Why dolphin and whale in Thai are fish ?

[impulse]

My speculation- Languages were formed long before the scientists classified the differences between fishes and mammals.

The only classifications that mattered were "good to eat" and "run away".

Edited February 15, 2014 by impulse

[AyG]

(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!

I'm sorry if you don't appreciate a British trait of writing tongue-in-cheek (เล่นๆ สนุกๆ ไม่จริงจัง). The RI can (and does) get things wrong. After all, it's provided two different etymologies for this word and (in my opinion) both of them are wrong.

I'm absolutely clear in my own mind that the word is not of Sanskrit origin (or, for that matter, of Dutch).

It's pretty much indubitably from a non-standard Pali dialect.

[AyG]

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.

Hindi is not a language I particularly know. However, assuming Proto-Indo-European routes, then the PIE may be *(a)skʷal- or *kʷal-. This ties in very nicely with the Hindi "vhel", as well (possibly) with the Latin "squalus". (Source: http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/etymology.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/piet&text_number=1050&root=config .) However, it doesn't tie in with the Thai วาฬ - it wouldn't explain the ฬ.

[Mole]

Yes, but assuming the ฬ in วาฬ came from Pali, then this Pali word would most likely also have same origins as the Hindi.

It seems like that only "วาฬ" means "สัตว์ร้าย" so ปลาวาฬ simply means ปลาสัตว์ร้าย. My guess would be that since ancient times, the full name of "whale" in Thai must have been ปลาวาฬ and not just วาฬ which would simply just mean any ferocious animal, so "whale" translates to "ferocious fish".

Interestingly if you look up the word "ferocious" you will get "พาฬ" which also means สัตว์ร้าย.

It appears that it's just in modern times that they're trying to call whales and dolphins for just วาฬ and โลมา without the word ปลา.

Traditionally both of these words must have been used with the word ปลา.

Personally I don't see the problem why we should continue calling them with the word ปลา. We still call ปลาหมึก and ปลาดาว and this doesn't seem to change anytime soon.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Mole

[Richard W]

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.

I think there is a strong clue in the Hindi word vhelk meaning 'whelk'. vhel is just a borrowing of English 'whale'! (English whelk goes back to Old English weoluc.)

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.)

I recall reading that there was a period when it was fashionable to write European loanwords with P/S-only letters, e.g. ฝรั่งเศส 'French' and อังกฤษ 'English'. กระดาษ 'paper' is probably another example. Also, using lo jula avoided ambiguity in writing.

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.

ฬ represents the normal Pali and Vedic Sanskrit pronunciation of what in Classical Sanskrit is ฑ (tho montho) between vowels. (I trust Marvin Brown actually wrote ฑ and not ท.) An entirely credible scenario would be:

Old Indic *viāḍa > Classical Sanskrit vyāḍa, Pali *vyāḷa.

Classical Sanskrit then borrows the word from Pali, e.g. via Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (BHS), yielding Classical Sanskrit vyāla.

Thai จักรวาล 'universe' is an example of this process - Old Indic /ḍ/, Pali [ḷ], BHS /l/, Classical Sanskrit /l/. In Thai, we also see the spelling จักรวาฬ, leaning towards Pali จักฺกวาฬ. A lot of Classical Sanskrit vocabulary seems to actually comes from the prakrits or Pali.

What spoils this picture is that what we see in Pali is vāḷa. Does the initial cluster vy- often get simplified in Pali? It's one of the few initial clusters in Pali I've not seen ascribed to Sanskrit influence.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Richard W

[tgeezer]

Yes, but assuming the ฬ in วาฬ came from Pali, then this Pali word would most likely also have same origins as the Hindi.

It seems like that only "วาฬ" means "สัตว์ร้าย" so ปลาวาฬ simply means ปลาสัตว์ร้าย. My guess would be that since ancient times, the full name of "whale" in Thai must have been ปลาวาฬ and not just วาฬ which would simply just mean any ferocious animal, so "whale" translates to "ferocious fish".

