Thai Language - Primitive Language?

[PaullyW]

Can any of you linguists out there deny that Thailand has 'more-or-less' never had a documented revolution of modern thought? Science, technology, politics, philosophy, religion (that was not largely taken from India)? Can you then deny that language may have some roll to play in why this has been the case?

Hey Polly, what has the Canadians done? Is it correct to say that Canadian is at least a little bit influenced by the English language? Or more correctly, you dont even have your own language.

And what great philosophers have you had?

What world famous brands comes from Canada?

I have no idea as I am not Canadian.

[Johpa]

And what great philosophers have you had?

What world famous brands comes from Canada?

Well Robert and Douglas McKenzie come to mind, as does O'Keefe's.

[mca]

From a grammatical point of view Thai is pretty easy to get your head around. I admire the Thais who have a grasp of complex sentence structures and stuff like past perfect, passive vs active voice etc.in English.

Edited July 12, 2012 by mca

[CaptHaddock]

With the exception of bytebuster's, all of these opinions reflect a truly depressing degree of ignorance. If you want to theorize about languages why not read a book about it instead of inventing subjective types of distinction and then theorizing ad hoc about the cultural implications that follow, notably to the benefit of your own culture?

The Thai language is not inferior because it borrowed an alphabet. Since writing was only invented three or four times, nearly all writing systems are borrowed. It is not inferior because of the number of words in its lexicon. English has more words because they borrowed both from their conquerors (French-speaking vikings) and their conquerees as well as trading partners. French has fewer words because they didn't have much of a global empire and anyway preferred to discard synonyms for aesthetic reasons. Thai is not inferior because of the number of exceptions to its pronunciation rules. English has more exceptions while Chinese has no pronunciation rules based on writing at all. And so on.

[mca]

With the exception of bytebuster's, all of these opinions reflect a truly depressing degree of ignorance. If you want to theorize about languages why not read a book about it instead of inventing subjective types of distinction and then theorizing ad hoc about the cultural implications that follow, notably to the benefit of your own culture?

The Thai language is not inferior because it borrowed an alphabet. Since writing was only invented three or four times, nearly all writing systems are borrowed. It is not inferior because of the number of words in its lexicon. English has more words because they borrowed both from their conquerors (French-speaking vikings) and their conquerees as well as trading partners. French has fewer words because they didn't have much of a global empire and anyway preferred to discard synonyms for aesthetic reasons. Thai is not inferior because of the number of exceptions to its pronunciation rules. English has more exceptions while Chinese has no pronunciation rules based on writing at all. And so on.

Cheers mate!

[Morakot]

With the exception of bytebuster's, all of these opinions reflect a truly depressing degree of ignorance. If you want to theorize about languages why not read a book about it instead of inventing subjective types of distinction and then theorizing ad hoc about the cultural implications that follow, notably to the benefit of your own culture?

[cut]

Well, some of us have already read (and written) books about it. What is wrong with having a discussion? Of course, the inferiority argument is utter nonsense. But most people have not suggested any of this.

Edited July 13, 2012 by Morakot

[lost_in_space]

According to Susan Blackmore, a cognitive scientist, languages do not vary much, if at all, in grammar complexity. They vary a lot in terms of vocabulary. The first part may have to do with the "language organ" that Chomsky advocates. The second may be related to the amount of outside influence and change a group of speakers has gone through.

I generally buy the idea that what any language lacks in terms of one characteristic, e.g., verb tenses, it makes up in others, e.g., time markers or other constructions. While all nouns are uncountable in Thai, the classifiers remedy this.

Also, tonal languages require more right brain activity than non tonal languages.

It's an interesting and complicated subject.

[PaullyW]

With the exception of bytebuster's, all of these opinions reflect a truly depressing degree of ignorance. If you want to theorize about languages why not read a book about it instead of inventing subjective types of distinction and then theorizing ad hoc about the cultural implications that follow, notably to the benefit of your own culture?

The Thai language is not inferior because it borrowed an alphabet. Since writing was only invented three or four times, nearly all writing systems are borrowed. It is not inferior because of the number of words in its lexicon. English has more words because they borrowed both from their conquerors (French-speaking vikings) and their conquerees as well as trading partners. French has fewer words because they didn't have much of a global empire and anyway preferred to discard synonyms for aesthetic reasons. Thai is not inferior because of the number of exceptions to its pronunciation rules. English has more exceptions while Chinese has no pronunciation rules based on writing at all. And so on.

