Yam And Yeans

[too true]

Can any of you Thai language experts help me understand why jam and jeans become yam and yeans? Is it one of those consonant class vowel combination tonal problems? Thai has loads of words that start with jor , so why make these j words start with yor?

It's petty, I know. But I've always wondered, and the only answer I seem to get is "that's just the way it is."

I've got faith in you guys. I know you can solve the mystery of the missing j for me.

Cheers,

TT

[Rikker]

This is something I've wondered about myself. I think nowadays it's simply done as perpetuation of a pattern started long ago. That might be the case with 'gene' = ยีน, since it's is a more recently coined word than 'jean' (the fabric) or 'jam' (the spread). Could influence of German or other languages where j = y be relevant? We also see it in เยอรมัน/เยอรมนี, as it happens.

I notice there might be a similar pattern with words of Chinese origin. Although I lack the skills and resources to fully explore the subject, here are a couple of possible correspondences I've found:

Meaning : Thai : Cantonese: Mandarin

‘brand, label’ : ยี่ห้อ: jih houh : ?

‘sense, feel’ : ยิน : gin : jian

The first one is definitely from Chinese, the second one is my hypothesis of origin. I realize it's not a very convincing case there. I also can't find any good online resource for Teochiu pronunciations, and the majority of Chinese Thai are of Teochiu heritage.

Really, though, I don't know how it came to be. I'd love to hear what Richard and others might say, though.

Edited June 8, 2006 by Rikker

[Eman]

Can any of you Thai language experts help me understand why jam and jeans become yam and yeans? Is it one of those consonant class vowel combination tonal problems? Thai has loads of words that start with jor , so why make these j words start with yor?

It's petty, I know. But I've always wondered, and the only answer I seem to get is "that's just the way it is."

I've got faith in you guys. I know you can solve the mystery of the missing j for me.

Cheers,

TT

Because

"jam" จำ (to remember)

"jeen" จีน (Chinese)

are already Thai words....

So to avoid confusion they are pronounced differently

[Rikker]

I've decided to append a list of words which show this alternation, at least for English, that I know or can find:

gene > ยีน

Germany > เยอรมนี

giraffe > ยีราฟ

gym > โรงยิม

gypsy > ยิปซี

gypsum > ยิปซัม

๋jab > แย็บ

jam > แยม

Japan > ญี่ปุ่น

jeans > กางเกงยีน

Jesus > พระเยซู

Jew > ยิว

Feel free to point out any more you know of. I would actually be surprised if there were a simple answer. It probably has something to do with which language the word was originally borrowed from, too.

[patri]

From what I heard, the pronunciation might come from the old school English taught by French missionaries.... since both jeans and jam entered thailand more than 50 years ago... it's possible that they were picked up earlier that way... for other examples of old school english usually used by older thai people...

Ranger - แรงเยอร์

Joseph - โยเซฟ

Edited June 8, 2006 by patri

[Rikker]

We can add to the list any J-name from the Bible in Thai.

James/Jacob = ยากอบ (It's only James in English because of King James)

John = ยอห์น, and โยฮัน in older versions of the Bible.

Also, the Bible in Lao has the same thing: ย for all the J names in English. Missionaries may be at the root of this after all.

I'd still like to know the Teochiu and Hakka equivalents for those Chinese words above, though, so I can discount the influence of Chinese, if possible.

[Richard W]

I've decided to append a list of words which show this alternation, at least for English, that I know or can find:

gene > ยีน

[...]

Feel free to point out any more you know of. I would actually be surprised if there were a simple answer. It probably has something to do with which language the word was originally borrowed from, too.

English 'j' represents a voiced sound; Thai จ represents an unvoiced sound. Therefore the correspondence of 'j' and จ is far from perfect. I remember being startled to be told by a Mexican that Spanish had the sound of English 'j'. I asked for an example, and was given lleno! The point here is that in some languages a /d/ sound may optionally appear before initial /j/, as in Indonesian - Djakarta sometimes sounds as though it begin with English 'j', sometimes like English 'y'. Someone therefore decided that the best approximation to English 'j' was ย, and the convention has stuck.

Two of the words on the list are not loans from English:

Japan > ญี่ปุ่น

This always struck me as a compromise between Chinese Yihpun and Japanese Nippon. However, it may be even simpler - did the Chinese word originally start with /ñ/, as in the original Chinese word from which one gets Japanese ni and Thai ยี่ 'two'.

Jesus > พระเยซู

This is a loan from Ancient Greek (koine, to be more precise).