A question for Thai language experts

[Mole]

What do you mean by กิน, ปิด the exact same vowel, one being short the other long?

Both are short "i".

I hate it when people use the "r" to represent long vowel sound, such as "แม = Mae, but I'd write Mair".

In many European languages as well as some English dialects such as Scottish, the "r" will be pronounced with a rolling of tongue, so by writing it with Mae as Mair, people may read it with rolling of the tongue.

Another problem with แ and า is that depending on the English dialect, a word may be pronounced using either.

For example "can" in British will be pronounced like คาน while American English will be more like แคน

So by not sticking to a standard, but using your own way to transcribe things, you may end up being the only person who can comprehend what you write.

For example, I would have never ever have been able to figure out that "Mair" is แม. But if you write is as "Mae", I will immediately know, and so would anyone who's familiar with RTGS.

Think it this wey, it wood bee as if AI wood disaid to wrait Inglish mai oon wey bai wraiting it phonetikalli akkording too hao AI understands an pronauns it.

So one should just stick to RTGS and use ae for แ and e for เ. This is because anyone reading it, will immediately know what Thai vowel it corresponds to, rather than guessing what the hell of a vowel the writer really means...

In the end, it's not about how YOU personally would have read a specific Thai word and then invent your own quirky way of writing Thai words, but it's about writing something which will be comprehensible for other people who are already familiar with RTGS.

[SlyAnimal]

Are there many people who know the RTGS system who can't read Thai?

As I figure there are two main reasons for using transliteration:

1/ You're writing something for someone who can't speak Thai.

2/ You're writing proper nouns like names of people or places etc, which will be used by people who can't speak Thai.

For this I see the point of having a standardized system, even if I disagree with the way the RTGS system is written.

However, if the people reading don't know the system, then they'll probably say words incorrectly too.

E.g. I've been here for 4 years now, but only just realized from this thread, that Mae Sai and แม่สาย are the same place lol. As I'd only heard แม่สาย and only read Mae Sai, and not made the connection lol (Admittedly there are a lot of similar sounding Thai districts lol).

So with that in mind, if one of you guys want to write up how the RTGS system works and include examples of the various sounds, along with Thai script (e.g. แ is Sala ae and makes an ae sound, Iike the end of bear, pair or air).

I'll sticky it for you and it could then be linked to when you give transliterations for people to increase their understanding. With a bit of extra work, it could be used to teach people the alphabet aswell by including transcriptions of each Thai letter.

As if there's a standardized system, then people need to be aware of it.

[Richard W]

So with that in mind, if one of you guys want to write up how the RTGS system works and include examples of the various sounds, along with Thai script (e.g. แ is Sala ae and makes an ae sound, Iike the end of bear, pair or air).

Are you saying that the English Wikipedia article on the RTGS is inadequate? Would it help to cross-reference it to the vowel section of the Wikipedia article on the Thai alphabet page? There was once a phonetics column in the RTGS article, but it was decided that it was better without it, and I'm reluctant to start an edit war.

If we are to do this properly, we probably need tables. Is there any way of putting tables in posts? For example, the section on vowels might start something like this:

Thai script  RTGS  TV expanded RTGS  IPA  Similar English Vowel
อะ             a        a             a̝     bu' (also close to British ba')
อั              a        a             a̝     but, bun (also close to British bat, ban)
อา             a        aa            aː    baht, cart (also some American bot, cot) 
อิ              i        i             i̞     bit, bin
อี              i        ii            iː    beat, been

In my browser (Firefox), the superscript vowels do not appear above the Thai consonant, which is wrong. Also, the Thai characters are too small.

I'm planning to mark the phonetic difference between the short and long front vowels because this is very audible to English ears - English makes similar contrasts. Also, the qualitative difference between อั and อา is very striking to English ears, often provoking a comparison as [ɐ] v. [aː]. (I don't condone the traditional English abuse of the symbol [ʌ].)

If I address diphthongs, I can see some potential trouble with ไอ v. อาย. Dare I describe the sound difference as aiː v. aːj? Or do I just drop this important phonetic detail and leave it as ai v. a:i (or even aj v. a:j)?