Yes, I have now changed my mind after all this education.

Thai language is no better or worse for ANY PURPOSE than English or any other language.

Thai culture has no common characteristics that make certain parts of it better or worse for ANY PURPOSE than any other culture.

All people are exactly equal in ALL WAYS; none inferior or superior to any others in any respect.

There, you guys happy now?

Sincerely,

Likely PRIVILEGED Endlessly Apologetic Idealist

[islandguy]

In my attempts to learn Thai with a highly qualified teacher (former professor of Thai literature) I have been struck by the aspect of data compression in the language. Tones give you a way to use one syllable (mai is a good example) to indicate 5 different meanings. The grammatical usage seems to me to be very highly contextual (drives me crazy), this also allows (for those who speak it well) to convey a lot of meaning without using a lot of words. Any comments from those more expert in Thai language on this thought?

[Docno]

and yet so many linguistically advanced westerners find it so difficult to learn

Well, that could be because Asian language system is quite unrelated to the European. As an Indian (Asian), I think it is easier for me to learn Thai and it isn't that difficult as it has been made out to be.

The only stumbling block can be the mastering tones since most of the languages are my country are non-tonal but that will come with practice.

Many sites inform me that Thai has rather uncomplicated grammar or no grammar at all. (I have strong doubts about the latter claim though).

I am also trying to learn Russian and it has very complex grammar.

I'm not sure that being an Indian gives you a leg-up on Thai (at least in speaking Thai) as most of the non-formal language that you hear and would use is not related to Pali/Sanskrit. I have a couple of good Indian friends--one a Punjabi and one a Tamil--both of whom have failed miserably in their attempts to learn Thai. I have been the only one of the three of us to keep at it. The biggest challenge for them and I was the tones, and their mother tongues gave them no advantage in this [and the Thai script is sufficiently distinct from modern Indian scripts]. Otherwise the vocabulary and grammar is quite straightforward (I would never call it 'primitive'). The people who have the real advantage are the Chinese (and other E Asians) who grew up with a tonal language.

[CaptHaddock]

In my attempts to learn Thai with a highly qualified teacher (former professor of Thai literature) I have been struck by the aspect of data compression in the language. Tones give you a way to use one syllable (mai is a good example) to indicate 5 different meanings. The grammatical usage seems to me to be very highly contextual (drives me crazy), this also allows (for those who speak it well) to convey a lot of meaning without using a lot of words. Any comments from those more expert in Thai language on this thought?

Data compression? Well, Thai has more phonemes, i.e. the tones. Monosyllabic languages need more phonemes in order to provide enough differences to cover an adequate vocabulary, unlike polysyllabic languages which can achieve larger vocabularies by combining syllables. (Thai is not purely monosyllabic, of course, because of borrowings from Sanskrit, Pali, English and others.) Here's a citation that suggests someone has counted the number of possible Thai syllables as 23,638. You certainly couldn't get that many in English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosyllabic_language

If it's true that Thai depends more on implications than explicitly expressed meanings, then it raises the interesting question of whether ambiguity is a defect, as some people assume, or a resource.

[cooked]

With the exception of bytebuster's, all of these opinions reflect a truly depressing degree of ignorance. If you want to theorize about languages why not read a book about it instead of inventing subjective types of distinction and then theorizing ad hoc about the cultural implications that follow, notably to the benefit of your own culture?

The Thai language is not inferior because it borrowed an alphabet. Since writing was only invented three or four times, nearly all writing systems are borrowed. It is not inferior because of the number of words in its lexicon. English has more words because they borrowed both from their conquerors (French-speaking vikings) and their conquerees as well as trading partners. French has fewer words because they didn't have much of a global empire and anyway preferred to discard synonyms for aesthetic reasons. Thai is not inferior because of the number of exceptions to its pronunciation rules. English has more exceptions while Chinese has no pronunciation rules based on writing at all. And so on.

Yes, I have now changed my mind after all this education.

Thai language is no better or worse for ANY PURPOSE than English or any other language.

Thai culture has no common characteristics that make certain parts of it better or worse for ANY PURPOSE than any other culture.

All people are exactly equal in ALL WAYS; none inferior or superior to any others in any respect.

There, you guys happy now?

