| Thai | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Siamese ภาษาไทย phasa thai |
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| Pronunciation | [pʰāːsǎːtʰāj] | |||||
| Spoken in | Thailand, Northern Malaysia, Cambodia, Southern Burma, Laos, USA, Canada, France, England, Australia | |||||
| Ethnicity | Thai | |||||
| Native speakers | 26 million (2001)[1] Total: 60 million (2001) |
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| Language family |
Tai–Kadai
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| Writing system | Thai script | |||||
| Official status | ||||||
| Official language in | Thailand | |||||
| Regulated by | The Royal Institute | |||||
| Language codes | ||||||
| ISO 639-1 | th | |||||
| ISO 639-2 | tha | |||||
| ISO 639-3 | tha | |||||
| Linguasphere | 47-AAA-b | |||||
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Thai (ภาษาไทย Phasa Thai[2] [pʰāːsǎːtʰāj] ( listen)), or more precisely Central Thai[3] or Siamese,[4] is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Some words in Thai are borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language. Thai also has a complex orthography and relational markers. Thai is mutually intelligible with Lao.[5]
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Thai is the official language of Thailand, spoken by over 20 million people (2000),[6] Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes of Bangkok.[7][8] Khorat Thai is spoken by about 400,000 (1984) in Nakhon Ratchasima; it occupies a linguistic position somewhere between Siamese Thai and Isan on a dialect continuum, and may be considered a variant of either. A majority of the people in the Isan region of Thailand speak a dialect of the Lao language, which has influenced the Siamese Thai dialect.
In addition to Siamese Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages, including:
Statistics are from Ethnologue 2003-10-4.
Many of these languages are spoken by larger numbers outside of Thailand. Most speakers of dialects and minority languages speak Central Thai as well, since it is the language used in schools and universities all across the kingdom.
Numerous languages not related to Thai are spoken within Thailand. Near Laos and Burma, ethnic minority hill tribes people speak Hmong–Mien (Yao), Karen, Lisu, and others. Near Cambodia many communities speak Khmer, and the Mon-Khmer language variously known as Suay (ส่วย) Guay or Kuay (กวย) (also spoken in central Suphanburi province.[9]
Siamese Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts:
Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts. Street and elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations; rhetorical, religious and royal Thai are taught in schools as the national curriculum.
Many scholars believe that the Thai script is derived from the Khmer script, which is modeled after the Brahmic script from the Indic family. However, in appearance, Thai is closer to Thai Dam script, which may have the same Indian origins as the Khmer script. The language and its script are closely related to the Lao language and script. 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. Much like the Burmese adopted the Mon script (which also has Indic origins), the Thais adopted and modified the Khmer script to create their own writing system. While the oldest known inscription in the Khmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. Notable features include:
There is no universal standard for transcribing Thai into the Latin alphabet. For example, the name of King Rama IX, the present monarch, is transcribed variously as Bhumibol, Phumiphon, phuuM miH phohnM, or many other versions. Guide books, text books and dictionaries may each follow different systems. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script.
What comes closest to a standard is the Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS), published by the Thai Royal Institute.[10] This system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments, especially for road signs. Its main drawbacks are that it does not indicate tone or vowel length. Retro-transliteration, that is, reconstruction of Thai spelling from RTGS romanisation, is not possible.
The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2003 (ISO 11940) [2]. By adding diacritics to the Latin letters, it makes the transcription reversible, making it a true transliteration. This system is intended for academic use, but is rarely used in any context.
From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. The word order is subject–verb–object, although the subject is often omitted. Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.
There is no morphological distinction between adverbs and adjectives. 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. Intensity can be expressed by a duplicated word, which is used to mean "very" (with the first occurrence at a higher pitch) or "rather" (with both at the same pitch) (Higbie 187-188). Usually, only one word is duplicated per clause.
Comparatives take the form "A X กว่า B" (kwa, [kwàː]), A is more X than B. The superlative is expressed as "A X ที่สุด" (thi sut, [tʰîːsùt]), A is most X.
Because adjectives can be used as complete predicates, many words used to indicate tense in verbs (see Verbs:Tense below) may be used to describe adjectives.
Verbs do not inflect (i.e. do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number) nor are there any participles. Duplication conveys the idea of doing the verb intensively.
The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of ถูก (thuk, [tʰùːk]) before the verb. For example:
To convey the opposite sense, a sense of having an opportunity arrive, ได้ (dai, [dâj], can) is used. For example:
Note, dai ([dâj] and [dâːj]), though both spelled ได้, convey two separate meanings. The short vowel dai ([dâj]) conveys an opportunity has arisen and is placed before the verb. The long vowel dai ([dâːj]) is placed after the verb and conveys the idea that one has been given permission or one has the ability to do something. Also see the past tense below.
Negation is indicated by placing ไม่ (mai,[mâj] not) before the verb.
Tense is conveyed by tense markers before or after the verb.
Thai exhibits serial verb constructions, where verbs are strung together. Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases.
Nouns are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles.