[Mole]

So, how can you be sure that by writing things your own way, that they're gonna read it more "correct" than RTGS. If people don't have a clue about YOUR way of writing things, they wouldn't be able to guess what you're writing anyway.

Such as "mair" = แม

At least by sticking to a standard, people who already know this will immediately be able to comprehend what you're writing, and people who don't know RTGS won't probably know exactly what you're writing anyway, even if you use your own way which you may think is more correct.

[rgs2001uk]

What do you mean by กิน, ปิด the exact same vowel, one being short the other long?

Both are short "i".

I hate it when people use the "r" to represent long vowel sound, such as "แม = Mae, but I'd write Mair".

In many European languages as well as some English dialects such as Scottish, the "r" will be pronounced with a rolling of tongue, so by writing it with Mae as Mair, people may read it with rolling of the tongue.

Another problem with แ and า is that depending on the English dialect, a word may be pronounced using either.

For example "can" in British will be pronounced like คาน while American English will be more like แคน

So by not sticking to a standard, but using your own way to transcribe things, you may end up being the only person who can comprehend what you write.

For example, I would have never ever have been able to figure out that "Mair" is แม. But if you write is as "Mae", I will immediately know, and so would anyone who's familiar with RTGS.

Think it this wey, it wood bee as if AI wood disaid to wrait Inglish mai oon wey bai wraiting it phonetikalli akkording too hao AI understands an pronauns it.

So one should just stick to RTGS and use ae for แ and e for เ. This is because anyone reading it, will immediately know what Thai vowel it corresponds to, rather than guessing what the hell of a vowel the writer really means...

In the end, it's not about how YOU personally would have read a specific Thai word and then invent your own quirky way of writing Thai words, but it's about writing something which will be comprehensible for other people who are already familiar with RTGS.

What do you mean by กิน, ปิด the exact same vowel, one being short the other long?

Both are short "i".

Maybe its my ears, maybe its the way I hear it being spoken, but to me, I hear peet pratuu, not pit pratuu.

If anything it sounds like a short อี, rather than อิ.

This happens only with ปิด, not with say ดิน or as mentioned before, กิน.

[SlyAnimal]

So, how can you be sure that by writing things your own way, that they're gonna read it more "correct" than RTGS. If people don't have a clue about YOUR way of writing things, they wouldn't be able to guess what you're writing anyway.

Such as "mair" = แม

At least by sticking to a standard, people who already know this will immediately be able to comprehend what you're writing, and people who don't know RTGS won't probably know exactly what you're writing anyway, even if you use your own way which you may think is more correct.

I didn't say/imply that if someone doesn't know RTGS that they'll understand my transliteration either. As there's probably an equal chance of them understanding it correctly (Although personally I think it's much higher, but I understand there are lots of ppl out there whom I haven't met), and writing something which at least sounds correct to my own ears (and possibly correct to others aswell), is better than something which sounds wrong to me but possibly correct to others.

As writing เอ as ee is something where I simply can't see any connection. E.g. The English word "hay" (as in dried grass) or "bay" (as in a place on the coast) via transliteration into Thai would be written เห or เม respectively right?

Yet via RTGS, เห and เบ would be written as Hee and Bee respectively, which are similar in spelling to the English words He & Bee. The English words He and Bee would then be written as หี & บี respectively in Thai? Which would be represented by Hii & Bii in the RTGS system. Which are similar to the spelling of the English words Hi & Bi. Which would then be represented by ไห or หัย and ไบ or บัย in Thai.

The RTGS method often doesn't reflect English words with the same/similar spelling. Are there any words you can think of in English with an เอ sound, that are spelt with ee or e? I'm unable to think of any off the top of my head, but there might be some from multi syllable words?

For some of the RTGS spellings, like แม่ mae, I can see a connection, as pair and pear have very similar pronunciation. So both _air or _ear seem viable, although the e & a have been reversed in RTGS spelling so that still sorta screws up the system. Also not having the r makes it look/sound more like "may" to me, but I see the point you have about people who roll their Rs, although for the majority of English speakers who don't roll their Rs, not having an R at the end means we don't say it at all.

