Weird squiggles and pigtails: the origins of Thai script
Thai school poster from the thirties
I must confess something: I speak a fair bit of Thai and, as a resident of Isaan, I now also - necessarily - have notions of Lao and Khmer. However, I never had the energy to learn to read and write Thai. Maybe I'm too lazy and who knows - if I have a lot of free time - maybe it will one day, but so far this job has always been put off for me... It also seems so damn difficult with all those weird twists and turns and pigtails… Say it yourself: 44 characters for consonants or phayanchana, 15 vowels or Sara which can be used in at least 28 vowel combinations and 4 diacritical characters wannayuk of wannayut which usually accentuate syllables.
The Thai script, that que typeface in the eyes of one farang clearly differs from many written languages in countries from the wider region, has intrigued me for some time. And that is why today I would like to take a moment to reflect on the written and not the spoken Thai word. According to most philologists, modern Thai as a spoken language originates from the area that now forms the border between the People's Republic of China and Vietnam. The roots of the written Thai, on the other hand, must be sought in the west, with the Phoenicians. The Phoenician alphabet is referred to in contemporary linguistics as the 'moeder' of virtually all Indo-European writing systems, including Greek, Hebrew and Arabic considered. The Phoenicians were highly skilled navigators and savvy traders whose influence stretched far beyond the Indus, even connecting with the ancient Asian caravan routes.
Ramkhamhaeng stone
The oldest surviving scriptures, say the 'primeval text' in what is now the Thai language, can be found on the stele of King Ramkhaemhaeng (verm.1239-1298), the third king of the Phra Ruang dynasty, who Sukhothai broke free from the grip of the Khmer. It is a blue stone pillar 114.5 cm high and 35.5 cm wide that sings the praises of this king and the kingdom of Sukhothai on each of its four sides. This pillar was discovered in 1833 during a pilgrimage of Prince Mongkut (later King Rama IV) at the site known as Noen Prasat, believed to be the site of the palace of Sukhothai. However, there is one small problem and that is the fact that many philologists and historians have the greatest questions about the authenticity of this stone and suggest that it is a good because credible forgery from the time of Mongkut ... A criticism that, if justified , threatens to turn Thai historiography upside down and was therefore not universally received with applause. Not even a hair or two from the historian-critics, Piriya Krairiksh and Michael Wright had been prosecuted for lèse-majeste… This historikerstreit has been going on since 1987 and so far neither the opponents nor the proponents have been able to provide sufficient and, above all, conclusive evidence that confirms their theory.
Anyway, back to the Thai script now. This is entirely based on the script developed in the Sukhothai period from Khmer, the language of the kingdom to which Sukhothai was indebted. The ancient Khmer script was around 6e century AD originated from the South Indian Pallawa, a script that was derived from the North Indian Gupta script, which in turn was a derivative of the Brahmi used in the empire of the powerful Buddhist king Ashoka the Great who ruled the Mauryan Empire from 268 to 232 BC. Contemporary philologists agree that Bramhi, as the basis of the Indo-Aryan written languages, arose from the Phoenician alphabet and was strongly influenced by the spoken language Sanskrit. Over the centuries, numerous written languages arose from this alphabetic system, including Devanagari, Ranjana, Tibetan, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujerati, Telugu, Tamil, Malaysian, Sinhala, Old Javanese, Balinese, Mon, Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Tham, Shan, Dai and Oud-Cham… With the exception of Old Javanese and Balinese, they all - amazingly enough - follow the old alphabetical Sanskrit order.
Gupta script,
Yet, as a written language, Thai differs somewhat for the simple fact that it was the first language in the world to provide separate, tonal characters for the pitch at which a word should be spoken. These tonal characters were completely absent in the Austroasiatic languages (Mon & Khmer) and Indo-Aryan languages from which the Thai written language originated.
The conversion or transcription of the written Thai language into, for example, English or Dutch remains a tricky issue. Despite laudable attempts to arrive at a uniform standard notation, for example by using the royal Thai General System of Transcription from the Royal Thai Institute or the nearly identical ISO 11940-2 of the International Organization for Standardization it is seemingly impossible to arrive at a unified and universally accepted method of transcription. The result is that everyone starts interpreting according to their own piety and ability, with the result that confusion reigns everywhere today and one can sometimes find the most diverse transcriptions of Thai…
“With the exception of Old Javanese and Balinese, they all - amazingly enough - follow the old Sanskrit alphabetical order.”
