Thai transliterated script

[Bangkok Sausage house]

There seem to be as many transliterations as there are transliterators  although I realize there is an official one. 

 

Even the official version is really not close to phonetic English.  Not to be too English centric but it is the functional language of the world, wouldn't be sensible to have a script that tourists could read easily.

 

Has there ever been talk of creating a modern more accurate system?

[Bangkok Sausage house]

Anybody have thoughts on the transliteration problem?

[Johpa]

1 hour ago, Bangkok Sausage house said:

Anybody have thoughts on the transliteration problem?

 

There is no problem.  Most people have few issues with the competing systems. They still mispronounce Pattaya regardless of rendering. 

[KhunBENQ]

Not all mankind speaks English.

Some have real vowels.

 

[Richard W]

12 hours ago, Bangkok Sausage house said:

Anybody have thoughts on the transliteration problem?

Compulsory Latin and Middle English in Farang schools would help.  A little Sanskrit wouldn't go amiss.  Then we could go back to the original intention and put a breve on short vowels, and distinguish sǫt ''to insert' from sot 'single, unmarried' and sŏt 'fresh'.

 

Tone marks are probably insoluble.  Understanding tone marks needs specific training.  Who can pronounce Vietnamese straight off?  Pinyin?

 

Has anyone got a solution for the problem of French transliteration?  Pretending the French letters are the same as English can cause no end of confusion.

[Johpa]

11 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Not all mankind speaks English.

Some have real vowels.

 

 

You got issues with dipthongs?

[Richard W]

English has a set of reading rules for words that seem 'foreign (unspecified)'.  The general rule is 'consonants as in English', 'vowels as in Italian', and these are actually the principles taken into account in the official system. Initial Thai consonants are generally more complicated than English, and unsophisticated English speakers have to learn the system.  The Pinyin consonant system might actually be better for English speakers, but then 'Bangkok' would become Bbanggok (or even Mbanggok) - the price to pay for a consistent system where 'Pattaya' is Pattaya and not Phatthaya, the rarely used RTGS spelling.

 

One big problem with the RTGS system is that it does not show vowel length.  The RTGS was meant to be a cut-down version of a system where short vowels could be marked as such.  An incomplete reform would be useful here - doubling 'a' to show the long vowel would be useful here; other vowels matter less.  However, the west bank districts of the capital now become Bbaanggok.  Finally, there is the troubling use of 'o' for two distinct vowel sounds, each of which occurs both short and long.  The least confusing digraph is 'oa' as in English broad, which then gives us Bbaanggoak.  The names Oi, sometimes written Aoi, then become Oai, which I think is still confusing.  If it weren't for the fact that most of us need to type Thai names using simple, or at least, standard, keyboard layouts, I would argue for restoring the diacritic, giving us Bbaanggǫk and Ǫi.

 

Of course, this all ignores the final feature that makes the English pronunciation of Thai place names incomprehensible - tones!  The complete system related to the RTGS would have used accents above the vowels.  Typographically, it was doomed by the interaction with breve to mark the short vowels.

 

We did adopt a modification of RTGS when this forum was started.  I think it was killed by the need to mark tones - too many people don't remember the tones.

[KhunBENQ]

On 13.8.2016 at 9:35 AM, Bangkok Sausage house said:

Anybody have thoughts on the transliteration problem?

 

I have/had many thoughts about it.

The conclusion is: it is chaos and will always be chaos.

Very few care about RTGS, many do their English style transcription by their recipe.

The result is that we have ID cards/passports in the family with the identical family name in Thai transcribed in different ways ("u" <> "oo", long vowel with appended "r" like "sorn" vs. "son").

 

But an attempt to overthrow the existing simplistic RTGS would lead to even more chaos.

So please don't touch it

 

BTW: you used the rare "transliteration" vs. the better known "transcription".

I am not a linguist and so I checked back with the all knowing WiKi.

Transliteration is much more ambitious as it should be unambiguous and reversible!

 

And there is indeed one transliteration called ISO 11940.

Widely unknown out of the academic world, but used by Google translate.

