Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020).[citation needed] Moreover, most Thais in the northern (Lanna) and the northeastern (Isan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because Central Thai is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media.[6] A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language (also known as Phasa Mueang or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai, so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the "Kham Mueang" accent.[7]Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and ethnic minorities in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis.[8][9]
In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although most linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai".[10] As a dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as a second language among the country's minority ethnic groups from the mid-late Ayutthaya period onward.[11][12] Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect.
Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Northern Thai, Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages. The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family, which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border.
Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand. The standard is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai script.
Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai.[13] The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modern orthography.
Early spread
According to a Chinese source, during the Ming dynasty, Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433), Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xiānluó (暹羅) or Ayutthaya Kingdom,[e] saying that it somewhat resembled the local patois as pronounced in Guangdong[14]: 107 Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai and Khmer. Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer-speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369, 1388 and 1431.[15] Gradually toward the end of the period, a language shift took place. Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great-grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In the process of language shift, an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai, was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Khmer expressions, sayings, and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference.
Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer.[16] The Thais later developed the royal vocabulary according to their immediate environment. Thai and Pali, the latter from Theravada Buddhism, were added to the vocabulary. An investigation of the Ayutthaya Rajasap reveals that three languages, Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse. In fact, Khmero-Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to the Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed.
Old Thai
Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on "live syllables" (those not ending in a stop), with no possible distinction on "dead syllables" (those ending in a stop, i.e. either /p/,/t/,/k/ or the glottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel).
There was a two-way voiced vs. voiceless distinction among all fricative and sonorant consonants, and up to a four-way distinction among stops and affricates. The maximal four-way occurred in labials (/ppʰbʔb/) and denti-alveolars (/ttʰdʔd/); the three-way distinction among velars (/kkʰɡ/) and palatals (/tɕtɕʰdʑ/), with the glottalized member of each set apparently missing.
The major change between old and modern Thai was due to voicing distinction losses and the concomitant tone split. This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE, possibly occurring at different times in different parts of the Thai-speaking area.[13] All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction:
Plain voiced stops (/bdɡdʑ/) became voiceless aspirated stops (/pʰtʰkʰtɕʰ/).[f]
Voiced fricatives became voiceless.
Voiceless sonorants became voiced.
However, in the process of these mergers, the former distinction of voice was transferred into a new set of tonal distinctions. In essence, every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones, with a lower-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant, and a higher-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant (including glottalized stops). An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops/affricates (original /ptktɕʔbʔd/) also caused original tone 1 to lower, but had no such effect on original tones 2 or 3.
The above consonant mergers and tone splits account for the complex relationship between spelling and sound in modern Thai. Modern "low"-class consonants were voiced in Old Thai, and the terminology "low" reflects the lower tone variants that resulted. Modern "mid"-class consonants were voiceless unaspirated stops or affricates in Old Thai—precisely the class that triggered lowering in original tone 1 but not tones 2 or 3. Modern "high"-class consonants were the remaining voiceless consonants in Old Thai (voiceless fricatives, voiceless sonorants, voiceless aspirated stops). The three most common tone "marks" (the lack of any tone mark, as well as the two marks termed mai ek and mai tho) represent the three tones of Old Thai, and the complex relationship between tone mark and actual tone is due to the various tonal changes since then. Since the tone split, the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship between lower and higher tonal variants has been completely obscured. Furthermore, the six tones that resulted after the three tones of Old Thai were split have since merged into five in standard Thai, with the lower variant of former tone 2 merging with the higher variant of former tone 3, becoming the modern "falling" tone.[g]
Early Old Thai also apparently had velar fricatives /xɣ/ as distinct phonemes. These were represented by the now-obsolete letters ฃ kho khuat and ฅ kho khon, respectively. During the Old Thai period, these sounds merged into the corresponding stops /kʰɡ/, and as a result the use of these letters became unstable.
At some point in the history of Thai, an alveolo-palatal nasal phoneme /ɲ/ also existed, inherited from Proto-Tai. A letter ญ yo ying also exists, which is used to represent an alveolo-palatal nasal in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali, and is currently pronounced /j/ at the beginning of a syllable but /n/ at the end of a syllable. Most native Thai words that are reconstructed as beginning with /ɲ/ are also pronounced /j/ in modern Thai, but generally spelled with ย yo yak, which consistently represents /j/. This suggests that /ɲ/ > /j/ in native words occurred in the pre-literary period. It is unclear whether Sanskrit and Pali words beginning with /ɲ/ were borrowed directly with a /j/, or whether a /ɲ/ was re-introduced, followed by a second change /ɲ/ > /j/. The northeastern Thai dialect Isan and the Lao language still preserve the phoneme /ɲ/, which is represented in the Lao script by ຍ, such as in the word ຍຸງ (/ɲúŋ/, mosquito). This letter is distinct from the phoneme /j/ and its Lao letter ຢ, such as in the word ຢາ (/jàː/, medicine). The distinction in writing has been lost in the informal writing of the Isan language with the Thai script and both sounds are represented by ย /j/ (See: Comparison of Lao and Isan).
Proto-Tai also had a glottalized palatal sound, reconstructed as /ʔj/ in Li Fang-Kuei (1977[full citation needed]). Corresponding Thai words are generally spelled หย, which implies an Old Thai pronunciation of /hj/ (or /j̊/), but a few such words are spelled อย, which implies a pronunciation of /ʔj/ and suggests that the glottalization may have persisted through to the early literary period.
