Thai language - WikiHQ

thumb|A native Thai speaker, recorded in [[Bangkok]]

Thai, or Central Thai (historically Siamese; ), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai, Mon, Lao Wiang, and Phuan people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout the country. It is the sole official language of Thailand.

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 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.

The Thai language is spoken by over 70 million people in Thailand as of 2024. Moreover, most Thais in the northern (Lanna), the Southern (Tai) and the northeastern (Isan) 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. 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. Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and ethnic minorities in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis.

In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although most 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". 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. Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect.

Classification

Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Northern Thai, 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.

thumb|384x384px|Example of divergence among the Kra-Dai languages

History

Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai and Khmer. Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer-speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369, 1388 and 1431. Gradually toward the end of the period, a language shift took place. Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great-grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In the process of language shift, an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai, was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Khmer expressions, sayings, and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference.

Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer. The Thais later developed the royal vocabulary according to their immediate environment. Thai and Pali, the latter from Theravada Buddhism, were added to the vocabulary. An investigation of the Ayutthaya Rajasap reveals that three languages, Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse. In fact, Khmero-Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to the Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed.

Old Thai

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="4" |Sample from the Ramkhamhaeng Steele

!Sukhothai Script

!Modern Thai Transcribed

!IPA Sukhothai

!Meaning

|center|frameless|400x400px

|พ่กูชื่สรีอีนทราทีตยแม่กูชื่นางเสือง

พี่กูชื่บานเมืองตูพี่น้องท้องดยว

ห้าคนผู้ชายสามผู้ญิงโสงพี่เผือ

ผู้อ้ายตายจากเผือตยมแฏ่ญงงเลก

|bɔː˩ kuː dʑɯː˩ siː.ʔiːn.draː.diːt

mɛː˩ kuː dʑɯː˩ naːŋ sɯaŋ

biː˩ kuː dʑɯː˩ baːn.mɯaŋ

tuː biː˩ nɔːŋ˥ dɔːŋ˥ ʔdiaw haː˥ gɔn

pʰuː˥.dʑaːj saːm pʰuː˥.ɲiŋ soːŋ

biː˩ pʰɯa pʰuː˥.ʔaːj˥ taːj tɕaːk

pʰɯa tiam tɛː˩ ɲaŋ lek .....

|My father's name is Sri Indraditya,

My mother's name is lady Sueang.

My older brother's name is Ban Mueang.

We are five siblings from the same womb.

three boys and two girls.

Our eldest brother passed away.

when we were young.... [text continues]

! colspan="4" |Modern Thai Approximate Pronunciation and Transliteration

| colspan="4" |บ่อ กู จื่อ ซีอีนดราดีต แหม่ กู จื่อ นางเซือง บี่ กู จื่อ บานเมือง ตู บี่ น่อง ด้อง เดียว ห้า กอน ผู้จาย ซาม ผู้ญิง โซง บี่ เบือ ผู้อ้าย ตาย จาก เพือ เตียม แต่ ญัง เล็ก

bo ku jue Si-Indradit mae ku jue Nang Sueang bi ku jue Ban Mueang tu bi nong dong diao ha gon phujai sam phunying song bi phuea phu-ai tai chak phuea tiam tae nyang lek

(voiced stops are approximated as unvoiced in this case due to its absence in modern 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 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 () and denti-alveolars (); the three-way distinction among velars () and palatals (), 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.

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 ) 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.

