เอิ is it er or ever or both?

[sdanielmcev]

According to thai-language.com, เอิ seems to be both a long and short duration vowel. Is this correct? Are there any rules defining long/short usage?

Thank you in advance

Stupid spell check title should read "er or eer".

Edited February 21, 2014 by sdanielmcev

[DavidHouston]

See the footnote to เงิน on page http://www.thai-language.com/id/131302 which states "In this word, the vowel is pronounced with a short duration. See the irregular pronunciations page for more information." The reference for the "irregular pronunciation" discussion is http://www.thai-language.com/ref/irregular-words

[Richard W]

There is no rule. There are very few words with the short vowel. If you want to know the vowel length, you need to invest in a dictionary with an accurate transcription. It is impossible to show the pronunciation of Thai words by following the orthographic rules of Thai, even when supplemented by phinthu.

[AyG]

I understand that เงิน is the only word in the Thai language which has this as a short vowel. Otherwise it is always long.

[Richard W]

I understand that เงิน is the only word in the Thai language which has this as a short vowel. Otherwise it is always long.

TL.com also records เจิ่ง 'to flood'.

The TL.com audio clip confirms the following from Nit Thongsophit's New Standard Thai-English Dictionary:

เบิ้ม 'huge'

I also find the following there for which there is no TL.com clip to confirm or deny:

กริ่น 'to forewarn'

เจิ่น 'to feel embarrassed'

เฉิดฉาย 'brilliant'

เซิ้ง 'to dance'

เถิดเทิง 'tomtom' [LL]thoet[MS]thoeng

เปิ่น 'like a fish out of water'

เยิ่น 'springy, shaky'

เยิบ ๆ 'up and down' [FS]yoep[FL]yoep

เยิบยาบ 'up and down' [FS]yoep[F]yaap

เลิกลั่ก 'bewildered'

เลินเล่อ 'careless'

เหยิบ ๆ 'up and down' [LS]yoep[LS]yoep

เอิ๊ก 'sound of low, quite laugh with closed mouth'

Now some may well be wrong - IPA colons have an annoying tendency to go missing in that dictionary. For example, the following is shown as short, but the TL.com audio clip reveals it as long:

เทิ่ง 'awkwardly'

Thus of the four words shown by the dictionary to have short vowels for which there is a clip in TL.com (เงิน, เจิ่ง, เบิ้ม and เทิ่ง), three are confirmed as having short vowels by TL.com sound clips.

[AyG]

It seems I was misinformed.

According to Lexitron too เทิ่ง is long. From the same source:

เลิกลั่ก - short

เลินเล่อ - long

[kriswillems]

I think the most exceptions (short vowel เอิ) can be categorized in the same group as other vowels that sometimes seems to be shortened by a falling tone, like for instance the เ in เส้น.

[LOWH]

ok, guys. Here's the answer.

First of all, there's no such vowel, เอิ, at all in Thai.

เอิ is เออ. The rule is; if the word has final consonant, the second ออ will turn to อิ

End of story

Anyone want to learn basic Thai class? I can teach via Skype

[Richard W]

First of all, there's no such vowel, เอิ, at all in Thai.

เอิ is เออ. The rule is; if the word has final consonant, the second ออ will turn to อิ

So how should the opening paragraph of this thread have been written?

You are, I take it, aware of such anomalous words as เทอม.

[LOWH]

First of all, there's no such vowel, เอิ, at all in Thai.

เอิ is เออ. The rule is; if the word has final consonant, the second ออ will turn to อิ

So how should the opening paragraph of this thread have been written?

You are, I take it, aware of such anomalous words as เทอม.

Mr., I don't really understand what is the paragraph you refer to.

And for เทอม; you need to know Thai is a language with MANY EXCEPTIONS. If you write เทิม, it's pronounce the same as เทอม but misspelling.

Get the picture?

I think there's exceptions to the rule I said. And I think depends on the final consonant. There are 8 kinds of them and a lot of rules to use, do you know that?

Edited February 22, 2014 by LOWH

[DavidHouston]

Khun Lohw,

Might the aberrational spelling of เทอม be due to the fact that it is a recent loan word from English?

