March 4, 2009

Word of the Day: ข่าวลือ /kʰàaw ˈlʉʉ/

Word of the Day for Wednesday, March 4, 2009:

ข่าวลือ /kʰàaw ˈlʉʉ/ n. rumor.

This one's pretty straight forward. ข่าวลือ /kʰàaw ˈlʉʉ/ is literally "rumored news".

Example: เรื่องนี้อย่าไปเชื่อเลย เป็นแค่ข่าวลือเฉยๆ "Don't believe that story! It's just rumor." (Click for the word-for-word.)

ลือ /lʉʉ/ on its own means to be widely spoken about, to spread around by word of mouth, carrying the connotation of rumor or lack of confirming facts. The phrase ลือกันว่า... /lʉʉ kan wâa/ means roughly, "Word on the street is..." or "It's rumored that..."

Bonus vocab: ลือ /lʉʉ/ is also found in many compounds dealing with renown and rumor. The connotations aren't necessarily negative. Compounds with ลือ include ลือชื่อ /lʉʉ ˈcʰʉ̂ʉ/ (or ลือนาม /lʉʉ 'naam/), เลื่องลือ /lʉ̂aŋ ˈlʉʉ/, or the elaborate expression เลื่องชื่อลือนาม /lʉ̂aŋ ˈcʰʉ̂ʉ lʉʉ 'naam/.

5 comments:

  1. love this new feature,

    will be real helpful to keep me learning a little thai everyday, now that im home (not in thailand)

    thanks again

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  2. Note that ลือ is a loan from Khmer; in that language (លឺ) it's the everyday term meaning "to hear" (ยิน).

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  3. i suspect that ลือ and ระบือ is related,
    as in รำ and ระบำ (or ตรวจ and ตำรวจ).

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  4. Yeah, if ลือ is Khmer (and I don't doubt it is), then the ลือ/ระบือ connection is very likely. That process (infixing) is usually a clear sign of Khmer words borrowed into Thai.

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  5. Nice idea.

    Teasing out the general idea and showing derivatives.

    Example sentences also nice.

    Write a book with this sort of thing in it. Thai word study. Nothing like this anywhere.

    ReplyDelete