Loanwords 5: Chameleon English and loanword spelling

Thai, in general, manages to maintain the original orthography of words it borrows from other languages. But a lot fall through the cracks, too, or get changed over the years. For instance, เดิน "walk" is from the Khmer word ដើរ /daə/, and up until the mid-20th century was spelled เดิร in Thai, reflecting the Khmer spelling.

So while most English words are recognizably foreign based on their spelling--everything from คอมพิวเตอร์ to อพาร์ตเมนต์ to เมล์ (in รถเมล์), plenty are less obvious. Which means many Thais may use the words with no idea of their foreign origin. Which is perfectly okay, if you ask me.

To name a few:

• เลน /leen/, from English 'lane', as the painted divisions of a road.
• หรีด /riit/ in พวงหรีด, from English 'wreath'; Thais use them exclusively at funerals.
• ทีม /thiim/, from English 'team'.
• โน้ต /noot/, also written โน๊ต, from English 'note'.
• แป๊บ /paep/, from English 'pipe', as in a drainage pipe.
• เทอม /thoem/, from English 'term', meaning a school term.
• ยีน /yiin/, from both English 'gene' and 'jean', meaning both the biological unit and denim fabric.
• โหวต /woot/, from English 'vote'.
• บาย /baai/ or บ๊ายบาย /baai baai/, from English '(good)bye, bye-bye'.

Note that sometimes there are other clues that these are loanwords, like the presence of certain tones/tone markers (e.g. โน้ต/โน๊ต and แป๊ป), or atypical spellings (e.g. เทอม).

I've been thinking about this because some linguists in Thailand, and some members of Thailand's Royal Institute, want to have more phonetic spellings of loanwords from English, including heavier use of diacritics. As it stands, many English words break normal tone rules. For one, the word pronounced [เก๊ต] is most commonly written เก็ท, which normally would be read with a low tone. Thus, if respelled, it would be written เก๊ต (as many do spell it, but a minority).

Part of the issue here is pronounceability, where these language experts are concerned that spoken Thai will stray from written Thai (despite there already being hundreds if not thousands of opaque and difficult pronunciations for Pali, Sanskrit, and Khmer loanwords); but the other motive is to clearly mark them as English loanwords. Which is really just giving them the Hester Prynne treatment. If words look too Thai, people will think they're Thai, and they may edge out more worthy native words, is how the logic goes.

I'm not in favor of such artificial language tampering. You might say I believe in the linguistic "free market"--the public will decide how it wants to pronounce and spell things. This way, convention is born of common usage. But many countries, like Thailand, put a lot of effort into language planning initiatives. Much language planning, such as creating a standard vocabulary for academic or technical fields, is very useful, as long as the public actually uses the words created.

As of yet, whether such a re-spelling initiative is a good idea or not is still debated by the academics, so little has happened yet. And how successful such an initiative would be remains to be seen.

Make no mistake, though, English is well-entrenched in Thai, and I'm of the opinion that trying to make English words second-class citizens through spelling or other means is a losing battle.

Loanwords 4: English loanwords in 1892

There's something irreconcilably nerdy about reading the dictionary. What can I say, I like dictionaries. It's not like I read them cover to cover--I browse. Electronic dictionaries are good for many things, but I love the simple serendipity of flipping through a paper dictionary and finding great new words, or making unexpected discoveries.

I also have a thing for old dictionaries. Take my digital critical edition of the first Thai-English dictionary as proof of that. It's based on a mid-19th Century manuscript of unknown provenance in the British Museum. I gradually typed out the 500-page document over the course of 2006. It was roughly equal parts fascinating and tedious. I got pretty good at reading the chicken-scratch English. The Thai is much more easy to read, ironically, despite a few orthographic quirks of the era.

I typed it up from a digital scan made of a microfilm copy of the manuscript. Since old dictionaries are so hard to find in the flesh--er, paper--a decent scan will do. And thanks to such scans I've been able to examine many early Thai dictionaries. No doubt, without this technology I never would've gotten to read through them closely even if I did find them in some library.

Recently I've been enjoying E. B. Michell's 1892 work A Siamese-English Dictionary, For the use of students in both languages. The book is in the public domain, and downloadable from Google Books within the United States, or viewable on SEAlang. I don't know much about Michell other than what the title page says: "M.A., Barrister-at-Law, late Legal Adviser to His Siamese Majesty's Government." The Majesty in question here is King Chulalongkorn, or Rama V, who reigned from 1868 to 1910. Google tells me Michell's full name is Edward Blair Michell, and that's the extent of my knowledge of him.