Sincerely,

Likely PRIVILEGED Endlessly Apologetic Idealist

In my opinion, English is a dominant language, the proof being that it has no problems accepting, absorbing, adopting words and even phrases from other languages. The french get indignant if you use 'Franglais', they even have a committee for inventing words that are otherwise known all over the world (they don't, or shouldn't, say spam, email or computer). This is a sign I think of a decaying culture.

Thai also seems not to accept foreign words (apart from keeks, bia, pang...). This isolates the Thais, which seems to be what they want.

Everyone gets the language that they deserve.

[watcharacters]

I've always found it interesting how language and culture seemingly come together. To me it seems to be one of those chicken and egg scenarios.

With the risk of offending everyone, everywhere, can we not agree that some languages are more pleasing to the ears than others and that some are more suitable in certain situations than others?

What language would you rather be flirting in: French/Italian or German/Dutch? A danish actor recently stated in an english magazine that it's impossible to flirt in danish. I tend to agree that danish is indeed not a very seductive language and isn't really fit for a beautiful girl to speak. Same with dutch.

Similarly, German seems to be a rather efficient language very suitable for shouting commands and making yourself clear. It's also great for writing a sentence that's two pages long, a perfect match with german philosophy. English supposedly has the most words of any language and so seems perfect for convoluted, polite speech.

Arabic always seemed a very masculine, aggressive language, which honestly seems to fit their culture.

Now for Thai language, it's lack of words but emphasis on tonality and musical pronounciation seems to fit well with a culture that places a lot of importance on the superficial.

I think I have offended enough nationalities in one post already, so I'll just cut it off here.

But a good post it is.

[Johpa]

In my opinion, English is a dominant language, the proof being that it has no problems accepting, absorbing, adopting words and even phrases from other languages. The french get indignant if you use 'Franglais', they even have a committee for inventing words that are otherwise known all over the world (they don't, or shouldn't, say spam, email or computer). This is a sign I think of a decaying culture.

Thai also seems not to accept foreign words (apart from keeks, bia, pang...). This isolates the Thais, which seems to be what they want.

Everyone gets the language that they deserve.

Crikey, you all just keep going downhill. Or is it over the cliff? The only reason that English is a dominant language is because of the dominance of the British and American armed forces, especially their navies, over the past several hundred years. And with a different outcome of a battle here or a battle there, we could all just as easily be using Mongolian or Arabic or Chinese of Sogdian (R.I.P.) as the lingua franca and not English. It has absolutely nothing to do with the the internal linguistics such as the phonology or syntax. Despite the prescriptive grammarians in the US, despite the French Academy in Paris, and despite the purists in Bangkok, all the languages change and adapt. Thai, as well as French, is brimming with newly borrowed words. No academy nor academic, despite their moaning, is going to stop the influx of new words. And what sort of racist drivel is being implied that people "get the language that they deserve". People get the language that they are born into and the amazing feature that drives modern linguistics is that you can take any newborn baby from anywhere in the world and transplant that new born child to anywhere else on the planet and they will learn which ever language they are exposed to with equal ease and facility. And the vast majority will never learn, nor become cognizant of the "rules" such as the underlying phonology. Ask a native Thai speaker about the Thai tone rules and you will normally be met with a blank stare. Ask a native English speaker about the phonological rules for generating the English plural morpheme and you will get the same blank expression.

'

[Tchooptip]

I've always found it interesting how language and culture seemingly come together. To me it seems to be one of those chicken and egg scenarios.

With the risk of offending everyone, everywhere, can we not agree that some languages are more pleasing to the ears than others and that some are more suitable in certain situations than others?

What language would you rather be flirting in: French/Italian or German/Dutch? A danish actor recently stated in an english magazine that it's impossible to flirt in danish. I tend to agree that danish is indeed not a very seductive language and isn't really fit for a beautiful girl to speak. Same with dutch.

Similarly, German seems to be a rather efficient language very suitable for shouting commands and making yourself clear. It's also great for writing a sentence that's two pages long, a perfect match with german philosophy. English supposedly has the most words of any language and so seems perfect for convoluted, polite speech.

Arabic always seemed a very masculine, aggressive language, which honestly seems to fit their culture.

Now for Thai language, it's lack of words but emphasis on tonality and musical pronounciation seems to fit well with a culture that places a lot of importance on the superficial.

I think I have offended enough nationalities in one post already, so I'll just cut it off here.

relax! your ignorance does not offend; it is entertaining.