[LOWH]

Khun Lohw,

Might the aberrational spelling of เทอม be due to the fact that it is a recent loan word from English?

Yes, you are right !

and the word like เสมอ, it's a เขมร word. (Cambodian) So, the position is different.

[Richard W]

First of all, there's no such vowel, เอิ, at all in Thai.

เอิ is เออ. The rule is; if the word has final consonant, the second ออ will turn to อิ

So how should the opening paragraph of this thread have been written?

Mr., I don't really understand what is the paragraph you refer to.

This one:

According to thai-language.com, เอิ seems to be both a long and short duration vowel.

[Richard W]

I think there's exceptions to the rule I said. And I think depends on the final consonant. There are 8 kinds of them and a lot of rules to use, do you know that?

So 'end of story' was not appropriate! Oddly enough, the anomalous and exceptional forms (e.g. เคย) lend themselves to marking the vowel length.

[LOWH]

I think there's exceptions to the rule I said. And I think depends on the final consonant. There are 8 kinds of them and a lot of rules to use, do you know that?

So 'end of story' was not appropriate! Oddly enough, the anomalous and exceptional forms (e.g. เคย) lend themselves to marking the vowel length.

You gave me an exception sample again, Mr !!!

When you have ย as a final consonant after เออ vowel, the ออ just gone with no อิ needed. eg. เขย เนย เกย เลย

I don't really understand about >> lend themselves to marking the vowel length.

And for your question, It's supposed to be written เออ + final consonant, just that. Or give exact words which are problems.

[Richard W]

Following AyG's lead, I checked the list in Lexitron 2.6 - once I managed to get it working adequately on Linux. The words I had to treat as doubtful divide as follows:

5 in RID but not in Lexitron:

กริ่น 'to forewarn'

เยิ่น 'springy, shaky'

เยิบ ๆ 'up and down' [FS]yoep[FL]yoep

เยิบยาบ 'up and down' [FS]yoep[F]yaap

เหยิบ ๆ 'up and down' [LS]yoep[LS]yoep

One is in neither RID nor Lexitron:

เอิ๊ก 'sound of low, quite laugh with closed mouth'

3 have a short vowel according to Lexitron:

เจิ่น 'to feel embarrassed'

เปิ่น 'like a fish out of water'

เลิกลั่ก 'bewildered'

4 have a long vowel according to Lexitron:

เฉิดฉาย 'brilliant'

เซิ้ง 'to dance'

เถิดเทิง 'tomtom' [LL]thoet[MS]thoeng

เลินเล่อ 'careless'

Thus we have 6 closed syllables with a short vowel:

เงิน เจิ่ง เจิ่น เบิ้ม เปิ่น เลิกลั่ก (1 with mid tone, 3 with low tone and 2 with falling tone)

and 5 uncertain cases.

[AyG]

Following AyG's lead, I checked the list in Lexitron 2.6 - once I managed to get it working adequately on Linux.

Off topic, but you could have saved yourself the trouble. http://thai-notes.com/tools/predictionary.shtml uses the Lexitron database and also converts the rather dodgy IPA of Lexitron into the more standard Haas/AUA version. That's what I used. Unfortunately, Lexitron's IPA is only about 70% complete.

[Mole]

What about this? Short or long?

เฉิ่ม

Personally I've already read it with short.

[tgeezer]

ok, guys. Here's the answer.

First of all, there's no such vowel, เอิ, at all in Thai.

เอิ is เออ. The rule is; if the word has final consonant, the second ออ will

turn to อิ

End of story

Anyone want to learn basic Thai class? I can teach via Skype

This shows how suitable Tha language is for a commercial forum like this, so just to please the owners:

It never occurred to me that เคย contained the vowel เออ, I assumed that it was เอ .

มาตราตัวสกด shows แม่เกย แม่เกอว are both vowels เออ?

Is the only way to know by means of some phonetic system using English? and if so, does the phonetics show the sound or can it be used to prove the vowel?

[LOWH]

ok, guys. Here's the answer.

First of all, there's no such vowel, เอิ, at all in Thai.