I posted last month about finding 'copy' in this dictionary, spelled กอปี้, whereas today it's usually spelled ก๊อปปี้. As it turns out, there are a number more loanwords that Michell says come from English. And interestingly, all of them are still used:

ไปรเวต = private; I've only seen this used nowadays to refer to casual attire. I first encountered it when my wife and I had pictures taken before our wedding. We had pictures taken in a few different outfits, including ชุดไปรเวต. This usage must be uniquely Thai, because 'private outfit' doesn't sound like anything I'd normally have my picture taken in.

แปลน = plan; I still hear this used as an alternative to แผน. I don't know the etymology of แผน, but it seems to be preferred as the native (or more native sounding?) alternative to แปลน.

แหม่ม [แหฺม่ม] = Ma'am; this has gone from referring to a woman Westerner to being a very popular girl's nickname.

ออฟฟิศ = office; it's even still spelled this way, with the final ศ. You can usually spot a loanword as being of 19th Century origin by the presence of these less common letters usually reserved for loans from Pali and Sanskrit. Two other examples are โปลิศ 'police' and อังกฤษ 'English'.

บ๋อย = boy; this specifically refers to a servant boy or a waiter. I still hear this around.

บิล = bill; everybody knows this one, don't they? Pronounced 'bin' in the typical Thai way, and nowadays usually paired with 'check' เช็ค as เช็คบิล used to ask for the check at a restaurant. In this context, 'check' and 'bill' are actually two words for the same thing. I would hypothesize that if 'bill' was already in the language, and so was 'check' in the verb sense 'to check, to examine', then the influence of English 'check please' in the restaurant setting influenced the birth of the quirky Thai-ism 'check bill', which in the Thai context it means to literally check the bill.

แบงก์ = bank, meaning the financial institution; more commonly spelled แบงค์ nowadays.

ปิ่น = pin; used for one's hair. Immortalized in Thai in phrases like ปิ่นเกล้า pin klao, a pin for holding the hair in place when pulled up on the crown like a bun.

ฟุด = foot (the unit of measure); nowadays spelled ฟุต, reflecting the final t of the English spelling.

มรสุม [มอ-ระ-สุม] = monsoon; I don't think this is actually from English as Michell claims. Etymonline traces its route into English as Arabic > Portuguese > Dutch > English:

"trade wind of the Indian Ocean," 1584, from Du. monssoen, from Port. monçao, from Ar. mawsim "appropriate season" (for a voyage, pilgrimage, etc.), from wasama "he marked." When it blows from the southwest (April through October) it brings heavy rain, hence "the rainy season" (1747).

I'd say it's quite plausible that it came into Thai from Arabic, perhaps through Persian (which has many Arabic loans), since Thai has other words of purported Persian origin, like องุ่น 'grape', กุหลาบ 'rose', and กะหล่ำ 'cabbage'. Also notice that 'morasum' is slightly closer to 'mawsim' than to 'moncao' or 'monssoen' (but not conclusively so). If it's a newer loan, it may have come through Portuguese, which gave Thai at least one other early loanword, สบู่ 'soap'.

Loanwords 3: copy, xerox, pump

An intriguing discovery inspired me to write another installment of Loanwords. Up today we have three words related to copying in one form or another:

ก๊อปปี้ [kɔ́ppîi] = v. to copy, duplicate; n. copy; clf. copies (of a document); adj. duplicate. Also spelled ก๊อปปี, among other variants. Note the short vowel on the first syllable. This gave rise to the clipped form ก๊อป [kɔ́p]. Both forms are used in a variety of senses. ซีดีก๊อป refers to bootleg CDs, like copies made in a CD burner; ก๊อปปี้เซ็นเตอร์ is a copy center, and ถ่ายก๊อปปี้ means to make a photocopy; in the classroom, ก๊อป means to to copy someone else's work, as in in ก๊อปเพื่อน 'to copy off a friend'.