Example:

book -> หนังสือ  = H̄nạngs̄ụ̄x (RTGS: nangsue, Thai2English: năng-sĕu).

Edited August 14, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[Oxx]

What is the purpose of representing Thai using the Latin alphabet?

 

Is it to produce something that non-Thai speakers can use correctly to pronounce Thai words? That's clearly impossible.  Taking an English speaker as a base example, that speaker is not going to be able to pronounce at least three of the consonants correctly, and one or two of the vowels.  That speaker is also not going to be able to pronounce tones.  (Even with training many English speakers fail on these fronts.)  Even understanding vowel length may be an issue.

 

Is it to produce something that can be used so that non-Thai speakers can visually identify words (e.g. tourists can identify destination names, librarians can file books in order)? If so, then RTGS does fine.  Now, if only Thai people were to use it consistently (or at all).

[Richard W]

11 hours ago, Oxx said:

What is the purpose of representing Thai using the Latin alphabet?

<snip>

Is it to produce something that can be used so that non-Thai speakers can visually identify words (e.g. tourists can identify destination names, librarians can file books in order)? If so, then RTGS does fine.  Now, if only Thai people were to use it consistently (or at all).

There's also the issue of addressing two audiences; the group above, and those who know Thai.  Perhaps I'm old-fashioned - may be the answer is that one uses Wikipedia to convert RTGS back to Thai for place names, and simply give up for sentences.

 

There can also be historical issues, where one does not expect the readership to be familiar with all the scripts that have been used in Thailand.  However, the audience can be expected to roughly understand old texts if the text is transliterated (not transcribed) for them.  Generally some modification of a generic Indic transcription scheme is used.  Thai has extra consonants, extra vowels, and, like Khmer, extra diacritics.  Actually reading the text out is no more required than it is for Ancient Egyptian.

[Bangkok Sausage house]

On 14/8/2559 at 3:18 AM, Richard W said:

English has a set of reading rules for words that seem 'foreign (unspecified)'.  The general rule is 'consonants as in English', 'vowels as in Italian', and these are actually the principles taken into account in the official system. Initial Thai consonants are generally more complicated than English, and unsophisticated English speakers have to learn the system.  The Pinyin consonant system might actually be better for English speakers, but then 'Bangkok' would become Bbanggok (or even Mbanggok) - the price to pay for a consistent system where 'Pattaya' is Pattaya and not Phatthaya, the rarely used RTGS spelling.

 

One big problem with the RTGS system is that it does not show vowel length.  The RTGS was meant to be a cut-down version of a system where short vowels could be marked as such.  An incomplete reform would be useful here - doubling 'a' to show the long vowel would be useful here; other vowels matter less.  However, the west bank districts of the capital now become Bbaanggok.  Finally, there is the troubling use of 'o' for two distinct vowel sounds, each of which occurs both short and long.  The least confusing digraph is 'oa' as in English broad, which then gives us Bbaanggoak.  The names Oi, sometimes written Aoi, then become Oai, which I think is still confusing.  If it weren't for the fact that most of us need to type Thai names using simple, or at least, standard, keyboard layouts, I would argue for restoring the diacritic, giving us Bbaanggǫk and Ǫi.

 

Of course, this all ignores the final feature that makes the English pronunciation of Thai place names incomprehensible - tones!  The complete system related to the RTGS would have used accents above the vowels.  Typographically, it was doomed by the interaction with breve to mark the short vowels.

 

We did adopt a modification of RTGS when this forum was started.  I think it was killed by the need to mark tones - too many people don't remember the tones.

Richard, you bring up a number of points that are meaningful, albeit a bit deeper than my original question attempted to penetrate.

 

Clearly, there is no one easy system that makes the transliteration from Thai script to English script easy.  Even with these issues on short and long vowels, tones, consonants that don't exist in English (at least at the beginning of sentences ป or ต or ง), there are still a number of simple changes that would make life easier for tourists.  For example:

Using G instead of K

Using K instead of KH

Using W instead of V (there isn't even a V sound in Thai)

Using D instead of T

Using P instead of PH

Using T instead of TH

 

I realize the P and the T reflect sounds that don't exist at the beginning of words in English but if you're going to come up with consonant combinations, why not use them to reflect the ต and ป sounds rather than make consonant combo's that foreigners will automatically pronounce incorrectly.

