Why Can't I Read?

[In the Rai!]

Hi Richard, what is the X-Sampa you talk of?

See the original definition.

Thanks Richard, I will have a read.

ITR

[Richard W]

By the way, I hope I haven't caused confusion by mentioning X-SAMPA. The 'forum's careful style' is something different.

The 'forum's careful style' is an elaboration of the Royal Thai General System (RTGS) of transcription, modified as follows:

• Consonant and vowel ambiguities are removed by using 'j' for Thai จ and 'aw' or 'or' for the vowel sound usually represented in Thai be the letter อ.
  
• Tones are shown, by enclosing one of the letters 'M' for mid, 'L' for low, 'F' for falling, 'H' for high or 'R' for rising in square brackets at the start of each syllable.
  
• Vowel length is shown by doubling the vowel if a single letter, or by including 'L' for long or 'S' for short in the square brackets enclosing the tone mark. (As tone indication is mandatory, there is no ambiguity between L for 'long' and L for 'low'.) Final 'i' and 'o' in diphthongs are counted as consonants for this rule, so ทราย and หนาว are [M]saai and [R]naao.
  
• For the final consonant, 'b', 'd' and 'g' may be used instead of 'p', 't' and 'k'.
  
• For the initial consonant written ก in Thai, one may use 'g' instead of 'k'.
  

Although there was no explicit agreement to the effect, it can be assumed that in the absence of a length indication, 'ia', 'ua' and 'uea' indicate long vowels - the corresponding short vowels are very rare in Thai.

From the above, it follows that the symbols for initial consonants are 'k' (or 'g'), 'kh', 'ng', 'j', 'ch', 'd', 't', 'th', 'n', 'b', 'p', 'ph', 'm', 'y', 'r', 'l', 'w', 's' and 'h'. Glottal stops are not represented - we assume they can be deduced from the rest of the syllable and the stress.

[Rikker]

Off topic:

Are there any words with เอือะ short diphthong? I know it's included at least for symmetricity's sake, but I can't actually think of one I've ever used...

Anybody else?

[Cool Water Palace]

I have same query as Baenaenae (???), but noone responded. I also get these ?s in the original post. I assumed because they were obsolete characters, they are not in the system so cannot be transmitted in the original. Or is the problem conversion of these characters to my Applemac (and Baenaenae's?)?

If I log on to some Thai websites, it's full of ??????????????????????????

All the other Thai characters in this forum are converting ok.

[baennaenae]

I have same query as Baenaenae (???), but noone responded. I also get these ?s in the original post. I assumed because they were obsolete characters, they are not in the system so cannot be transmitted in the original. Or is the problem conversion of these characters to my Applemac (and Baenaenae's?)?

If I log on to some Thai websites, it's full of ??????????????????????????

All the other Thai characters in this forum are converting ok.

Cool Water Palace, what I do is type a few characters and press add reply I then edit what just type with the Thai characters. Since I got no reply, I sorted out myself !!! GOOD LUCK

Edited December 2, 2006 by baennaenae

[ourmanflint]

I use a Mac as well, just out of curiosity which Thai fonts are installed on your Macs?

[otherstuff1957]

Referring back to the two 'deleted' letters - ฅ and ค. I read somewhere that they when the first Thai typewriters were made there weren't enough keys for all of the letters. So these two letters, which were rarely used, were simply deleted from the Thai alphabet!

[baennaenae]

I use a Mac as well, just out of curiosity which Thai fonts are installed on your Macs?

I think it's the standard, not quite sure font but the layout on this site http://www.nectec.or.th/it-standards/keybo...ai-key.htm#ASD7

The layout on my Mac os x is # 8 standard layout

[Rikker]

Referring back to the two 'deleted' letters - ฅ and ค. I read somewhere that they when the first Thai typewriters were made there weren't enough keys for all of the letters. So these two letters, which were rarely used, were simply deleted from the Thai alphabet!

I've heard this told a number of times, and while strictly true, I think it's a bit misleading about causes and effects of the matter. Sort of makes it sound like the typewriter killed the letters, which isn't true.

