Thai Spelling

[manarak]

I was a bit surprised today to see that the spelling for words like "toothpaste" was totally different on a Thai form (official government form) and in my dictionary.

This leads me to ask here if the spelling of Thai language is variable? I.e. if there are several ways to spell the phonetics, either one can be used to spell the word?

I hope my question is clear, LOL.

[DavidHouston]

I am not sure whether you are asking about writing the Thai language in a roman script or writing English in Thai script. However, Thailand's Royal Institute has set standards for both.

For writing English words in Thai script, see http://www.royin.go.th/th/profile/index.php?SystemModuleKey=127&SystemMenuID=1&SystemMenuIDS=

For writing Thai in a romanized script, see http://www.royin.go.th/upload/246/FileUpload/416_2157.pdf

Note that both these documents are written in Thai because Thai speakers are the primary audience for this information. Translations are available on the web.

As for the usage of these schemes, academic institutions and government agencies seem to hew closely to these rules. As for others, usage varies.

[Tod Daniels]

While I dont like to disagree with DavidHouston as they are a FAR more learned Thai language aficionado than the likes of me.

Unless Im sorely mistaken (where I would stand humbly erected err, corrected); I dont think the official way Thai is represented in English script makes ANY delineation between vowel length, clustered - silent consonants, or toning.

While it might be the official way to do it, it is sorely lacking in its ability to provide even a close approximation to what a word actually sounds like when spoken in Thai. Thats why you see the airport spelled as Suvarnabhumi, yet pronounced in Thai as soo^L wan^M na^H phuum^M. Thai doesnt even have a V in their alphabet, they only have a W! Plus the last short vowel sound represented by the i is silent .

Thai nationals names represented in English are another nightmare in figuring out how to say them correctly. Few native English speakers break Thai written in English down Thai syllable by Thai syllable for the pronunciation. Even fewer know when something which is a silent character in Thai yet represented in the English spelling goes unvoiced. As native English speakers our brains are automatically drawn to familiar groupings of letters in English and the rules governing silent letters are pretty hard-wired (at least for me). This sometimes leads to hilarious English mis-pronunciations of Thai surnames and given first names too .

Even though there may indeed be an official way to do this, a drive down the motorway to Pattaya will yield several different spellings of it on signage as you pass thru various Amphurs along the way. It would seem there are as many different views on how Thai should be represented in English as there are people making signage. When I walked back from 7/11 I took a quick look at the various signage and it looks like the rank-n-file Thais don't seem to adhere too closely to the official way either.

Im not saying this method has no merit (only very little) in the grand scheme of things.

Thankfully, for the most part, how English words are represented in Thai is at least a little less hazy . The minute you start to see a lot of การันต์s in words, especially ANYTHING to do with technology or the internet, you can almost bet its a loan word. Even most modern ad-slicks for department, grocery, fast-food, or clothing stores have adopted using English words written in Thai for their ads targeting Thai clientele, even though Thai has words which mean the exact same thing.

Edited May 4, 2011 by tod-daniels

[Richard W]

The spelling of Thai is pretty fixed, although a few words from Pali allow some variation according to the degree of Sanskritisation, e.g. archaic ธัมมะ v. modern ธรรมะ. (Writing the final vowel seems to be a 20th century innovation, like นมะ for ambiguous นม.) There are also a few words where variation in pronunciation results in permitted variation in spelling, e.g. เสนหา v. เสน่หา.

[manarak]

Of course I meant the spelling of Thai words in Thai characters.

Anything else wouldn't make any sense.

Toothpaste is phonetically pronounced "ya si fan"

written in my dictionary "ยาสีฟัน"

but on the government form the spelling was definitely different - I don't remember how it was spelt and I didn't think about making a pic, but I had a Thai there read both spellings and both came out "ya si fan".

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

[mangkorn]

Thai nationals names represented in English are another nightmare in figuring out how to say them correctly....

The all-time winner in this category has to be: "Ple."

It would almost take a team of genius, code-breaking mathematicians to figure out that "Ple" is "Bun."

The Thai name is เปิ้ล, a diminutive of แอ็ปเปิ้ล ("apple," pronounced "ap-bun" in Thai)

[Richard W]

The non-standard spelling might have been ยาซี่ฟัน, which has a different literal meaning. However, I got very few Google hits on it.

[Richard W]

That’s why you see the airport spelled as “Suvarnabhumi”, yet pronounced in Thai as soo^L wan^M na^H phuum^M. Thai doesn’t even have a “V” in their alphabet, they only have a “W”! Plus the last short vowel sound represented by the “i” is silent .

No, the u's are silent and the 'n' and 'm' coalesce, giving [L]sa[HS]wawm[F]pii.

The airport's name should really be written "Suvarrṇabhūmi", but English-speakers often ignore diacritics.

[Anyse]

The non-standard spelling might have been ยาซี่ฟัน, which has a different literal meaning. However, I got very few Google hits on it.

This is the same spelling in MY dictionary! I Looked up "toothpaste" and I got the same thing that you have given here. What is the "literal" meaning, by the way?

[mangkorn]

The non-standard spelling might have been ยาซี่ฟัน, which has a different literal meaning. However, I got very few Google hits on it.

This is the same spelling in MY dictionary! I Looked up "toothpaste" and I got the same thing that you have given here. What is the "literal" meaning, by the way?

ซี่ is the classifier for teeth. Maybe ยาซี่ฟัน was an old way for some people to say it, when the act of brushing teeth was not quite obsessed with whitening them...

Like any other language, Thai people don't all necessarily agree on everything, or hear everything the same way. (The discussion on another thread about กินตับ has produced several different opinions from native speakers.)

I also recall a spirited discussion I once had with a few Isaan people who had insisted that I was wrong in my rendering of the proverb: เมียทหารนับขวดเมียตำรวจนับแบ๊งค์

They insisted it was: เมียทหารนับกรวด...

Flustered, I turned to an educated person in the room, who politely whispered: "You're right. But it could be understood the other way, too..."

Indeed, it can. They had always heard ขวด as กรวด because that made sense: empty bottles and pebbles are equally worthless. Their version was incorrect as far as the proverb goes, but the message was basically the same. (The one thing that their version missed is the suggestion that army men blow all their money on drink; cops also drink - but they've got many more ways to get money - and thus always have plenty left over...)