Omitted Vowels

[aneliane]

Apologies in advance, if it is a daft question ...

I'm self learning Thai and reading is quite a challenge, due to these omitted vowels things.

I mean how do you know when a vowel is omitted and which one it is ? I think/hope it can only be O or A ? Do you flip a coin ?

Cheers

I read also somewhere that some consonants can also be omitted ! oh Joy !

[AjarnPasa]

You'll be pleased to know that it's pretty much only o or a (though ฤ can make a short i sound such as in อังกฤษ)

Rule of thumb: if the word consists of just two consonants the omitted vowel is o, such as in ผม (pom)

If it is three consonants the first is a and the second is o, such as in ถนน (thanon)

There are some exceptions such as อยุธยา (Ayuthaya) and possibly words that begin with ห (however no examples come directly to mind) but you just need to learn these.

[AyG]

The omitted vowel can also be an "aaw" sound, as in words such as นคร (pronounced นะ-คอน) and บริษัท (pronounced บ็อ-ริ-สัด).

Sometimes you get multiple "a" vowels, as in the town นวนคร (Navanakorn).

[aneliane]

You'll be pleased to know that it's pretty much only o or a (though ฤ can make a short i sound such as in อังกฤษ)

Rule of thumb: if the word consists of just two consonants the omitted vowel is o, such as in ผม (pom)

If it is three consonants the first is a and the second is o, such as in ถนน (thanon)

There are some exceptions such as อยุธยา (Ayuthaya) and possibly words that begin with ห (however no examples come directly to mind) but you just need to learn these.

Wow thank you very much, good one, it's a relief to know there is a rule and it's quite simple !

[Mole]

Actually, ฤ can be read as either "ri" or "ru".

However, because people tend to either pronounce the "r" sound as either "l" or omit it altogether, it may often sound as "i".

But technically, it is supposed to be "ri".

อังกฤษ should correctly be pronounced as angkrit (usually pronounced on TV etc.), but in vernacular spoken as angkit.

I believe in ancient times, people would have pronounced any "r" sound as "r" and also consonant blends would probably have been spoken without the *ะ sound commonly spoken today.

The change in pronunciation could have been introduced with the Chinese migrants who would have difficulties pronouncing it and since with time, people of Chinese descent have become the Thai elite, this would have been the preferred way to speak.

[Richard W]

I believe in ancient times, people would have pronounced any "r" sound as "r"...

Agreed, though some are hypercorrections, as in ทรมาน, and many are (correct) Sanskritisations.

and also consonant blends would probably have been spoken without the *ะ sound commonly spoken today.

By the Khmer-speaking élite, I am inclined to agree. However, many of the combinations seem to have long been alien to Thai and its precursor.

The change in pronunciation could have been introduced with the Chinese migrants who would have difficulties pronouncing it and since with time, people of Chinese descent have become the Thai elite, this would have been the preferred way to speak.

This doesn't account for Lao, which has lost all the clusters with /r/ and /l/. The erosion of such clusters has occurred across the Tai languages, with the geographical extremes of Northern Zhuang (Guangxi), Ahom (Assam) and Southern Thai preserving them best.

[AjarnPasa]

You'll be pleased to know that it's pretty much only o or a (though ฤ can make a short i sound such as in อังกฤษ)

Rule of thumb: if the word consists of just two consonants the omitted vowel is o, such as in ผม (pom)

If it is three consonants the first is a and the second is o, such as in ถนน (thanon)

There are some exceptions such as อยุธยา (Ayuthaya) and possibly words that begin with ห (however no examples come directly to mind) but you just need to learn these.

Wow thank you very much, good one, it's a relief to know there is a rule and it's quite simple !

No worries, but do have a look at AyG's expansion on the rule as s/he makes an important addition which I forgot where the short o is elongated to sound like อ. There are also the cases where an a (ะ) sound is made after the end of one syllable and before the following one such as in ศาสนา (saat-sa-naa). This happens because the letter ส acts as the final sound of the first syllable and the beginning sound of the second syllable. All of this comes with practise. Read lots and look up the words you're not sure of in something like Thai2English.com or the Paiboon series of dictionaries. The more you read the more automatic the rendering of these quirky words will become. ... and whatever you do, don't rely on the transcriptions into Roman text :-)

Edited July 24, 2011 by AjarnPasa

[RickBradford]

Rules can be useful as a first approximation, but ultimately it comes down to having seen the word before (i.e. practice and more practice)

Is there a rule that describes how to pronounce กรุณา as 'garunah' and กรุง as 'grung'? Maybe, but it's probably quicker just to remember the two words.