 

I think I'm fighting a losing battle here but at least fixing those 6 letters would be a considerable improvement.

 

I understand the last 3 are used in

[bifftastic]

On 22/08/2016 at 4:27 PM, Bangkok Sausage house said:

Richard, you bring up a number of points that are meaningful, albeit a bit deeper than my original question attempted to penetrate.

 

Clearly, there is no one easy system that makes the transliteration from Thai script to English script easy.  Even with these issues on short and long vowels, tones, consonants that don't exist in English (at least at the beginning of sentences ป or ต or ง), there are still a number of simple changes that would make life easier for tourists.  For example:

Using G instead of K

Using K instead of KH

Using W instead of V (there isn't even a V sound in Thai)

Using D instead of T

Using P instead of PH

Using T instead of TH

 

I realize the P and the T reflect sounds that don't exist at the beginning of words in English but if you're going to come up with consonant combinations, why not use them to reflect the ต and ป sounds rather than make consonant combo's that foreigners will automatically pronounce incorrectly.

 

I think I'm fighting a losing battle here but at least fixing those 6 letters would be a considerable improvement.

 

I understand the last 3 are used in

How many different languages use the Roman script? They all use it differently. Even if you solve the 'problem' (officially, Thai people don't see it as a problem) for English speakers, you won't have solved it for, say, German or French speakers. 
The long term solution for you, I would suggest, is to learn the Thai script. For everyone else who doesn't want to/need to, they can just carry on pronouncing Pattaya twelve different ways, none of which come close to being correct  

[Bangkok Sausage house]

1 hour ago, bifftastic said:

How many different languages use the Roman script? They all use it differently. Even if you solve the 'problem' (officially, Thai people don't see it as a problem) for English speakers, you won't have solved it for, say, German or French speakers. 
The long term solution for you, I would suggest, is to learn the Thai script. For everyone else who doesn't want to/need to, they can just carry on pronouncing Pattaya twelve different ways, none of which come close to being correct  

Apologies to the non-native English speakers but in the OP, I did say I was looking at the situation from an English centric perspective as English has become the defacto international language. 

 

Clearly, fully fixing the transliteration scripting issue, as has shown above by Richard W is very difficult to say the least.

 

Foreigners learning Thai script just isn't realistic, of course many long stayers will learn it but tourists and even most long stayers will not.  Why not at least give the script a minor face lift so those people can at clearly read that Kanchanaburi is actually Ganchanaburi. 

 

as my example:

Using G instead of K

Using K instead of KH

Using W instead of V (there isn't even a V sound in Thai)

Using D instead of T

Using P instead of PH

Using T instead of TH

 

 

 

 

 

. 

[bifftastic]

Because, in the grand scheme of Thai things, it doesn't matter.
Also, ก isn't really a G. It's not really a K either. It's a ก 
Plus, even if there was a 'facelift' you'd still get many variations of Ganchanaburi with the wrong vowel lengths, wrong emphasis/stresses etc etc. 

Despite the fact that many foreigners will not learn the Thai script (understandable for those only visiting on holiday, less so for those deliberately illiterate who live here) it is really the only way to read Thai words with the correct pronunciation. Plus, it's not that difficult to learn. 

Imagine this issue from the perspective of people who can read Thai perfectly well (the Thai people you would have to convince to embark on this facelift) They're not sure what sound  K or G makes, it's similar to ก but not quite the same. The same goes for pretty much every Roman letter. Which one would you use for ต or ป how would you note the differences from ด and บ ? Then the vowels. Roman script just doesn't reproduce Thai sounds very well at all. So why would they substitute one Roman letter that doesn't really match a Thai sound for another one that also doesn't really match it? And to what end? After this mammoth task was completed, they would still hear  พัทยา pronounced as พเทเยอะ พเทยะ พถุย พเทย
So, I reckon they'll stick with what they've got.  

[Richard W]

On 26/08/2016 at 1:51 AM, bifftastic said:

Roman script just doesn't reproduce Thai sounds very well at all.