Vowel developments
The vowel system of modern Thai contains nine pure vowels and three centering diphthongs, each of which can occur short or long. According to Li (1977[full citation needed]), however, many Thai dialects have only one such short–long pair (/aaː/), and in general it is difficult or impossible to find minimal short–long pairs in Thai that involve vowels other than /a/ and where both members have frequent correspondences throughout the Tai languages. More specifically, he notes the following facts about Thai:
In open syllables, only long vowels occur. (This assumes that all apparent cases of short open syllables are better described as ending in a glottal stop. This makes sense from the lack of tonal distinctions in such syllables, and the glottal stop is also reconstructible across the Tai languages.)
In closed syllables, the long high vowels /iːɯːuː/ are rare, and cases that do exist typically have diphthongs in other Tai languages.
In closed syllables, both short and long mid /eeːooː/ and low /ɛɛːɔɔː/ do occur. However, generally, only words with short /eo/ and long /ɛːɔː/ are reconstructible back to Proto-Tai.
Both of the mid back unrounded vowels /ɤɤː/ are rare, and words with such sounds generally cannot be reconstructed back to Proto-Tai.
Furthermore, the vowel that corresponds to short Thai /a/ has a different and often higher quality in many of the Tai languages compared with the vowel corresponding to Thai /aː/.
This leads Li to posit the following:
Proto-Tai had a system of nine pure vowels with no length distinction, and possessing approximately the same qualities as in modern Thai: high /iɯu/, mid /eɤo/, low /ɛaɔ/.
All Proto-Tai vowels were lengthened in open syllables, and low vowels were also lengthened in closed syllables.
Modern Thai largely preserved the original lengths and qualities, but lowered /ɤ/ to /a/, which became short /a/ in closed syllables and created a phonemic length distinction /aaː/. Eventually, length in all other vowels became phonemic as well and a new /ɤ/ (both short and long) was introduced, through a combination of borrowing and sound change. Li believes that the development of long /iːɯːuː/ from diphthongs, and the lowering of /ɤ/ to /a/ to create a length distinction /aaː/, had occurred by the time of Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but the other missing modern Thai vowels had not yet developed.
Not all researchers agree with Li. Pittayaporn (2009[full citation needed]), for example, reconstructs a similar system for Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but believes that there was also a mid back unrounded vowel /ə/ (which he describes as /ɤ/), occurring only before final velar /kŋ/. He also seems to believe that the Proto-Southwestern-Tai vowel length distinctions can be reconstructed back to similar distinctions in Proto-Tai.
Where English makes a distinction between voiced /b/ and unvoiced aspirated /pʰ/, Thai distinguishes a third sound – the unvoiced, unaspirated /p/ that occurs in English only as an allophone of /pʰ/, for example after an /s/ as in the sound of the p in "spin". There is similarly a laminal denti-alveolar[citation needed]/d/, /t/, /tʰ/ triplet in Thai. In the velar series there is a /k/, /kʰ/ pair and in the postalveolar series a /tɕ/, /tɕʰ/ pair, but the language lacks the corresponding voiced sounds /ɡ/ and /dʑ/. (In loanwords from English, English /ɡ/ and /d͡ʒ/ are borrowed as the tenuis stops /k/ and /tɕ/.)
In each cell below, the first line indicates International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the second indicates the Thai characters in initial position (several letters appearing in the same box have identical pronunciation). The letter ห, one of the two h letters, is also used to help write certain tones (described below).
Although the overall 44 Thai consonant letters provide 21 sounds in case of initials, the case for finals is different. For finals, only eight sounds, as well as no sound, called mātrā (มาตรา) are used. To demonstrate, at the end of a syllable, บ (/b/) and ด (/d/) are devoiced, becoming pronounced as /p/ and /t/ respectively. Additionally, all plosive sounds are unreleased. Hence, final /p/, /t/, and /k/ sounds are pronounced as [p̚], [t̚], and [k̚] respectively.
Of the consonant letters, excluding the disused ฃ and ฅ, six (ฉ ผ ฝ ห อ ฮ) cannot be used as a final and the other 36 are grouped as following.
In Thai, each syllable in a word is articulated independently, so consonants from adjacent syllables (i.e. heterosyllabic) show no sign of articulation as a cluster. Thai has specific phonotactical patterns that describe its syllable structure, including tautosyllabic consonant clusters, and vowel sequences. In core Thai words (i.e. excluding loanwords), only clusters of two consonants occur, of which there are 11 combinations:
/kr/ (กร), /kl/ (กล), /kw/ (กว)
/kʰr/ (ขร, คร), /kʰl/ (ขล, คล), /kʰw/ (ขว, คว)
/pr/ (ปร), /pl/ (ปล)
/pʰr/ (พร), /pʰl/ (ผล, พล)
/tr/ (ตร)
The number of clusters increases in loanwords such as /tʰr/ (ทร) in อินทรา (/ʔīn.tʰrāː/, from Sanskrit indrā) or /fr/ (ฟร) in ฟรี (/frīː/, from English free); however, these usually only occur in initial position, with either /r/, /l/, or /w/ as the second consonant sound and not more than two sounds at a time.
Vowels
The vowel nuclei of the Thai language are given in the following table. The top entry in every cell is the symbol from the International Phonetic Alphabet, the second entry gives the spelling in the Thai script, where a dash (–) indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant follows.