LOL

[poanoi]

Talking form is no problem,

but they really need to reform the written language, cutting out un-necessary junk altogether,

like other languages did 200 years ago

[bytebuster]

Talking form is no problem,

but they really need to reform the written language, cutting out un-necessary junk altogether,

like other languages did 200 years ago

A while ago I've been wondering if that's possible to form a statement that is both incorrect and meaningless at the same time, and the one above is a great example of such. May I quote it, with all due credits?

Why incorrect?

Other languages did not stop developing 200 years ago. I doubt English had a word of "junk" in an abstract sense 200 years ago. Nevertheless, you use it, not even noticing.

Also, many languages still have a bit of "un-necessary junk". Here are some examples.

this / thin,

horse / worse / corpse / corps

/ shores,

food / flood / blood,

stranger / anger,

does / shoes / goes,

live / alive,

some / home,

friend / fiend

...

[sorry, I have to cut here; English is my fourth language, so I can't quickly think of more examples]

Why meaningless?

Thais would better know if they need to change their language. Suggesting them to "simplify" without prior deepest familiarity with the language (I would say, without a grade of PhD in linguistics of very this language) is not only meaningless, but also may be offensive.

Why don't Thais claim other languages "really need to reform"?

And finally. They have attempted. Read this article for the most recent experiment of simplifying Thai spelling in 1942.

[CaptHaddock]

In my opinion, English is a dominant language, the proof being that it has no problems accepting, absorbing, adopting words and even phrases from other languages. The french get indignant if you use 'Franglais', they even have a committee for inventing words that are otherwise known all over the world (they don't, or shouldn't, say spam, email or computer). This is a sign I think of a decaying culture.

Thai also seems not to accept foreign words (apart from keeks, bia, pang...). This isolates the Thais, which seems to be what they want.

Everyone gets the language that they deserve.

Crikey, you all just keep going downhill. Or is it over the cliff?

The trouble these philosophers are having is that they don't know enough about linguistics and languages to have an opinion, but they don't know that they don't know enough. This problem has a name, which is "anasognosia."

[Parvis]

In terms of absurdity "CaptHaddock" - your statement must be close to the top of absurdity in this thread - and - there certainly were/are some outrageous statements.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Parvis

[Richard W]

Here's a citation that suggests someone has counted the number of possible Thai syllables as 23,638. You certainly couldn't get that many in English.

Conservative rough calculations gave me over 30,000 for English - and that's ignoring the inflected monosyllabic forms. And that's also ignoring such apparently difficult words as dwarf, twelve, sphere, Gwent and rouge.

[CaptHaddock]

Here's a citation that suggests someone has counted the number of possible Thai syllables as 23,638. You certainly couldn't get that many in English.

Conservative rough calculations gave me over 30,000 for English - and that's ignoring the inflected monosyllabic forms. And that's also ignoring such apparently difficult words as dwarf, twelve, sphere, Gwent and rouge.

Interesting. Does that count distinguish homonyms or count them once only?

[Richard W]

Conservative rough calculations gave me over 30,000 for English - and that's ignoring the inflected monosyllabic forms.

Interesting. Does that count distinguish homonyms or count them once only?

As with the Thai count, it's possible words, based on pronunciation, and so homonyms can only be counted once.

[Asianbloke]

and yet so many linguistically advanced westerners find it so difficult to learn

Well, that could be because Asian language system is quite unrelated to the European. As an Indian (Asian), I think it is easier for me to learn Thai and it isn't that difficult as it has been made out to be.

The only stumbling block can be the mastering tones since most of the languages are my country are non-tonal but that will come with practice.

Many sites inform me that Thai has rather uncomplicated grammar or no grammar at all. (I have strong doubts about the latter claim though).

I am also trying to learn Russian and it has very complex grammar.

I'm not sure that being an Indian gives you a leg-up on Thai (at least in speaking Thai) as most of the non-formal language that you hear and would use is not related to Pali/Sanskrit. I have a couple of good Indian friends--one a Punjabi and one a Tamil--both of whom have failed miserably in their attempts to learn Thai. I have been the only one of the three of us to keep at it. The biggest challenge for them and I was the tones, and their mother tongues gave them no advantage in this [and the Thai script is sufficiently distinct from modern Indian scripts]. Otherwise the vocabulary and grammar is quite straightforward (I would never call it 'primitive'). The people who have the real advantage are the Chinese (and other E Asians) who grew up with a tonal language.