Just as newcomers to English must learn 'rough, through, cough, bough, dough, lough'.

[AyG]

Is there a rule that describes how to pronounce กรุณา as 'garunah' and กรุง as 'grung'? Maybe, but it's probably quicker just to remember the two words.

This to me seems like nonsense. It's much easier to learn the rule that กร at the start of a syllable is a consonant cluster since that covers the vast majority of cases. Then one just needs to remember that there are a few exceptions such as กรุณา.

[Richard W]

... and whatever you do, don't rely on the transcriptions into Roman text :-)

And on no account rely on phonetic Thai (solecistic "สัทอักษร") for vowel length.

This forum actually had a comprehensible fully capable Roman transcription in its early days - RTGS plus length and tone and the removal of the two other ambiguities.

[RickBradford]

Is there a rule that describes how to pronounce กรุณา as 'garunah' and กรุง as 'grung'? Maybe, but it's probably quicker just to remember the two words.

This to me seems like nonsense. It's much easier to learn the rule that กร at the start of a syllable is a consonant cluster since that covers the vast majority of cases. Then one just needs to remember that there are a few exceptions such as กรุณา.

.... and กรณี,กรณีย์,กรณิการ์,กร,กรกฎาคม,กรรมการ,กรรไกร etc

You may think it nonsense, but I believe the best way to learn to read Thai is to read it, and not to spend too much time bothering about this rule and that rule. After all, I wonder how many Thais could tell you about the multiple rules....

[aneliane]

Is there a rule that describes how to pronounce กรุณา as 'garunah' and กรุง as 'grung'? Maybe, but it's probably quicker just to remember the two words.

This to me seems like nonsense. It's much easier to learn the rule that กร at the start of a syllable is a consonant cluster since that covers the vast majority of cases. Then one just needs to remember that there are a few exceptions such as กรุณา.

.... and กรณี,กรณีย์,กรณิการ์,กร,กรกฎาคม,กรรมการ,กรรไกร etc

You may think it nonsense, but I believe the best way to learn to read Thai is to read it, and not to spend too much time bothering about this rule and that rule. After all, I wonder how many Thais could tell you about the multiple rules....

Very good question : the answer is obviously not many, at least none of the people I asked were able to answer me.

But I have to say very bad advice: Native speakers get plunged into the soup as early as the womb. For the rest of us, thai language learning experience is completely different and is about helping oneself with rules. I don't have thai friends so I have hardly no immersion, rules are important for me.

I have been wondering about Nonthaburi spelling for weeks, and many words I could not read because of not knowing that rule.

And believe me, this one just made things so much clearer for me

[Mole]

I believe in ancient times, people would have pronounced any "r" sound as "r"...

Agreed, though some are hypercorrections, as in ทรมาน, and many are (correct) Sanskritisations.

and also consonant blends would probably have been spoken without the *ะ sound commonly spoken today.

By the Khmer-speaking élite, I am inclined to agree. However, many of the combinations seem to have long been alien to Thai and its precursor.

The change in pronunciation could have been introduced with the Chinese migrants who would have difficulties pronouncing it and since with time, people of Chinese descent have become the Thai elite, this would have been the preferred way to speak.

This doesn't account for Lao, which has lost all the clusters with /r/ and /l/. The erosion of such clusters has occurred across the Tai languages, with the geographical extremes of Northern Zhuang (Guangxi), Ahom (Assam) and Southern Thai preserving them best.

But if you notice southern Thai dialect, "r" is always pronounced distinct from "l" (but not quite the same "r" as in Khmer and I believe it is same "r" sound as in Khmer which were used in ancient Thai)

They also pronounce any consonant blends clearly and would not skip them as in modern Thai today.

กลาง=กาง, ไกล=ไก

In the northern and northeastern Thai languages, the "r" sound does not exist at all and is most of the time replaced with "h" sound while on some words "l" are used.