There are also opening and closing diphthongs in Thai, which Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993) analyze as /Vj/ and /Vw/. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:
Long
Short
Thai script
IPA
Thai script
IPA
–าย
/aːj/
ไ–*, ใ–*, ไ–ย, -ัย
/aj/
–าว
/aːw/
เ–า*
/aw/
เ–ีย
/ia/
เ–ียะ
/iaʔ/
–
–
–ิว
/iw/
–ัว
/ua/
–ัวะ
/uaʔ/
–ูย
/uːj/
–ุย
/uj/
เ–ว
/eːw/
เ–็ว
/ew/
แ–ว
/ɛːw/
–
–
เ–ือ
/ɯa/
เ–ือะ
/ɯaʔ/
เ–ย
/ɤːj/
–
–
–อย
/ɔːj/
–
–
โ–ย
/oːj/
–
–
Additionally, there are three triphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:
Thai script
IPA
เ–ียว*
/iaw/
–วย*
/uaj/
เ–ือย*
/ɯaj/
Tones
The five phonemic tones of Standard Thai pronounced with the syllable '/naː/':
There are five phonemic tones: mid, low, falling, high, and rising, sometimes referred to in older reference works as rectus, gravis, circumflexus, altus, and demissus, respectively.[18] The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA. Moren & Zsiga (2006)[19] and Zsiga & Nitisaroj (2007)[20] provide phonetic and phonological analyses of Thai tone realization.
Thai language tone chart
Notes:
Five-level tone value: Mid [33], Low [21], Falling [41], High [45], Rising [214]. Traditionally, the high tone was recorded as either [44] or [45]. This remains true for the older generation, but the high tone is changing to [334] among youngsters.[21][22]
For the diachronic changes of tone value, see Pittayaporn (2007).[23]
The full complement of tones exists only in so-called "live syllables", those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant (/m/,/n/,/ŋ/,/j/,/w/).
For "dead syllables", those that end in a plosive (/p/,/t/,/k/) or in a short vowel, only three tonal distinctions are possible: low, high, and falling. Because syllables analyzed as ending in a short vowel may have a final glottal stop (especially in slower speech), all "dead syllables" are phonetically checked, and have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables.
In some English loanwords, closed syllables with a long vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a high tone, and closed syllables with a short vowel ending in an obstruent sound have a falling tone.
Tone
Thai
Example
Phonemic
Phonetic
Gloss
High
ตรี
มาร์ก
/máːk/
[mäːk̚˦˥]
'Marc, Mark'
High
ตรี
ชาร์จ
/tɕʰáːt/
[tɕʰäːt̚˦˥]
'charge'
Falling
โท
เมกอัป
/méːk.ʔâp/
[me̞ːk̚˦˥.ʔäp̚˦˩]
'make-up'
Falling
โท
แร็กเกต
/rɛ́k.kêt/
[rɛk̚˦˥.ke̞t̚˦˩]
'racket'
Grammar
From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. The word order is subject–verb–object,[24] although the subject is often omitted. Additionally, Thai is an isolating language lacking any form of inflectional morphology whatsoever.[25] Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.
Adjectives and adverbs
There is no morphological distinction between adverbs and adjectives. Many words can be used in either function. They follow the word they modify, which may be a noun, verb, or another adjective or adverb.
คน
khon
/kʰōn
อ้วน
uan
ʔûan/
คน อ้วน
khon uan
/kʰōnʔûan/
'a fat person'
คน
khon
/kʰōn
ที่
thi
tʰîː
อ้วน
uan
ʔûan
เร็ว
reo
rēw/
คน ที่ อ้วน เร็ว
khon thi uan reo
/kʰōntʰîːʔûanrēw/
'a person who became fat quickly'
Comparatives take the form "A X กว่า B" (kwa, /kwàː/), 'A is more X than B'. The superlative is expressed as "A X ที่สุด" (thi sut, /tʰîːsùt/), 'A is most X'.
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
อ้วน
uan
ʔûan
กว่า
kwa
kwàː
ฉัน
chan
tɕʰǎn/
เขา อ้วน กว่า ฉัน
khao uan kwa chan
/kʰǎwʔûankwàːtɕʰǎn/
'S/he is fatter than me.'
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
อ้วน
uan
ʔûan
ที่สุด
thi sut
tʰîːsùt/
เขา อ้วน ที่สุด
khao uan {thi sut}
/kʰǎwʔûantʰîːsùt/
'S/he is the fattest (of all).'
Adjectives in Thai can be used as complete predicates. Because of this, many words used to indicate tense in verbs (see Verbs:Tense below) may be used to describe adjectives.
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
หิว
hio
hǐw/
ฉัน หิว
chan hio
/tɕʰǎnhǐw/
'I am hungry.'
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
จะ
cha
tɕàʔ
หิว
hio
hǐw/
ฉัน จะ หิว
chan cha hio
/tɕʰǎntɕàʔhǐw/
'I will be hungry.'
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
กำลัง
kamlang
kām.lāŋ
หิว
hio
hǐw/
ฉัน กำลัง หิว
chan kamlang hio
/tɕʰǎnkām.lāŋhǐw/
'I am hungry right now.'
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
หิว
hio
hǐw
แล้ว
laeo
lɛ́ːw/
ฉัน หิว แล้ว
chan hio laeo
/tɕʰǎnhǐwlɛ́ːw/
'I am already hungry.'
