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Thai language

Thai (th. ภาษาไทย (paasaa thai), lit. the
language of Thai) is the official language of Thailand, and of
no other country. It is part of the Tai/Daic
language family, whose origin is uncertain but which is sometimes
linked to the Austroasiatic,
the Austronesian
or Sino-Tibetan
language families. Thai is a tonal
language, with both lexical and grammatical uses of tones.

Table of contents

1
Dialects
2
Thai alphabet
3
Grammar

3.1
Tones
3.2
Word-Order
3.3
Adjectives
3.4
Verbs
3.5
Nouns
3.6
Pronouns

3.6.1
For conversational use
3.6.2
For sacred and royal use

3.7
Adjectives
3.8
Adverbs
3.9
Polite Particles
3.10
Classes of Thai

4
Six-hour clock
5
Reference

5.11
Learn Thai

Dialects
The status of many of these dialects is debated.

Standard or Central Thai, spoken by about 25 million (1990), is the
official dialect of Thailand.

Bangkok Thai can be included in Standard Thai or considered as a
separate dialect.

Korat. Spoken by about 400,000 (1984) in Ratchasima.

Isaan (north-eastern). The dialect of the Isaan region of Thailand
is sometimes considered a dialect of the Laotian language,
which it closely resembles. Spoken by about 15 million (1983).

Thai Yuan or
Lanna (northern), spoken by about 6 million (1983).

Southern, Pak Thai, or Dambro: spoken about 5 million (1990).

Malay or Pattani. Spoken by 3 million (1998) in southern Thailand.

Tai Dam. Spoken by about 500,000 (1990) in Vietnam.

Tai Daeng. Spoken by about 125,000 (1990) in Vietnam and elsewhere.

Phuan or Phu Thai. Spoken by about 400,000 (1993), mostly outside
Thailand.

Lue(Dai). Spoken
by about 78,000 (1993) in Thailand, and 250,000 to 1 million in China.

Song. Spoken by about 20,000 to 30,000 (1982).

Shan. Spoken by about 3 million (1993) in Myanmar.

Statistics from Ethnologue 2003-10-4.

Thai alphabet
The Thai
alphabet (q.v. for full details) originates from the Devanagari
script via Pali, and is quite
complex from the perspective of Unicode and
computer text rendering, because:

It is an abugida script,
in which the default vowel is a long O.

Vowels associated with consonants are nonsequential: they can
precede, follow, or surround their associated consonant(s).

Tone markers can occur at several places relative to the vowel grapheme.

There is no universal standard for transliterating Thai
into English. For example, the name of King Rama IX, the present monarch,
is transliterated variously as Bhumibol, Phumiphon, or many other
versions. Each guide book, text book and dictionary invents its own
system. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners
master the Thai alphabet before attempting the language.

The Thai Royal Institute [1] publishes a set of rules for
transliterating English words into the Thai alphabet, but these rules are
not intended to be used in reverse.

Grammar
From the perspective of linguistic
typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic
language. Like many Asian languages, the Thai pronomial and
inflectional system includes markers for the sex and relative status of
both speaker and audience. This combination of tonality, complex orthography,
relational markers, in addition to a complex phonology, can make Thai a
difficult language for many Europeans to learn.

Tones
There are five tones: middle, low, high, rising and falling.
The last four are hinted at in written Thai by tone marks, although these
are not sufficient to define the correct tone unambiguously, and may be
absent if the tone is implicit.

Word-Order
The word-order is Subject-Verb-Object.

Adjectives
Adjectives follow the noun. The are no
definite or indefinite articles.

Verbs
Verbs do not change with person (I, you, they etc.) or with
tense.

Nouns
Nouns are uninflected, and there are no plural forms.
Plurals are expressed by adding "nouns of multitude".

Pronouns

For conversational use

ผม ("pom", rising tone) = I/me (masculine)

ดิฉัน ("di-chan", middle-rising) = I/me (feminine)

ฉัน ("chan", rising) = I/me (masculine or feminine; informal)

คุณ ("khun") = you (polite)

เธอ ("ter") = you (informal)

เรา ("rao") = we

เขา ("kao", rising tone) = he/she

มัน ("man") = it

พวกเขา ("puak-kao", falling-rising) = they

พี่ ("pee", falling tone) = older brother or sister (often used
loosely for older non-relatives)

น้อง ("norng", high tone) = younger brother or sister (often used
loosely for younger non-relatives)

For sacred and royal use
To be continued.

Adjectives
Adjectives do not change with number (singular or
plural).

Adverbs
Many adverbs are expressed by repeating the adjective.
Adverbs usually follow the verb.

Polite Particles
The so-called polite particles are
untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect
for the listener. They are not used in written Thai. A man finishes a
sentence with ครับ (pronounced "krup", with a high tone) and a woman with
ค่ะ (pronounced "ka" with a falling tone).

Classes of Thai
The Thai langauge can be spoken in different forms
depending on the social context. These can be listed as:

Street Thai: informal, without polite terms of address, as used
between close relatives and friends.

Elegant Thai: official and written version, includes respectful
terms of address; used in simplified form in newspapers.

Rhetorical Thai: used for public speaking.

Sacred Thai.

Royal Thai.

Less educated Thais can speak only at the first level.
Few Thais can speak the Sacred or Royal versions.

Six-hour clock
Thais use two systems for telling the time: the
24-hour clock and the traditional Thai six-hour clock. The latter system
has been used in some form since the days of the Ayutthaya
kingdom, but was codified in its present form in 1901 by King Chulalongkorn
(in Royal Gazette 17:206) and is widely used in colloquial speech. It
works by dividing the day into four equal parts, then counting the hours
within each part. The hours are named as follows:

12-hour

Pronunciation

Thai

Notes

1 am

ti 1

ตีหนึ่ง

ti = strike

2 am

ti 2

ตีสอง

3 am

ti 3

ตีสาม

4 am

ti 4

ตีสี่

5 am

ti 5

ตีห้า

6 am

6 meung chao

หกโมงเช้า

chao = morning

7 am

7 meung chao

เจ็ดโมงเช้า

meung = chime

8 am

8 meung chao

แปดโมงเช้า

9 am

9 meung chao

เก้าโมงเช้า

10 am

10 meung

สิบโมง

11 am

11 meung

สิบเอ็ดโมง

12 noon

thiang wan

เที่ยงวัน

1 pm

bai meung

บ่ายโมง

bai = slant, i.e. setting sun

2 pm

bai 2 meung

บ่ายสองโมง

3 pm

bai 3 meung

บ่ายสามโมง

4 pm

4 meung yen

สี่โมงเย็น

yen = cool, i.e. late afternoon

5 pm

5 meung yen

ห้าโมงเย็น

6 pm

6 meung yen

หกโมงเย็น

7 pm

1 thum

หนึ่งทุ่ม

thum = drumbeat

8 pm

2 thum

สองทุ่ม

9 pm

3 thum

สามทุ่ม

10 pm

4 thum

สี่ทุ่ม

11 pm

5 thum

ห้าทุ่ม

12 midnight

tieng keun

เที่ยงคืน

Note: These pronunciations are
approximate, and would probably not be understood by native Thais.

Reference

Segaller, Denis: Thai Without Tears, BMD Book Mags, ISBN
9748711528

Learn Thai

Check out http://www.kisa.ca/thai

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