Perhaps amazing, but above all beautiful.
The beauty of this agreement lies in the fact that this Sanskrit order is based on rational phonetic principles, namely the place in the mouth-pharynx where the consonant is formed, not or aspirated and others.
Our Western Greek-Latin alphabet is a hodgepodge in comparison.
Indeed, the order of consonants in Thai is from guttural to lip, From -k- to -w– with a few exceptions, similar to the order in the Sanskrit alphabets. Never knew, learned something new.
Come, come, Lung Jan, Thai writing isn't that difficult. Moreover, the writing matches the pronunciation reasonably well, which makes a difference. I estimate that it will take you twice as long as learning the Latin script. OK, after that there are a number of exceptions and special combinations.
Reaching a reasonable level in a language related to Dutch takes 600 hours of study, for Thai it will be 900 hours, possibly less if you live in a Thai environment.
Writing Thai not so difficult? Would you please explain to me who thinks it is normal that all words are written together in a sentence! That the vowels move before the consonant! And living in a Thai environment doesn't change the learning process of learning to write. To learn to speak…
That's right, there are many Thai people who never write without mistakes and also often have problems writing something, so they have to spell it to write correctly…eg. my wife's name they always have problems with pronouncing or writing it correctly...
Strangely enough I can read it but pronouncing it is even more difficult hahaha
For many years I have been coming to Thailand for holidays, and in the beginning I tried to learn and understand the language. In a textbook the translation stood for: how much do you ask..(.I write it like this when you pronounce it)….'Koen tong kaan rope laai'. Me at a stall on the road Sukhumvit soi, where VHS films were sold back then, for little, said this! No, said the woman, those are my words that you speak now, you must say 'Rope blaai cap'. Then the word BEAUTIFUL, and I was completely broken. Sowee. 'You are beautiful ma'am'....(lol) because it's a sound language, and it sounded fine to me ha ha.. turned out it meant bad. My Thai girlfriend then said Na Lak that is the same ...... And then I gave up.
Dear Lung Jan, it is as you say: so damn hard! Even though I have now understood from Rob V., among others, that not all (con)vowels are still used, there are still too many for me to master and for all those squiggles and tails I have a certain form of dyslexia. Actually, your 'confession' was well received by me. I rate you very highly in terms of knowledge and if you find reading and writing the Thai language difficult then I certainly don't have to generate myself for that. In fact, a relief for me, thank you.
I agree with you, I am also dyslexic and I find Thai very difficult
I have been married to a Hindustani before (she was also lying)
and that's where I went wrong
I don't remember which word is wrong but one of the 2 is "never mind" the other word is "sexual intercourse"
I type it as I would pronounce it: tjoordhe or ttjordhe, there is a difference in tone
well, I used the wrong word to say to my wife's mother that I didn't need coffee, that was a bit of a stretch for me, also because I told them that my wife had taught me
I have been married to her for 25 years and we are now good friends and busy busy getting my Thai to NL
In my opinion, it is easier to get her to the Netherlands than to master the Thai language.
Nice this background information. PS Lung Jan. You are not the only farang who does not bother to learn to read and write and most of them can speak a decent word of Thai. I don't think it's laziness, they just dread putting energy into it or think it's too hard. And yes it is also difficult. But in hindsight, it actually worked out. It was done through a Thai teacher, learning on your own is not recommended. I learned to read and write in 6 months and it also helped me improve my pronunciation by doing that. I can read now, but I don't understand more than half of what I read because I don't know the meaning of the words. Writing is more difficult because you often don't know which t, which k, which p, to use. The same as Korte Ei Lange IJ in Dutch, for example. Being able to read is useful, even if it's just the menu and signs along the side of the road. Is there a teacher near you? Just start Jan. One hour a week and 2 hours a week of homework.
I can completely agree with that because I have known the entire alphabet for some time now (44 consonants + 32 vowel signs) so I can also read a little and pronounce what it says if it is a short sentence.
But I often don't even know what it means.