Remarkฉันหิวแล้ว mostly means 'I am hungry right now' because normally, แล้ว (/lɛ́ːw/) marks the change of a state, but แล้ว has many other uses as well. For example, in the sentence, แล้วเธอจะไปไหน (/lɛ́ːwtʰɤ̄ːtɕàʔpājnǎj/): 'So where are you going?', แล้ว (/lɛ́ːw/) is used as a discourse particle.
Verbs
Verbs do not inflect. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number; nor are there any participles. The language being analytic and case-less, the relationship between subject, direct and indirect object is conveyed through word order and auxiliary verbs. Transitive verbs follow the pattern subject-verb-object.
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
1SG
ตี
ti
tīː
hit
เขา
khao
kʰǎw/
3SG
ฉัน ตี เขา
chan ti khao
/tɕʰǎntīːkʰǎw/
1SG hit 3SG
'I hit him.'
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ตี
ti
tīː
hit
ฉัน
chan
tɕʰǎn/
1SG
เขา ตี ฉัน
khao ti chan
/kʰǎwtīːtɕʰǎn/
3SG hit 1SG
'S/He hit me.'
In order to convey tense, aspect and mood (TAM), the Thai verbal system employs auxiliaries and verb serialization.[26][25] TAM markers are however not obligatory and often left out in colloquial use. In such cases, the precise meaning is determined through context.[26] This results in sentences lacking both TAM markers and overt context being ambiguous and subject to various interpretations.
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
กิน
kin
kīn
ที่
thi
tʰîː
นั่น
nan
nân/
ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น
chan kin thi nan
/tɕʰǎnkīntʰîːnân/
'I eat there.'
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
กิน
kin
kīn
ที่
thi
tʰîː
นั่น
nan
nân
เมื่อวาน
mueawan
mɯ̂a.wāːn/
ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น เมื่อวาน
chan kin thi nan mueawan
/tɕʰǎnkīntʰîːnânmɯ̂a.wāːn/
'I ate there yesterday.'
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
จะ
cha
tɕàʔ
กิน
kin
kīn
ที่
thi
thîː
นั่น
nan
nân
พรุ่งนี้
phrungni
pʰrûŋ.níː/
ฉัน จะ กิน ที่ นั่น พรุ่งนี้
chan cha kin thi nan phrungni
/tɕʰǎntɕàʔkīnthîːnânpʰrûŋ.níː/
'I'll eat there tomorrow.'
The sentence chan kin thi nan can thus be interpreted as 'I am eating there', 'I eat there habitually', 'I will eat there' or 'I ate there'. Aspect markers in Thai have been divided into four distinct groups based on their usage.[26] These markers could appear either before or after the verb. The following list describes some of the most commonly used aspect markers. A number of these aspect markers are also full verbs on their own and carry a distinct meaning. For example yu (อยู่) as a full verb means 'to stay, to live or to remain at'. However, as an auxiliary it can be described as a temporary aspect or continuative marker.[26]
The imperfective aspect marker กำลัง (kamlang, /kāmlāŋ/, currently) is used before the verb to denote an ongoing action (similar to the -ing suffix in English). Kamlang is commonly interpreted as a progressive aspect marker.[27][28] Similarly, อยู่ (yu, /jùː/) is a post-verbal aspect marker which corresponds to the continuative or temporary aspect.[26]
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
กำลัง
kamlang
kām.lāŋ
วิ่ง
wing
wîŋ/
เขา กำลัง วิ่ง
khao kamlang wing
/kʰǎwkām.lāŋwîŋ/
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
วิ่ง
wing
wîŋ
อยู่
yu
jùː/
เขา วิ่ง อยู่
khao wing yu
/kʰǎwwîŋjùː/
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
กำลัง
kamlang
kām.lāŋ
วิ่ง
wing
wîŋ
อยู่
yu
jùː/
เขา กำลัง วิ่ง อยู่
khao kamlang wing yu
/kʰǎwkām.lāŋwîŋjùː/
'He is running.'
Comparably ยัง (yang, /jāŋ/, still) which is used in an incompleted action, and usually cognates in phrase with yu (อยู่) or any other aspect markers in common use.
ex:
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
ยัง
yang
jāŋ
เขียน
khian
kʰiǎn
อยู่
yu
jùː/
เขา ยัง เขียน อยู่
khao yang khian yu
/kʰǎwjāŋkʰiǎnjùː/
He is still writing.
ex:
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ยัง
yang
jāŋ
IMP
เขียน
khian
kʰiǎn
write
ไม่เป็น
mai pen
mâjpēn/
unable to
เขา ยัง เขียน ไม่เป็น
khao yang khian {mai pen}
/kʰǎwjāŋkʰiǎnmâjpēn/
3SG IMP write {unable to}
He can't even write yet.
The marker ได้ (dai, /dâːj/) is usually analyzed as a past tense marker when it occurs before the verb.[25] As a full verb, dai means 'to get or receive'. However, when used after a verb, dai takes on a meaning of potentiality or successful outcome of the main verb.[26]
ex:
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
ได้
dai
dâːj
ไป
pai
pāj
เที่ยว
thiao
tʰîaw
เมือง
mueang
mɯ̄aŋ
ลาว
lao
lāːw/
เขา ได้ ไป เที่ยว เมือง ลาว
khao dai pai thiao mueang lao
/kʰǎwdâːjpājtʰîawmɯ̄aŋlāːw/
He visited Laos. (Past/Perfective)
ex:
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ตี
ti
tīː
hit
ได้
dai
dâːj/
POT
เขา ตี ได้
khao ti dai
/kʰǎwtīːdâːj/
3SG hit POT
'He is/was allowed to hit' or 'He is/was able to hit.' (Potentiality)
แล้ว (laeo, /lɛ́ːw/; 'already') is treated as a marker indicating the perfect aspect.[27] That is to say, laeo marks the event as being completed at the time of reference. Laeo has two other meanings in addition to its use as a TAM marker. Laeo can either be a conjunction for sequential actions or an archaic word for 'to finish'.