Old Thai (Sukhothai) consonant inventory

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="4" |Labial

! colspan="4" |Dental/ <br> Alveolar

! colspan="4" |(Alveolo-) <br> Palatal

! colspan="3" |Velar

! colspan="1" |Glottal

!Nasal

| colspan="2" |

!Plosive/<br />Affricate

| colspan="2" |

!Fricative

| colspan="2" |

| colspan="2" |~

| colspan="4" |

| colspan="2" |

!Trill

| colspan="4" |

| colspan="2" |

| colspan="8" |

!Approximant

| colspan="2" |

ว

| colspan="2" |

หล

| colspan="2" |

ล

| colspan="2" |

หย

ย

อย

| colspan="4" |

Historical Sukhothai pronunciation

{| class="wikitable"

!Letters

!IPA

!Word in Sukhothai (in Modern Thai script)

!Pronunciation in IPA (excluding tone)

!Meaning and definitions

| colspan="5" |<nowiki>วรรค ก | Varga Kor</nowiki>

|ก

|เกิด

|kɤːt

|v. to be born

|ข

|kʰ

|ของ

|kʰɔːŋ

|n. thing

|ฃ

|ฃึ้น (ขึ้น)

|xɯn

|v. to go up

|ค

|ครู

|gruː

|n. teacher

|ฅ

|ɣ

|ฅวาม (ความ)

|ɣwaːm

|n. affair; matter; content

|ฆ

|ฆ่า

|gaː

|v. to kill

|ง

|ŋ

|งก

|ŋok

|adj. greedy

|หง

|ŋ̊

|หงอก

|ŋ̊ɔːk

|v. to whiten (hair)

| colspan="5" |<nowiki>วรรค จ | Varga Jor</nowiki>

|จ

|tɕ

|ใจ

|tɕaɯ

|n. heart

|ฉ

|tɕʰ

|ฉาย

|tɕʰaːj

|v. to shine (on something)

|ช

|dʑ

|ชื่อ

|dʑɯː

|n. name

|ซ

|z - ʑ

|ซ้ำ

|zam

|adv. repeatedly

|ญ

|ɲ

|ญวน

|ɲuan

|n. Vietnam (archaic)

|หญ

|ɲ̊

|หญิง

|ɲ̊iŋ

|n. woman

| colspan="5" |<nowiki>วรรค รฏ | Varga Ra Tor</nowiki>

|ฎ

|ʔd

|ฎีกา

|ʔdiː.kaː

|n. petition notice

|ฏ

|ฏาร

|taː.raʔ

|n. Ganymede

|ฐ

|tʰ

|ฐาน

|tʰaːn

|n. base, platform

|ณ

|เณร

|neːn

|n. novice monk

| colspan="5" |<nowiki>วรรค ต | Varga Tor</nowiki>

|ด

|ʔd

|ดาว

|ʔdaːw

|n. star

|ต

|ตา

|taː

|n. eye

|ถ

|tʰ

|ถอย

|tʰɔj

|v. to move back

|ท

|ทอง

|dɔːŋ

|n. gold

|ธ

|ธุระ

|du.raʔ

|n. business; affairs; errands

|น

|น้ำ

|naːm

|n. water

|หน

|n̊

|หนู

|n̊uː

|n. mouse

| colspan="5" |<nowiki>วรรค ป | Varga Por</nowiki>

|บ

|ʔb

|บ้าน

|ʔbaːn

|n. house

|ป

|ปลา

|plaː

|n. fish

|ผ

|pʰ

|ผึ้ง

|pʰɯŋ

|n. bee

|ฝ

|ฝัน

|fan

|n. dream

|พ

|พ่อ

|bɔː

|n. father

|ฟ

|ฟัน

|van

|n. tooth

|ภ

|ภาษา

|baː.saː

|n. language

|ม

|แม่

|mɛː

|n. mother

|หม

|m̊

|หมา

|m̊aː

|n. dog

| colspan="5" |<nowiki>อวรรค | Avarga</nowiki>

|อย

|ʔj

|อย่า

|ʔjaː

|adv. do not

|ย

|เย็น

|jen

|adj. cold

|หย

|j̊

|เหยียบ

|j̊iap

|v. to step on

|ร

|รัก

|rak

|v. to love

|หร

|r̊

|หรือ

|r̊ɯː

|conj. or

|ล

|ลม

|lom

|n. wind

|หล

|l̥

|หล่อ

|l̥ɔː

|adj. handsome

|ว

|วัน

|wan

|n. day

|หว

|ẘ

|หวี

|ẘiː

|n. comb

|ศ

|ศาล

|saːn

|n. court of law

|ษ

|ฤๅษรี (ฤๅษี)

