"-อ-" Short Or Long Vowel ?

[bmore99]

I’m very confused about the “–อ–” as vowel in between consonants.

Sometimes it is transcribed as long and sometimes as short.

Is there any rule about this?

Ben

[LanxangBillybob]

Hi Ben,

Could you give an example where 'อ' is transcribed as short? Thanks

[bmore99]

Ok, here is an example taken from http://www.thai-language.com/dict

I looked for both having the same consonant class and same tone-mark.

But there are many more examples out there, I would not bother to put it in the forum if it were just a single incident.

ต้อง dtɔ̂ng short (must)

ก้อง gɔ̂ɔng long (to echo)

B.t.w. Thai2English transcribes them always as long.

My available native speaker says whenever there is a tone mark it will become short, but that does not seem to be correct either.

Ben

[Tod Daniels]

A quick perusal of the ต้อง page on that site here;

Thai Language Dot Com - ต้อง

shows BOTH the short and long pronunciation of the word.

Under the pronunciation notes field, it also has the following:

In this word, the vowel is pronounced with a short duration. See the irregular pronunciations page for more information

.

[bmore99]

Thanks.

So there is no rule, only some exceptions.

Just my luck to come across 3 of them in one hour in Speak like a Thai V1 (Paaiboon)

ต้อง must

ฉิ้งฉ่อง pee

ซ่อน hide

[Rikker]

It can't be expressed as a simple rule, because it's based on historical tones and sound changes. The closest we can come to a rule is to say it often happens with ไม้เอก (sometimes also ไม้โท) and nasal final, and that it happens with a number of vowels, not just สระออ.

I'll try to post a more detailed reply later, for anyone who might be interested.

[Tod Daniels]

<SNIP>

ฉิ้งฉ่อง pee

<SNIP>

OFF TOPIC (but of marginal interest never the less. .. )

FWIW: Although I don't know the sex of the O/P (as I didn't bother to look at their profile ), a male would RARELY ever say ฉิ้งฉ่อง, as that's usually a term reserved for kids and/or younger people. Maybe in a group of close friends they might say ปวดฉี่, but I hardly ever hear guys say ฉิ้งฉ่อง.

Normally, a male would say; ไปยิงกระต่าย (go shoot a rabbit) whilst a female would say ไปเก็บดอกไม้ (go pick flowers). Obviously the action of holding a 'gun' in your hand whilst 'shooting', and the other action of squatting down whilst errr 'picking flowers' comes into play here.

I've heard these same two idioms from boardrooms to rice fields, all over the country spoken by every socio-economic level of thais.

Even sitting on the side of my soi I don't hear people say ฉิ้งฉ่อง, even when they're gonna piss in the plastic tank outside my apartment which we set up just for that purpose. (Before we set up the tank, the smell of urine the next day was pretty darned strong! Now at least we can dump it down the sewer at the end of the nite!

Then again, my observations may differ from yours. ..

Edited December 11, 2010 by tod-daniels

[Richard W]

I look forward to Rikker expounding the rules for length - I've never seen an explanation of anomalous vowel lengths in Thai. I know only one sound historical rule: เ with a tone mark is short. The basic reason for this is that เ is short in native words and long in Indic words. Tone marks are more important than length marks. (เพชร [H]phet 'diamond, jewel' is a notorious irregularity.)

[kriswillems]

A quick perusal of the ต้อง page on that site here;

Thai Language Dot Com - ต้อง

shows BOTH the short and long pronunciation of the word.

My experience is that it's always pronounced with a short vowel expect if the speaker wants to stress something is really compulsory/necessary or not compulsory/necessary.

[SoftWater]

<SNIP>

ฉิ้งฉ่อง pee

<SNIP>

OFF TOPIC (but of marginal interest never the less. .. )

FWIW: Although I don't know the sex of the O/P (as I didn't bother to look at their profile ), a male would RARELY ever say ฉิ้งฉ่อง, as that's usually a term reserved for kids and/or younger people. Maybe in a group of close friends they might say ปวดฉี่, but I hardly ever hear guys say ฉิ้งฉ่อง.

My father in law says this all the time (in fact, he's the only person I've ever heard say it), but I think you're right its a sort of childish/kiddie thing to say. I think he only uses it when talking to me (normally if he wants me to stop the car at the next gas station), no doubt because he thinks talking to me is rather like talking to a child (which is fine by me, cos I can usually understand what he says just fine!!).

On the other hand, In my work (teaching uni kids) I hear ปวดฉี่ a dozen times a day from the students talking to each other.

I have to admit I've never heard either of the two idioms you mention. That could be because I don't know them, or it could be 'cos there's often a girl in most classes whose nickname is กระต่าย gra-daai or ไม้.

Edited December 12, 2010 by SoftWater

[Peppy]

I hardly ever hear guys say ฉิ้งฉ่อง.

Yes, and you don't often hear guys saying they're gonna go "pee-pee" either...