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ได้
dai
dâːj
PST
กิน
kin
kīn/
eat
เขา ได้ กิน
khao dai kin
/kʰǎwdâːjkīn/
3SG PST eat
He ate.
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
กิน
kin
kīn
eat
แล้ว
laeo
lɛ́ːw/
PRF
เขา กิน แล้ว
khao kin laeo
/kʰǎwkīnlɛ́ːw/
3SG eat PRF
He has eaten.
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ได้
dai
dâːj
PST
กิน
kin
kīn
eat
แล้ว
laeo
lɛ́ːw/
PRF
เขา ได้ กิน แล้ว
khao dai kin laeo
/kʰǎwdâːjkīnlɛ́ːw/
3SG PST eat PRF
He's already eaten.
Future can be indicated by จะ (cha, /tɕàʔ/; 'will') before the verb or by a time expression indicating the future. For example:
ex:
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
จะ
cha
tɕàʔ
FUT
วิ่ง
wing
wîŋ/
run
เขา จะ วิ่ง
khao cha wing
/kʰǎwtɕàʔwîŋ/
3SG FUT run
'He will run' or 'He is going to run.'
Dative markerให้ (hai, /hâj/; 'give') often used in a sentence as prepositional or double objects.[29]
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
อ่าน
an
ʔàːn
read
หนังสือ
nang sue
nǎŋsɯ̌ː
book
ให้
hai
hâj/
DAT
เขา อ่าน หนังสือ ให้
khao an {nang sue} hai
/kʰǎwʔàːnnǎŋsɯ̌ːhâj/
3SG read book DAT
'He reads book for (us).'
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ให้
hai
hâj
DAT
อ่าน
an
ʔàːn
read
หนังสือ
nang sue
nǎŋsɯ̌ː/
book
เขา ให้ อ่าน หนังสือ
khao hai an {nang sue}
/kʰǎwhâjʔàːnnǎŋsɯ̌ː/
3SG DAT read book
'He obligates (us) to read book.'
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ให้
hai
hâj
DAT
หนังสือ
nang sue
nǎŋsɯ̌ː
book
นักเรียน
nak rian
nákrian/
student
เขา ให้ หนังสือ นักเรียน
khao hai {nang sue} {nak rian}
/kʰǎwhâjnǎŋsɯ̌ːnákrian/
3SG DAT book student
'He gives book to student.'
The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of ถูก (thuk, /tʰùːk/) before the verb. For example:
ex:
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
3SG
ถูก
thuk
tʰùːk
PASS
ตี
ti
tīː/
hit
เขา ถูก ตี
khao thuk ti
/kʰǎwtʰùːktīː/
3SG PASS hit
'He got hit.'
This describes an action that is out of the receiver's control and, thus, conveys suffering.
Negation is indicated by placing ไม่ (mai, /mâj/; not) before the verb.
เขาไม่ตี, (khao mai ti) 'He is not hitting' or 'He doesn't hit'.
Thai exhibits serial verb constructions, where verbs are strung together. Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases.
ex:
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
he
ไป
pai
pāj
go
กิน
kin
kīn
eat
ข้าว
khao
kʰâːw/
rice
เขา ไป กิน ข้าว
khao pai kin khao
/kʰǎwpājkīnkʰâːw/
he go eat rice
'He went out to eat'
ex:
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
I
ฟัง
fang
fāŋ
listen
ไม่
mai
mâj
not
เข้าใจ
khao chai
kʰâwtɕāj/
understand
ฉัน ฟัง ไม่ เข้าใจ
chan fang mai {khao chai}
/tɕʰǎnfāŋmâjkʰâwtɕāj/
I listen not understand
'I don't understand what was said'
ex:
เข้า
khao
/kʰâw
enter
มา
ma
māː/
come
เข้า มา
khao ma
/kʰâwmāː/
enter come
'Come in'
ex:
ออก
ok
/ʔɔ̀ːk
exit
ไป!
pai
pāj/
go
ออก ไป!
ok pai
/ʔɔ̀ːkpāj/
exit go
'Leave!' or 'Get out!'
Nouns
Nouns are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles. Thai nouns are bare nouns and can be interpreted as singular, plural, definite or indefinite.[30] Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: เด็ก (dek, 'child') is often repeated as เด็ก ๆ (dek dek) to refer to a group of children. The word พวก (phuak, /pʰûak/) may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word. (พวกผม, phuak phom, /pʰûakpʰǒm/, 'we', masculine; พวกเราphuak rao, /pʰûakrāw/, emphasised 'we'; พวกหมาphuak ma, '(the) dogs'). Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers, used as measure words (ลักษณนาม), in the form of noun-number-classifier:
ครู
khru
/kʰrūː
teacher
ห้า
ha
hâː
five
คน
khon
kʰōn/
person
ครู ห้า คน
khru ha khon
/kʰrūːhâːkʰōn/
teacher five person
"five teachers"
While in English, such classifiers are usually absent ("four chairs") or optional ("two bottles of beer" or "two beers"), a classifier is almost always used in Thai (hence "chair four item" and "beer two bottle").