Nouns are neither singular nor plural. Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: เด็ก (dek, child) is often repeated as เด็กๆ (dek dek) to refer to a group of children. The word พวก (phuak, [pʰûak]) may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word. (พวกผม, phuak phom, [pʰûak pʰǒm], we, masculine; พวกเรา phuak rao, [pʰûak raw], emphasised we; พวกหมา phuak ma, (the) dogs) Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers, used as measure words (ลักษณนาม), in the form of noun-number-classifier (ครูห้าคน, "teacher five person" for "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").
Subject pronouns are often omitted, with nicknames used where English would use a pronoun. See informal and formal names for more details. Pronouns, when used, are ranked in honorific registers, and may also make a T–V distinction in relation to kinship and social status. Specialised pronouns are used for those with royal and noble titles, and for clergy. The following are appropriate for conversational use:
| Word | RTGS | IPA | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| ผม | phom | [pʰǒm] | I/me (masculine; formal) |
| ดิฉัน | dichan | [dìʔt͡ɕʰán]) | I/me (feminine; formal) |
| ฉัน | chan | [t͡ɕʰǎn] | I/me (feminine; informal; also commonly used by transsexuals; in the past this was both masculine and feminine) |
| คุณ | khun | [kʰun] | you (polite) |
| ท่าน | than | [tʰân] | you (polite to a person of high status) |
| เธอ | thoe | [tʰɤː] | you (informal), she/her (informal) |
| เรา | rao | [raw] | we/us, I/me/you (casual) |
| เขา | khao | [kʰǎw] | he/him, she/her |
| มัน | man | [man] | it, he/she (sometimes casual or offensive; if used to refer to a person) |
| พวกเขา | phuak khao | [pʰûak kʰǎw] | they/them |
| พี่ | phi | [pʰîː] | older brother, sister (also used for older acquaintances) |
| น้อง | nong | [nɔːŋ] | younger brother, sister (also used for younger acquaintances) |
| ลูกพี่ ลูกน้อง | luk phi luk nong | [lûːk pʰîː lûːk nɔ́ːŋ] | first cousin (male or female) |
The reflexive pronoun is ตัวเอง (tua eng), which can mean any of: myself, yourself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves. This can be mixed with another pronoun to create an intensive pronoun, such as ตัวผมเอง (tua phom eng, lit: I myself) or ตัวคุณเอง (tua khun eng, lit: you yourself).
Thai does not have a separate possessive pronoun. Instead, possession is indicated by the particle ของ (khong). For example, "my mother" is แม่ของผม (mae khong phom, lit: mother of I). This particle is often implicit, so the phrase is shortened to แม่ผม (mae phom).
Thai has many more pronouns than those listed above. Their usage is full of nuances. For example:
The particles are often untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect, a request, encouragement or other moods (similar to the use of intonation in English), as well as varying the level of formality. They are not used in elegant (written) Thai. The most common particles indicating respect are ครับ (khrap, [kʰráp], with a high tone) for a man, and ค่ะ (kha, [kʰâ], with a falling tone) for a woman; these can also be used to indicate an affirmative, though the ค่ะ (falling tone) is changed to a คะ (high tone).
Other common particles are:
| Word | RTGS | IPA | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| จ๊ะ | cha/ja | [t͡ɕáʔ] | indicating a request |
| จ้ะ, จ้า or จ๋า | cha/ja | [t͡ɕâː] | indicating emphasis |
| ละ or ล่ะ | la | [láʔ] | indicating emphasis |
| สิ | si | [sìʔ] | indicating emphasis or an imperative |
| นะ | na | [náʔ] | softening; indicating a request |
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.[11] The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA.
| Tone | Thai | Example | Phonemic | Phonetic | Example meaning in English |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mid | สามัญ | นา | /nāː/ | [naː˧] | paddy field |
| low | เอก | หน่า | /nàː/ | [naː˩] | (a nickname) |
| falling | โท | หน้า | /nâː/ | [naː˥˩] | face |
| high | ตรี | น้า | /náː/ | [naː˧˥] or [naː˥] | aunt/uncle (younger than one's mother) |
| rising | จัตวา | หนา | /nǎː/ | [naː˩˩˦] or [naː˩˦] | thick |
Thai distinguishes among three voice/aspiration patterns for plosive consonants:
Where English has only a distinction between the voiced, unaspirated /b/ and the unvoiced, aspirated /pʰ/, Thai distinguishes a third sound that is neither voiced nor aspirated, which occurs in English only as an allophone of /p/, approximately the sound of the p in "spin". There is similarly an alveolar /t/, /tʰ/, /d/ triplet. In the velar series there is a /k/, /kʰ/ pair and in the postalveolar series the /t͡ɕ/, /t͡ɕʰ/ pair.
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).