Thinking about this also makes me curious, is Vanessa Mae's "Mae" really an เม or แม sound? I've only heard it via ads on NZ TV when I was younger and otherwise have only read it in English print media, so have always assumed it's a เม sound, but the NZ ads might have gotten it wrong.

[SlyAnimal]

So with that in mind, if one of you guys want to write up how the RTGS system works and include examples of the various sounds, along with Thai script (e.g. แ is Sala ae and makes an ae sound, Iike the end of bear, pair or air).

Are you saying that the English Wikipedia article on the RTGS is inadequate? Would it help to cross-reference it to the vowel section of the Wikipedia article on the Thai alphabet page? There was once a phonetics column in the RTGS article, but it was decided that it was better without it, and I'm reluctant to start an edit war.

If we are to do this properly, we probably need tables. Is there any way of putting tables in posts? For example, the section on vowels might start something like this:

Thai script  RTGS  TV expanded RTGS  IPA  Similar English Vowel
อะ             a        a             a̝     bu' (also close to British ba')
อั              a        a             a̝     but, bun (also close to British bat, ban)
อา             a        aa            aː    baht, cart (also some American bot, cot) 
อิ              i        i             i̞     bit, bin
อี              i        ii            iː    beat, been

In my browser (Firefox), the superscript vowels do not appear above the Thai consonant, which is wrong. Also, the Thai characters are too small.

I'm planning to mark the phonetic difference between the short and long front vowels because this is very audible to English ears - English makes similar contrasts. Also, the qualitative difference between อั and อา is very striking to English ears, often provoking a comparison as [ɐ] v. [aː]. (I don't condone the traditional English abuse of the symbol [ʌ].)

If I address diphthongs, I can see some potential trouble with ไอ v. อาย. Dare I describe the sound difference as aiː v. aːj? Or do I just drop this important phonetic detail and leave it as ai v. a:i (or even aj v. a:j)?

My point in asking if you'd be interested in writing up the RTGS system on TV, despite there probably being other resources describing it online. Is mainly because you said the method developed on TV was based on but different to RTGS?

Also most users won't actually know what to search for or where to look, and won't bother if it seems difficult. So I figured a link to a stickied thread on TV would be easiest.

I'm not sure if tables etc are possible or not in posts, and am on my phone now so can't check. But you could always write it in excel or similar and provide a screenshot of the table (with maybe a link to the .xls file so that ppl could download it if they were really interested).

Also to make the Thai characters bigger, maybe try changing your font. As some fonts have significant size differences between Thai and English letters.

[SlyAnimal]

Oh and as a quick addition.

Although I'm personally not a fan of the RTGS system and believe the spellings are weird. I'm in favour of having a standardized transliteration system, for which this TV version of RTGS seems to be the most official/standardized version, provided that a guide to that system is easily available (As without easily available guides, ppl will just do their own thing lol).

Ideally then, when giving transliteration of Thai words, the guide can be linked to, while if someone else wants to use a different system, then they should ideally also provide a guide to the pronunciation with their post.

As transliteration is something which people only really use before they can read Thai, and for assistance while learning to read/write (And if they are studying Thai, they shouldn't need transliteration as a crutch for long). As a result most won't actually learn the system, so will need a guide or will otherwise just rely on their own interpretations (which may lead to us teaching ppl incorrectly unless we have a guide to transliteration available).

[Richard W]

What do you mean by กิน, ปิด the exact same vowel, one being short the other long?

Both are short "i".

Maybe its my ears, maybe its the way I hear it being spoken, but to me, I hear peet pratuu, not pit pratuu.

If anything it sounds like a short อี, rather than อิ.

This happens only with ปิด, not with say ดิน or as mentioned before, กิน.

The time taken by a vowel in English is a complex matter. The actual vowel length in English is used to help distinguish voiceless and voiced consonants - bit has a shorter vowel than bid and beat has a shorter vowel than bead. Now, in British English at least, the vowel of bit is shorter than the vowel of beat, but the quality (the dominant frequencies in the sound) is different, and that is an important cue for Britons, and arguably the key cue for Americans. While Thai has a similar quality difference, the key cue for Thais is vowel length rather than vowel quality.