Possession in Thai is indicated by adding the word ของ (khong) in front of the noun or pronoun, but it may often be omitted. For example:
Nominal phrases in Thai often use a special class of words classifiers. As previously mentioned, these classifiers are obligatory for noun phrases containing numerals e.g.
In the previous example khon (คน) acts as the classifier in the nominal phrase. This follows the form of noun-cardinal-classifier mentioned above. Classifiers are also required to form quantified noun phrases in Thai with some quantifiers such as ทุก ('all'), บาง ('some'). The examples below are demonstrated using the classifier khon, which is used for people.
นักเรียน
nak rian
/nákrīan
student
ทุก
thuk
tʰúk
every
คน
khon
kʰōn/
CL
{นักเรียน} ทุก คน
{nak rian} thuk khon
/nákrīantʰúkkʰōn/
student every CL
"every student"
ครู
khru
/kʰrūː
teacher
บาง
bang
bāːŋ
some
คน
khon
kʰōn/
CL
ครู บาง คน
khru bang khon
/kʰrūːbāːŋkʰōn/
teacher some CL
"some teacher"
However, classifiers are not utilized for negative quantification. Negative quantification is expressed by the pattern ไม่มี (mai mi, /mâjmīː/) + NOUN. Classifiers are also used for demonstratives such as นี้ (ni, /níː/; 'this/these') and นั่น (nan, /nán/; 'that/those'). The syntax for demonstrative phrases, however, differ from that of cardinals and follow the pattern noun-classifier-demonstrative. For example, the noun phrase "this dog" would be expressed in Thai as หมาตัวนี้ (literally 'dog (classifier) this').[32]
you (from high-status to low-status or familiar; informal)
เธอ
thoe
/tʰɤ̄ː/
you (informal), she/her (informal)
พี่
phi
/pʰîː/
older brother, sister (also used for older acquaintances; common)
น้อง
nong
/nɔ́ːŋ/
younger brother, sister (also used for younger acquaintances; common)
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw/
he/him (common), she/her (common) Commonly pronounced as [kʰáw]
มัน
man
/mān/
it, he/she (offensive if used to refer to a person)
มึง
mueng
/mɯ̄ŋ/
you (impolite/vulgar)
The reflexive pronoun is ตัวเอง (tua eng), which can mean any of: myself, yourself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves. This can be mixed with another pronoun to create an intensive pronoun, such as ตัวผมเอง (tua phom eng, lit: I myself) or ตัวคุณเอง (tua khun eng, lit: you yourself). Thai also does not have a separate possessive pronoun. Instead, possession is indicated by the particle ของ (khong). For example, "my mother" is แม่ของผม (mae khong phom, lit: mother of I). This particle is often implicit, so the phrase is shortened to แม่ผม (mae phom). Plural pronouns can be easily constructed by adding the word พวก (phuak) in front of a singular pronoun as in พวกเขา (phuak khao) meaning 'they' or พวกเธอ (phuak thoe) meaning the plural sense of 'you'. The only exception to this is เรา (rao), which can be used as singular (informal) or plural, but can also be used in the form of พวกเรา (phuak rao), which is only plural.
Thai has many more pronouns than those listed above. Their usage is full of nuances. For example:
"ผม เรา ฉัน ดิฉัน หนู กู ข้า กระผม ข้าพเจ้า กระหม่อม อาตมา กัน ข้าน้อย ข้าพระพุทธเจ้า อั๊ว เขา" all translate to "I", but each expresses a different gender, age, politeness, status, or relationship between speaker and listener.
เรา (rao) can be first person (I), second person (you), or both (we), depending on the context.
Children or younger female could use or being referred by word หนู (nu) when talking with older person. The word หนู could be both feminine first person (I) and feminine second person (you) and also neuter first and neuter second person for children.
หนู commonly means rat or mouse, though it also refers to small creatures in general.
The second person pronoun เธอ (thoe) (lit: you) is semi-feminine. It is used only when the speaker or the listener (or both) are female. Males usually do not address each other by this pronoun.
Both คุณ (khun) and เธอ (thoe) are polite neuter second person pronouns. However, คุณเธอ (khun thoe) is a feminine derogative third person.
Instead of a second person pronoun such as คุณ ('you'), it is much more common for unrelated strangers to call each other พี่ น้อง ลุง ป้า น้า อา ตา or ยาย (brother, sister, aunt, uncle, granny).
To express deference, the second person pronoun is sometimes replaced by a profession, similar to how, in English, presiding judges are always addressed as "your honor" rather than "you". In Thai, students always address their teachers by ครู, คุณครู or อาจารย์ (each meaning 'teacher') rather than คุณ ('you'). Teachers, monks, and doctors are almost always addressed this way.
Particles
The particles are often untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect, a request, encouragement or other moods (similar to the use of intonation in English), as well as varying the level of formality. They are not used in elegant (written) Thai. The most common particles indicating respect are ครับ (khrap, /kʰráp/, with a high tone) when the speaker is a man, and ค่ะ (kha, /kʰâʔ/, with a falling tone) when the speaker is a woman. Used in a question or a request, the particle ค่ะ (falling tone) is changed to a คะ (high tone).
indicating emphasis. Used in a less formal context when speaking to friends or someone younger than yourself[35]
ละ or ล่ะ
la
/láʔ/ or /lâʔ/
indicating emphasis.