That's OK.  It doesn't do very well for English, either.

 

Actually, once one gets beyond monosyllables, the Thai script doesn't do so well for Thai either.

[Nepal4me]

I do agree with Bangkok Sausage. Those seem like obvious changes that would make make pronunciations better.  Not just for falangs but for Thais too.  I sometimes misunderstand

Thais when they use English words but mispronounce them in the reverse way.

Thais will pronounce Toyota or Taiwan as ตaiwan or ตoyoตa rather than ทoyoทa.  Not great examples as I would understand those examples but you get the idea.

I would also add:  How about using a J for จ instead of using CH for both จ and ช for god's sake.

On 08/22/2016 at 10:27 PM, Bangkok Sausage house said:

Richard, you bring up a number of points that are meaningful, albeit a bit deeper than my original question attempted to penetrate.

 

Clearly, there is no one easy system that makes the transliteration from Thai script to English script easy.  Even with these issues on short and long vowels, tones, consonants that don't exist in English (at least at the beginning of sentences ป or ต or ง), there are still a number of simple changes that would make life easier for tourists.  For example:

Using G instead of K

Using K instead of KH

Using W instead of V (there isn't even a V sound in Thai)

Using D instead of T

Using P instead of PH

Using T instead of TH

 

I realize the P and the T reflect sounds that don't exist at the beginning of words in English but if you're going to come up with consonant combinations, why not use them to reflect the ต and ป sounds rather than make consonant combo's that foreigners will automatically pronounce incorrectly.

 

I think I'm fighting a losing battle here but at least fixing those 6 letters would be a considerable improvement.

 

I understand the last 3 are used in

 

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by Nepal4me

[Nepal4me]

I do agree with Bangkok Sausage. Those seem like obvious changes that would make make pronunciations better.  Not just for falangs but for Thais too.  I sometimes misunderstand

Thais when they use English words but mispronounce them in the reverse way.

Thais will pronounce Toyota or Taiwan as ตaiwan or ตoyoตa rather than ทoyoทa.  Not great examples as I would understand those examples but you get the idea.

I would also add:  How about using a J for จ instead of using CH for both จ and ช for god's sake.

On 08/22/2016 at 10:27 PM, Bangkok Sausage house said:

Richard, you bring up a number of points that are meaningful, albeit a bit deeper than my original question attempted to penetrate.

 

Clearly, there is no one easy system that makes the transliteration from Thai script to English script easy.  Even with these issues on short and long vowels, tones, consonants that don't exist in English (at least at the beginning of sentences ป or ต or ง), there are still a number of simple changes that would make life easier for tourists.  For example:

Using G instead of K

Using K instead of KH

Using W instead of V (there isn't even a V sound in Thai)

Using D instead of T

Using P instead of PH

Using T instead of TH

 

I realize the P and the T reflect sounds that don't exist at the beginning of words in English but if you're going to come up with consonant combinations, why not use them to reflect the ต and ป sounds rather than make consonant combo's that foreigners will automatically pronounce incorrectly.

 

I think I'm fighting a losing battle here but at least fixing those 6 letters would be a considerable improvement.

 

I understand the last 3 are used in

 

 

[Oxx]

58 minutes ago, Nepal4me said:

Thais when they use English words but mispronounce them in the reverse way.

Thais will pronounce Toyota or Taiwan as ตaiwan or ตoyoตa rather than ทoyoทa.  Not great examples as I would understand those examples but you get the idea.

 

I trust that you know that "Toyota" and "Taiwan" aren't English words.  What is far more relevant is how the Japanese and Taiwanese native speakers pronounce them, not the English.

[Oxx]

52 minutes ago, Nepal4me said:

I would also add:  How about using a J for จ instead of using CH for both จ and ช for god's sake.

 

Not, for the very simple reason is that in many European languages "J" is pronounced like the English "Y".  Jawohl?