I can think of three hypotheses as to what is going on.

• One is that อิ simply sounds different before or after certain consonants.
• Another is that the stress is affecting the quality of the sound.
• There is a 3-way contrast - the usual short vowel (similar to the English vowel), the usual long vowel, and a rare, shortened version of the long vowel. I have seen reference to this, though the example word given was, I dimly recall, หิมะ.

If the third hypothesis is correct, it messes up the usual analyses of Thai vowels. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean it isn't true.

[Richard W]

So, how can you be sure that by writing things your own way, that they're gonna read it more "correct" than RTGS. If people don't have a clue about YOUR way of writing things, they wouldn't be able to guess what you're writing anyway.

Such as "mair" = แม

At least by sticking to a standard, people who already know this will immediately be able to comprehend what you're writing, and people who don't know RTGS won't probably know exactly what you're writing anyway, even if you use your own way which you may think is more correct.

I didn't say/imply that if someone doesn't know RTGS that they'll understand my transliteration either. As there's probably an equal chance of them understanding it correctly (Although personally I think it's much higher, but I understand there are lots of ppl out there whom I haven't met), and writing something which at least sounds correct to my own ears (and possibly correct to others aswell), is better than something which sounds wrong to me but possibly correct to others.

What I've seen of your scheme leaves me puzzled. You transcribe มอง (with a long vowel) as 'mong'. How then do you transcribe ห้อง, ท็อป (as in แว่นท็อปเจริน) and กบ, all of which have short vowels. The last word does have a different vowel to the others; it is not a trick question.

As writing เอ as ee is something where I simply can't see any connection. E.g. The English word "hay" (as in dried grass) or "bay" (as in a place on the coast) via transliteration into Thai would be written เห or เม respectively right?

Yet via RTGS, เห and เบ would be written as Hee and Bee respectively, which are similar in spelling to the English words He & Bee. The English words He and Bee would then be written as หี & บี respectively in Thai? Which would be represented by Hii & Bii in the RTGS system. Which are similar to the spelling of the English words Hi & Bi. Which would then be represented by ไห or หัย and ไบ or บัย in Thai.

The RTGS method often doesn't reflect English words with the same/similar spelling. Are there any words you can think of in English with an เอ sound, that are spelt with ee or e? I'm unable to think of any off the top of my head, but there might be some from multi syllable words?

Thai is to be read as 'foreign', like Graf Spee and Beethoven. For single 'e', we obviously have technical Sanskrit and Pali terms, such as deva and Theravada. Doubling vowels is often seen as inelegant; technical literature preferred the macron, as still seen in Sanskrit and Pali and in precise citation of Latin or Old English words.

The problem you have with RTGS is that you want it to read according to the rules of English. That's not going to happen, and if you try you quickly run into problems with complex vowel systems. Spelling systems often reflect the history of the spelling system. For example, English 'ea' was devised to represent a long sound then midway between the sounds of short 'e' and 'a', and English 'ai' was once regularly pronounced as in 'Thai'.

The RTGS as originally devised omitted tones and, like much Latin, did not mark vowel length (or rather shortness) except as an optional refinement. The other ambiguities arose as it was simplified by the dropping of diacritics; one of these was subsequently rectified. Before the simplification, it was, bar tones, as readable as Latin.

Thinking about this also makes me curious, is Vanessa Mae's "Mae" really an เม or แม sound?

Vanessa Mae was born in Singapore to a Chinese mother. The Thai Wikipedia gives her Chinese name as '陳美; Chén Měi' and transcribes 'Mae' as เมย์. There doesn't seem to be anything Thai about this name, and it might owe more to Mae West than to Thai.

[Mole]

RTGS isn't supposed to reflect "English". It's a system where Thai characters are mapped to a Latin characters. One then just need to memorize which character corresponds to which, and one will more or less be able to read the transliteration.

Keep in mind for example that a Latin character may be pronounced differently depending on the language which uses it. For example, T is always pronounced as ต in Romance languages, while it's usually pronounced as ท in Germanic languages, except when it's following an s (st), it will then be pronounced as ต.

