Why dolphin and whale in Thai are fish ?

[Mole]

Well, then one can also either say that this may also have been the origins of the word ปลา in Thai, otherwise it would be difficult to explain why they chose to call squids for ปลาหมึก or starfish for ปลาดาว.

The alternative is of course just to conclude that ancient Thai people were really stupid and actually did think that those animals were fish.

Just because you mingle with people who wasn't aware (nor cared) that whales are mammals, doesn't mean that the reasons behind it being called ปลาวาฬ was because people who decided to use this word were all stupid and ignorant and didn't know it at that time.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Mole

[FiftyTwo]

i have never said i have asked to your kids ;-) I just made a random "survey" trying to understand the origin of these terms ....than, to my suprise, any people I have spoken to (including wife, her family,and a couple of dozens people) had no ideas those creatures weren't fish. So I wanted to dig further into the topic.

For another good laugh, ask the same persons "how many days in a year?"

The answers are endlessly amusing.

Let's face it, Thai education and teachers are a bit of a joke.

[SlyAnimal]

ปลา doesn't mean fish, it means ปลา, for which the closest translation is "fish"

Thai is a different language, thus some words don't mean exactly the same as they do in English.

Also in general, no language is perfect anyway, as some people have already pointed out with the "starfish", "whale shark" and "jellyfish" examples, even English can't necessarily stick to it's own system of categorisation.

[sirineou]

When I thought that the general section of this forum could not get any worst, along comes this thread to restore my faith .

I thought that all the different ways to say "hey look how smarter we are than the Thais " were exhausted, but I have to admite, this is really creative.

The question was about classification of species and its relationship with the language, not about intelligence, something you seem to lack.

Hence your nick seems to fit perfectly ;-)

Title of OP:

Why dolphin and whale in Thai are fish ?

Some informed replies:

Many things, in many languages that are not really fish,are called fish. for example starfish

Many other "intelligent" replies

Because Thais, even educated Thais ,don't know the difference between mammals and fish, not like as intelligent farangs who do.

You guys must be F#n geniuses .

people like me who seem to lack intelligence such as yours, feel privileged to bask in the glory that is you.

[Tywais]

However, they seem to be quite aware that "jellyfish" isn't a fish, แมงกะพรุน, while in English it's called "jellyfish". Does this means that in ancient times, English people thought that the jellyfish was a fish??

Because using your reasoning about the stupid Thais who named whales for "fish" thinking they were actually fish and not mammals, then the English must also likewise be even more stupid for thinking that a jellyfish was a fish??

I asked a friend at the university the Thai word for whale and dolphin and in both cases he never used the term ปลา in conjunction with it. Perhaps because we are friends he used the truncated version. But he did know they both are not fish.

Lot's of English contradictions as has been pointed out. Another example, Sea Horse is not a mammal/horse BTW.

[FiftyTwo]

Lot's of English contradictions as has been pointed out. Another example, Sea Horse is not a mammal/horse BTW.

Off topic

Even the Greeks got Sea Horse wrong.

[impulse]

Why dolphin and whale in Thai are fish ?

For the same reason we have to fill in a "Mammal Sighting Report" every time a whale shark swims under our platforms in the Gulf of Thailand. Turtles, too- I think.

[Mole]

But whale sharks are sharks (fish), not whales (mammal).

[Mole]

I asked a friend at the university the Thai word for whale and dolphin and in both cases he never used the term ปลา in conjunction with it. Perhaps because we are friends he used the truncated version. But he did know they both are not fish.

Lot's of English contradictions as has been pointed out. Another example, Sea Horse is not a mammal/horse BTW.

You should ask him how he would say for example:

Yesterday I saw a whale/dolphin.

I'm sure he'd say เมื่อวานผมเห็นปลาวาฬตัวหนึ่ง or เมื่อวานผมเห็นปลาโลมาตัวหนึ่ง

เมื่อวานผมเห็นวาฬตัวหนึ่ง or เมื่อวานผมเห็นโลมาตัวหนึ่ง doesn't sound quite right to me and I would have always said ปลา

[kriswillems]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

[cooked]

In the Middle Ages in England, no meat on Fridays. Eventually ducks, puffins, seals, whales and dolphins were declared to be fish so they could be eaten on Fridays.