The unexpected discovery that I made is about this word. I was reading in A Siamese-Dictionary, 1892, by E. B. Michell and found this:

กอปี้ (kawpee) [Engl.] copy; สมุด--- copy-book

[Michell 1892, p. 21 (requires DjVu plug-in)]

I had no idea this word has been around in Thai for so long. This shows that its original borrowed sense was to make a handwritten copy. The native word for this is ลอก or คัดลอก. ก๊อปปี้ retains this sense today, along with newer more technologically advanced meanings.

ซี [sii] = to photocopy. Clipped from 'Xerox'. The full name, ซีรอกซ์ [ซีหฺร็อก], is also used. Note that like many English loans, the Thai pronunciation doesn't follow regular tone rules. Usage follows the pattern of English, which also uses Xerox as a generic verb meaning to photocopy (regardless of the brand of machine). This is the word I hear used by students and photocopy staff at the two libraries I frequent most, Chula Library and the National Library.

Another interesting thing is that you can use either ก๊อปปี้ or ซีรอกซ์ with the verb ถ่าย: ถ่ายซีรอกซ์ or ถ่ายก๊อปปี้ (the formal Thai is ถ่ายสำเนา), but the clipped forms are usually used as verbs by themselves. ซี is equivalent to ถ่ายซีรอกซ์, and ก๊อป is equivalent to ถ่ายก๊อปปี้.

ปั๊ม [pám] = to pump; to stamp; to make a copy. From English 'pump', typical uses include: ปั๊มน้ำมัน 'gas pump' (referring to the entire filling station), เครื่องปั๊มน้ำ 'water pump', ปั๊มหัวใจ 'to perform CPR' (i.e. pump the heart). But there are other meanings that stray a bit further from the English source. ปั๊มเอกสาร means 'to stamp a document', as with a rubber stamp or an embossing seal, and ปั๊มตรา 'affix a seal' means the same thing. Presumably this comes from the motion of 'pumping' the lever of a old school desk embosser. Finally, ปั๊ม also means to copy or press a professional-style compact disc, complete with data and artwork; a disc press is เครื่องปั๊มแผ่น.

Loanwords 2: Mouth, menu, mem

It's only been, oh, seven months since the last (and first) installment of Loanwords. Time for another look at the unique ways in which Thai speakers take words from other languages and make them their own. As before, phonetics are given in brackets when the word doesn't follow regular pronunciation rules. This time up: mouth, menu, and mem:

เมาท์ [เม้า] = to chitchat, usually implying gossip. From the English word 'mouth'. I've heard my wife use this one for a few years at least. It also made it into the Royal Institute's Dictionary of New Words (พจนานุกรมคำใหม่ เล่ม ๑) that was released last year. Note, though, that they have not followed the popular spelling, rather choosing to introduce a new spelling that matches the tone of the spoken word. Their definition says:

ก. ๑. พูดคุยกัน มักเป็นเรื่องไร้สาระ เช่น ผู้หญิงกลุ่มนั้นเอาแต่นั่งเม้าธ์กันไม่ยอมทำงาน. ๒. พูดนินทา เช่น พวกหล่อนชอบเม้าธ์ชาวบ้านไปทั่ว. [p. 123]

v. 1. chat, usually about trivial things, e.g. Those women just 'mouth' all day, they never get any work done. 2. gossip, e.g. They love to 'mouth' anyone all over the place.

I believe this is a true Thai innovation, because I've never heard 'mouth' used in any sense like this in English. It's actually, ahem, eyebrow-raising to use it in English like this.

เมนู = menu; menu item. Nevermind that this isn't how we pronounce 'menu' in English (which would be more like เม็นยู), for starters. This seems like it should be fairly straightforward, like the menu at a restaurant, but this word has another sense in Thai: a menu item. That is, it's become a classifier for a dish of edibles. The idea of 'this is my favorite thing on the menu' can be expressed quite succinctly as นี่คือเมนูโปรดของฉันเลย (literally, 'this is my favorite menu'). If you've never heard this usage, try it at a new restaurant. Ask, มีเมนูแนะนำไหม(ครับ/คะ), and come tell me how it goes.

