The Thai language is spoken by over 70 million people in Thailand as of 2024.[8] 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.[9] A recent research found that the speakers of theNorthern 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.[10]Standard Thai is based on theregister of the educated classes by Central Thai and ethnic minorities in the area alongthe ring surrounding the Metropolis.[11][12]
In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other relatedTai 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".[13] As adominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as asecond language among the country'sminority ethnic groups from the mid-lateAyutthaya period onward.[14][15] 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 beingNorthern Thai,Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with the Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form theSouthwestern branch ofTai languages. The Tai languages are a branch of theKra–Dai language family, which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc fromHainan andGuangxi 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 theThai script.
Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai.[16] The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modernorthography.
According to a Chinese source, during theMing dynasty,Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433),Ma Huan reported on the language of theXiānluó (暹羅) or Ayutthaya Kingdom,[e] saying that it somewhat resembled the local patois as pronounced inGuangdong[17]: 107 Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai andKhmer. 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.[18] 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.[19] 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 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 theglottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel).
There was a two-way voiced vs. voiceless distinction among allfricative andsonorant consonants, and up to a four-way distinction amongstops andaffricates. The maximal four-way occurred inlabials (/ppʰbʔb/) anddenti-alveolars (/ttʰdʔd/); the three-way distinction amongvelars (/kkʰɡ/) andpalatals (/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 concomitanttone split. This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE, possibly occurring at different times in different parts of the Thai-speaking area.[16] 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 termedmai ek andmai 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 ฃkho khuat and ฅkho 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 fromProto-Tai. A letter ญyo ying also exists, which is used to represent an alveolo-palatal nasal in words borrowed fromSanskrit andPali, 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 ยyo 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/. Thenortheastern Thai dialectIsan and theLao language still preserve the phoneme /ɲ/, which is represented in theLao 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.
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:
Inopen 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.)
Inclosed 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 thep 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, without 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 indicatesInternational 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 twoh 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, calledmātrā (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 areunreleased. 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 specificphonotactical patterns that describe its syllable structure, including tautosyllabicconsonant 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) inอินทรา (/ʔīn.tʰrāː/, from Sanskritindrā) or/fr/ (ฟร) inฟรี (/frīː/, from Englishfree); 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.
The vowel nuclei of the Thai language are given in the following table. The top entry in every cell is the symbol from theInternational Phonetic Alphabet, the second entry gives the spelling in theThai 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 closingdiphthongs in Thai, whichTingsabadh & 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 threetriphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:
The five phonemic tones of Standard Thai pronounced with the syllable '/naː/':
There are five phonemictones: mid, low, falling, high, and rising, sometimes referred to in older reference works asrectus, gravis, circumflexus, altus, anddemissus, respectively.[21] The table shows an example of both thephonemic tones and theirphonetic realization, in theIPA. Moren &Zsiga (2006)[22] and Zsiga & Nitisaroj (2007)[23] 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.[24][25]
For the diachronic changes of tone value, see Pittayaporn (2007).[26]
The full complement of tones exists only in so-called "live syllables", those that end in a long vowel or asonorant (/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 finalglottal stop (especially in slower speech), all "dead syllables" are phoneticallychecked, and have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables.
In some Englishloanwords, 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.
From the perspective oflinguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be ananalytic language. Theword order issubject–verb–object,[27] although the subject is oftenomitted. Additionally, Thai is an isolating language lacking any form of inflectional morphology whatsoever.[28] Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.
There is no morphological distinction betweenadverbs andadjectives. 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
ʔûa̯n/
คน อ้วน
khon uan
/kʰōnʔûa̯n/
'a fat person'
คน
khon
/kʰōn
ที่
thi
tʰîː
อ้วน
uan
ʔûa̯n
เร็ว
reo
rēw/
คน ที่ อ้วน เร็ว
khon thi uan reo
/kʰōntʰîːʔûa̯nrēw/
'a person who becomes fat quickly'
Comparatives take the form "A Xกว่า B" (kwa,/kwàː/), 'A is more X than B'. Thesuperlative is expressed as "A Xที่สุด" (thi sut,/tʰîːsùt/), 'A is most X'.
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
อ้วน
uan
ʔûa̯n
กว่า
kwa
kwàː
ฉัน
chan
tɕʰǎn/
เขา อ้วนกว่า ฉัน
khao uankwa chan
/kʰǎwʔûa̯nkwàːtɕʰǎn/
'S/he is fatter than me.'
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
อ้วน
uan
ʔûa̯n
ที่สุด
thi sut
tʰîːsùt/
เขา อ้วนที่สุด
khao uan {thi sut}
/kʰǎwʔûa̯ntʰîːsùt/
'S/he is the fattest (of all).'
Adjectives in Thai can be used ascomplete 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/
ฉันจะ หิว
chancha hio
/tɕʰǎntɕàʔhǐw/
'I will be hungry.'
