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Tinglish (orThaiglish,Thenglish,Thailish,Thainglish, etc.) refers to any form ofEnglish mixed with or heavily influenced byThai. It is typically produced by native Thai speakers due tolanguage interference from the first language. Differences from standard native English occur inpronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar.[1] The term was coined in 1970, and several alternative terms have been proposed since its inception, such asThainglish (1973),Thaiglish (1992),Tinglish (1994),Thinglish (1976),Thenglish (2003), andTenglish (2012).[1]
Characteristics and examples (direct translation) include[dubious –discuss]:
Examples (direct translation) include:
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Same same | Similar, as usual |
| He same you | He is/looks like you |
| Open/close the light | Turn on/off the light |
| No have … | There is no ..., I do not have a … |
| I send you airport | I will take you to the airport |
| I have ever been to London | I have been to London |
| I'm interesting in football | I am interested in football |
| I very like it | I really like it, I like it very much |
| I used to go Phuket | I have been to Phuket before |
| Take a bath | Take a shower |
| She black | She's dark skinned/tanned |
| Are you spicy? | Does your food taste spicy? |
| Are you boring? | Do you feel bored? |
| I play internet/phone | I'm using the internet/my phone |
| Check bill | Can I have the bill, please? |
| Where Hugo? | Where are you going? |
 | This articleshould specify the language of its non-English content using{{lang}} or{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used.See why.(June 2021) |
As some sounds in English do not exist in the Thai language, this affects the way native Thai speakerspronounce English words, as displayed in loanwords.
English consonants with corresponding sounds in Thai are simply carried over, while others are adapted to a similar-sounding consonant.[2]
All Thai syllables must have one of five tones (mid, low, falling, high, rising). English words adapted into Thai are systematically given these tones according to certain rules. English loanwords are often unusual in that tone markers are normally omitted, meaning that they are often pronounced with a different tone from that indicated by their spelling.[2][3]
According to Wei and Zhou (2002), Thai is a tonal language, whose syllables take approximately the same time to pronounce, Thai people often have difficulty with English word stress. They, instead, stress the last syllable by adding high pitch (Choksuansup, 2014). When it comes to vowels, there are 21 phonemes in Thai compared with 15 vowels in English; therefore, it is relatively easy for Thai people to imitate the English vowels. However, the two systems have a significant discrepancy: Thai vowels are distinguished by shortness and length, while for English, it is laxness and tenseness. That explains why Thai English speakers perceive and produce lax sounds as short sounds and tense sounds as long sounds, which gives their pronunciation its uniqueness (Kruatrachue, 1960). In terms of consonants, there are a number of English consonants which do not exist in Thai. This makes it difficult for the Thai to perceive the difference among some sounds and produce them correctly. Instead, they replace the English consonants with the most similar sounds in Thai (Trakulkasemsuk, 2012):
/r/ can be pronounced as /l/ or dropped.
/tʃ/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are altered by Thai /tɕʰ/ (aspirated voiceless fortis palatal stop with slight affrication)./dʒ/ is substituted by Thai /tɕ/ (weakly glottalized unaspirated voiceless fortis palatal stop)./θ/ become either / t̪⁼/ (voiceless unaspirated apical alveolar stop), /t/, or /s/./ð/ is replaced by /d//v/ is pronounced as /w/, and /z/ as /s/In addition, consonant cluster /st/ does not exist in Thai, so they pronounce it as /sə.t/; for example: stop /sə.tɑːp/. Ending sounds are oftentimes omitted (Choksuansup, 2014).