เม็ม = to save information in one's cell phone (usually a phone number). This is almost always followed by the word เบอร์, which comes from English 'number', and refers only to phone numbers (เบอร์โทร) and e-mail addresses (เบอร์อีเมล์). You can also use it without เบอร์, though. If someone asked you เม็มเบอร์ยัง 'Did you get (my) number yet?', you could affirm that you've completed the action by saying something like เม็มไว้แล้ว. This is usually used with phone numbers, but potentially could be used for other things like e-mail addresses, too. This is also in the New Words Dictionary:

ก. บันทึกหมายเลขโทรศัพท์ไว้ในเครื่องโทรศัพท์มือถือหรือโทรศัพท์พีซีทีเป็นต้น เพื่อให้ค้นชื่อและหมายเลขโทรศัพท์ผู้ที่ต้องการจะต่อสัญญาณโทรศัพท์ได้ทันที ทั้งยังทำให้รู้ว่าโทรศัพท์ที่ต่อสัญญาณเข้ามาเป็นของผู้ใด เช่น ได้เบอร์เลขาฯ มาแล้ว อย่าลืมเม็มเบอร์ไว้ จะได้ติดต่อได้สะดวก. [p. 123]

v. record a telephone number in a cellular telephone or PCT* telephone etc., in order to be able to instantly find the name and telephone number of the person with whom you want connect with via telephone signal, as well as to know to whom the telephone of an incoming telephone signal belongs, e.g. You've got the secretary's number, don't forget to 'mem' it, so you can contact them conveniently.

I've intentionally translated this into stilted English, because I think the original Thai sounds terribly formal and unnatural. It reads like it's been written for an audience who isn't quite sure what a "cellular telephone" is. Most unfortunate. [Update: Forgot to mention that the Royal Institute New Words Dictionary says this is from 'memorize'. This is plausible, since เม็ม is a verb and so is 'memorize', but I'd add that it could also be from 'memory'.]

If you have suggestions for the Loanwords feature, write me at the เบอร์อีเมล์ at the bottom of the page.

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*For those who don't know, a PCT telephone (abbreviated from Personal Communication Telephone) is a rather rare system now that let you use a single number for both cell phone and home phone. A friendly robot answers and the caller dials 0 for home phone and 1 for cell phone, and the one number would forward to the other if there was no answer. Rather handy, but unfortunately the cell phones themselves were special models specific to the system and very aesthetically unappealing. Existing numbers are still around, as far as I know, but it never caught on widely, doubtless because you know how much Thais love their fancy, expensive cell phones that do your laundry and cure cancer and whatnot, all for the low, low price of two months' salary.

Etymologist 10: Mantra

After going on about mantras in my last post, I realized that the word mantra is a good candidate for the next installment of Etymologist. Heading over to etymonline, we see:

1808, "that part of the Vedas which contains hymns," from Skt. mantra-s "sacred message or text, charm, spell, counsel," lit. "instrument of thought," related to manyate "thinks." Sense of "special word used for meditation" is first recorded in Eng. 1956.

This corresponds to Thai มนต์ or มนตร์ (the former is from Pali and the latter from Sanskrit; มนต์ is the more common spelling overall, though in some compound expressions one or the other is conventionalized). RID99 tells us:

มนต์, มนตร์ น. คําศักดิ์สิทธิ์, คําสําหรับสวดเพื่อเป็นสิริมงคล เช่น สวดมนต์, คำเสกเป่าที่ถือว่าศักดิ์สิทธิ์ เช่น ร่ายมนตร์ เวทมนตร์. (ป. มนฺต; ส. มนฺตฺร).

"n. sacred words, words to pray for good fortune, ex. suatmon; incantation that is held as sacred, ex. raaymon, weetmon. (P. manฺta; S. manฺtฺra)" [My translation]

This is a straightforward correspondence, although English obviously borrowed the word from Sanskrit, while Thai has both Pali and Sanskrit forms. สวดมนต์ is a common term meaning to pray, in the sense "to recite a Pali prayer." We might translate น้ำมนต์ as "holy water", meaning water that a Buddhist priest has prayed over (I'm not sure what term the Catholic church in Thailand actually uses--anyone?).

Descriptive vs. prescriptive

The blog separated by a common language looks at the differences between American English and British English. In a recent post, 'Lynneguist' offers some very good mantras that I wish more people would understand and subscribe to, for both English and Thai (though chanting them is not necessary):

• 'Different' doesn't mean 'better' or 'worse'.
• 'British' doesn't necessarily mean 'older' or 'original'.
• 'Older' doesn't mean 'better' either!
• Let's enjoy each other's dialects AND our own!