But I'm working on that now. What I've had trouble with for a while is that everything is written consecutively without spaces, points, commas, so I often don't know when a word ends in a sentence and then the new one begins.
They also don't use capitals, but I don't mind that otherwise you have 88 of those weird characters
and I think 44 is enough.
But we just keep going the perseverance wins
Peter Bol
Learning a completely different language and script is no small feat, it takes many hours. But if you set aside an hour every day, you should be able to have standard conversations (speech and writing) within a few years. There are some advantages if you can read the language.
ล cf. Greek λ ….. l
ร cf. Latin r, Greek ρ ….. r
ภ cf greek π ….. p
ธ cf. Greek θ ….. t
น cf. Greek ν ….. n
ม cf. Greek μ ….. m
ง cf. Greek γ …… g, ng
These examples indicate the form relationship of some Thai characters with Western ones.
In some cases it may be a coincidental agreement. Then it is a mnemonic for the student.
Alex, can't read a word of Greek or Latin so that mnemonic doesn't work for me. I admit that reading the Thai language certainly has its advantages, but even without that knowledge I have managed quite well in Thailand over the past 20 years, partly thanks to the help of my Thai partner. The remaining years will also succeed.
Addition:
Thai ห, Greek η ….. h/è
(addition)
Thai ห Greek η …… h, è
great to read….and fortunately also in Dutch…..
I live in Isan and they speak Isan there. It is then really difficult to learn Thai. Just as it is difficult for a Thai in the Netherlands to learn Dutch if everyone around you speaks Limburgish (or Frisian, or Groningen). I said to my father-in-law: Koen Taa, nang no. (Grandpa, come sit here). But he didn't understand. “Nang no, koen taa”! No response, surprised look. Until my wife said it: (in my opinion the same) Nang no. Yes, then he understood. The same was true with other sentences. So I gave up (for now). First gather courage again... 🙂
Dear Tarud,
I also learn best Isaan.
It is spoken around me and little Thai.
Personally it is easier for me than Thai where the sounds are also a lot harder.
The nicest thing about this is that in the capital cities people immediately recognize that and have a conversation
deal with you.
Everyone's thing.
Yours faithfully,
Erwin
I live in the Muslim South where most people speak a native dialect of Malay, which is a completely different language and not a tonal language either.
The Thai spoken is pronounced in a somewhat haphazard way with a clear Malay accent. So not the best place to learn Thai, but you can help yourself through the media where you can hear perfect Bangkok-Thai.
And by the way, the most important thing is to speak the language of the people around you, be it Bangkok-Thai, Isan, Malay or any language.
A nice article on a subject that always fascinates me.
For those who want to know more about the originally Sanskrit order of the Thai alphabet:
http://www.thai-language.com/ref/phonetic-organization-consonants
The main advantage of learning in this order is that you can easily see which consonant belongs to which group:
The middle group is on the left, high in the middle and low is on the right
The few consonants that remain at the bottom are then not so difficult to remember.
You can still get a few things out of it, but that might be going a bit too far here.
Peter Bol. Writing it together is indeed quite an extra hurdle:
More information
More information
Compare these two sentences. The second is with spaces. If all goes well, it says:
It's hard to speak Thai and it's even harder to read it. Poet phasa thai (speak Thai language) yak (difficult) lae (en) aan (read) yak (difficult) qua (even more).
According to Google translate. Quite handy, by the way, that function to also hear the text through the loudspeaker. Try it and listen to that “yaak”. Without “k” so “yaa” No wonder my father-in-law never understands me…
Quote:
'Just try it and listen to that “yak”. Without “k” so “yaa” No wonder my father-in-law never understands me…'
It's annoying that you're leading people astray here. It is indeed 'yaak' (difficult) with a falling tone and a soft -k- at the end, like the -k– in the English word 'big'. Yaa alone is a completely different word, depending on the tone it means 'grass, grandma, medicine, don't (do)….' .I understand that your father-in-law does not understand you when you say 'yaa' instead of 'yaak'………..
Thanks Tino. Good correction! Interesting to know and use on subsequent occasions.
Moreover, with the falling tone of the word (yak) you have to be very careful that you actually hit the right tone.
For example, if you ask in Thai, Khun (yaak) pai talaad mai, which roughly translated would mean, do you like to go after the market, the word with a different tone again takes on a completely different meaning.