|rɯː.siː

|n. hermit

|ส

|สวย

|suaj

|adj. beautiful

|อ

|ʔ

|อ้าย

|ʔaːj

|n. first born son

Early Old Thai

Early Old Thai also apparently had velar fricatives as distinct phonemes. These were represented by the now-obsolete letters kho khuat and kho khon, respectively. During the Old Thai period, these sounds merged into the corresponding stops , and as a result the use of these letters became unstable.

At some point in the history of Thai, an alveolo-palatal nasal phoneme also existed, inherited from Proto-Tai. A letter ญ yo ying also exists, which is used to represent an alveolo-palatal nasal in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali, and is currently pronounced at the beginning of a syllable but at the end of a syllable. Most native Thai words that are reconstructed as beginning with are also pronounced in modern Thai, but generally spelled with ย yo yak, which consistently represents . This suggests that > in native words occurred in the pre-literary period. It is unclear whether Sanskrit and Pali words beginning with were borrowed directly with a , or whether a was re-introduced, followed by a second change > . The northeastern Thai dialect Isan and the Lao language still preserve the phoneme /ɲ/, which is represented in the Lao script by , such as in the word (, mosquito). This letter is distinct from the phoneme and its Lao letter , such as in the word (, medicine). The distinction in writing has been lost in the informal writing of the Isan language with the Thai script and both sounds are represented by .

Proto-Tai also had a glottalized palatal sound, reconstructed as in Li Fang-Kuei (1977). Corresponding Thai words are generally spelled หย, which implies an Old Thai pronunciation of (or ), but a few such words are spelled อย, which implies a pronunciation of 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),

The long–short pairs are as follows:

{|class="wikitable"

!colspan="5"|Long

!colspan="5"|Short

!Thai

!IPA

!colspan=3|Example

!Thai

!IPA

!colspan=3|Example

|◌า || || || || 'to slice'

|◌ะ || || || || 'to dream'

|◌ี || || || || 'to cut'

|◌ิ || || || || 'kris'

|◌ู || || || || 'to inhale'

|◌ุ || || || || 'rearmost'

|เ◌ || || || || 'to recline'

|เ◌ะ || || || || 'tendon, ligament'

|แ◌ || || || || 'to be defeated'

|แ◌ะ || || || || 'goat'

|◌ื◌ || || || || 'wave'

|◌ึ || || || || 'to go up'

|เ◌อ || || || || 'to walk'

|เ◌อะ || || || || 'silver'

|โ◌ || || || || 'to fell'

|โ◌ะ || || || || 'thick (soup)'

|◌อ || || || || 'drum'

|เ◌าะ || || || || 'box'

There are also opening and closing diphthongs in Thai, which analyze as and . For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

!colspan="2"|Long

!colspan="2"|Short

!Thai script

!IPA

!Thai script

!IPA

|◌าย

|ไ◌*, ใ◌*, ไ◌ย, ◌ัย

|◌าว

|เ◌า*

|เ◌ีย

|เ◌ียะ

|–

|◌ิว

|◌ัว

|◌ัวะ

|◌ูย

|◌ุย

|เ◌ว

|เ◌็ว

|แ◌ว

|–

|เ◌ือ

|เ◌ือะ

|เ◌ย

|–

|◌อย

|–

|โ◌ย

|–

Additionally, there are three triphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

!Thai script

!IPA

|เ◌ียว*

|◌วย*

|เ◌ือย*

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. The table shows an example of both the phonemic tones and their phonetic realization, in the IPA. Moren & Zsiga (2006) and Zsiga & Nitisaroj (2007) provide phonetic and phonological analyses of Thai tone realization.

thumb|upright=1.15|Thai language tone chart

Notes:

Five-level tone value: Mid [33], Low [21], Falling [41], High [45], Rising [214]. 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.
For the diachronic changes of tone value, see Pittayaporn (2007).
The full complement of tones exists only in so-called "live syllables", those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant ().
For "dead syllables", those that end in a plosive () 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.