Let's examine how these apply to Thai.

First: 'Different' doesn't mean 'better' or 'worse'. Thailand is fiercely proud of its independence. Particularly, they are rightfully proud of the fact that Thailand is the only Southeast Asian nation never to be colonized or occupied by a Western nation (note the word Western--Japan occupied Thailand in WWII, and don't forget earlier history, when Thai เมือง (city-states) were เมืองขึ้น (vassal states) of the Khmer empire*). As a result, they are defensive against the encroachment of foreign culture. This is problematic, because the modern "Thai" culture has been shaped and constructed and subsequently manipulated as a political tool in the last 60 years. The idea of "Thainess" (ความเป็นไทย) as a contrast with everything else is still strong, and still invoked regularly for innumerable causes. Minority languages and cultures that are not part of the "Thai" tradition may never receive full legitimacy. I'm reminded of the Mokken sea nomads in the Southern islands, who are native speakers of a Malayo-Polynesian language, and whose children are now being taught Thai in their island classrooms, complete with pictures of the king and queen at the front of the class, like every other classroom in the country. Nevermind that the ancestors of the Mokkens were in the region centuries (millennia?) before the ancestors of the Thais. I wonder if the irony of this is lost on everyone.

I, like Lynneguist, believe that different is not necessarily bad. Many people in Thailand are very good at manipulating popular sentiment by acting as alarmists. There is a neverending stream of newspaper articles about ภาษาเสื่อม, ภาษาวิบัติ, ภาษาสแลง, ภาษาวัยรุ่น and all the other examples of "corrupted language" out there. But change happens. It's natural. And youth slang doesn't mean the downfall of society. If it gains larger legitimacy, then it's no longer youth slang.

If there is influence from foreign languages, it doesn't mean Thai culture is in danger of extinction, nor the language. This ultra-nationalist bent has been going on for at least 60 years. Back then, it was the economically-dominant Chinese who were vilified. Field Marshal Plaek Phibulsongkhram (จอมพล แปลก พิบูลสงคราม) was Prime Minister (and one of many military dictators in Thai history--post-coup government included) from 1938-1944 and 1948-1957 (he was overthrown once by one of his generals, but managed to came back into power, later to be ousted again and eventually die in exile in Japan). He was extremely Sinophobic. In the 1930s, the state created corporations to take over production of commodities like tobacco and petroleum from Chinese immigrants, and Chinese-owned businesses were subject to more control and taxes than Thai-owned businesses. This was part of a campaign to use only Thai-made products, because the Chinese hold on the market was too strong. He mandated that all Chinese schools must either switch to instruction in Thai or close. In a 1938 speech, one of his right hand men (in)famously compared the Chinese in Thailand to the Jews in Germany. In some ways, this is just a trend that has never died. In other ways, it's cyclical. Last time it was the Chinese. It has also previously been the Khmer and the Burmese. This time it's the generic ฝรั่ง, the Westerner.

Second: 'Thai' doesn't necessarily mean 'older' or 'original.' This may be a touchy spot. Much of the ราชาศัพท์ "royal speak" of Thai, used in reference to royalty/deity, is borrowed from Khmer, because Khmer was the court language (ภาษาราชการ) when the several Thai groups were vassal states of the Khmer empire. Therefore, Khmer words gained prestige and became associated with royalty. The language is a product of its environment, and its development includes centuries or millennia of contact with Khmer, Chinese and other civilizations and their languages. Sometimes a borrowing is very, very old! Old enough that it "feels" Thai, and is thus not considered a foreign borrowing anymore. When modern youngsters complain about the vast amounts of hard-to-remember and hard-to-understand Indic loanwoards from Pali and Sanskrit, they are told by their Thai teachers that Sanskrit words are Thai words now. We shouldn't look at them as loanwords, but just accept them as Thai.

Third: 'Older' doesn't mean 'better' either! The Thais should recognize this, because they reject older native words like กู and มึง (which everyone knows were used in the Sukhothai era), in favor of words that are often borrowed. This ties in with the second point. The history is complex, and contact and mutual influence has been going on for thousands of years.