For example, เรา=เฮา, ร้อน=ฮ้อน, รัก=ฮัก but เรือ=เลือ, ร้อย=ล้อย

(I am also a native northern Thai speaker)

This I think is because it's already vicinity of China and Chinese languages where the "r" sound does not exist at all.

I also believe the origins of the Thai languages probably came from around the area of Xishuangbanna in Yunan, China.

Also, these northern/northeastern Thai languages consist mostly of single syllabus words with little loan words from Pali/Sanskrit or Khmer, which are mostly of multi-syllabi words.

So, I think originally, Tai language didn't have any "r" sound or consonant blends at all and consisted mostly of single syllabus words.

In fact, I think it was probably south-western branch of the Sino-Tibetan language group.

You can see the name of the numbers 1-9 which is very similar to Cantonese for example.

I know linguist today group all the Thai/Tai languages into it's own family, Thai-Kradai. But I feel that it may have been partly of political reasons.

(The same way Koreans claims their language is "language isolate" when if you hear Mongolian and Japanese and Korean, you can clearly hear that they are related languages.)

But with time, it has been very influenced by Pali/Sanskrit words brought with Buddhism and also Khmer since they were the superpower in the area of the time. Southern Thai today is clearly influenced by Malay.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Mole

[AyG]

So, I think originally, Tai language didn't have any "r" sound or consonant blends at all and consisted mostly of single syllabus words.

In fact, I think it was probably south-western branch of the Sino-Tibetan language group.

You can see the name of the numbers 1-9 which is very similar to Cantonese for example.

Languages only very rarely introduce new sounds. Look at English, for example. It has absorbed lexis from across the globe, but hasn't added any new sounds (with the possible exception of the "ch" sound in loch). I'm therefore rather dubious that Tai has acquired an "r" sound. I think it was almost certainly there from the start.

As for the similarity of numbers in different languages, this is because mathematics was only invented once and its specific terms migrated. It's a similar situation with days of the week. The current form was only invented once (in India) and then spread. This is why you get similarities between, say, Thai and English. Monday in both languages refers to the moon, Sunday to the sun, etc.

[Mole]

Well, but in the different English dialects, for example the "r" sound is pronounced differently already.

Northern British for instance tend to roll their tongue while other parts of Britain and American English hardly roll or almost do not pronounce it at all.

[Mole]

Actually, there is one example of a sound which has been spread and acquired from influence of another language.

It is the gluttural trill or the French R.

For example western and south-western part of Norwegian dialects has acquired this sound replacing the standard "alveolar trill" pronunciation found in the other Norwegian dialects.

(Which I also happen to be fluent)

This new pronunciation of the R sound is still spreading in Norway.

It is also theorized that it spread from French to the German language also where the uvular trill and guttural thrill has almost entirely replaced alveolar trill pronunciation of "r".

[Richard W]

In the northern and northeastern Thai languages, the "r" sound does not exist at all and is most of the time replaced with "h" sound while on some words "l" are used. <snip>

This I think is because it's already vicinity of China and Chinese languages where the "r" sound does not exist at all.

There may well be a connection, but initial /r/ is preserved in some dialects of Northern Zhuang. (In some dialects, it has become [ɣ] - yet others merge it with [l].)

I also believe the origins of the Thai languages probably came from around the area of Xishuangbanna in Yunan, China.

Also, these northern/northeastern Thai languages consist mostly of single syllabus words with little loan words from Pali/Sanskrit or Khmer, which are mostly of multi-syllabi words.

So, I think originally, Tai language didn't have any "r" sound or consonant blends at all and consisted mostly of single syllabus words.