[eric67]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

I guess the Thais translated "vis" literally to ปลา, so you can always blame us (the Dutch) for the confusion

[AyG]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

[tgeezer]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

That word is the word วาฬ 1. which refers us to พาฬ น. a bad animal, bad elephant, lion, snake, tiger.

It is good to have circular discussions like this but we mustn't get too serious. To find a Thai word and look in the code-book for meaning ie. ปลา=fish is quite wrong because although the Thai definition says cold bloodied vertebrate animal etc. it differs from English fish by saying that most of them breath by means of gills except for those with lungs.

[kriswillems]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

That's just remarkable.

I always thought Thai got it from English. Looks like whale and วาฬ are false cognates.

[AyG]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

That's just remarkable.

I always thought Thai got it from English. Looks like whale and วาฬ are false cognates.

Indeed. Whale is most probably cognate with the Latin squalus meaning a sort of large sea fish.

[impulse]

Indeed. Whale is most probably cognate with the Latin squalus meaning a sort of large sea fish.

Curse you guys. You made me look up "cognate"

Now those brain cells are tied up and busy and they can't be called on to help me remember where I left my keys.

[eric67]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

Interesting! The same Royal Institute as this one?:

http://www.royin.go.th/th/knowledge/detail.php?ID=3558

ปลาวาฬ

คำว่า ปลาวาฬ คำนี้มาจากภาษาดัชต์สมัยกลางว่า walvisc (อ่านว่า วาล-วิส). คำว่า visc นั้นตรงกับคำว่า fish ในภาษาอังกฤษซึ่งแปลว่า ปลา. walvisc (อ่านว่า วาล-วิส) คือ ปลาวาฬ

หลักฐานเก่าแก่ที่สุดที่พบคำนี้ในภาษาไทย คือ วรรณคดีเรื่องสมุทโฆษคำฉันท์ ในสมัยอยุธยาตอนปลาย ว่า "ปลาวาฬไล่หลังครวญคราง". ปัจจุบัน คนไทยหลายคนมักเรียกสัตว์ชนิดนี้ว่า วาฬ เพราะคิดว่าเป็นสัตว์เลี้ยงลูกด้วยนม ไม่ใช่ปลา แต่ที่จริงควรใช้ว่า ปลาวาฬ เพราะ ปลาวาฬ เป็นคำเก่า ซึ่งสะท้อนการมองโลกของคนไทยว่า สัตว์ประเภทนี้เป็นปลา รูปร่างเป็นปลา มีครีบมีหางเหมือนปลา และอาศัยอยู่แต่ในน้ำอย่างปลา

(I'm sure you can read it, so won't bother translating it)

[Richard W]

Indeed. Whale is most probably cognate with the Latin squalus meaning a sort of large sea fish.

Most probably, the relationship between English whale, Dutch valfis and Thai วาฬ on one hand and Latin squalus on the other is just a coincidence. Look-alikes are embarrassingly common.

It is possible that the adoption of วาฬ 'whale' in Thai from Dutch was supported by the Pali word วาฬ.

[AyG]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

Interesting! The same Royal Institute as this one?:

http://www.royin.go.th/th/knowledge/detail.php?ID=3558

ปลาวาฬ

คำว่า ปลาวาฬ คำนี้มาจากภาษาดัชต์สมัยกลางว่า walvisc (อ่านว่า วาล-วิส). คำว่า visc นั้นตรงกับคำว่า fish ในภาษาอังกฤษซึ่งแปลว่า ปลา. walvisc (อ่านว่า วาล-วิส) คือ ปลาวาฬ

หลักฐานเก่าแก่ที่สุดที่พบคำนี้ในภาษาไทย คือ วรรณคดีเรื่องสมุทโฆษคำฉันท์ ในสมัยอยุธยาตอนปลาย ว่า "ปลาวาฬไล่หลังครวญคราง". ปัจจุบัน คนไทยหลายคนมักเรียกสัตว์ชนิดนี้ว่า วาฬ เพราะคิดว่าเป็นสัตว์เลี้ยงลูกด้วยนม ไม่ใช่ปลา แต่ที่จริงควรใช้ว่า ปลาวาฬ เพราะ ปลาวาฬ เป็นคำเก่า ซึ่งสะท้อนการมองโลกของคนไทยว่า สัตว์ประเภทนี้เป็นปลา รูปร่างเป็นปลา มีครีบมีหางเหมือนปลา และอาศัยอยู่แต่ในน้ำอย่างปลา