สิ or ซิ
si
/sìʔ/ or /síʔ/
indicating emphasis or an imperative. It can come across as ordering someone to do something[35]
นะ or น่ะ
na
/náʔ/ or /nâʔ/
softening; indicating a request or making your sentence sound more friendly.
Register
Central Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts:
Street or Common Thai (ภาษาพูด, phasa phut, spoken Thai): informal, without polite terms of address, as used between close relatives and friends.
Elegant or Formal Thai (ภาษาเขียน, phasa khian, written Thai): official and written version, includes respectful terms of address; used in simplified form in newspapers.
Rhetorical Thai: used for public speaking.
Religious Thai: (heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Pāli) used when discussing Buddhism or addressing monks.
Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts. Street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations.[36][citation needed] Rhetorical, religious, and royal Thai are taught in schools as part of the national curriculum.
As noted above, Thai has several registers, each having certain usages, such as colloquial, formal, literary, and poetic. Thus, the word 'eat' can be กิน (kin; common), แดก (daek; vulgar), ยัด (yat; vulgar), บริโภค (boriphok; formal), รับประทาน (rapprathan; formal), ฉัน (chan; religious), or เสวย (sawoei; royal), as illustrated below:
Chinese-language influence was strong until the 13th century when the use of Chinese characters was abandoned, and replaced by Sanskrit and Pali scripts. However, the vocabulary of Thai retains many words borrowed from Middle Chinese.[37][38][39]
Khmer was used as a prestige language in the early days of the Thai kingdoms which are believed to have been bilingual societies proficient in Thai and Khmer. There are over 2,500 Thai words derived from Khmer, surpassing the number of Tai cognates. These Khmer words span across all semantic fields. Thai scholar Uraisi Varasarin classified them into over 200 sub-categories. As a result, it is impossible for Thais, past and present, to engage in a conversation without incorporating Khmer loanwords in any given topic. The influence is particularly preponderant in regard to royal court terminology.[13]
Later, most vocabulary was borrowed from Sanskrit and Pāli; Buddhist terminology is particularly indebted to these. Indic words have a more formal register, and may be compared to Latin and French borrowings in English. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the English language has had the greatest influence, especially for scientific, technical, international, and other modern terms.
The Portuguese were the first Western nation to arrive in what is modern-day Thailand in the 16th century during the Ayutthaya period. Their influence in trade, especially weaponry, allowed them to establish a community just outside the capital and practise their faith, as well as exposing and converting the locals to Christianity. Thus, Portuguese words involving trade and religion were introduced and used by the locals.
Thai is written in the Thai script, an abugida written from left to right. The language and its script are closely related to the Lao language and script. Most literate Lao are able to read and understand Thai, as more than half of the Thai vocabulary, grammar, intonation, vowels and so forth are common with the Lao language.
The Thais adopted and modified the Khmer script to create their own writing system. While in Thai the pronunciation can largely be inferred from the script, the orthography is complex, with silent letters to preserve original spellings and many letters representing the same sound. While the oldest known inscription in the Khmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. Notable features include:
It is an abugida script, in which the implicit vowel is a short /a/ in a syllable without final consonant and a short /o/ in a syllable with final consonant.
Tone markers, if present, are placed above the final onset consonant of the syllable.
Vowels sounding after an initial consonant can be located before, after, above or below the consonant, or in a combination of these positions.
There is no universally applied method for transcribing Thai into the Latin alphabet. For example, the name of the main airport is transcribed variably as Suvarnabhumi, Suwannaphum, or Suwunnapoom. Guide books, textbooks and dictionaries may each follow different systems. For this reason, many language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script.[41][42][43][44]
Official standards are the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), published by the Royal Institute of Thailand,[45] and the almost identical ISO 11940-2 defined by the International Organization for Standardization. The RTGS system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments, especially for road signs.[46] Its main drawbacks are that it does not indicate tone or vowel length. As the system is based on pronunciation, not orthography, reconstruction of Thai spelling from RTGS romanisation is not possible.
The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2005 (ISO 11940).[47] By adding diacritics to the Latin letters it makes the transcription reversible, making it a true transliteration. Notably, this system is used by Google Translate, although it does not seem to appear in many other contexts, such as textbooks and other instructional media.
^Although "Thai" and "Central Thai" have become more common, the older term, "Siamese", is still used by linguists, especially when it is being distinguished from other Tai languages (Diller 2008:6[full citation needed]). "Proto-Thai" is, for example, the ancestor of all of Southwestern Tai, not just Siamese (Rischel 1998[full citation needed]).
^Xiānluó was the Chinese name for Ayutthaya, a kingdom created by the merger of Lavo and Sukhothai or Suvarnabhumi.
^The glottalized stops /ʔbʔd/ were unaffected, as they were treated in every respect like voiceless unaspirated stops due to the initial glottal stop. These stops are often described in the modern language as phonemically plain stops /bd/, but the glottalization is still commonly heard.
^Modern Lao, Isan and northern Thai dialects are often described as having six tones, but these are not necessarily due to preservation of the original six tones resulting from the tone split. For example, in standard Lao, both the high and low variants of Old Thai tone 2 merged; however, the mid-class variant of tone 1 became pronounced differently from either the high-class or low-class variants, and all three eventually became phonemic due to further changes, e.g. /kr/ > /kʰ/. For similar reasons, Lao has developed more than two tonal distinctions in "dead" syllables.
