l's for r's

[Goodthaigirl]

samak said:

in isaan/lao there are "r" that are just simply not pronounced (where r is combined with a other consonant) and "r' that turn into "h" or "l" (where consonant stands alone with the vowel).

examples for not pronounced r

p®athet

p®ik (chili)

k®athiam (garlic)

 

If you see Lao bank note you will see it says "ปะเทดลาว" without 'r' in the word 'p®athet'. That's why I said for Lao it is a correct way. But for Isan Thai it is not.

 

samak said:

examples for r turn into h

koi hak djiao (i love you)

hoon (warm)

hoo (know)

 

So Lao language simply has no 'r' because it turns to something else or has totally different words for it containing no 'r'.

[Guest]

I'm sure I read somewhere that traditionally Lao did have an 'r' sound which was banned by the Communists in some sort of political strangeness. And in fact Lao writing has a letter that looks very much like raw reua, but which today has an h sound. Words in Thai that use this letter show up in Lao with an h sound -- i.e., "hot" rawn in Thai and hawn in Lao, etc.

 

So I think that Lao and Thai are the same in this regard and one cannot conclude that it's a Lao influence that caused the "missing r" or "r and l become interchangeable when spoken" phenomenon in Thai. I think this had the same cause in Lao and in Thai -- because Lao and Thai are basically the same language.

 

Just IMO this is simply an issue of people shortening pronunciations and not the result of the incluence of other languages.

[think_too_mut]

>This correct pronunciation is a big concern for the educators. They have been trying to tech young Thai in school to pronounce correctly. But the media sometimes falls to help it.

 

The media should actually help a lot. State TV emanating from BKK should level out what the nation hears.

 

Australia is as large as the US mainland but there are hardly any accents or words that may point someone's city of origin. I would not be able to tell who's from Brisbane who's from Perth - 5 hours jet flight apart.

 

IMO, thanks to the TV.

 

Social stratums, yes, their vocabulary and slang would always differ.

[Pescator]

Hi BBB,

 

my bruv in law is always using his local (nong khai) issarn greeting, sawadee khup, never a khap, khrap or khlap.

 

Well, not really as the local NK greeting is Sabaaidee, not sawasdee. But when meeting a farang most Isarn people would switch to central thai, that is if they don`t speak english.

 

And one of the reason why you don`t hear thai people pronounce words like they are spelled (in thai or transcripted for that matter) is that apparently consonant clusters are hard for many of them to pronounce or takes too much concentration Dunno.

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

[Pescator]

Hi GTG,

 

It is hard for Issan and Northern Thais to pronounce 'r' as their local dialect doesn't have the 'r'

 

Yep, so Rong Raem transforms into Hong Haem, Rohn into Horn etc.

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

[PhatPhak]

"k®athiam (garlic)" vs.

"g®athiam"

 

Samak,

 

Couldn't agree with your statement on "l" versus "r" more, but your post stumbled into one of my other two pet peeves:

 

The Thai word for garlic (and other words with the first letter of the Thai alphabet [gaw gai]) is more of a "g" sound, not the "k" sound too many transliterations use. I have had numerous conversations on this subject with Thai educators who are as stumped as me as to why this is written this way, but unlike the "r" vs. "l" debate, which is a failure of Thai pronunciation, the "k" vs. "g" problem stems from poor transliteration, as does the translation of the Thai letter "jaw jaan" as the letter "c" instead of "j".

[Chanchao]

 

> The Thai word for garlic (and other words with the first letter of the

> Thai alphabet [gaw gai]) is more of a "g" sound, not the "k"

> sound too many transliterations use.

 

Yes. However I think it's best to just give up that particular pet-peeve because you will find as many transliterations out there as there are people! Maybe more! So as long as it's done fairly consistently (ha!) I'm already very happy. Note that what seems a 'g' sound to you in English may not sound like your 'g' at all to someone else, but EXACTLY their k. So... It's a losing battle.

 

> as does the translation of the Thai letter "jaw jaan" as

> the letter "c" instead of "j".

 

Here I would agree more strongly.. :-) Especially because if you don't use 'j', you have no way of distinguishing between ch-ching/chang/etc and j-jaan anymore. And for no good reason.

 

But still, I chose to lose my sleep over other things. I think it's best to just learn to write Thai. Transliterations are *NEVER* perfect, and even if you thought of something that IS perfect then you'll find that it's every bit as complicated to learn as just learning Thai, thus defeating the purpose. Oh, and if you just learn Thai, you of course become literate! If that isn't a bonus then I don't know what is.

 

Cheers,

Chanchao

[markle]

PhatPhak said:

The Thai word for garlic (and other words with the first letter of the Thai alphabet [gaw gai]) is more of a "g" sound, not the "k" sound too many transliterations use. I have had numerous conversations on this subject with Thai educators who are as stumped as me as to why this is written this way, but unlike the "r" vs. "l" debate, which is a failure of Thai pronunciation, the "k" vs. "g" problem stems from poor transliteration, as does the translation of the Thai letter "jaw jaan" as the letter "c" instead of "j".

 

Why 'k' not 'g'? two reasons.

One: 'k' is used for the softer glottal sound similar to the English 'g' while 'kh' is used for the sound similar to the English 'k'

Two: ก does sound similar to 'g' but it is actually a harder sound between 'g' and 'k' and lets not forget that the letter 'g' has two sounds i.e. 'gym' and 'get' so you can understand why they opted for a standard 'k'

While the different recognised transliterations systems (not the ones people make up themselves) are not flawless they are usually based on some linguistic system. Unfortunately none of the systems are used universally, even officially, and most of the time we end up with a hodge podge of different systems.

One other thing not to forget is that these are not transliteration systems into 'English' as such but into Roman script used by such diverse languages such as French, German, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Indonesian etc.

so there is an attempt to remain nuetral in all different prnounciations of Roman script