Again, Northern Zhuang (at least, the Wuming dialect) is particularly good at preserving the consonant blends, or at least the liquid part:

Proto-Tai *pl- Thai ปลา Wuming pla

PT *pr- Thai ตาก Wuming rak

PT *phl- or *phr- Thai ผัก Wuming plăk

PT *br- Thai พราก Wuming plak

PT *ʔbl- or ʔbr- Thai ดาย Wuminɡ ʔdai

PT *ml- or *mr- Thai แมลง Wuming neŋ

PT *tl- Thai ตัก Wuming răk

PT *tr- Thai ตา Wuming ra

PT *thr- Thai ห้ำ Wuming răm

PT *dl- Thai ลาย Wuming rai

PT *dr- Thai ราก Wuming rak

PT *nl- or *nr- Thai น้ำ Wuming răm

PT *kl- Thai กล้า Wuming kla

PT *kr- Thai กรง Wuming ruŋ (But most cognates, including Wuming, have mai tho tone)

PT *khl- Thai ขัง Wuming klăŋ

PT *khr- Thai ข่าง Wuming raŋ

PT *xr- Thai หา Wuming ra

PT *kw- Thai กว่า Wuming kwa

PT *khw- Thai ขวา Wuming kwa (But Wuming tone is what one would expect from *gw-)

PT *ŋw- Thai วัน Wuming ŋɔn

PT *xw- Thai แขวน Wuming wen (but mai tho tone)

PT *ɣw- Thai ควัน Wuming xɔn

Source: Fang Kuei Li, A Handbook of Comparative Tai (1977)

In fact, I think it was probably south-western branch of the Sino-Tibetan language group.

You can see the name of the numbers 1-9 which is very similar to Cantonese for example.

I know linguist today group all the Thai/Tai languages into it's own family, Thai-Kradai. But I feel that it may have been partly of political reasons.

Actually, I think it was the realisation that Thai matched Austronesian better than Chinese. The number sets in Tai-Kadai split between the Chinese (and I'd say Chinese rather than Sino-Tibetan) set and an Austronesian set.

The currently developing idea is that Tai-Kadai has developed rather like the Austronesian Cham languages. From a preferred CVCVC word structure, it became sesquisyllabic (like Mon-Khmer languages) and then monosyllabic, a stage some of the Cham languages are now going through, with some horribly irregular simplifications of the clusters. There are a very few Kadai dialects (one Buyang, one Laha) that preserve sesquisyllabic reflexes of the Austronesian words. The best source of information I know is to look up Laurent Sagart's works on the Internet and his contributions to the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database. (Veera Ostapirat's work seems to be mostly out of reach, presumably safely tucked away in books and journals.)

Laurent Sagart has also been pushing the idea that Austronesian is itself related to Sino-Tibetan - including by some of his contributions to the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Databank.

[Richard W]

Actually, there is one example of a sound which has been spread and acquired from influence of another language.

It is the gluttural trill or the French R.

Sound changes spreading across languages is actually quite common. The Great Thai Consonant Shift is part of a change extending across Asia, affecting most of Chinese, Mon and Khmer at least.

The sound(s) of English <oi> were borrowed - they did not develop natively.

Also, the occurrence rules can be changed under foreign influence. But for the influence of French, /v/ and /dʒ/ would not occur word-initially in English. Once can consider what a hard time the natively developed /ʒ/ (as in vision) has in maintaining itself at the start and end of words. However, a foreign /p/ eventually established itself in Irish, and the foreign /f/ is now established in most, if not all, Slavic languages.

[RapidMethod]

You'll be pleased to know that it's pretty much only o or a (though ฤ can make a short i sound such as in อังกฤษ)

Rule of thumb: if the word consists of just two consonants the omitted vowel is o, such as in ผม (pom)

If it is three consonants the first is a and the second is o, such as in ถนน (thanon)

This is basically right. I have devised a slightly different approach in my 'Rapid' method, which I think makes it a bit easier - especially later on when you start to work out what the correct tone is.

When there is no vowel, it is usually the short "o" sound. It's always short, there is never a long "oh" sound because then it would be spelled with the อ vowel. However, Thais might say either vowel long or short, and colloquially some words are often pronounced differently from how they are written. Don't get hung up about which way is right.

There are however many situations in Thai when two consonants are fused together (I call this "Siamese Twins"). Most of the time, Thais can pronounce the two letters together, e.g. ปลา (plaa/fish) - or they might simply drop the second consonant in lazy speech, e.g. ครับ simply becomes "khab". But there are many instances where they can't do so, e.g. แสตมป์ (stam/stamp) or even สเต๊ก (stehk/steak). So Thais slip in a 'spacer' sound, the short "a" sound - "staem" becomes "sa-taem", "stehk" becomes "sa-tehk", etc. And it's why ถนน (road) is pronounced "tha-non" instead of "thnon".