As a comparison, the Chinese Pin Yin is also a romanization where it doesn't really follow how a Latin character is pronounced in English. B is not pronounced as "b" in English, but more like a Spanish "p" like a Thai ป. The problem is that in RTGS, ป is mapped to "p".

So "ba" in Pin Yin reads the same as "pa" in RTGS. Same with "da" in Pin Yin reads the same as "ta" in RTGS.

In Pin Yin, you also have C and X and Q and ZH which corresponds to Chinese sounds which one would not have expected if one would read it as an English word.

Example "qin" "cao" "xin" "zhong". With English pronunciation, the words would be proximately like "chin" "tsao" "hsin" "jong".

An English speaker not familiar with Pin Yin, would never have been able to even guess how "q" or "c" or "zh" is supposed to be pronounced like.

However, one needs only to be familiar of what Latin character is mapped to which sound, and one will be able to properly read Pin Yin or RTGS.

[Mole]

What do you mean by กิน, ปิด the exact same vowel, one being short the other long?

Both are short "i".

I hate it when people use the "r" to represent long vowel sound, such as "แม = Mae, but I'd write Mair".

In many European languages as well as some English dialects such as Scottish, the "r" will be pronounced with a rolling of tongue, so by writing it with Mae as Mair, people may read it with rolling of the tongue.

Another problem with แ and า is that depending on the English dialect, a word may be pronounced using either.

For example "can" in British will be pronounced like คาน while American English will be more like แคน

So by not sticking to a standard, but using your own way to transcribe things, you may end up being the only person who can comprehend what you write.

For example, I would have never ever have been able to figure out that "Mair" is แม. But if you write is as "Mae", I will immediately know, and so would anyone who's familiar with RTGS.

Think it this wey, it wood bee as if AI wood disaid to wrait Inglish mai oon wey bai wraiting it phonetikalli akkording too hao AI understands an pronauns it.

So one should just stick to RTGS and use ae for แ and e for เ. This is because anyone reading it, will immediately know what Thai vowel it corresponds to, rather than guessing what the hell of a vowel the writer really means...

In the end, it's not about how YOU personally would have read a specific Thai word and then invent your own quirky way of writing Thai words, but it's about writing something which will be comprehensible for other people who are already familiar with RTGS.

What do you mean by กิน, ปิด the exact same vowel, one being short the other long?

Both are short "i".

Maybe its my ears, maybe its the way I hear it being spoken, but to me, I hear peet pratuu, not pit pratuu.

If anything it sounds like a short อี, rather than อิ.

This happens only with ปิด, not with say ดิน or as mentioned before, กิน.

Definitely your ears. It's a short i for sure.

[Johpa]

For what it worth regarding consonant clusters, we have a neighboring village where one part of the village name is เเหว. I would guess that most visiting Thais initially pronounce it as "wae" although the correct pronunciation is "haew".

[SlyAnimal]

What I've seen of your scheme leaves me puzzled. You transcribe มอง (with a long vowel) as 'mong'. How then do you transcribe ห้อง, ท็อป (as in แว่นท็อปเจริน) and กบ, all of which have short vowels. The last word does have a different vowel to the others; it is not a trick question.

Thai is to be read as 'foreign', like Graf Spee and Beethoven. For single 'e', we obviously have technical Sanskrit and Pali terms, such as deva and Theravada. Doubling vowels is often seen as inelegant; technical literature preferred the macron, as still seen in Sanskrit and Pali and in precise citation of Latin or Old English words.

The problem you have with RTGS is that you want it to read according to the rules of English. That's not going to happen, and if you try you quickly run into problems with complex vowel systems. Spelling systems often reflect the history of the spelling system. For example, English 'ea' was devised to represent a long sound then midway between the sounds of short 'e' and 'a', and English 'ai' was once regularly pronounced as in 'Thai'.

The RTGS as originally devised omitted tones and, like much Latin, did not mark vowel length (or rather shortness) except as an optional refinement. The other ambiguities arose as it was simplified by the dropping of diacritics; one of these was subsequently rectified. Before the simplification, it was, bar tones, as readable as Latin.