(I'm sure you can read it, so won't bother translating it)

You're being a tad disingenuous. You missed off the attribution:

ที่มา : บทวิทยุรายการ "รู้ รัก ภาษาไทย" ออกอากาศทางสถานีวิทยุกระจายเสียงแห่งประเทศไทย เมื่อวันที่ ๑๒ ธันวาคม พ.ศ. ๒๕๕๒ เวลา ๗.๐๐-๗.๓๐ น.

This is folk etymology - not based upon any actual evidence. My source was the Royal Institute's dictionary which carries a little more authority.

There's (in my opinion) absolute no way the Thai has been adopted from the Dutch. If it had, the use of lor chula would make no sense - it would have been written with lor ling. Lor chula is pretty much diagnostic of this word having come from an Indic language.

[tgeezer]

http://www.royin.go.th/th/knowledge/detail.php?ID=3558

ปลาวาฬ

There's (in my opinion) absolute no way the Thai has been adopted from the Dutch. If it had, the use of lor chula would make no sense - it would have been written with lor ling. Lor chula is pretty much diagnostic of this word having come from an Indic language.

My copy of the RID doesn't show that the word for the ปลา whale comes from Sandscrit . If it is the case that the on-line copy is different from the 2542 hard copy you are discussing opinions which is futile.

The topic was , why does Thai call it a whales and dolphins fish and the answer is, as I have explained; Thai calls them ปลา not fish.

[Mole]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

Perhaps the Pali วาฬ is also derived from the Sanskrit วฺยาล??

[AyG]

My copy of the RID doesn't show that the word for the ปลา whale comes from Sandscrit . If it is the case that the on-line copy is different from the 2542 hard copy you are discussing opinions which is futile.

The topic was , why does Thai call it a whales and dolphins fish and the answer is, as I have explained; Thai calls them ปลา not fish.

1. To quote from the RID (1982): วาฬ ๑; วาฬ- /วาน; วา-ละ-/ {Pali:; Sanskrit: วฺยาล}

2. It's Sanskrit, not "Sandscrit". Don't bother criticising if you can't even spell the language name.

3. Your "explanation" is not particularly helpful. Words have history and background. Some people are interested in these factors.

4. Topics develop. People explore related branches. Get over it. Your "explanation" isn't the last word in these matters.

5. And since when is "discussing options" futile? That's all we can ever do in life; there are no absolute facts.

[tgeezer]

My copy of the RID doesn't show that the word for the ปลา whale comes from Sandscrit . If it is the case that the on-line copy is different from the 2542 hard copy you are discussing opinions which is futile.

The topic was , why does Thai call it a whales and dolphins fish and the answer is, as I have explained; Thai calls them ปลา not fish.

1. To quote from the RID (1982): วาฬ ๑; วาฬ- /วาน; วา-ละ-/ {Pali:; Sanskrit: วฺยาล}

2. It's Sanskrit, not "Sandscrit". Don't bother criticising if you can't even spell the language name.

3. Your "explanation" is not particularly helpful. Words have history and background. Some people are interested in these factors.

4. Topics develop. People explore related branches. Get over it. Your "explanation" isn't the last word in these matters.

5. And since when is "discussing options" futile? That's all we can ever do in life; there are no absolute facts.

Crickey I thought that I had mistakenly opened the general topics forum, such invective over a little thing like language. I said that discussing opinions is futile, meaning that since it is an opinion one cannot be so restrictive as you on the subject.

Are you any good at developing the topic and discussing a simple fact then? That of reading the RID. 2542 there is only one edition.

Page 1070 second entry from the foot of the page: วาฬ 2 [วาน] น. ชื่อสัตว์เลียงลูกด้วยนม&c. There is plenty of Latin in the definition but no reference to สันสกฤต .