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
กำลัง
kamlang
kām.lāŋ
หิว
hio
hǐw/
ฉันกำลัง หิว
chankamlang hio
/tɕʰǎnkām.lāŋhǐw/
'I am hungry right now.'
ฉัน
chan
/tɕʰǎn
หิว
hio
hǐw
แล้ว
laeo
lɛ́ːw/
ฉัน หิวแล้ว
chan hiolaeo
/tɕʰǎnhǐwlɛ́ːw/
'I am already hungry.'
Remarkฉันหิวแล้ว mostly means 'I am hungry right now' because normally,แล้ว (/lɛ́ːw/) marks the change of a state, butแล้ว 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 do notinflect. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number; nor are there anyparticiples. The language being analytic andcase-less, the relationship between subject, direct and indirect object is conveyed through word order andauxiliary verbs.Transitive verbs follow the patternsubject-verb-object.
In order to conveytense, aspect and mood (TAM), the Thai verbal system employs auxiliaries andverb serialization.[29][28] TAM markers are however not obligatory and often left out in colloquial use. In such cases, the precise meaning is determined through context.[29] 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
mɯ̂a̯.wāːn/
ฉัน กิน ที่ นั่น เมื่อวาน
chan kin thi nan mueawan
/tɕʰǎnkīntʰîːnânmɯ̂a̯.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 sentencechan 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.[29] 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 exampleyu (อยู่) as a full verb means 'to stay, to live or to remain at'. However, as an auxiliary it can be described as atemporary aspect orcontinuative marker.[29]
The imperfective aspect markerกำลัง (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 aprogressive aspect marker.[30][31] Similarly,อยู่ (yu,/jùː/) is a post-verbal aspect marker which corresponds to the continuative or temporary aspect.[29]
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
กำลัง
kamlang
kām.lāŋ
วิ่ง
wing
wîŋ/
เขากำลัง วิ่ง
khaokamlang wing
/kʰǎwkām.lāŋwîŋ/
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
วิ่ง
wing
wîŋ
อยู่
yu
jùː/
เขา วิ่งอยู่
khao wingyu
/kʰǎwwîŋjùː/
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
กำลัง
kamlang
kām.lāŋ
วิ่ง
wing
wîŋ
อยู่
yu
jùː/
เขากำลัง วิ่งอยู่
khaokamlang wingyu
/kʰǎwkām.lāŋwîŋjùː/
'He is running.'
Comparablyยัง (yang,/jāŋ/, still) which is used in an incompleted action, and usually cognates in phrase withyu (อยู่) or any second marker in common use.
เขา
khao
/kʰǎw
ยัง
yang
jāŋ
เขียน
khian
kʰǐa̯n
อยู่
yu
jùː/
เขายัง เขียนอยู่
khaoyang khianyu
/kʰǎwjāŋkʰǐa̯njùː/
He is still writing.
The markerได้ (dai,/dâːj/) is usually analyzed as a past tense marker when it occurs before the verb.[28] 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.[29]
แล้ว (laeo,/lɛ́ːw/; 'already') is treated as a marker indicating theperfect aspect.[30] 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'.
Nouns areuninflected and have nogender; there are noarticles. Thai nouns arebare nouns and can be interpreted as singular, plural, definite or indefinite.[33] Some specific nouns arereduplicated to formcollectives:เด็ก (dek, 'child') is often repeated asเด็ก ๆ (dek dek) to refer to a group of children. The wordพวก (phuak,/pʰûa̯k/) may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word. (พวกผม,phuak phom,/pʰûa̯kpʰǒm/, 'we', masculine;พวกเราphuak rao,/pʰûa̯krāw/, emphasised 'we';พวกหมาphuak ma, '(the) dogs'). Plurals are expressed by addingclassifiers, used asmeasure 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 wordของ (khong) in front of thenoun orpronoun, but it may often be omitted. For example:
Nominal phrases in Thai often use a special class of wordsclassifiers. As previously mentioned, these classifiers are obligatory for noun phrases containing numerals e.g.
Unlike any numeral,หนึ่ง ('one') can mark on both positions of classifier, but in different functions. The post-head one potentially marks a referent asindefinite article.
In the previous examplekhon (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 asทุก ('all'),บาง ('some'). The examples below are demonstrated using the classifierkhon, which is used for people.
Thai has three of its distinctions.Proximalนี่ (ni,/nîː/; 'this/these'),medialนั่น (nan,/nân/; 'that/those'), anddistalโน่น (non,/nôːn/; 'that/those over there') which is rarely used.