Yes John. And even more yaa(k). First:
อย่ากดื่มเบียร์ yaak (low tone) duum beer I want to drink beer.
อย่าดื่มเบียร์ yaa (low tone) duum beer Don't drink beer!
ย่าดื่มเบียร์ yaa (falling tone) duum beer. Grandma (on my father's side) drinks beer.
Personal pronouns are often omitted in Thai.
I actually find this funny. The Thais also make a lot of jokes with the 'wrong' tone, jokes that they don't always understand. Very subtle.
Nice old Thai school poster.
Looks like the old reading board: monkey, nut, mies
To make it "easier" the Thai language is sometimes in the other order.
Eg rent motorbike 150 baht per day becomes:
day per 150 baht
Dear l.lowmate,
Definitely nice.
When my daughter was still young, we had bought a table with the Thai alphabet.
Fun to learn as a parent.
It was in Thai with English caption.
Yours faithfully,
Erwin
A very nice idea indeed!
Funny to see that on some tables the order
of the Thai alphabet is incorrect.
There are CDs with fun children's songs / movies that teach the alphabet.
Yours faithfully,
Louis L.
When my son was already in the 4th grade of his (Thai) primary school, I went there to ask why he could not read and write Thai fluently, the teacher's answer was that Thai is a very difficult language. My son said English was a lot easier than Thai. He could recite the whole abc alphabet at the age of 3, not so with Thai. Same ditto with my daughter.
the alphabet (it's actually an albugida) of the 44 consonants is less than it seems, because they don't have capital letters. Our script is therefore ± the same size in terms of learning signs (not 26 see eg A and a ) and because children can also learn it, it is really doable. Think of it as pictures representing a letter.
The transcripts are a hodgepodge. Also has to do with the different European languages and the RTGS is anything but universal or systematic.
And the phonetics too, which is why I have in my textbook (see: http://WWW.Slapsystems.nl) adjusted the phonetics to our Dutch sounds, making it easier for Dutch speakers to display the sounds immediately. (there are 4 or more different English phonetic spellings, also a hodgepodge)
As far as I'm concerned, the Thai only need to change one thing: spaces between the words!
why would you want spaces between the words? thai kids can still learn to read fast like dutch kids?
Anyway, I still regularly stumble when I read a text. Post office is ไปรษณีย์ (I quickly checked the correct spelling) praisanie (tones: middle, low, middle) but I often read ไป paigaan
Your textbook, Ronald, has beautiful and clear phonetic representations of Thai. Definitely recommended. Phonetics based on English is a disaster. There is no difference between a long and short vowel, an -a-, an -o-, a -u- can be pronounced in many ways in English. Pointless, except for names like Bhumibol for quick recognition. ภูมิพล phoe:miephon with a long -oe-, notes middle, high, middle. phoe:mie is 'country and phon is 'leader' 'The Leader of the Country'.
Well, I started learning the Thai language seriously a few months ago. I use Thaipod101.com for this, an American course, which gives you a lot of explanation, which also uses a lot of audio to learn to speak and listen and which, apart from the whole, has a video course in Thai script. Now I have already realized that I will probably never be able to write a decent Thai sentence and it is not exactly easy to read either. I have now learned about 40% (and have forgotten part of it), but it is still nice if I can read a car license plate or small warning signs. For longer texts I just use Google Translate.
But it's interesting, anyway. You no longer feel completely illiterate here in this country and even if I understand a little more, it is nice.
Nice article, I am now trying to learn how to read and write Thai, consonants and vowels, tone marks, recognize them, but nowhere can I find an English book that clearly states writing rules, in a number of cases the consonant "n" is replaced at the end of a word by about 8 other consonants.
still searching, same rule with double “rr”, sometimes pronounced as “a”, other times as “an”
Help welcome, thanks
Dear Freddy, I can recommend Ronald Schütte's book on Thai grammar. Together with the Learning Thai booklets by Benjawan Poomsan you will come a long way. Otherwise, also search this blog for “Thai writing”, I once posted a series of lessons for the real beginner, but you may be interested in the sources and responses under the various lessons.
Hi Rob,
thanks for the tip, have already purchased the e-book, will get to work right away!