ท่าน

[jamiesensei]

Why does ท่าน sound like a short vowel? Should it really sound like a short vowel? It certainly sounds like a short vowel to me. Is there some kind of special exception in reading for this word? Anyone got any input on this??

[mikenyork]

Never thought about it. But you're right! I suppose it's just one of those words that are used so often that it comes to be said in the fastest possible way. Just a guess on my part, though. Thanks for pointing this anomaly out. Maybe one of our TNS's will have an answer.

[jamiesensei]

My Thai teacher thought it could be something to do with the tone mark, that the low tone marker in this case makes the vowel sound short and she thought that ค่อย might be similar. Does the vowel in ค่อย sound short to you? She could not come up with any other examples off hand. I looked in the Thai2English dictionary which has proved an excellent guide to reading Thai but found no mention of this / these special cases.

[Peppy]

ท่าน, according to the pronunciation guide in its entry in So Sethaputra's dictionary, is read as ทั่น. Yes, it is short. (Just compare its sound with ม่าน, for example.)

As for ค่อย, I'm not sure--what would a short ออย sound sound like? To me the vowel sound is the same as that in other words with ออย and a falling tone, like ก้อย.

There is a rule, though, with เอ, where it becomes short in live syllables with a falling tone, as in เล่น and เต้น.

And another common word which is pronounced differently from the spelling is of course น้ำ--น้าม!

[anchan42]

Try this.

ข้าว long vowel

เข้า short vowel

ก้าว long

เก้า still long??

ท่าน sometime informally written ทั่น obviously reflect the fact that it is short vowel.

[eric67]

Here are some more examples of irregular pronounciations, along with some general guidelines:

http://www.thai-language.com/ref/irregular-words

[Briggsy]

According to J. Marvin Brown, it is simply one of the few words in Thai that carry a pronunciation not in accordance with the spelling. English has a tremendous number.

[Rikker]

There are lots of words like this. เล่น, ท่าน, แห่ง, แช่ง, เช่น, เล่ม, and so forth. It seems to happen with some regularity for words with ไม้เอก ending in a nasal sound. Not always, of course, and not exclusively either (see also เต้น, เส้น, เว้น, เข้ม, etc). Mary Haas in her dictionary marks words with unexpected pronunciation with an asterisk, so this is a phenomenon that has been observed for at least 50 years.

To get a bit nitpicky, though, ท่าน is not exactly the same as ทั่น, even though ท่าน is pronounced with short vowel.

There are two kinds of short/long vowel pairs: those that are distinguished only by duration (like กน vs. โกน), and those that are distinguished by both duration and articulation. That is to say, the long and short vowels are actually different vowels that are mentally paired together.

Differ in duration only

กน vs. โกน

กุน vs. กูน

กึน vs. กืน

แก็น vs. แกน

Differ in duration and articulation

กัน vs. กาน -- in IPA [ʌ] vs. [a]

กิน vs. กีน -- in IPA [ɪ] vs.

เก็น vs. เกน -- in IPA [ɛ] vs. [e]

In the second group if you take the short one and simply drag out its pronunciation, you don't get the right sound for the long vowel.

So in the case with ท่าน, the vowel articulation is staying the same, IPA [a], but the duration becomes short.

[jamiesensei]

Wow. Thanks for the informative reply Rikker. Didn't know that many of the vowel pairs are not actually the same sound.

[Richard W]

So in the case with ท่าน, the vowel articulation is staying the same, IPA [a], but the duration becomes short.

So you're saying that Thai actually has 10 short vowel phonemes and 9 long vowel phonemes in addition to the 3 or 6 diphthongs?

[kriswillems]

Differ in duration and articulation

กัน vs. กาน -- in IPA [ʌ] vs. [a]

กิน vs. กีน -- in IPA [ɪ] vs.

เก็น vs. เกน -- in IPA [ɛ] vs. [e]

Thanks for the explanation, Rikker.

I don't know why this rather essential information is missing in most books about Thai language (It should be in every beginner book).

Interesting to see how เก็น is written in IPA. How would you write แก็น in IPA?

[Rikker]

So in the case with ท่าน, the vowel articulation is staying the same, IPA [a], but the duration becomes short.

So you're saying that Thai actually has 10 short vowel phonemes and 9 long vowel phonemes in addition to the 3 or 6 diphthongs?

I don't believe it's a phonemic distinction here, as evidenced by So Sethaputra's. The vowel length is phonemic but not the vowel quality.

Thanks for the explanation, Rikker.

I don't know why this rather essential information is missing in most books about Thai language (It should be in every beginner book).

Interesting to see how เก็น is written in IPA. How would you write แก็น in IPA?

In true IPA the vowel corresponding to สระแอ is æ (the a-e ligature known as "ash"), but Mary Haas decided that æ was an eyesore to write twice, as in kææ, so for aesthetic purposes she used ɛ (called "open e" or small epsilon). (That is according to Matisoff.) Besides Haas, Noss/FSI and the old AUA books also use this modification of IPA.