Well, I do admit that learning to speak Thai correctly is certainly more difficult for me than getting over the written part of it even as an Indian. I have already said that mastering tones will take some time and would come with practice.

However, I feel that Thai language has certain undeniable Indian elements in it which does make it easier for Indians (yes, not all) to learn Thai as compared to their western counterparts.

I am a native speaker of Hindi (one of the most widely spoken languages in India used by a large majority of Indians and is a direct descendant of Sanskrit unlike Punjabi; Punjabi does use Sanskrit vocabulary to an extent and Tamil is quite unrelated to Sanskrit even though all these languages are Indian languages; there are many more Indian languages)

The pronunciation of most of the letters in Thai alphabet (which might come with some practice fro westerner; I have noticed how most of the websites geared towards to teaching Thai pronunciation actually confused me because their methodology catered to the western populace who might have problems with aspirated & unaspirated sounds & more; I realised we already have them in our language; I am talking about Hindi here)

Thai script which has been derived from an Indic script & so I could easily recognise the vowels atleast the basic ones even the way in which they are written & pronounced in Thai language and it just took me a few seconds to absorb them and then progress towards vowel combinations like dipthongs , etc. which was hardly a feat for me.

I do know that Sanskrit words do not really form a integral part of colloquial Thai but atleast they do make their strong presence felt in other areas of Thai language (ceremonial or the one used for official purposes) & that's what got me interested in Thai language (when I saw several words of my language make their appearance in Thai atleast in some areas). If you leave out the polysyllabic Sanskrit words, then learning the monosyllabic words isn't that difficult. Westerners & even others have to face another hurdle of learning those pollysyllabic words.

Many road signs and yes, esp. the names of many places in Thailand are directly derived from Sanskrit, I could easily recognise the origin when I saw the pictures.

The Thai names of months and days of week have been burrowed completely from India and what is surprising that we, Indians have discarded these names as outdated/old-fashioned several decades ago; how sad and Thais are held on to those words. We only use them for purposes Indian astrology now.

I don't want to comment on your friends because I don't know them. Every one has a different learning curve and I also learned Sanskrit (which is no longer used in India just like Latin in the west) for 5 years in school. I really don't know if they learnt Sanskrit since they were already expected to learn Hindi (basic) in addition to their native languages (punjabi/tamil) & English if they completed their schooling in India.

(As per our Indian education policy, native speaker of Hindi like me are expected to be bi-lingual ie. Hindi & English but native speakers of other Indian vernacular languages have to be tri-lingual ie. their native tongue, Hindi & English depending on their state)

So, many bilingual Indians like me could & do learn Sanskrit for a few years, a popular option provided during our schooling tenure.

And, above all, is the deep connection that many of us (Indians) will feel with Thai culture and language once they get acquainted with it which makes/will make it easier for us to learn Thai; we can feel that language & that's when it learning & speaking it becomes your second nature.

Well that's my personal opinion for I felt this way.

From the Thai Ramakien (derived from Indian epic Ramayana greatly revered by Indian Hindus) which obviously doesn't hold any religious significance for today's Buddhist Thais and yet is an integral part of their culture even if for entertainment; the demi-gods and other mythical Indian deities guarding their temple gates; the culturally ingrained Thai (rather Asian & of course Indian) value of respect, obedience & love for ones' parents even as adults exhibited in their social gestures too like prostrating at the feet of one's parents; Thai 'wai' taken from our Indian Namaste; the annual Loy Krathong festival when the floral baskets with lamps illuminate the waters something that is a daily evening ritual in some Indian cities at their river banks, a way of giving to the nature & showing gratitude for everything that helps us including the rivers; the joyous splashing of water on Songkran just like our Hindu Indian festival of Holi; even the famed traditional Thai dance & a lot more; one can easily see such examples abound in Thai society; I can just carry on and it won't end.

[MrHammer]

From the Thai Ramakien (derived from Indian epic Ramayana greatly revered by Indian Hindus) which obviously doesn't hold any religious significance for today's Buddhist Thais and yet is an integral part of their culture even if for entertainment; the demi-gods and other mythical Indian deities guarding their temple gates; the culturally ingrained Thai (rather Asian & of course Indian) value of respect, obedience & love for ones' parents even as adults exhibited in their social gestures too like prostrating at the feet of one's parents; Thai 'wai' taken from our Indian Namaste; the annual Loy Krathong festival when the floral baskets with lamps illuminate the waters something that is a daily evening ritual in some Indian cities at their river banks, a way of giving to the nature & showing gratitude for everything that helps us including the rivers; the joyous splashing of water on Songkran just like our Hindu Indian festival of Holi; even the famed traditional Thai dance & a lot more; one can easily see such examples abound in Thai society; I can just carry on and it won't end.