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | [m] ม |
[n] ณ,น |
[ŋ] ง |
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| Plosive | [p] ป |
[pʰ] ผ,พ,ภ |
[b] บ |
[t] ฏ,ต |
[tʰ] ฐ,ฑ,ฒ,ถ,ท,ธ |
[d] ฎ,ด |
[k] ก |
[kʰ] ข,ฃ,ค,ฅ,ฆ* |
[ʔ] อ** |
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| Fricative | [f] ฝ,ฟ |
[s] ซ,ศ,ษ,ส |
[h] ห,ฮ |
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| Affricate | [t͡ɕ] จ |
[t͡ɕʰ] ฉ, ช, ฌ |
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| Trill | [r] ร |
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| Approximant | [j] ญ,ย |
[w] ว |
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| Lateral approximant |
[l] ล,ฬ |
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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, are used. To demonstrate, at the end of a syllable, บ (/b/) and ด (/d/) are devoiced, becoming pronounced as /p/ and /t/ respectively.
Of the consonant letters, excluding the disused ฃ and ฅ, seven (ฉ ฌ ผ ฝ ห อ ฮ) cannot be used as a final and the other 35 are grouped as following.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | [m] ม |
[n] ญ,ณ,น,ร,ล,ฬ |
[ŋ] ง |
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| Plosive | [p] บ,ป,พ,ฟ,ภ |
[t] จ,ช,ซ,ฎ,ฏ,ฐ,ฑ,ฒ, ด,ต,ถ,ท,ธ,ศ,ษ,ส |
[k] ก,ข,ค,ฆ |
[ʔ]* |
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| Fricative | ||||||||||
| Affricate | ||||||||||
| Trill | ||||||||||
| Approximant | [j] ย |
[w] ว |
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| Lateral approximant |
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In Thai, each syllable in a word is considered separate from the others, so combinations of consonants from adjacent syllables are never recognised as a cluster.
Thai has very limited number of clusters. Original Thai vocabulary introduces only 11 combined patterns:
The number of clusters increases when a few more combinations are presented in loanwords such as อินทรา (/intʰraː/, from Sanskrit indrā) in which extraordinary /tʰr/ is found. However, it can be observed that Thai language supports only those in initial position, with either /r/, /l/, or /w/ as the second consonant sound and not more than two sounds at a time.
The basic vowels of the Thai language, from front to back and close to open, 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 alphabet, where a dash (–) indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant must follow.
| Front | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | unrounded | rounded | ||||
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | /i/ -ิ |
/iː/ -ี |
/ɯ/ -ึ |
/ɯː/ -ื- |
/u/ -ุ |
/uː/ -ู |
| Close-mid | /e/ เ-ะ |
/eː/ เ- |
/ɤ/ เ-อะ |
/ɤː/ เ-อ |
/o/ โ-ะ |
/oː/ โ- |
| Open-mid | /ɛ/ แ-ะ |
/ɛː/ แ- |
/ɔ/ เ-าะ |
/ɔː/ -อ |
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| Open | /a/ -ะ, -ั- |
/aː/ -า |
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The vowels each exist in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Thai,[12] but usually transliterated the same: เขา (khao) means "he" or "she", while ขาว (khao) means "white".
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 | /klɔːŋ/ | 'drum' | เ–าะ | /ɔ/ | กล่อง | /klɔ̀ŋ/ | 'box' |
The basic vowels can be combined into diphthongs. Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993) analyze those ending in high vocoids as underlyingly /Vj/ and /Vw/. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:
| Long | Short | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Thai | IPA | Thai | IPA |
| –าย | /aːj/ | ไ–*, ใ–*, ไ–ย, -ัย | /aj/ |
| –าว | /aːw/ | เ–า* | /aw/ |
| เ–ีย | /iːa/ | เ–ียะ | /ia/ |
| – | – | –ิว | /iw/ |
| –ัว | /uːa/ | –ัวะ | /ua/ |
| –ูย | /uːj/ | –ุย | /uj/ |
| เ–ว | /eːw/ | เ–็ว | /ew/ |
| แ–ว | /ɛːw/ | – | – |
| เ–ือ | /ɯːa/ | เ–ือะ | /ɯa/ |
| เ–ย | /ɤːj/ | – | – |
| –อย | /ɔːj/ | – | – |
| โ–ย | /oːj/ | – | – |
Additionally, there are three triphthongs, all of which are long:
| Thai | IPA |
|---|---|
| เ–ียว | /iaw/ |
| –วย | /uaj/ |
| เ–ือย | /ɯaj/ |
For a guide to written vowels, see the Thai alphabet page.
Other than compound words and words of foreign origin, most words are monosyllabic. Historically, words have most often been borrowed from Sanskrit and Pāli; Buddhist terminology is particularly indebted to these. Old Khmer has also contributed its share, especially in regard to royal court terminology. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the English language has had the greatest influence, especially for scientific and technical vocabulary. Many Teochew Chinese words are also used, some replacing existing Thai words (for example, the names of basic numbers; see also Sino-Xenic).
As noted above, Thai has several registers, each having certain usages, such as colloquial, formal, literary, and poetic. Thus, the word "eat" can be กิน (kin; common), แดก (daek; vulgar), ยัด (yat; vulgar), บริโภค (boriphok; formal), รับประทาน (rapprathan; formal), ฉัน (chan; religious), or เสวย (sawoei; royal).
Thailand also uses the distinctive Thai six hour clock in addition to the 24 hour clock.
Glossaries and word lists
Dictionaries
Learners' resources
Thai Keyboard
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