Vanessa Mae was born in Singapore to a Chinese mother. The Thai Wikipedia gives her Chinese name as '陳美; Chén Měi' and transcribes 'Mae' as เมย์. There doesn't seem to be anything Thai about this name, and it might owe more to Mae West than to Thai.

I'm not trying to justify my transliteration as a standardized system, or that it has answers to everything, as I don't really have a "system", just how I write phonetics for words is different to the RTGS, and that the RTGS system feels very "unnatural", as the spellings differ significantly from the sounds which you would normally get from English words with the same/similar spelling.

Although I get the point which you and Mole have, which is that the RTGS was created for the Latin alphabet, rather than for the English language. Which explains why it doesn't really resemble the spellings of English words, as it's not trying to (Rather it's based on perhaps an international linguistic standard or another European language?).

As I've mentioned before though, if we have a guide to RTGS on the forums to the system, then people can understand it better As if there is a guide, then it'd be a better/more complete system than any other options

Oh and of the examples you gave, I'd spell them Hong, Top and Gop. So no I generally wouldn't differentiate between the vowel lengths/sounds which you've given (e.g. I'd only do so where double letters are appropriate/possible), as I've never spent time developing a system, rather I just type what letters seem to represent the appropriate sounds, based on my knowledge of the sounds/letters. But as I've said a few times, I'm in favour of a standardized system, so long as there's a guide easily available And since RTGS is used for place names etc, it's the logical option, even if I don't like the spellings they use.

Also something I've always wondered, and you guys can probably help with this. Suvarnabhumi and Suwannaphum are both the same word/spelling in Thai, I assume Suwannaphum was created with RTGS as it's a district in RoiEt (And I think all the districts use RTGS), whereas Suvarnabhumi is the airport so might be different (I assume with the same system, the same word would just have the 1x spelling, and so the airport was made using another system? But can you guys confirm for me?

And do you know what the other system was at all? (And is it used much? As the other system seems really weird lol, and might be the same system used when I sometimes see buses going to "Ubol"). Also how would you spell Isaan in RTGS? As it's often a debated topic, with people often chipping in with several different ways of spelling it (Personally I always use Isaan as that's how I first saw it spelt here on Thaivisa).

[Richard W]

Rather it's [i.e. RTGS - RW] based on perhaps an international linguistic standard or another European language?.

Yes, it's an international linguistic 'standard' of the time. It wrestled with จ v. ช and came up with a messy solution, though 'ch' v. 'chh' which some Indians use for their names is also messy.

As I've mentioned before though, if we have a guide to RTGS on the forums to the system, then people can understand it better As if there is a guide, then it'd be a better/more complete system than any other options

Work is in progress. I've done the tables for the vowels.

Also something I've always wondered, and you guys can probably help with this. Suvarnabhumi and Suwannaphum are both the same word/spelling in Thai, I assume Suwannaphum was created with RTGS as it's a district in RoiEt (And I think all the districts use RTGS), whereas Suvarnabhumi is the airport so might be different (I assume with the same system, the same word would just have the 1x spelling, and so the airport was made using another system? But can you guys confirm for me?

'Suvarnabhumi' comes from the (or is it 'a') 'graphic system', except that the graphic system apparently ought to have 'Suvarrṇabhūmi'. Another view is that the name is composed of Sanskrit elements, and we therefore get the transliteration of the Sanskrit. That view reduces 'rr' to 'r', and then one just drops the diacritics.

The Thai alphabet ultimately originates in the alphabets of India, and the graphic system in principle uses the same transliteration scheme as is used for Sanskrit and Pali. However, over the years, the sounds represented by the letters in Thai have changed drastically, so the results from the RTGS and the graphic system can be dramatically different.

Another, minor issue is the fate of the implicit vowels. Final short vowels have generally become silent, and elsewhere the implicit vowel has become what the RTGS represents by 'a' or 'o'. As short 'o' does not occur in Sanskrit and is not phonemically distinct from long 'o' in Pali, one can allow oneself the freedom of dropping final silent 'a' from the transcription and transcribing other implicit vowels according to their pronunciation.

