Thai language
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Thai,[lower-alpha 1] or Central Thai[lower-alpha 2] (historically Siamese;[lower-alpha 3][lower-alpha 4] Thai: ภาษาไทย), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai people, Mon in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand.[2][3]
Thai | |
---|---|
Central Thai, Siamese | |
ภาษาไทย, Phasa Thai | |
Pronunciation | [pʰāːsǎːtʰāj] |
Region |
|
Ethnicity | Central Thai, Thai Chinese, Mon |
Native speakers | L1: 21 million (2000)[1] L2: 40 million (2001)[1] Total: 61 million (2000–2001)[1] |
Kra–Dai
| |
| |
Official status | |
Official language in | Thailand |
Recognised minority language in | |
Regulated by | Royal Society of Thailand |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | th |
ISO 639-2 | tha |
ISO 639-3 | tha |
Glottolog | thai1261 |
Linguasphere | 47-AAA-b |
Dark Blue: Majority
Light Blue: Minority |
Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon[4] and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao, Isan, and some fellow Thai topolects. These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.[5]
Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020.) Moreover, most Thais in the northern and the northeastern (Isaan) 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 people 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 some 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 Tai Lanna, 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.
Kra-Dai |
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This section needs additional citations for verification. (May 2020) |
According to a Chinese source, during the Ming dynasty, Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433), Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xiānluó (暹羅),[lower-alpha 5] saying that it somewhat resembled the local patois as pronounced in Guangdong[13]: 107 Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. 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.
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 (/p pʰ b ʔb/) and dentals (/t tʰ d ʔd/); the three-way distinction among velars (/k kʰ ɡ/) and palatals (/tɕ tɕʰ dʑ/), 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. All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction:
- Plain voiced stops (/b d ɡ dʑ/) became voiceless aspirated stops (/pʰ tʰ kʰ tɕʰ/).[lower-alpha 6]
- 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 /p t k tɕ ʔb ʔd/) 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.[lower-alpha 7]
Early Old Thai
Early Old Thai also apparently had velar fricatives /x ɣ/ 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 /kʰ ɡ/, and as a result the use of these letters became unstable.
At some point in the history of Thai, a palatal nasal phoneme /ɲ/ also existed, inherited from Proto-Tai. A letter ญ yo ying also exists, which is used to represent a 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/.
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 (/a aː/), 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 /iː ɯː uː/ are rare, and cases that do exist typically have diphthongs in other Tai languages.
- In closed syllables, both short and long mid /e eː o oː/ and low /ɛ ɛː ɔ ɔː/ do occur. However, generally, only words with short /e o/ and long /ɛː ɔː/ are reconstructible back to Proto-Tai.
- Both of the mid back unrounded vowels /ɤ ɤː/ 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 /i ɯ u/, mid /e ɤ o/, low /ɛ a ɔ/.
- 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 /a aː/. 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 /iː ɯː uː/ from diphthongs, and the lowering of /ɤ/ to /a/ to create a length distinction /a aː/, 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 /k ŋ/. He also seems to believe that the Proto-Southwestern-Tai vowel length distinctions can be reconstructed back to similar distinctions in Proto-Tai.
Consonants
Initials
Standard Thai distinguishes three voice-onset times among plosive and affricate consonants:
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 an alveolar /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).
Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
(Alveolo-) Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | /m/ ม |
/n/ ณ, น |
/ŋ/ ง |
|||
Plosive/ Affricate |
voiced | /b/ บ |
/d/ ฎ, ด |
|||
tenuis | /p/ ป |
/t/ ฏ, ต |
/tɕ/ จ |
/k/ ก |
/ʔ/ อ[lower-alpha 8] | |
aspirated | /pʰ/ ผ, พ, ภ |
/tʰ/ ฐ, ฑ, ฒ, ถ, ท, ธ |
/tɕʰ/ ฉ, ช, ฌ |
/kʰ/ ข, ฃ, ค, ฅ, ฆ[lower-alpha 9] |
||
Fricative | /f/ ฝ, ฟ |
/s/ ซ, ศ, ษ, ส |
/h/ ห, ฮ | |||
Approximant | /w/ ว |
/l/ ล, ฬ |
/j/ ญ, ย |
|||
Rhotic/Liquid | /r/ ร |
Finals
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.
Clusters
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.