[Aforek]

International phonetics doesn't exist, every language has it"s own pronouciation,  and being able to read Thai and knowing how to pronounce it helps a lot

what disturbs me is when a word in Thai ends with written " L " and pronounced "N", why the translator writes "L " ? . Phonetics reproduces   sound , not alphabet

[Oxx]

19 minutes ago, Aforek said:

what disturbs me is when a word in Thai ends with written " L " and pronounced "N", why the translator writes "L " ? . Phonetics reproduces   sound , not alphabet

 

It's not supposed to be "L" if the author uses the RTGS.  However, most people use their own schemes for representing Thai words in the Latin alphabet.  I've seen at least a dozen versions of ถนนเสรีไทย around here on public road signs.  (Serithai, Saerithai, Sareethai, Seritai, etc.)

 

There's a conflicting imperative, which is the Thai penchant for trying to preserve as much of the original language's spelling (or rather, mostly consonants).  This is carried over into Latinised versions of the spelling.

 

 

[Nepal4me]

13 hours ago, Oxx said:

 

I trust that you know that "Toyota" and "Taiwan" aren't English words.  What is far more relevant is how the Japanese and Taiwanese native speakers pronounce them, not the English.

Actually, I did know this little known fact that Toyota and Taiwan are not English words :)  However, both those words in Japanese and Taiwanese are pronounced as they are in English so perhaps you're making my point for me.

13 hours ago, Oxx said:

 

Not, for the very simple reason is that in many European languages "J" is pronounced like the English "Y".  Jawohl?

Hmmm, you are suggesting the reason is because some European languages use J to represent the English "Y" sound, therefore both the "J" sound and the "ch" sound should have the same representation in the transliteration.  You might want to rethink that explanation. 

7 hours ago, Aforek said:

International phonetics doesn't exist, every language has it"s own pronouciation,  and being able to read Thai and knowing how to pronounce it helps a lot

what disturbs me is when a word in Thai ends with written " L " and pronounced "N", why the translator writes "L " ? . Phonetics reproduces   sound , not alphabet

This is also a frustration for me as it seems to be for the OP.  It of course goes way beyond simply the "L" at the end of words.  Su-var-na-bhumi is a great example.  While I understand perfectly why they use that transliteration, it does not really make sense from a Thailand marketing perspective i.e. people in Europe or elsewhere would have no idea that the airport is actually pronounced Su-wan-a-poom (as good a transcription as I think you could come up with).  Obviously they didn't care how it would look in other countries, rather they just followed the official transliteration system and therefore it is correct.  It's just that it's not friendly.

[futsukayoi]

 

4 hours ago, Nepal4me said:

However, both those words in Japanese and Taiwanese are pronounced as they are in English so perhaps you're making my point for me.

 

 

Actually neither of those words are pronounced in Japanese or Mandarin in the same way as they are in English. Those words are also pronounced quite differently in various English dialects.

 

Most of the world does not speak English in any of its forms.  If you want to transliterate a language linguists around the world use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).   Many of the symbols are from the Roman script and in quite a few cases pronunciation of those Roman letters is the same as i most forms of English making it slightly easier for English speakers to learn.  It is a shame it is not more widely taught and used.  Especially if you learn more than one language the effort is well worth it.  I notice that Thai textbooks and dictionaries are increasingly using or including the IPA which I think is a very good step. 

 

 

 

[tgeezer]

Could the Roman representations be seen as 'anglicised' words? Pattaya (พัทยา) looks wrong to me and what I hear mostly is Pa'tie'ya. It is mostly names after all, are similar discussions taking place on other language fora I wonder, Cologne, Sweeden, Paris etc.
Then there is the dillema for some that if you feed a foreign pronunciation into English could you be accused of showing off?
My favourite is 'omahge' for 'homage' used in the arts context, younger people would perhaps not see it as an affectation in the same way as I do.
It might give comfort to some that the road signs for พหลโยธิน have changed from Phaholyothin to Phahonyothin since I have been living here.


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[tgeezer]

A pity that I left it past the edit time before reviewing what I had written. 'dilemma'!
since I am here: dilemma น. สถานการณ์ให้เลือก (ซึ่งทั้งสองทางเลวร้ายพอๆกัน.
having two choices both equally bad.

(There is a topic 'thread killers' in the 'General' forum which explains my position. )



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