Nice post. It would make sense that India has been the historical cultural and linguistic influence in the entire region except north-eastern parts where I would assume the Chinese have been more influential (such as Vietnam?). Because of Angkor Wat in Cambodia we at least know that Sanskrit/Pali and Hinduism was the major cultural influence in South East Asia at that time. I don't know that much about Indian culture to compare to Thai culture and talking about 'Indian' is probably no more correct than 'European' when you consider the size of the sub-continent. So perhaps Thai culture is similar to Indian culture as French is to Italian? But if there are no tones in Hindi and neither in Khmer, does this then suggests that originally Thai language may also have been non-tonal, but may have been later influenced by the Chinese or by the Burmese, which I from reading Wikipedia is not a true tonal language (but more like Japanese and Korean)?

[MrHammer]

double post

Edited July 19, 2012 by MrHammer

[Johpa]

For those wishing to further explore the influence of South Asia on Southeast Asia may I recommend George Coedes' classic tome on the subject; The Indianized States of Southeast Asia.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Johpa

[Trembly]

Thai may be primitive when it comes to describing the physical world around you but it is actually a language / culture (the two are inseparable; culture is implicit in the language and vice versa) with a high emotional intelligence. There are certain concepts which the Thai language can be expressed in a few or even just one syllable which might take a language like English a sentence or two to express.

When I think of different languages I tend to visualise various segments of a spectrum, the complete spectrum being a complete understanding of all that is without and within us.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Trembly

[Peppy]

This is kind of long, but I think it's interesting and very relevant to the topic at hand here. It's an attempt to list everything that is universal to human nature and living conditions, and is interesting for the fact that all languages, however "primitive", have native words for, or ways to describe all of these things.

One of the most oft-quoted references in Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is the study made by anthropologist, Donald E. Brown that tries to locate ethnographic patterns and tendencies underlying the behaviour of all documented human cultures.

Inspired by Chomsky's Universal Grammar (UG), Brown tries to characterise the Universal People (UP). As Steven Pinker says (in The Language Instinct), according to Brown, Universal People exhibit the following traits:

Value placed on articulateness. Gossip. Lying. Misleading. Verbal humour. Humorous insults. Poetic and rhetorical speech forms. Narrative and storytelling. Metaphor. Poetry with repetition of linguistic elements and three-second lines separated by pauses.

Words for days, months, seasons, years, past, present, future, body parts, inner states (emotions, sensations, thoughts), behavioural propensities, flora, fauna, weather, tools, space, motion, speed, location, spatial dimensions, physical properties, giving, lending, affecting things and people, numbers (at least one, two and more than two), proper names, possession.

Distinctions between mother and father. Kinship categories, defined in terms of mother, father son, daughter, and age sequence. Binary distinctions, including male and female, black and white, natural and cultural, good and bad. Measures. Logical relations including "not", "and", "same", "equivalent", "opposite", general versus particular, part versus whole. Conjectural reasoning (inferring the presence of absent and invisible entities from their perceptible traces).

Non-linguistic vocal communication such as cries and squeals. Interpreting intention from behaviour. Recognised facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt. Use of smiles as a friendly greeting. Crying. Coy flirtation with the eyes. Masking, modifying, and mimicking facial expressions. Displays of affection.

Sense of self versus other, responsibility, voluntary versus involuntary behaviour, intention, private inner life, normal versus abnormal mental states. Empathy. Sexual attraction. Powerful sexual jealousy. Childhood fears, especially of loud noises, and, at the end of the first year, strangers. Fear of snakes. "Oedipal" feelings (possessiveness of mother, coldness towards her consort). Face recognition. Adornment of bodies and arrangement of hair. Sexual attractiveness, based in signs of health, and in women, youth. Hygiene. Dance. Music. Play, including play fighting.

Manufacture of, and dependence upon, many kinds of tools, many of them permanent, made according to culturally transmitted motifs, including cutters, pounders, containers, string, leavers, spears. Use of fire to cook food and for other purposes. Drugs, both medical and recreational. Shelter. Decoration of artefacts.