Front | Central | Back | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
short | long | short | long | short | long | |
Close | /i/ -ิ |
/iː/ -ี |
/ɯ/ -ึ |
/ɯː/ -ื- |
/u/ -ุ |
/uː/ -ู |
Mid | /e/ เ-ะ |
/eː/ เ- |
/ɤ/ เ-อะ |
/ɤː/ เ-อ |
/o/ โ-ะ |
/oː/ โ- |
Open | /ɛ/ แ-ะ |
/ɛː/ แ- |
/a/ -ะ, -ั- |
/aː/ -า |
/ɔ/ เ-าะ |
/ɔː/ -อ |
Each vowel quality occurs in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming distinct words in Thai.[14]
The long-short pairs are as follows:
Long | Short | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Thai | IPA | Example | Thai | IPA | Example | ||||
–า | /aː/ | ฝาน | /fǎːn/ | 'to slice' | –ะ | /a/ | ฝัน | /fǎn/ | 'to dream' |
–ี | /iː/ | กรีด | /krìːt/ | 'to cut' | –ิ | /i/ | กริช | /krìt/ | 'kris' |
–ู | /uː/ | สูด | /sùːt/ | 'to inhale' | –ุ | /u/ | สุด | /sùt/ | 'rearmost' |
เ– | /eː/ | เอน | /ʔēːn/ | 'to recline' | เ–ะ | /e/ | เอ็น | /ʔēn/ | 'tendon, ligament' |
แ– | /ɛː/ | แพ้ | /pʰɛ́ː/ | 'to be defeated' | แ–ะ | /ɛ/ | แพะ | /pʰɛ́ʔ/ | 'goat' |
–ื- | /ɯː/ | คลื่น | /kʰlɯ̂ːn/ | 'wave' | –ึ | /ɯ/ | ขึ้น | /kʰɯ̂n/ | 'to go up' |
เ–อ | /ɤː/ | เดิน | /dɤ̄ːn/ | 'to walk' | เ–อะ | /ɤ/ | เงิน | /ŋɤ̄n/ | 'silver' |
โ– | /oː/ | โค่น | /kʰôːn/ | 'to fell' | โ–ะ | /o/ | ข้น | /kʰôn/ | 'thick (soup)' |
–อ | /ɔː/ | กลอง | /klɔ̄ːŋ/ | 'drum' | เ–าะ | /ɔ/ | กล่อง | /klɔ̀ŋ/ | 'box' |
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
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.[15] The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA. Moren & Zsiga (2006)[16] and Zsiga & Nitisaroj (2007)[17] provide phonetic and phonological analyses of Thai tone realization.
Notes:
- Five-level tone value: Mid [33], Low [21], Falling [43], High [44], Rising [323]. 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.[18][19]
- For the diachronic changes of tone value, please see Pittayaporn (2007).[20]
- 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.
Unchecked syllables
Tone | Thai | Example | Phonemic | Phonetic | Gloss |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mid | สามัญ | คา | /kʰāː/ | [kʰaː˧] | 'stick' |
Low | เอก | ข่า | /kʰàː/ | [kʰaː˨˩] or [kʰaː˩] | 'galangal' |
Falling | โท | ค่า | /kʰâː/ | [kʰaː˥˩] | 'value' |
High | ตรี | ค้า | /kʰáː/ | [kʰaː˦˥] or [kʰaː˥] | 'to trade' |
Rising | จัตวา | ขา | /kʰǎː/ | [kʰaː˩˩˦] or [kʰaː˩˦] | 'leg' |
Checked syllables
Tone | Thai | Example | Phonemic | Phonetic | Gloss |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Low (short vowel) | เอก | หมัก | /màk/ | [mak̚˨˩] | 'marinate' |
Low (long vowel) | เอก | หมาก | /màːk/ | [maːk̚˨˩] | 'areca nut, areca palm, betel, fruit' |
High | ตรี | มัก | /mák/ | [mak̚˦˥] | 'habitually, likely to' |
Falling | โท | มาก | /mâːk/ | [maːk̚˥˩] | 'a lot, abundance, many' |
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/ | [maːk̚˦˥] | 'Marc, Mark' |
High | ตรี | ชาร์จ | /tɕʰáːt/ | [tɕʰaːt̚˦˥] | 'charge' |
Falling | โท | เมกอัป | /méːk.ʔâp/ | [meːk̚˦˥.ʔap̚˥˩] | 'make-up' |
Falling | โท | แร็กเกต | /rɛ́k.kêt/ | [rɛk̚˦˥.ket̚˥˩] | 'racket' |