Interestingly if you look up the word "ferocious" you will get "พาฬ" which also means สัตว์ร้าย.

It appears that it's just in modern times that they're trying to call whales and dolphins for just วาฬ and โลมา without the word ปลา.

Traditionally both of these words must have been used with the word ปลา.

Personally I don't see the problem why we should continue calling them with the word ปลา. We still call ปลาหมึก and ปลาดาว and this doesn't seem to change anytime soon.

Is it not to be acknowledged that the RID defines the first entry for วาฬ as พาฬ; are we not in this case bound to refer to the definition of พาฬ?

I admit that I do not know with which characters the people who inhabited this land recorded the สันสกฤต which evidentially was spoken long before that part of the Thai alphabet was created for the purpose, so can not argue the point further than to refer to rely on what evidence is contained in the RID. Your explanation seems eminently logical to me, because for thousands of years the story of Jonah and the whale had been known and it would be surprising if a creature desirous of swallowing a man were not considered ferocious!

Why it was not called ปลา, since it lived in the sea พาฬ for its ferocity would seem to point to an external influence, but then I admit to not being able to read สันสกฤต depicted in Thai or any other for that matter.

On ปลาหมึก ปลาดาว these words are not listed under the headword ปลา . As you have pointed out, adding the word ปลา to วาฬ is a means of contextualising, and presumably accounts for the note: ปลาวาฬก็เรียก but as can be seen from the definition of ปลา there is no contradiction in this term. .

[klons]

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

In this news cast from a couple days ago the reporter calls a dolphin โลมา with no

ปลา prefix.

Transcript of video:

ชาวประมงตำบลไม้รูด หมู่ 1 อำเภอคลองใหญ่ จังหวัดตราด แจ้งเจ้าหน้าที่เครือข่ายช่วยชีวิตสัตว์ทะเลหายาก ว่า พบซากโลมา ลอยตายห่างชายฝั่งไปประมาณ 1 กิโลเมตร และอยู่ระหว่างการลากกลับเข้าฝั่ง ซึ่งจากการตรวจสอบ ระบุได้ว่า เป็นโลมาพันธุ์อิรวดี เพศผู้ ความยาว 1.55 เมตร ไม่พบบาดแผลตามลำตัว จึงได้ผ่าท้องเพื่อตรวจสอบอาหารในกระเพาะอาหาร พบ เศษเนื้อปลาอยู่เป็นจำนวนมาก คาดว่า น่าจะตายจากการติดอวนลาก ทำให้ขาดอากาศหายใจ

นับเป็นโลมาตัวแรกของปีนี้ ที่พบลอยตายหน้าอ่าวตราด โดยปีที่ผ่านมา มีจำนวนโลมาตายมากถึง 35 ตัว และเต่าตนุอีก 1 ตัว

http://news.ch7.com/detail/58158/ซากโลมาอิรวดีตายใกล้ชายฝั่งอ่าวตราด.html

[AyG]

ฬ represents the normal Pali and Vedic Sanskrit pronunciation of what in Classical Sanskrit is ฑ (tho montho) between vowels. (I trust Marvin Brown actually wrote ฑ and not ท.) An entirely credible scenario would be:

Yes, it should have been ฑ. My eyesight isn't what it used to be.

So, when J. Marvin Brown wrote "an aberrant dialect of Sanskrit" he meant Vedic Sanskrit? Odd.

Now, as for ฬ being Classical Sanskrit ฑ between two vowels. I searched a dictionary for all Thai words containing ฬ, and this was the list I came up with. (Unfortunately there are a lot of proper nouns containing this letter which aren't in the dictionary, so the sample is small.)