^Initial อ is silent and therefore considered as a glottal stop.
^ฃ and ฅ are no longer used. Thus, modern Thai is said to have 42 consonant letters.
^The glottal plosive appears at the end when no final follows a short vowel
^Diller, A.; Reynolds, Craig J. (2002). "What makes central Thai a national language?". In Reynolds (ed.). National identity and its defenders : Thailand today. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. ISBN974-7551-88-8. OCLC54373362.
^Draper, John (2019), "Language education policy in Thailand", The Routledge International Handbook of Language Education Policy in Asia, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 229–242, doi:10.4324/9781315666235-16, ISBN978-1-315-66623-5, S2CID159127015
^Baker, Christopher (2014). A history of Thailand. Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN978-1-316-00733-4.
^Enfield, N.J. "How to define 'Lao', 'Thai', and 'Isan' language? A view from linguistic science". Tai Culture. 3 (1): 62–67.
^Peansiri Vongvipanond (Summer 1994). "Linguistic Perspectives of Thai Culture". paper presented to a workshop of teachers of social science. University of New Orleans. p. 2. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved 26 April 2011. The dialect one hears on radio and television is the Bangkok dialect, considered the standard dialect.
^Kemasingki, Pim; Prateepkoh, Pariyakorn (1 August 2017). "Kham Mueang: the slow death of a language". Chiang Mai City Life: 8. there are still many people speaking kham mueang, but as an accent, not as a language. Because we now share the written language with Bangkok, we are beginning to use its vocabulary as well
^Andrew Simpson (2007). Language and national identity in Asia. Oxford University Press. Standard Thai is a form of Central Thai based on the variety of Thai spoken earlier by the elite of the court, and now by the educated middle and upper classes of Bangkok. It ... was standardized in grammar books in the nineteenth century, and spread dramatically from the 1930s onwards, when public education became much more widespread
^Thepboriruk, Kanjana (2010). "Bangkok Thai tones revisited". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistic Society. 3 (1). University of Hawaii Press: 86–105. Linguists generally consider Bangkok Thai and Standard Thai, the Kingdom's national language, to be one and the same.
^Antonio L. Rappa; Lionel Wee (2006), Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, Springer, pp. 114–115
^Lieberman, Victor (2003). Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800–1830. Studies in Comparative World History (Kindle ed.). ISBN978-0-521-80086-0.
^Wyatt, David K. (2003). Thailand: A Short History. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN0-300-08475-7.
^ abcdefJenny, Mathias; Ebert, Karen H.; Zúñiga, Fernando (2001), "The aspect system of Thai", Aktionsart and Aspectotemporality in non-European languages, Zürich: Seminar für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Universität Zürich, pp. 97–140, ISBN978-3-9521010-8-7, retrieved 2 May 2021
^Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (2009). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. p. 611. Thai is of special interest to lexical borrowing for various reasons. The copious borrowing of basic vocabulary from Middle Chinese and later from Khmer indicates that, given the right sociolinguistic context, such vocabulary is not at all immune
^Haarmann, Harald (1986). Language in Ethnicity: A View of Basic Ecological Relations. p. 165. In Thailand, for instance, where the Chinese influence was strong until the Middle Ages, Chinese characters were abandoned in written Thai in the course of the thirteenth century.
^Leppert, Paul A. (1992). Doing Business With Thailand. p. 13. At an early time the Thais used Chinese characters. But, under the influence of Indian traders and monks, they soon dropped Chinese characters in favor of Sanskrit and Pali scripts.
^Juyaso, Arthit (2015). Read Thai in 10 Days. Bingo-Lingo. p. xii. There have been attempts by Thai language schools to create a perfect phonetic system for learners, but none have been successful so far. ... Only Thai script is prevalent and consistent in Thailand.
^Cooper, Robert (2019). "Learning Thai: Writing Thai in English". CultureShock! Thailand: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN978-981-4841-39-9. take a bit of time to learn the letters. The time you spend is saved many times over when you begin to really learn Thai.
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Gandour, Jack, Tumtavitikul, Apiluck and Satthamnuwong, Nakarin. 1999. Effects of Speaking Rate on the Thai Tones. Phonetica 56, pp. 123–134.
Li, Fang-Kuei. A handbook of comparative Tai. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1977. Print.
Rischel, Jørgen. 1998. 'Structural and Functional Aspects of Tone Split in Thai'. In Sound structure in language, 2009.
Tumtavitikul, Apiluck, 1998. The Metrical Structure of Thai in a Non-Linear Perspective. Papers presented to the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1994, pp. 53–71. Udom Warotamasikkhadit and Thanyarat Panakul, eds. Temple, Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University.
Apiluck Tumtavitikul. 1997. The Reflection on the X′ category in Thai. Mon-Khmer Studies XXVII, pp. 307–316.
Tumtavitikul, Appi. 1995. Tonal Movements in Thai. The Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Vol. I, pp. 188–121. Stockholm: Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University.
Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1994. Thai Contour Tones. Current Issues in Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, pp. 869–875. Hajime Kitamura et al., eds, Ozaka: The Organization Committee of the 26th Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, National Museum of Ethnology.
Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1993. FO – Induced VOT Variants in Thai. Journal of Languages and Linguistics, 12.1.34 – 56.
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Thai dictionaries for Stardict/GoldenDict – Thai – English (also French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and others) dictionaries in Stardict and GoldenDict formats
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