[SoftWater]

Differ in duration only

กุน vs. กูน

I've seen this claim before (maybe from Rikker, or someone else, I can't remember), but I find it hard to swallow.

Is this because I am wrongly (?) pairing - ุ with the vowel sound in 'book' and - ู with the vowel sound in 'food'? There's just no way you can get the right vowel sound in the latter from stretching the vowel sound in the former.

[Richard W]

Differ in duration only

กุน vs. กูน

I've seen this claim before (maybe from Rikker, or someone else, I can't remember), but I find it hard to swallow.

Is this because I am wrongly (?) pairing - ุ with the vowel sound in 'book' and - ู with the vowel sound in 'food'? There's just no way you can get the right vowel sound in the latter from stretching the vowel sound in the former.

I fear it is the interference of English. For a study of length-related differences, see Roengpitya, A Historical and Perceptual Study of Vowel Length in Thai The vowel chart on p361 (journal page number - the PDF is only 14 pages long) is pretty telling.

One thing to note is that กุน and กูน should be about the same length. Short vowels are followed by long resonants, and long vowels by short resonants.

[Rikker]

Differ in duration only

กุน vs. กูน

I've seen this claim before (maybe from Rikker, or someone else, I can't remember), but I find it hard to swallow.

Is this because I am wrongly (?) pairing - ุ with the vowel sound in 'book' and - ู with the vowel sound in 'food'? There's just no way you can get the right vowel sound in the latter from stretching the vowel sound in the former.

I agree that it seems to be interference from English. The short vowel สระอุ isn't the same as in English 'book' ('hook', 'cook', etc). The IPA symbol for the sound in 'book' is [ʊ]. In my dialect of English, at least, the distinction is found in the words 'look' and 'Luke'; Thai สระอุ is the same as in 'Luke', and สระอู is a drawn-out version of it.

One thing to note is that กุน and กูน should be about the same length. Short vowels are followed by long resonants, and long vowels by short resonants.

Richard, that's a smart observation about long resonants and short resonants. I'd never noticed that, but I think you're right. I'm just curious, did you make this observation yourself or can you point me to an article where I can read more about the phenomenon? I'm no good with spectrogram analysis so it'd be nice if someone has done it for me.

For those who might not follow what he means, he's saying the 'n' in กุน vs. กูน actually changes length to compensate for the difference in vowel length, resulting in the same overall syllable length. So the 'n' resonates slightly longer when it follows the short vowel.

As a rule in every language, phonetic environment causes variation in the duration of given sounds, but in most languages duration is not contrasting and doesn't affect the meaning of the word. Like in English, the vowels in "bat" and "bad" actually differ in length -- the vowel is longer before a voiced sound. (See more on this phenomenon here.)

Very interesting thread this is turning into. Thought provoking stuff.

[SoftWater]

^ Richard gave a reference to an article in the link to Roengpitya (post above yours), tho' I confess even after reading it I didn't really get it till you explained.

I guess it looks like I'm going to have to re-learn how to pronounce a whole bunch of words with สระอุ

Thanks both.

[Rikker]

Whoops! I missed the link entirely. Thanks for pointing that out. Will read shortly.

[Richard W]

One thing to note is that กุน and กูน should be about the same length. Short vowels are followed by long resonants, and long vowels by short resonants.

Richard, that's a smart observation about long resonants and short resonants. I'd never noticed that, but I think you're right. I'm just curious, did you make this observation yourself or can you point me to an article where I can read more about the phenomenon?

I read it a long time ago in a paper on Thai speech synthesis, but I don't remember who the authors were. I had a quick google for it, but no-one seems to be repeating it nowadays.

[farangnahrak]

Probably same reason จริง isn't pronounced จะ-ริง

This book on business Thai I've been reading has a section on Thai words that aren't pronounced how they are written, and quite a few seem to come from Bali and Sanskrit . . .

I don't speak either of those, but given ท่าน is used when talking to monks, I suspect this word has roots in Bali . . .

[Richard W]

I don't speak either of those, but given ท่าน is used when talking to monks, I suspect this word has roots in Bali . . .

The tone mark speaks against a derivation from Pali or Sanskrit - or even Khmer! The only route I could see from P/S is as a contraction of a phrase containing ทาส 'slave', but that seems a long shot.

[farangnahrak]

I don't speak either of those, but given ท่าน is used when talking to monks, I suspect this word has roots in Bali . . .

The tone mark speaks against a derivation from Pali or Sanskrit - or even Khmer! The only route I could see from P/S is as a contraction of a phrase containing ทาส 'slave', but that seems a long shot.

Good point . . .

[inthepink]

Probably same reason จริง isn't pronounced จะ-ริง

This book on business Thai I've been reading has a section on Thai words that aren't pronounced how they are written, and quite a few seem to come from Bali and Sanskrit . . .

I don't speak either of those, but given ท่าน is used when talking to monks, I suspect this word has roots in Bali . . .

ท่าน is not reserved for monks especially.