Unfortunately, the graphic system struggles to accommodate the consonants and vowels added for Thai, and there one should expect chaos. This happens not only with native words, but also with loans from Khmer - Khmer needs some of these additions.

The graphic system is appropriate for giving an honest account of inscriptions to the non-specialist academic, even if it requires some gymnastics to understand native or significantly nativised words.

And do you know what the other system was at all? (And is it used much? As the other system seems really weird lol, and might be the same system used when I sometimes see buses going to "Ubol"). Also how would you spell Isaan in RTGS? As it's often a debated topic, with people often chipping in with several different ways of spelling it (Personally I always use Isaan as that's how I first saw it spelt here on Thaivisa).

It could be worse. "Ubol" comes from Pali uppala, but it looks as though the /p/ degeminated in Khmer and was then, in accordance with Khmer speech habits, replaced by modern บ. One can easily imagine it being transliterated as "Upol". However, this was seen as too confusing, and we get the hybrid result "Ubol". As I said, the graphic system struggles with the additional characters. The 'precise system' would give us "Ubon(l)".

RTGS for 'Isaan' is simple - it's 'Isan'. Both vowels are long.

[rocketron57]

Thanks for everyones help with the correct way to write my grand daughters nick name in English, the concensus seemed to be that "Phare" was the correct translation and that is what we are now using.

Now can anyone help me translate her real name มนัญญา พ่อบำรุง into English.

Thanks.

[Richard W]

Thanks for everyones help with the correct way to write my grand daughters nick name in English, the concensus seemed to be that "Phare" was the correct translation and that is what we are now using.

Now can anyone help me translate her real name มนัญญา พ่อบำรุง into English.

Thanks.

The consensus was that the Thai nickname was แพร with standard (RTGS) transliteration Phrae.

มนัญญา has graphic transliteration 'Manaññā' and RTGS transcription 'Mananya'. I'd be inclined to stick to the latter.

The surname พ่อบำรุง is not Indic, and has RTGS transcription 'Phobamrung'. A quick look on Google suggests the clan (TBC) has a 2:1 preference for dropping the 'h'.

[rocketron57]

Thanks for everyones help with the correct way to write my grand daughters nick name in English, the concensus seemed to be that "Phare" was the correct translation and that is what we are now using.

Now can anyone help me translate her real name มนัญญา พ่อบำรุง into English.

Thanks.

The consensus was that the Thai nickname was แพร with standard (RTGS) transliteration Phrae.

มนัญญา has graphic transliteration 'Manaññā' and RTGS transcription 'Mananya'. I'd be inclined to stick to the latter.

The surname พ่อบำรุง is not Indic, and has RTGS transcription 'Phobamrung'. A quick look on Google suggests the clan (TBC) has a 2:1 preference for dropping the 'h'.

Thanks Richard

[harrry]

Why not use the standard IPA if you have to have a system that has to be learnt by people so that it has universal use and can quickly be understood by all. Otherwise write in Thai.

[Mole]

Problem with IPA is that it contains many characters not part of the familiar A-Z.

This would be problematic for people who haven't learned them.

So it's better to have a regional standard such as RTGS to get an approximate transcription where most people should be able to read it even without training in it.

[Richard W]

Problem with IPA is that it contains many characters not part of the familiar A-Z.

Unless it's been fixed, and there may have been a firm ideological reason not to, Safari can't cope with posting non-Latin-1 characters when the page is declared to be using the Latin-1 encoding. Thaivisa pages are declared to use the Latin-1 encoding. (Other characters are sent from the Thaivisa server using escape sequences such as ก for ก or ŋ for ŋ.) There is a work-around that browsers can implement, but 10 years ago it didn't comply with the standard for posting data.

[Baa_Mango]

Thais often incorrectly translate this as Pear. Foreigners often thing this means the delicious and tasty fruit. Since there is no true way to change Thai to English, we should try to write the real pronunciation which is close to Prae ( e sound from the word bed).

This name OFTEN is difficult especially with Thai people (and foreigners) switching, confusing, dropping, or otherwise abusing the sounds ล and ร

แพร is silk, is it not?

Could call her Silky.