would explain the use of the royal names in Thailand , as well as all the royal language(Sanskrit).

I think that it depended on your social class, or caste whether or not you spoke Sanskrit or Bali, NOT the branch of Buddhism that you studied.

[chonabot]

I'm referring to the language/code used in oral/written documents from either branch of Buddhism.

Sanskrit - Learned language of India. Canonical texts of Mahayana Buddhism in its Indian stage were written in Sanskrit.

Pali is commonly used in Chanting in the Theravada Buddhist Tradition.

My Uni course on world religions has many sources that concur to this trend.

I'm happy to furnish you with a list of written documents ( he said pompously )

Edited June 28, 2005 by chonabot

[Richard W]

It is interesting to note that Devanagari consonants, as well as derived scripts such as Thai, all follow the correct linguistic course from consonants articulated at the back of the mouth to consonants articulated at the front of the mouth /K/ (velars)  to /T/ (alvelors) to /P/(labials)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In answer to Meadish, I'm still here, but I've been very busy reading elsewhere.

Johpa's point is illustrated by an Indian-style table of Thai consonants. I don't understand why such tables are used so little for Thai. Is it because of the gaps created when two extra columns were added for the fricatives? (Some of the gaps are because the sibilants occur towards the end of the alphabet, as a sort of afterthought.)

To answer the original question, I would expect 'Trupti' to be transliterated literally as ตรุปตี, though ตรุบตี and even ตรุบดี are also possible.

On a technical point, the typical Indian contrast is dental v. retroflex consonants, though many SE Asian languages, including Thai, don't have that contrast. Tamil breaks the pattern by having dental v. alveolar v. retroflex, but puts the alveolar consonants at the end of the list of native (to Tamil, that is) consonants.

The South Indian alphabets are particular close to the SE Asian ones. The Tamil alphabet (as used for Tamil) is unusual in having discarded most of the superfluous consonants that are required for only for Indic languages such as Sanskrit and Pali.

Richard.

[sabaijai]

Although Thai script is twice removed from Devanagari script  being derived from Khmer, one can see similarities between the two scripts.  It helps to have an imagination and remove that line that seeems to connect the lettters from above in Devanagari and to remove some of the other little tailings, but the genetic relationship is clear.

It is interesting to note that Devanagari consonants, as well as derived scripts such as Thai, all follow the correct linguistic course from consonants articulated at the back of the mouth to consonants articulated at the front of the mouth /K/ (velars)  to /T/ (alvelors) to /P/(labials)

One still needs to remember that Thai is not genetically related to Sanskrit, it just tries to borrow the script and borrows lots of loans words which is one reason why Thai has so many duplicate consonant symbols that were used to represent phonetic differences that existed in Pali but do not exist in Thai.

And both Khmer and Thai (as well as Mon) were derived from a south Indian script, Pallava grantha. All three are abugida writing systems, like Devanagari. There are 54 abugida scripts, defined as 'a writing system in which each character represents a consonant followed by a specific vowel, and the other vowels are represented by a consistent modification of the consonant symbols.' The complete list:

Alibata, Amharic script, Batak, Bengali script, Brahmi, Buhid, Burmese script, Calukya, Cham, Champa, Cree, Devanagari, Dives akuru, Evela, Grantha, Gujarati, Gupta, Gurmukhi, Hanunoo, Javanese, Kadamba, Kaithi, Kalinga, Kannada, Kawi, Kharoshthi, Khmer script, Landa, Lanna script, Lao script, Lepcha, Makasarese, Malayalam script, Meroitic, Mon script, Nagari, Old kannada, Oriya script, Oromo script, Pallava grantha, 'Phags pa, Proto-bengali, Ranjana, Rejang, Sharada, Sinhalese, Sukhothai, Syloti Nagri, Tagbanwa, Tai Le, Tamil script, Telugu script, Thai script, Tibetan script.

ontopia

[Richard W]

And both Khmer and Thai (as well as Mon) were derived from a south Indian script, Pallava grantha. All three are abugida writing systems, like Devanagari. There are 54 abugida scripts, defined as 'a writing system in which each character represents a consonant followed by a specific vowel, and the other vowels are represented by a consistent modification of the consonant symbols.' The complete list:

Alibata,        Amharic script,        Batak,        Bengali script,        Brahmi,        Buhid,        Burmese script,        Calukya,        Cham,        Champa,        Cree,        Devanagari,        Dives akuru,        Evela,        Grantha,        Gujarati,        Gupta,        Gurmukhi,        Hanunoo,        Javanese,        Kadamba,        Kaithi,        Kalinga,        Kannada,        Kawi,        Kharoshthi,        Khmer script,        Landa,        Lanna script,        Lao script,        Lepcha,        Makasarese,        Malayalam script,        Meroitic,        Mon script,        Nagari,        Old kannada,        Oriya script,        Oromo script,        Pallava grantha,        'Phags pa,        Proto-bengali,        Ranjana,        Rejang,        Sharada,        Sinhalese,        Sukhothai,        Syloti Nagri,        Tagbanwa,        Tai Le,        Tamil script,        Telugu script,        Thai script,        Tibetan script. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All but three of these (Cree, Amharic and Kharosthi) are members of the Brahmi family. Counting scripts is a bit like counting languages. For example, the Cree and Blackfoot syllabaries have only a small overlap, and even smaller if you disregard symbols that represent fundamentally different sounds.

Two South Indian scripts Brahmi family scripts not on that list that have been proposed for Unicode are Saurashtri and Tamil Grantha. One variant of the Lanna script that has been encoded in Unicode (released in the new standard, 4.1.0, a few months ago) is the New Tai Lue script, while the older form is planned for separate implementation. (New Tai Lue does not have superscript or subscript vowels, tones or consonants.) As to whether the older form will include the Thai and Lao versions (Tham), I don't know. The list from Omtopia omits the Ahom, Limbu (in Unicode!) and Tai Dam scripts, and a few I've never heard of. I'm not sure whether the Shan script should be counted as a separate script - the Burmese have proposed extensions to the Unicode encoding of Burmese to cater for Mon and Shan, and Shan had some different letter shapes to Burmese.

[Johpa]

I must say that the terms "Abjad" and "Abugida" have arisen well after my days in academia. I hope they are accepted in scrabble. : )