ผลไม้ is a very interesting example of this. It's actually two words: ผล (phon / fruit or result or issue) and ไม้ (mai / wood or tree): the fruit/result of the tree, or simply "fruit". Some Thais do actually say "phon-mai", but more often it's pronounced "phon-la-mai". So where's the "la" come from then?

ล is the letter "L", but it becomes an "N" at the end of a syllable (this is a result of the fact that Thais always close down their mouth at the end of each syllable, which is why a "b" sounds like a "p" to us - as in ครับ, or "d" sounds a bit like a "t" at the end - as in ผัด).

Now, when a Thai speaker slips in the "a" spacer sound between the ล and the ไม้, the ล is pronounced as a normal "L" (it's no longer the end of a syllable, it's the start of a new syllable: ล-ไม้). And that explains why it's so often pronounced "phon-la-mai".

Once you understand this concept, it's a lot easier to figure out what's going on with certain words, simply because it makes sense intrinsically.

For more details about my [very much simpler] 'Rapid' method, please visit www.learnthaionline.com and watch the 10-minute video.

[Hardie]

I believe in ancient times, people would have pronounced any "r" sound as "r"...

Agreed, though some are hypercorrections, as in ทรมาน, and many are (correct) Sanskritisations.

and also consonant blends would probably have been spoken without the *ะ sound commonly spoken today.

By the Khmer-speaking élite, I am inclined to agree. However, many of the combinations seem to have long been alien to Thai and its precursor.

The change in pronunciation could have been introduced with the Chinese migrants who would have difficulties pronouncing it and since with time, people of Chinese descent have become the Thai elite, this would have been the preferred way to speak.

This doesn't account for Lao, which has lost all the clusters with /r/ and /l/. The erosion of such clusters has occurred across the Tai languages, with the geographical extremes of Northern Zhuang (Guangxi), Ahom (Assam) and Southern Thai preserving them best.

But if you notice southern Thai dialect, "r" is always pronounced distinct from "l" (but not quite the same "r" as in Khmer and I believe it is same "r" sound as in Khmer which were used in ancient Thai)

They also pronounce any consonant blends clearly and would not skip them as in modern Thai today.

กลาง=กาง, ไกล=ไก

In the northern and northeastern Thai languages, the "r" sound does not exist at all and is most of the time replaced with "h" sound while on some words "l" are used.

For example, เรา=เฮา, ร้อน=ฮ้อน, รัก=ฮัก but เรือ=เลือ, ร้อย=ล้อย

(I am also a native northern Thai speaker)

This I think is because it's already vicinity of China and Chinese languages where the "r" sound does not exist at all.

I also believe the origins of the Thai languages probably came from around the area of Xishuangbanna in Yunan, China.

Also, these northern/northeastern Thai languages consist mostly of single syllabus words with little loan words from Pali/Sanskrit or Khmer, which are mostly of multi-syllabi words.

So, I think originally, Tai language didn't have any "r" sound or consonant blends at all and consisted mostly of single syllabus words.

In fact, I think it was probably south-western branch of the Sino-Tibetan language group.

You can see the name of the numbers 1-9 which is very similar to Cantonese for example.

I know linguist today group all the Thai/Tai languages into it's own family, Thai-Kradai. But I feel that it may have been partly of political reasons.

(The same way Koreans claims their language is "language isolate" when if you hear Mongolian and Japanese and Korean, you can clearly hear that they are related languages.)

But with time, it has been very influenced by Pali/Sanskrit words brought with Buddhism and also Khmer since they were the superpower in the area of the time. Southern Thai today is clearly influenced by Malay.

I'm no professional linguist, but:

1) Mole, you've contradicted yourself by claiming Xishuangbanna as the source of Tai language, then noting Cantonese as proof. Guangdong is SE China, and that likely IS the origin of Tai/Kadai languages, witness the plethora of related dialects in the area. The Tai family itself IMHO likely originates with the Tai Dam around Dien Bien Pu. I notice they pronounce ร้อย= ฮ้อย BTW. Maybe Cantonese itself borrows a lot from Tai/Kadai. Claiming SW Chinese provenance is more likely the political stance, as Thailand tries to claim its origin from the mysterious Nanchao empire, glory in absentia.