Open ('unchecked') syllables

{| class=wikitable

! scope="col" | Tone

! scope="col" | Thai

! scope="col" | Example

! scope="col" | Phonemic

! scope="col" | Phonetic

! scope="col" | Gloss

| Mid

| 'stick'

| Low

| or

| 'galangal'

| Falling

| 'value'

| High

| or

| 'to trade'

| Rising

| or

| 'leg'

Closed ('checked') syllables

{| class=wikitable

! scope="col" | Tone

! scope="col" | Thai

! scope="col" | Example

! scope="col" | Phonemic

! scope="col" | Phonetic

! scope="col" | Gloss

| Low (short vowel)

| rowspan="2" |

| 'marinate'

| Low (long vowel)

| 'areca nut, areca palm, betel, fruit'

| High

| 'habitually, likely to'

| Falling

| '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.

{| class=wikitable

! scope="col" | Tone

! scope="col" | Thai

! scope="col" | Example

! scope="col" | Phonemic

! scope="col" | Phonetic

! scope="col" | Gloss

| rowspan="2" | High

| rowspan="2" |

| 'Marc, Mark'

| 'charge'

| rowspan="2" | Falling

| rowspan="2" |

| 'make-up'

| 'racket'

Grammar

From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered an analytic language. The word order is subject–verb–object, although the subject is often omitted. Additionally, Thai is an isolating language lacking any form of inflectional morphology whatsoever. Thai pronouns are selected according to the gender and relative status of speaker and audience.

Adjectives and adverbs

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.

Comparatives take the form "A X B" (, ), 'A is more X than B'. The superlative is expressed as "A X " (, ), 'A is most X'.

Adjectives in Thai can be used as complete predicates. Because of this, many words used to indicate tense in verbs (see Verbs:Tense below) may be used to describe adjectives.

:* Remark mostly means 'I am hungry right now' because normally, () marks the change of a state, but has many other uses as well. For example, in the sentence, (): 'So where are you going?', () is used as a discourse particle.

Verbs

Verbs do not inflect. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number; nor are there any participles. The language being analytic and case-less, the relationship between subject, direct and indirect object is conveyed through word order and auxiliary verbs. Transitive verbs follow the pattern subject-verb-object.

In order to convey tense, aspect and mood (TAM), the Thai verbal system employs auxiliaries and verb serialization. Similarly, (, ) is a post-verbal aspect marker which corresponds to the continuative or temporary aspect.

The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of (, ) before the verb. For example:

The construction is traditionally an adversative passive, a feature common to many Southeast Asian languages where a passive construction is restricted to unfavorable meanings (e.g. "he was killed" but not "he was rewarded"), but in current usage is found with virtually all transitive verbs. This neutral usage first arose as an Anglicism as Thailand became Westernized in the early 20th century, but has since become pervasive. The adversative passive persists in the similar construction with (, ).

Negation is indicated by placing (, ; not) before the verb.

, () 'He is not hitting' or 'He doesn't hit'.

Thai exhibits serial verb constructions, where verbs are strung together. Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases.

Nouns

Nouns are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles. Thai nouns are bare nouns and can be interpreted as singular, plural, definite or indefinite. Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: (, 'child') is often repeated as () to refer to a group of children. The word (, ) may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word. (, , , 'we', masculine; , , emphasised 'we'; , '(the) dogs'). Plurals are expressed by adding classifiers, used as measure words (), in the form of noun-number-classifier:

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").

Possession in Thai is indicated by adding the word () in front of the noun or pronoun, but it may often be omitted. For example:

Nominal phrases

Nominal phrases in Thai often use a special class of words classifiers. As previously mentioned, these classifiers are obligatory for noun phrases containing numerals e.g.