กักขฬะ rough Sanskrit: กกฺขฏ

กาฬ black Pali loanword, related to Sanskrit: กาลี also กาฬสินธุ์ Kalasin (lit. black Indus river)

กีฬา sport Pali loanword, related to Sanskrit: กรีฑา

จุฬา kite

ทมิฬ (1) cruel, Pali loanword, (2) Tamil

ปลาวาฬ whale Sanskrit: วฺยาล

พิฬาร cat Pali loanword

อาสาฬหบูชา the day before the Buddhist Lent

อุฬาร grand (and similar words with ฬาร) Sanskrit: อุทาร

โอฬาริก colossal Pali: โอฬาริก; Sanskrit: เอาทาริก

With three of them (กาฬ , ทมิฬ , ปลาวาฬ ) ฬ is in terminal position. How does that fit in?

Only three of them (กีฬา , อุฬาร โ, อฬาริก) fit in with ฑ -> ฬ, though กักขฬะ is close enough to be counted in.

As for Tamil, I guess it was easier to reuse an existing spelling than make up a new one.

Anyway, I'm left more confused than ever.

Edited February 16, 2014 by AyG

[Richard W]

With three of them (กาฬ , ทมิฬ , ปลาวาฬ ) ฬ is in terminal position. How does that fit in?

It's not final in Pali - the nearest Pali has to a word-final consonant is nikkhahit. (In Sanskrit and the learned spelling of Pali, consonants have an associated vowel unless suppressed by phinthu.)

Only three of them (กีฬา , อุฬาร โ, อฬาริก) fit in with ฑ -> ฬ, though กักขฬะ is close enough to be counted in.

As a nasty complication, vacillation between <l> and <ḷ> is quite common in Pali (which can also be written with retroflex 'l'). The form kāḷa is an alternative form of the more regular kāla.

I dont know the etymology of จุฬา 'kite'; it is possible that the spelling is taken from the homophonous word for 'topknot', which comes from Pali จูลา with cognate Sanskrit จูฑา.

As for Tamil, I guess it was easier to reuse an existing spelling than make up a new one.

See the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_languages#Origin_of_the_word_dr.C4.81vi.E1.B8.8Da%5Dorigin of the word Dravidian[/url].

For วาฬ 'fierce', the RID ought to have listed synonymous Skt. วฺยาฑ as well as วฺยาล.

For Pali พิิฬาร cat, compare Sanskrit วิฑาล (in RID) and also พิฑาล (in Monier-Williams).

For อาสาฬหบูชา, note that corresponding to the first element อาสาฬห, the RID gives the corresponding Sanskrit word อาษาฒ. Just as Pali ฬ corresponds to Sanskrit ฑ between vowels, so Pali ฬฺห corresponds to Sanskrit ฒ between vowels.

For Pali อุฬาร corresponding to Sanskrit อุทาร, it looks like another erratic cerebralisation, as in Pali ฐาน corresponding to Sanskrit สฺถาน.

[bina]

thousands of years the story of Jonah and the whale

the only problem being that in the old testament the whale wasnt a whale but more like a crocodile or dragon type creature and only later did 'leviatan' become to resemble what we consider a whale today. like many things in language that developed over thousands of years the real biological animal changes throught the times: rock hyraxes vx hares (when checking out kosher animals); zaatar is either hysop or wild oregano which are similar botanically and in cooking and medical uses; lots of examples of animals that were mentioned but interpreted later on as something else that more closely resembled to what the people at the time could recognize ... the rose of sharon is actually a tulip or a lily and not a rose... endless lists.

[CaptHaddock]

I was going to cite the English phrase "the sun rises" as another example of a defective view of natural science preserved in the language even though all modern speakers understand that the sun is stationary and does not rise. Then I come upon this article on the latest two year report on the state of science in the USA only to find that 26% of Americans polled believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/what-americans-dont-know-about-science/283864/

[impulse]

I was going to cite the English phrase "the sun rises" as another example of a defective view of natural science preserved in the language even though all modern speakers understand that the sun is stationary and does not rise. Then I come upon this article on the latest two year report on the state of science in the USA only to find that 26% of Americans polled believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/what-americans-dont-know-about-science/283864/

You kind of missed the fact that for the European Union, it was well over 30%.