It also has different usage of distinguishing the demonstratives by changing tones. In which the pronoun itself used forนี่ (ni,/nîː/); whileนี้ (ni,/níː) refers to be modifier placed after the noun, prepositions, classifiers, etc. For example:
it, he/she (offensive if used to refer to a person)
The reflexive pronoun isตัวเอง (tua eng), which can mean any of: myself, yourself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves. This can be mixed with another pronoun to create anintensive pronoun, such asตัวผมเอง (tua phom eng, lit: I myself) orตัวคุณเอง (tua khun eng, lit: you yourself). Thai also does not have a separatepossessive pronoun. Instead, possession is indicated by the particleของ (khong). For example, "my mother" isแม่ของผม (mae khong phom, lit: mother of I). This particle is often implicit, so the phrase is shortened toแม่ผม (mae phom). Plural pronouns can be easily constructed by adding the wordพวก (phuak) in front of a singular pronoun as inพวกเขา (phuak khao) meaning 'they' orพวกเธอ (phuak thoe) meaning the plural sense of 'you'. The only exception to this isเรา (rao), which can be used as singular (informal) or plural, but can also be used in the form ofพวกเรา (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 wordหนู (nu) when talking with older person. The wordหนู 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 pronounเธอ (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.
Bothคุณ (khun) andเธอ (thoe) are polite neuter second person pronouns. However,คุณเธอ (khun thoe) is a feminine derogative third person.
Instead of a second person pronoun such asคุณ ('you'), it is much more common for unrelated strangers to call each otherพี่ น้อง ลุง ป้า น้า อา ตา orยาย (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 byครู,คุณครู orอาจารย์ (each meaning 'teacher') rather thanคุณ ('you'). Teachers, monks, and doctors are almost always addressed this way.
Theparticles are often untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect, a request, encouragement or other moods (similar to the use ofintonation in English), as well as varying the level of formality. They are not used in elegant (written) Thai. The most common particles indicating respect areครับ (khrap,/kʰráp/, with a high tone) when the speaker is a man, andค่ะ (kha,/kʰâʔ/, with a falling tone) when the speaker is a woman. Used in a question or a request, the particleค่ะ (falling tone) is changed to aคะ (high tone).
Central Thai is composed of several distinctregisters, 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 bySanskrit andPāli) 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.[39][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 beกิน (kin; common),แดก (daek; vulgar),ยัด (yat; vulgar),บริโภค (boriphok; formal),รับประทาน (rapprathan; formal),ฉัน (chan; religious), orเสวย (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 fromMiddle Chinese.[40][41][42]
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 fromKhmer, surpassing the number ofTai 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.[16]
Later, most vocabulary was borrowed fromSanskrit andPāli;Buddhist terminology is particularly indebted to these. Indic words have a more formal register, and may be compared to Latin andFrench borrowings in English. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, theEnglish 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 theAyutthaya 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 toChristianity. Thus, Portuguese words involving trade and religion were introduced and used by the locals.
Thai is written in theThai script, anabugida written from left to right. The language and its script are closely related to theLao language andscript. 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 theKhmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. Notable features include:
It is anabugida script, in which theimplicit vowel is a short/a/ in a syllable without finalconsonant and a short/o/ in a syllable with final consonant.
Tone markers, if present, are placed above the finalonset 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 follow different systems. For this reason, many language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script.[44][45][46][47]
Official standards are theRoyal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), published by theRoyal Institute of Thailand,[48] and the almost identicalISO 11940-2 defined by theInternational Organization for Standardization. The RTGS system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments, especially for road signs.[49] Its main drawback is 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.
TheISO published an international standard for thetransliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2005 (ISO 11940).[50] By adding diacritics to the Latin letters it makes the transcription reversible, making it a truetransliteration. Notably, this system is used byGoogle 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 otherTai languages (Diller 2008:6[full citation needed]). "Proto-Thai" is, for example, the ancestor of all ofSouthwestern Tai, not just Siamese (Rischel 1998[full citation needed]).
^Xiānluó was the Chinese name for Ayutthaya, a kingdom created by the merger ofLavo andSukhothai 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.
^ModernLao,Isan andnorthern 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 aglottal 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, Oxfordshire; New York City: 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 fromthe original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved26 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
^Simpson, Andrew (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.
^Rappa, Antonio L.; Wee, Lionel (2006),Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, Springer, pp. 114–115
^Lieberman, Victor (2003).Strange Parallels. Studies in Comparative World History. Vol. 1: Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830 (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, retrieved2 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.
Diller, Anthony van Nostrand, et al. 2008.The Tai–Kadai Languages.ISBN978-070-071-457-5.
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'. InSound 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 Kitamuraet 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.
Tumtavitikul, Apiluck. 1993.Perhaps, the Tones are in the Consonants?Mon-Khmer Studies XXIII, pp. 11–41.
Higbie, James and Thinsan, Snea.Thai Reference Grammar: The Structure of Spoken Thai. Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2003.ISBN974-8304-96-5.
Inglis, Douglas. 2003. Conceptual structure of numeral classifiers in Thai. In Eugene E. Casad and Gary B. Palmer (eds.). Cognitive linguistics and non-Indo-European languages. CLR Series 18. De Gruyter Mouton. 223–246.ISBN978-311-017-371-0
Thai dictionaries for Stardict/GoldenDict – Thai – English (also French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and others) dictionaries in Stardict and GoldenDict formats
.svg)
.svg)
.png)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