I suspect that you are looking at the entry above the entry for 'whale'.

Do you know if the fact of the entry you read meaning พาฬ which is derived from both ปาลี and สันสกฤต (ป. พาล, วาฬ; ส. วฺยาฑ,วฺยาล) enough to say that วาฬ comes from สันสกฤต? It could be said to be a สัตว์ร้าย certainly.

[Mole]

Interestingly, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whale/

While there's no entry for Pali and Sanskrit, there is for Hindi/Urdu and Gujarati, and Persian, which is "vhel". Now one can wonder if the origins of this word in those languages are from English or Sanskrit.

Curiously, in Malay, it's also called "ikan paus", "ikan" meaning fish.

[AyG]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

Perhaps the Pali วาฬ is also derived from the Sanskrit วฺยาล??

That had been my initial thought until I reflected upon the spelling of วาฬ. The use of ฬ in my mind clearly shows that the word is not of Dutch origin. (Had it been it would have been spelled วาล.) However, this letter is also not used to spell normal Sanskrit or Pali words. I then remembered that J. Marvin Brown had written about ฬ as follows:

Most cases of Sanskrit ḍ are pronounced th in Thai and written ... ท. A few are unexpectedly pronounced d, though still written ท. But some have come through an aberrant dialect of Sanskrit, are pronounced l. It seems that it would have been stretching things too far to write such words with either ท or ล, and a new letter was needed. This letter was ฬ.

(The same aberrant pronunciation also existed in Pali dialect.)

So, the spelling indicates that the standard pronunciation of the Pali word would be วาท making it most unlikely in my opinion that it came from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

[h90]

It's not about the Thais being stupid that they call anything which resemble a fish for fish, but consider this that the Thai people were originally people from inlands, they naturally do not possess traditional culture of knowing about these things, which reflects in their language.

In Thai language it's simply called "fish" because there isn't any specific word for "whale" or "mammals which lives in the ocean".

If you would reason that we Thais are stupid for calling (and believing) dolphins and whales for "fish", then English people must also be equally or even more stupid for calling starfish and jellyfish for fish, no???

Because obviously if English people were so smart, they shouldn't have called them fish, when they obviously aren't fish at all. So, why haven't English language some specific word for "starfish" and "jellyfish"?? Or perhaps it's simply because the English people are just too stupid to realize that "starfish and "jellyfish" aren't actually fish?

Or perhaps English language (and people) do consider starfish and jellyfish to be fish, otherwise they would have used other word than fish, right?

There's also many other animals which are called something, but biologically they aren't, for example Koala bears. (I know there's many other examples, but can't think of any more at the moment.)

I can assure you that there are a whole lot of Thais who are perfectly aware that dolphins are mammals. While I can assure you that there's also some of you farangs who believe that dolphins are fish.

In Chinese, for example, the character for whale is 鯨, which has the fish radical, so perhaps the Chinese are also stupid for not realizing that a whale is a mammal?

just to add: In German a whale is also a Walfisch, which means whale-fish. So exactly the same as in Thai. Just the last few years people don't use the "fisch" anymore.

I think in languages fish is used for these creatures swimming under the water, rather than the scientific group of members.

[Mole]

I think if someone could be able to investigate the origins of the Hindi "vhel", then it's also most likely the same origins to the Thai วาฬ.

[tgeezer]

Also, put the Dutch on the list, they also call a whale a fish : walvis. (fish = vis)

That is where the Thais got the word from by the way: it's a Dutch loanword

The Thai Royal Institute disagrees with you. According to them it's from the Sanskrit วฺยาล.

(To be honest, it seems more probable to me that it's from the Pali วาฬ, but who am I to disagree with the Royal Institute?)

Who indeed? but it would appear from your latest post that you have decided to abandon the Royal Institute in favour of Marvin Brown!

[tgeezer]

[ To find a Thai word and look in the code-book for meaning ie. ปลา=fish is quite wrong because although the Thai definition says cold bloodied vertebrate animal etc. it differs from English fish by saying that most of them breath by means of gills except for those with lungs.

Gosh that's interesting we didn't know that, it explains everything, but if you don't mind we will ignore it and continue to speculate, it's much more fun!