2) RW, I'm not sure how relevant Zhuang language is since, however Tai/Kadai it may be, it's not likely Tai in the sense of any direct line of transmission from the proto-language. AND I've read that Ahom is dead as a spoken language, so not sure how relevant that is, even if it DOES remain in isolated pockets. And as you noted Zhuang has multiple dialects which are quite different and heavily influenced by Chinese. I doubt that Ahom or Zhuang received much influence from Khmer, which all true Tai dialects seemingly did.

3) Mole, superficially similar sounds between Mongol/Japan/Korea in no way imply a genetic relation, unless you know something no other linguist knows.

4) RW, I'm not sure if the 'R' sound in Lao could be considered 'lost' if it never really existed to begin with, except in writing. Khmer is defined by its consonant clusters as much as Tai is defined by its lack of them, still they share a lot of vocabulary, however mis-pronounced.

I'd love to know more about this Great Consonant Shift, which is news to me. If forced to guess I'd assume it derives from the Khmerization of Tai, once the Khmers were actually reduced to their own territory and actually speaking Khmer would have been a rarity, though using it brokenly as a status symbol might have been quite commonplace. Of course, if that shift spreads across borders and languages, then that's different.

Back to the original post, I'm sure most if not all these spellings with inherent vowels derive from the Sanskit, which has a syllabary not a vocabulary, thus every consonant contains a vowel inherent, or so I've been told.

[Mole]

1) Mole, you've contradicted yourself by claiming Xishuangbanna as the source of Tai language, then noting Cantonese as proof. Guangdong is SE China, and that likely IS the origin of Tai/Kadai languages, witness the plethora of related dialects in the area. The Tai family itself IMHO likely originates with the Tai Dam around Dien Bien Pu. I notice they pronounce ร้อย= ฮ้อย BTW. Maybe Cantonese itself borrows a lot from Tai/Kadai. Claiming SW Chinese provenance is more likely the political stance, as Thailand tries to claim its origin from the mysterious Nanchao empire, glory in absentia.

Look, it is you who has not fully understood what I meant.

I was saying that the Tai-Kadai languages may in fact be a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language group rather than it's own. Among other things, I used the similarities between Thai and Cantonese numbers.

3) Mole, superficially similar sounds between Mongol/Japan/Korea in no way imply a genetic relation, unless you know something no other linguist knows.

This theory has already been proposed by linguists.

Altaic Languages

Edited July 31, 2011 by Mole

[Richard W]

2) RW, I'm not sure how relevant Zhuang language is since, however Tai/Kadai it may be, it's not likely Tai in the sense of any direct line of transmission from the proto-language. AND I've read that Ahom is dead as a spoken language, so not sure how relevant that is, even if it DOES remain in isolated pockets. And as you noted Zhuang has multiple dialects which are quite different and heavily influenced by Chinese. I doubt that Ahom or Zhuang received much influence from Khmer, which all true Tai dialects seemingly did.

Ahom and Zhuang are relevant that they appear provide evidence of how Thai (or its ancestor) used to be. They're interesting because they strongly suggest that the loss of clusters has started from a roughly central region and spread out. Incidentally, some clusters have been acquired - Thai has acquired ปร-. ตร- and (ถร-/)ทร- (after simplifying PT *pr-, *tr-, *thr- and *dr-), and Northern Thai has acquired a large set of clusters with /w/ as second element.

4) RW, I'm not sure if the 'R' sound in Lao could be considered 'lost' if it never really existed to begin with, except in writing.

From the fact that Lao uses a version of ร for the low /h/ consonant, I strongly suspect that it did exist when Lao started to be written, and then became /h/. Tai Lue seems not to have completed the change of [r] to [h] until the 20th century - assuming it is now thoroughly complete.

I'd love to know more about this Great Consonant Shift, which is news to me. If forced to guess I'd assume it derives from the Khmerization of Tai, once the Khmers were actually reduced to their own territory and actually speaking Khmer would have been a rarity, though using it brokenly as a status symbol might have been quite commonplace.

