Malaria in Thai??

[Guest]

Originally posted by coquetislander:

[QB]SB

First, just want to mention that since I've edited my former post a little, it now follows your answer in the thread.

" ...Thai merely makes a little phrase or multi compounded noun."

That's one speciality of Thai, compound nouns. Malay has them too. Just think of "orang utan" ("forest man"). I don't think one can regatrd this an an inferior way of building vocabulary, just a "different" one.

You rightly say that English has borrowed many words from many languages. After all, the British have always been very much exposed to the outside world - just think of the Roman invasion or Britain's colonies. I believe some 2,000 words have an Indian origin (bungalow, jungle, shampoo etc.). The Thais' contacts were for a very long time largely confined to India, Burma and Cambodia.

"Don't be so schadenfreudeistic (new coinage there, I think.)"

In German, "schadenfroh" would be the right word.

Cheers, SB

[ June 19, 2001: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

[Guest]

SB

Are you German or Austrian?

I'll go for Austrian I think.

I like Malay compound nouns, but even better are the plurals Buku for Book..... Buku-buku for library; very logical.

[Guest]

Originally posted by coquetislander:

"Are you German or Austrian?"

Deutsch, ja, ja. But I've been living in Asia for about twenty years.

"I like Malay compound nouns, but even better are the plurals Buku for Book..... Buku-buku for library; very logical."

Wouldn't library rather be something like "rumah-buku" (book-house)? I'm just guessing. "Buku-buku" for library does indeed not sound very sophisticated; and ambiguous on top ("books").

As for compound words, the German language is one of the most notorious. All the aforementined words are compound nouns (Schaden-Freude, Wander-Lust etc.). They can get verrrrryyyyy long and complicated sometimes. No buku-buku here!

Cheers, SB

[Guest]

SB

Hm maybe Buku-buku is just books. I'll have to check.

I agree about the length of German nouns my favourite is Meistergeshellschaft or something close. I think it means championship.

The oldest language in Europe (with the eception of Basque) is Welsh they have some ridiculously long words.

[Guest]

Originally posted by coquetislander:

"I agree about the length of German nouns my favourite is Meistergeshellschaft or something close. I think it means championship."

"Meistergesellschaft" is a mild example, consisting only of two nouns (Meister, Gesellschaft) It actually should translate as "master society", probably meaning an association of skilled workmen (it's not a word a person like me, far removed from German working ethos, would come across often).

There are much more complicated compound nouns; one can almost make them up at will, they always make sense, one way or the other. "Doppelbenutzungsgebuehrerlass" would be "the exemption from paying charges for using s.th. twice/or by two persons." The word just came to my mind and I'm sure it does exist on one or the other government application form.

I remember going to the German embassy and asking for a "Merkblatt" (notice paper) on Germans marrying Thai citizens. There were so many bureaucratic, sheer endlessly long compound nouns that I had to read the whole thing thrice and still was scratching my head.

"The oldest language in Europe (with the eception of Basque)..."

Yeah, Basque is the oldest and it's not related to any other language as far as I know. It's one of the few languages in Europe which are not Indo-Aryan (like Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Turkish).

You mention Welsh; I wish I had a clue about it. I seem to remember that it has the highest (or one of the highest?) ratio(s) of consonants to vocals - going something like slwabrrkryttecxgtabrrylofragh.

Cheers, SB: cool:

[ June 20, 2001: Message edited by: Scum_Baggio ]

[Sukhumvit]

Wales is renowned for its long words.

Indeed only as recently as several hundred years ago the Welsh had the audacity to name a place Llanfairpwhllbollockybollockybollocky

which means "the place where the cart crashed next to the pub, you know the one where all the birds get their tits out and let you feel them etc" or something like that.

[Guest]

Thanks for all he help and the added lesson in linguists. My wife's one nephew just got out of hospital and he had dengue hemmoratic (sp?) fever. The other had just plain dengue fever. The nephew in the hospital was actually bleeding from the pores in his skin for a while. From what my sister in-law says dengue fever is all over the Patum Thani and Rangsit areas right now. FYI dengue hemmoratic fever if not treated early has a 50% mortality rate and you get it from mosquito bites.

[luckyfarang]

The original word for malaria is ROK KHRAI JAP SAN which literally means something like "the shivering fever disease" or "fever grabbing chills disease". But the word "malaria" has been adopted into the Thai language and is widely understood and is even found in dictionaries. It is usually expressed as ROK MALARIA. I have never heard anyone say KHRAI MALARIA, but this should also be easily understood.

[samak]

have once heard the word khay lueat ork (literally: fever blood comes out), however am not sure whether it's commonly used or probably thais sometimes mix up different deseases; would have to ask a thai doctor.

for malaria i am with luckfarang (khay jap san), except khay does not contend the consonant r and usually thais do not combine the words khay (for fever) and rok (for disease); it's either a rok or a khay

like

khay isukisay (chickenpox)

rok hat (measles)

don't ask me for the logic...

[samak]

sorry: khay lueat ork was the word for dengue fever...