The first Thai typewriter was the Smith Premier made around 1892, and it did not have the letters ฃ and ฅ. This was a decision made by the designer to conserve space, but it was done because they were already basically "dead" letters, on their way out of use. Dan Bradley's dictionary from two decades earlier (1873) has no section for ฃ and only one word under ฅ, namely ฅอ (neck).

So the letters weren't deleted from the Thai alphabet when they were left off the keyboard. Later keyboards have included them, including the modern Kedmanee and Pattachote systems, obviously.

Random bit of Thai alphabet history: actually, คน was never spelled with ฅ, that's a perennial misunderstanding, even among Thais. By the time the letters of the Thai alphabet got their "names" in the 19th century (i.e. words conventionally associated with them: ก.ไก ข.ไข่ etc), ฅอ "neck" was one of the only words still spelled with that letter. But ฅ.ฅอ is a bit confusing, so the early alphabet books spelled it ฅอ คน, with a picture of a person's neck. This was rather quickly misunderstood, and other books began to spell it ฅ.คน, and nowadays most people are under the impression that คน was formerly spelled with ฅ, which is not the case. One publisher, Butterly Bookhouse (สำนักพิมพ์ ผีเสื้อ), is making an effort to bring back archaic spellings, including ฬ่อ for ล่อ and บาฬี for บาลี, etc. It also spells คน as ฅน in its books. I wonder if they know this is an error!

Edited December 4, 2006 by Rikker

[Cool Water Palace]

I use a Mac as well, just out of curiosity which Thai fonts are installed on your Macs?

I think I take your point (A unicode palette, but i cannot see how to extract it), but the 'obsolete'characters in the next post appear ok. I need to learn some Thai, rather than the curiosity at present.

By the way, I printed out the pattern of Thai keyboards. What was the rationale for which are shift letters? Was it the less frequently used? Or commonly used together, one non shift, the other shift, like t and h close on the QWERTY keyboard, ie for convenience and to avoid technical problems on pre computer keyboards?

[Cool Water Palace]

http://www.nectec.or.th/it-standards/keybo...ai-key.htm#ASD7

Extract from above:

Pattajoti's Research - ¼Å§Ò¹ÇԨѢͧÊÄÉ´Ôì »ÑµµÐ⪵Ô

I think all this sort of thing was explained on another thread a few months back. I'll need to find it, unless someone can put me there quickly. Thanks.

[Richard W]

Random bit of Thai alphabet history: actually, คน was never spelled with ฅ, that's a perennial misunderstanding, even among Thais.

Fascinating! The comparative evidence, in general, also backs up the statement that kho khon is the wrong letter for คน.

Weirdly, though, Northern Thai when written using tua mueang does spell it ฅน (with kho khon), implying an initial fricative, whereas the comparative evidence demands the spelling คน (kho khwai), implying a voiceless stop. (Actually, Ruangrueangsi does give the latter as an occasional spelling.) What's more, I have a tua mueang alphabet chart that gives 'ฅ ฅนเถ้าชรา' for the equivalent of kho khon!

I can see only two explanations: (1) Siamese loan and (2) a connection to the Proto-Tai form. For the latter, Fang-Kuei Li (as his name appears on his publications) give four words for which the SW and Central Tai forms indicate Proto-Tai *g (whence the spelling ค) but the Northern Thai forms indicate Proto-Tai voiced velar fricative (IPA gamma, X-SAMPA *G), which gives ฅ (kho khon). The person word is one of them. Unfortunately, the other three all give Northern Thai forms which are spelt with ค (kho khwai), so that demolishes explanation (2).

It's really topsy-turvy! Proto-Tai words in *g generally start with kho khwai in Thai, but 'khwai' comes form a word starting *G in Proto-Thai (PT *Gw gave *gw in early (or pre-)Siamese), while Proto-Tai words in *G generally start with the kho khon equivalent in Northern Thai, but it appears that the Proto-Tai form ancestral to Siamese คน started with *g!

[Rikker]

My source for that is แกะรอย ก.ไก่ by เอนก นาวิกมูล (ISBN 9748211096). It's a history of the naming of the letters of the Thai alphabet, including the different names the letters have had over the years. Very, very interesting. I didn't get to read it in as much detail as I would've liked, because I had borrowed it through ILL and they callously expected me to give it back.

Edited December 5, 2006 by Rikker