The Great Consonant Shift is the main reason that initial Thai consonants have rather different values from the Indian originals, and is why the systems of writing tones is so complicated. Example shifts, which did not change spellings, are:

ด [ʔd] > [d]

ต [t] > [t] (unchanged)

ถ [tʰ] > [tʰ] (unchanged)

ท [d] > [tʰ] (southern dialects, e.ɡ. Thai and Lao)

ท [d] > [t] (northern dialects, e.ɡ. Northern Thai, Shan, Tai Lue, Red Tai)

ธ [dʰ] > [tʰ] (not relevant to native words - pre-shift Thai pronunciation unclear)

น [n] > [n] (unchanged)

หน [hn] or [n̥] > [n] (starting point uncertain)

This change did not result in words formerly pronounced differently being pronounced the same - differences remained, apparently originally in the phonation of the vowel, but ultimately (in Tai) in the tone. This general set of changes also occurred in Cham, Mon-Khmer and Sinitic dialects. The change is still spreading in the island of Hainan.

Back to the original post, I'm sure most if not all these spellings with inherent vowels derive from the Sanskit, which has a syllabary not a vocabulary, thus every consonant contains a vowel inherent, or so I've been told.

The system of writing derives India, though note that it was initially developed for early Prakrits. Inherent vowels are also used for native words, though Lanna and Lao scripts have an explicit vowel symbol for short /o/.

Edited to remove unwarranted IPA g.

Edited July 31, 2011 by Richard W

[Hardie]

1) Mole, you've contradicted yourself by claiming Xishuangbanna as the source of Tai language, then noting Cantonese as proof. Guangdong is SE China, and that likely IS the origin of Tai/Kadai languages, witness the plethora of related dialects in the area. The Tai family itself IMHO likely originates with the Tai Dam around Dien Bien Pu. I notice they pronounce ร้อย= ฮ้อย BTW. Maybe Cantonese itself borrows a lot from Tai/Kadai. Claiming SW Chinese provenance is more likely the political stance, as Thailand tries to claim its origin from the mysterious Nanchao empire, glory in absentia.

Look, it is you who has not fully understood what I meant.

I was saying that the Tai-Kadai languages may in fact be a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language group rather than it's own. Among other things, I used the similarities between Thai and Cantonese numbers.

3) Mole, superficially similar sounds between Mongol/Japan/Korea in no way imply a genetic relation, unless you know something no other linguist knows.

This theory has already been proposed by linguists.

Altaic Languages

One proposal among dozens, but that's not my point, which is that it has little to do with superficial sonic similarities. Would you know how close German and American English are by a simple listen or a casual look at the map? With 'Altaic' (or any proposed family) the key ingredients are vocabulary, common ancestors, borrowing, "typological features of the supposed Altaic languages, such as agglutinative morphology and SOV word order", etc.

On the subject of a macro-Sino/Tibetan/Tai phylum, it may very well be that all Asian languages are related, or maybe just two proto-languages, the result of two original migrations, which genome evidence seems to suggest. To prove an intimate relationship between Tai and Chinese, though, Cantonese is probably not the best example, as it diverges widely from the others. Small numbers ARE core vocabulary, and the Cantonese are as close to Tai as the are to Mandarin, so proves little or nothing, but suggests much.

Nevertheless, I wasn't questioning that assertion, but that Xishuangbanna was the likely point of departure for Tai languages, which there seems to be little or no evidence to support, though it may certainly have been a secondary center from which Lue, Yuan, Shan, and Khoen, etc. diverged. The question becomes intertwined with hypothetical migration routes and origin myths, i.e. a country's identity and national pride, so not easily discussed. The average Bangkok Thai is not likely to feel a kinship with a Tai Dam villager in traditional costume, and even Lao people up north treat them like dogs, so there you go. There are Tai-speaking villages not three hours from Hanoi, in Vietnam, so what does that tell you? They have dances and games that could be straight out of the CM night bazaar. I doubt they've ever been to Chieng Rung/Jinghong, or that their ancestors came from there. Migrating southward in advance of a major Han Chinese expansion seems much more likely.

[Mole]

Now, you are contradicting yourself. You humbly declared that you are no professional linguist, but then you lecture as if you were one...

Looks like no matter whatever is said, you seems determined to challenge it, so not really any point in wasting time "discussing" anything anymore when there's somebody fishing under the bridge here....