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About the Thai language

Thai is the official language of the Kingdom of Thailand, and as such it is used by about sixty-five million people. It is taught and spoken over the whole country. Standard Thai is based on the language of the capital, Bangkok, as used by educated people.

Not surprisingly, there are several varieties of Thai, to be found in various parts of the country, namely:

• Central Thai, found in the central plain, and including Bangkok

• North-eastern Thai, also called Lao as it borders on Laos; many speakers of this variety come to Bangkok to work

• Northern Thai, centred on the ancient city of Chiang Mai; and

• Southern Thai, found in peninsular Thailand, where the main centre is Nakhon Si Thammarat.

The differences between these varieties are significant, involving different tones and different vocabulary, but are not enough to warrant calling them separate languages. Sharing regional forms of the language brings a sense of identity, and most people are proud to use them when they meet others from the same area. The regional varieties of Thai are not normally written (only spoken); to write them would involve changing the tones and hence the spelling. The standard written language reflects the pronunciation and style of central Thailand and the capital, the center of government. As well as regional variants, there are of course also differences in speech depending on a person’s social class or educational level.

As well as Thai in its several forms, we must not forget that there are other languages spoken within the borders of the country, such as:

• Malay, an important Austronesian language, found in the four southernmost provinces, bordering on Malaysia

• Karen, a Sino-Tibetan language, spoken by several groups in the mountains along the Burmese border

• Lisu, Akha, Lahu, Hmong and Yao, also Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in the mountainous parts of the north; and

• Khmer (or Cambodian), an Austroasiatic language, spoken in an area bordering on northern Cambodia.

This raises the question of ethnicity. Communities speaking these non-Thai languages are of course Thai in the sense of being subjects of the King, although they may not participate to the same extent in mainstream Thai culture, and may prefer to keep their own linguistic and cultural identity. Foreign visitors often enjoy traveling to see these “hill tribes” and their culture.

Thai belongs to a language-family called Tai. This includes Thai and its neighbor and close relative Lao, as well as Tai Yai or Shan, spoken in parts of northern Mynmar, Zhuang, a major language of southern China, Nung or Black and White Tai spoken by ethnic minorities in northern Vietnam, and the extinct Ahom found as far west as Assam in north-east India.

Thai entered the present Thailand only comparatively recently (11th and 12th centuries) from the north, and in this process came into contact with the Khmer and Mon who were already living there. As a result of this contact, we find many Khmer loanwords in present-day Thai. Some examples are:

tamruat	ตํารวจ	policeman
gamlang	กําลัง	strength
dtalaat	ตลาด	market
taleh	ทะเล	sea

There are also a large number of loanwords based on Pali (the sacred language of Theravada Buddhism) and Sanskrit (the ancient language of India), coined for the purpose of creating the terms needed for modern life, e.g.

thohrasap	telephone
sukhaphaap	health
wattanatham	culture

And there are many more taken directly from English, e.g.

thiiwii	TV
sehrok	photocopy (xerox!)
chek bin	may I pay the bill?
hoten	hotel
bai-bai	bye-bye!

Basic Thai is monosyllabic, and loanwords all seem to have two or more syllables. You can see that certain sounds have been changed in the process of adoption into the Thai language.

Thai is a tonal language. In other words, the pitch on which a word is pronounced can be important, as it may distinguish it from another, similar, word with a different pitch. There are five tones. Tones are inherent, that is to say, they are a “builtin” element of the word. When you learn Thai you have to learn the tone of each word—this is not something you can put off till a later date (on tones, see pages 14-15). In fact, there are rules related to the form and spelling of words that help you to predict what their tone will be. By the way, Thai is not related to Chinese or Vietnamese, which also happen to be tonal.

Thai has its own script (or writing system), that was developed in the 13th century to write its particular sounds, and is based on Khmer script. This system is basically syllabic (not actually an alphabet), and is related not only to Khmer and Cham script, but also Burmese, Javanese and Balinese scripts, all of which derive ultimately from a script used in South India in the early common era (A.D.), and which was brought into Southeast Asia with the spread of Indian civilization, which included Buddhism and Hinduism and their scriptures.

It is possible to represent the sounds of Thai in the familiar Western script (called roman), although there are a few problems with this, and various methods have been used. We have attempted to devise a system that is not only accurate but also not too difficult for the beginning student to understand and read (please see 9-15). We also include the Thai script for each item in this book, so that Thai friends can help you with pronunciation (Thais are generally not familiar with a romanization of their language).

Note that Thai has its own “alphabetical” order, which you will need to learn if you want to master Thai script and use a Thai-English dictionary.