A standard pattern for time and weaning. Living in groups, which claim a territory and have a sense of being a distinct people. Families built around mother and children, usually the biological mother, and one or more men. Institutionalised marriage, in the sense of publicly recognised right of sexual access to a woman eligible for childbearing. Socialisation of children (including toilet training) by senior kin. Children copying their elders. Distinguishing of close kin from distant kin, and favouring close kin. Avoidance of incest between mothers and sons. Great interest in the topic of sex.

Status and prestige, both assigned (by kinship, age, sex) and achieved. Some degree of economic inequality. Division of labor by sex and age. More child care by women. More aggression and violence by men. Acknowledgement of differences between male and female natures. Domination by men in the public political sphere. Exchange of labor, goods and services. Reciprocity, including retaliation. Gifts. Social Reasoning. Coalitions. Government, in the sense of binding collective decisions about public affairs. Leaders, almost always non-dictatorial, perhaps ephemeral. Laws, rights, and obligations, including laws against violence, rape and murder. Punishment. Conflict, which is deplored. Rape. Seeking of redress for wrongs. Mediation. In-group/out-group conflicts. Property. Inheritance of property. Sense of right and wrong. Envy.

Etiquette. Hospitality. Feasting. Diurnality. Standards of sexual modesty. Sex generally in private. Fondness for sweets. Food taboos. Discreteness in elimination of body wastes. Supernatural beliefs. Magic to sustain and increase life, and to attract the opposite sex. Theories of fortune and misfortune. Explanations of disease and death. Medicine. Rituals, including rites of passage. Mourning the dead. Dreaming, interpreting dreams.

Obviously, this is not a list of instincts or innate psychological propensities; it is a list of complex interactions between a universal human nature and the conditions of living in a human body on this planet.

Source: http://www.csse.mona...rsalPeople.html

All of the ideas in "modern" languages and civilizations, whether it's a writing system, centralized government across large areas, organized and centralized religion, scientific inquiry and philosophy, technology, mass communication, large business organizations, etc. etc., begin with the ideas from the list above, and are referenced through them. As soon as a group of people is exposed to a new concept or thing, they'll modify the word for an existing concept or thing in their language, take a word from another language, or (rarely) think up a whole new word for it.

The languages that haven't been exposed to anything outside this list are of course at a disadvantage, because they have to start finding words to describe things like parliamentary committees, bicycles, ice-cream, cell theory, multinational corporations, bank accounts, particle physics, and so on. Many speakers of languages like this find it easier to simply learn another language that has already done all the vocabulary creation work for them. However, as I stated in an earlier post, Thai isn't in this situation. Thailand does have parliamentary committees, bicycles, ice-cream, cell theory, multinational corporations, bank accounts, particle physics, and many more things, in addition to a robust tradition of taking words from other languages as may be necessary to describe new things. Anything you can say in English, you can say in Thai, and vice versa. Anyone who says you can't is probably less than proficient at one or both, and has a superiority complex to boot.

I do hope this doesn't come across as apologistic or defensive. I don't feel that way at all. Rather, this is reality as I see it. These facts aren't going anywhere, so there's nothing to apologize for or defend against. I'm actually very critical of the culture in Thailand, or at least what passes for culture amid all the kowtowing and censorship. To me, though, language as the things people say, and language as a thing itself, the thing that enables them to say things, are very different things. People in Thailand, as in many other places, may say and believe a lot of dumb things, but this has everything to do with lack of freedom of speech and exposure to challenging ideas. It's nothing to do with language.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Peppy

[Learned]

Can anyone recommend a book on Thai language or if not any other books related to the topic of this thread as its interesting stuff?

This is why I think the Thai language is too simplistic/primitive: I was watching a film the other day in English with Thai subs and the English guy said "Hey, would like you like some of this?" and in the Thai subtitles it said "Ow mai".

How can the meaning, emotion and implication of "Hey, would you like some of this" be conveyed with just the word "want?". I don't understand.

As you can see I don't have an educated opinion on the matter so please recommend me a book!

[Johpa]

Can anyone recommend a book on Thai language or if not any other books related to the topic of this thread as its interesting stuff?

Start here with the father of linguistic relativity.

Disclaimer: Linguistic academic writing is known to cure insomnia for many.

Edited July 20, 2012 by Johpa