เอิ is เออ. The rule is; if the word has final consonant, the second ออ will

turn to อิ

End of story

Anyone want to learn basic Thai class? I can teach via Skype

This shows how suitable Tha language is for a commercial forum like this, so just to please the owners:

It never occurred to me that เคย contained the vowel เออ, I assumed that it was เอ .

มาตราตัวสกด shows แม่เกย แม่เกอว are both vowels เออ?

Is the only way to know by means of some phonetic system using English? and if so, does the phonetics show the sound or can it be used to prove the vowel?

The words เกย and เกอว are เออ vowel, yes.

I don't know anything about phonetic system, I'm just a Thai native who would love to conquer the world with Thai language. So, as much as you can speak Thai the better.

Just told you what I can do to help.

[tgeezer]

ok, guys. Here's the answer.

First of all, there's no such vowel, เอิ, at all in Thai.

เอิ is เออ. The rule is; if the word has final consonant, the second ออ will

turn to อิ

End of story

Anyone want to learn basic Thai class? I can teach via Skype

This shows how suitable Tha language is for a commercial forum like this, so just to please the owners:

It never occurred to me that เคย contained the vowel เออ, I assumed that it was เอ .

มาตราตัวสกด shows แม่เกย แม่เกอว are both vowels เออ?

Is the only way to know by means of some phonetic system using English? and if so, does the phonetics show the sound or can it be used to prove the vowel?

The words เกย and เกอว are เออ vowel, yes.

I don't know anything about phonetic system, I'm just a Thai native who would love to conquer the world with Thai language. So, as much as you can speak Thai the better.

Just told you what I can do to help.

Good, I didn't know that you were Thai, although I did think it rather brave to suggest Skype!

Where did you find out which vowel it was?

เลยand เลว sound like : ล+เออ+ย - เลย and ล+เอ+ว - เลว but I haven't seen it written anywhere, but neither have I read everything on the subject!

เลศ has a pronunciation guide (เลด) indicative of what? - that it is assumed that the vowel is always เออ ? But then if that is the case I am mispronouncing เลว.

I would be interested if there are answers to these questions but understand if not. I suspect that if there are answers they lie in knowing the individual words rather than in rules.

[tgeezer]

LOWH. I have just read your original post here, may I recommend that you take a look at Thai-language.com.

[Richard W]

The words เกย and เกอว are เออ vowel, yes.

Tgeezer, please note that เกอว contains อ.

Good, I didn't know that you were Thai, although I did think it rather brave to suggest Skype!

Where did you find out which vowel it was?

เลยand เลว sound like : ล+เออ+ย - เลย and ล+เอ+ว - เลว but I haven't seen it written anywhere, but neither have I read everything on the subject!

เลศ has a pronunciation guide (เลด) indicative of what? - that it is assumed that the vowel is always เออ ?

Obviously not.

At this point it becomes necessary to distinguish the concepts of vowel sound and vowel symbol. The interpretation I learnt was that เลย contained the initial consonant ล and the compound vowel symbol เ-ย. The alternative interpretation is that it contains the vowel symbol เ- and the final consonant ย, and that the vowel symbol เ- before ย represents the same sound(s) as เ-ิ normally does.

I'm not sure how one should write the sound /oei/ (/ɤi/) in Thai; it seems that in Standard Thai one only has the sound /ooei/ (/ɤːi/), not /oei/ (/ɤi/). If the short sound did occur, I'd be inclined to write, for example, เล็ย. (I had hoped to come up with an example from broad Northern Thai dialects, but I couldn't find any good ones.)

Edited February 23, 2014 by Richard W

[Mole]

I can not think of any word in Thai language where the เ-ย diphthong would be able to be pronounced short. I think this diphthong only exist as long sound.

Anyone can dig up any example?

LOWH, I am also native Thai and I hope you will come here regularly in the future so both of us can help out in conquering the world with the Thai language. haha

Edited February 23, 2014 by Mole

[kriswillems]

I can not think of any word in Thai language where the เ-ย diphthong would be able to be pronounced short. I think this diphthong only exist as long sound.

Anyone can dig up any example?

LOWH, I am also native Thai and I hope you will come here regularly in the future so both of us can help out in conquering the world with the Thai language. haha

Maybe เฮ่ย

(exclamation often used to express reluctance about going along with what has been said)