[Richard W]

I was going to cite the English phrase "the sun rises" as another example of a defective view of natural science preserved in the language even though all modern speakers understand that the sun is stationary and does not rise. Then I come upon this article on the latest two year report on the state of science in the USA only to find that 26% of Americans polled believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.

The observation of the daily rising and setting of the sun occurs because the Earth spins, not because it orbits the sun. Indeed, if the Earth didn't spin, I could cite the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence that the Earth is stationary and all else therefore moves about it. The Earth is indeed a remarkable place - nowhere else have we found life, contrary to the uniformitarian hypothesis that other planets of the solar system would harbour intelligent life.

[andrewrooney]

Recently at the airport, as I was boarding my flight, I was told by the man at the gate, "You can get on the plane now."

I replied, "screw you, dude, I'm getting IN the plane!"

Once onboard, the stewardess offered me peanuts.

In a rage, I shouted, "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL HERE, LADY? THESE AREN'T PEAS!" and threw them on the floor.

The inflight movie was a documentary about parrot fish, which threw me into a blind rage and landed me on the no-fly list.

[Mole]

Recently at the airport, as I was boarding my flight, I was told by the man at the gate, "You can get on the plane now."

I replied, "screw you, dude, I'm getting IN the plane!"

Once onboard, the stewardess offered me peanuts.

In a rage, I shouted, "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PULL HERE, LADY? THESE AREN'T PEAS!" and threw them on the floor.

The inflight movie was a documentary about parrot fish, which threw me into a blind rage and landed me on the no-fly list.

Is this is supposed to be a joke, you truly deserves to be on the no-fly list for real.

[Mole]

This really shows just how little we still know about the universe.

We haven't found life elsewhere yet, but exactly where have we been looking and by what method?

I was going to cite the English phrase "the sun rises" as another example of a defective view of natural science preserved in the language even though all modern speakers understand that the sun is stationary and does not rise. Then I come upon this article on the latest two year report on the state of science in the USA only to find that 26% of Americans polled believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.

The observation of the daily rising and setting of the sun occurs because the Earth spins, not because it orbits the sun. Indeed, if the Earth didn't spin, I could cite the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence that the Earth is stationary and all else therefore moves about it. The Earth is indeed a remarkable place - nowhere else have we found life, contrary to the uniformitarian hypothesis that other planets of the solar system would harbour intelligent life.

[CaptHaddock]

I was going to cite the English phrase "the sun rises" as another example of a defective view of natural science preserved in the language even though all modern speakers understand that the sun is stationary and does not rise. Then I come upon this article on the latest two year report on the state of science in the USA only to find that 26% of Americans polled believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.

The observation of the daily rising and setting of the sun occurs because the Earth spins, not because it orbits the sun. Indeed, if the Earth didn't spin, I could cite the Michelson-Morley experiment as evidence that the Earth is stationary and all else therefore moves about it. The Earth is indeed a remarkable place - nowhere else have we found life, contrary to the uniformitarian hypothesis that other planets of the solar system would harbour intelligent life.

"Depends on the periodicity. The fact that the earth rotates on its axis once per day gives the appearance that the sun revolves around the earth, hence the phrase, "the sun rises." But this is incorrect because the sun is stationary with respect to the earth. The evidence that the earth revolves around the stationary sun therefore falsifies the "sun rises" theory since it could not be the case that both the sun and earth revolve around each other. (I am ruling out the possibility of a binary system involving the sun and earth because of the disparity of masses between them.) If the earth revolved around the sun, as it indeed does, but did not spin on its axis at all we would still observe that the "sun rises", only it would happen once per year instead of once per day. That is, unless it also happened to be true that the period of the earth's revolution about the sun and its spin on its axis coincided, like the Moon, in which case the sun would never "rise" or "set." From the side of the Moon facing earth, the earth never sets while from the other side of the Moon, it never rises.