NAM OR NAAM?

[Kanga Japan]

I am confused about the word น้ำ. Sometimes it appears to be pronounced with a short vowel and sometimes with a long vowel, when used by itself, or combined. It is also often written as NAM or NAAM.

Why is this? I need to know whether or not I should indicate the vowel as short or long. Even though it is written the same, does the pronunciation differ according to the circumstances in which it is used? I asked a Thai whether I should write it with a short or long vowel and she said with a long vowel.

Thanks for your help.

[AyG]

As a stand alone word it's long.

As the first syllable of a polysyllabic word it's short.

As the final syllable of polysyllabic word it's long.

(There may be exceptions to these rules.)

It's not the only word that changes vowel length according to context. For example, ได้ is similar.

[Kanga Japan]

Dear AyG,

Thank you so much for that explanation. I was really confused, considering that even though it was written with a short vowel, the pronunciation appeared to differ, depending on the case. On top of that, Googletranslate pronounced it as NAM and Thai-language.com really stretched it out to NAAAAAM.

Therefore, according to my understanding of your explanation, fish sauce should be NAM PLA.

Thank you for your help.

[AyG]

Since the RTGS doesn't distinguish vowel length, it makes no difference to the romanisation.

So, for example, in NAM PLA the vowels are short and long respectively.

[Kanga Japan]

Thanks AyG,

I meant to write NAM PLAA. I am using the RTGS and also adding another reading, close to the pronunciation. Plus, I have to write the Japanese katakana, so for that I need to know whether to lengthen or shorten the vowel.

Thank for your help.

[AyG]

Just curious, but is there an official system for representing Thai in katakana?

Obviously, in Japanese there's no final consonant other than "n", no consonant clusters, and no "l" sound, so any representation going to be pretty inaccurate. I'm guessing the fish sauce comes out as something like namu paraa.

[Kanga Japan]

Dear AyG,

Yes, you are right. It is very difficult to romanize English into Japanese and even more difficult with Thai, considering all consonants end with a vowel. K becomes KA, KI, KU, KE, KO, M becomes MA, MI, MU, ME, MO. As you say, the only final consonant is N. Fish sauce comes out as ナム プラー (NAMU PURAA).

Therefore, I am having a terrible time changing the Thai into katakana. With words which end in NG, I initially wrote it as ング (NGU), but after further consideration I have decided to just end those words with ン (N), so I am cutting of the GU. For other words such as ลูก I am writng them as ルー(ク) RUU(KU). Otherwise they will end up sounding like LUUKU. I am putting them in parenthesis to indicate that it has a final consonant, but it is not strongly pronounced. For some words. such as ละมุด, I am writing them as ラムッ, which sort of shortens the final MU. I have discussed this with a Japanese, who says that either leaving the final consonant-vowel off altogether, or shortening it, or putting it in parenthesis would be OK, but it is difficult. Japanese sites relating to Thai food indicate it in various ways, but there is no standard.

I'm still not sure how to write งู. I have written it as ニュー (NYUU), but will make a final decision later. I still have trouble pronouncing that in Thai myself. I think ング (NGU) would be a bit strange. Not sure.

Thanks for your help.

[AyG]

Thanks for the explanation.

Putting ン in any place other than at the end of a syllable looks decidedly odd.

I would perhaps take comfort in the fact that the "n" sound in Japanese is somewhat more nasal than in English, so is reasonably close to "ng". On that basis, ニュー looks good to me. It's no worse than the absence of an r/l contrast.

Just a suggestion, but I'm rather reminded of the way that Pali is written in Thai script - the special character pinthu is used to suppress the inherent vowel sound. If you were to apply this to Japanese NAMPLA would become ナム̣ プ̣ラー

(Pinthu doesn't combine with katakana, at least on my computer, but I used Unicode character 0323 (hex), 803 (decimal) which does to give a similar effect.)

I can't help think, though, that I'm probably reinventing the wheel here and there is a Japanese way of achieving the same effect.

[Kanga Japan]

Dear AyG,

I agree with you that placing ン at the beginning is definitely strange. I think I will stick with ニョ, ニャ, etc. Thank you.

I appreciate your comments regarding the pinthu, however the only way to suppress a vowel sound in Japanese is by using a small TSU (ッ). There is no way around it. Adding the Thai consonant in brackets indicates that there is a consonant there, but it is not really so pronounced (stressed), as it would be, if it were not in brackets. I hope you understand what I mean.

Also, ナムプラー is probably about the most-used Thai word in Japan and always represented as ナムプラー.

I really appreciate your advice and comments. Always very helpful.