Fourth: Let's enjoy each other's dialects AND our own! Contrary to popular belief or understanding, every speaker of a language speaks a dialect (ภาษาถิ่น). The idea of a "standard" language is a myth (English speakers don't understand this either). Standard language is an idealization that only exists in books. No one speaks Standard Thai natively. When most people say "Standard Thai", they usually mean either "textbook Thai" (the idealization) or "Bangkok Thai" (the closest realized form). But Bangkok Thai is a dialect just as full of regionalisms as ภาษาอีสาน, ภาษาเหนือ and ภาษาใต้, and any other regional variety of the language. Bangkok is a ถิ่น, so Bangkok Thai is a ภาษาถิ่น. Simple as that. But because the majority of television and radio communication is done in Bangkok Thai, the idioms and regionalisms become more widely known, and thus are seen as part of the "standard" language.

I don't have a problem with using the phrase Standard Thai or Standard English, though. I would propose, however, that we use it to mean a given language, allowing for certain variation based on majority use. We can call "drinking fountain" standard English, but "bubbler" is probably regional English. Likewise, มะละกอ is Standard Thai, while หมากฮุ่ง/หมักฮุ่ง/บักฮุ่ง are examples of regional Thai (but may be "standard" parts of their respective dialects).

In linguistics, there is the concept of an idiolect. That is, the language that you (and you alone) speak. No two people have the same idiolect. I can't find a word in Thai for this, so I'm going to propose ภาษาประจำตัว or, as an Indic-derived alternative, สวภาษา [สะ-วะ-ภาษา], meaning ภาษาของตนเอง "one's own language". If you speak Thai, at any level, then you have a particular Thai ideolect. If we recognize that no two people really speak the same language, and that language is conventionalized (oral) symbols standing for concepts, then we begin to see how arbitrary it really is. And how quickly it can change. "Bad words" become acceptable, neutral words become "bad words," borrowed foreign words become "native", new words are coined, and other words fall out of use.

None of this is to say that anything goes. Of course there are certain word orders that are grammatical, and others that aren't. Of course there are certain words that are inappropriate in one context, and appropriate in another. I'm not saying everything is correct (I find a lot of eggcorns just as annoying as the next guy). It's important that we have standards and conventions to ensure that we understand each another! But at the same time, we can appreciate the vast variety of language, without fooling ourselves into thinking that there is such a thing as a pure language. And this holds equally for Thai, English, and every language.

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*Some Thai historians justify this by claiming the ขอม Khom, which is the term the Thais use to refer to the Khmer people of that area, weren't really the ancestors of the modern Khmers, but rather the ancestors of the Thais themselves. This is nationalistic nonsense. That Thais today still use the word Khom, a term of dubious origin, shows that they still don't want to admit that the Khom of yesteryear and the Khmer of today are related.

Etymologist 9: Can't hold a candle to the moon

I found a really cool link while researching the sandalwood/ไม้จันทน์ connection.

First, I didn't know until just now that the Thai words จันทน์ "sandalwood" and จันทร์ "moon" were related. It turns out that both words (borrowed from Sanskrit) are from the PIE base *kand- meaning "to glow, to shine." The literal meaning of จันทน์ would be "(wood for) burning incense," referring to the common use of that variety of wood. จัทนร์ would mean "shining; glowing." It has come to mean "moon" because the moon shines.

Our modern word candle comes from the Old English candel, from Latin candela "a light, torch" in turn from candere "to shine." Which is cognate with Sanskrit candra-, and therefore related to Thai จันทร์. (Also from the same Latin root are our English words candor, candid, incandescent, and incendiary, among others.)

Etymologist 8: Sandalwood and ไม้จันทน์

Continuing in the vein of recent posts, on etymological links between English and Thai (through Sanskrit), today let's look at sandalwood.

First off, the name apparently has nothing to do with the footwear. The name sandal meaning open-toed shoe comes from Old French, which in turn is from the Latin, which comes from the Greek, and ultimately is probably a Persian word, says the Online Etymological Dictionary*.

The sandal in sandalwood comes into English via a similar path. It would have been a homophone with the footwear in Old French, but from different Latin and Greek roots. It came into Greek from either Persian or Turkish, but ultimately comes from the Sanskrit candana-m. Sandalwood in Thai is called ไม้จันทน์, which transcribed in the Mary Haas method (minus ไม้) is canthana. (Note that this is not the same spelling as จันทร์ "moon"--though I'll get into how these two words are related in a future post).

So that's the story of the connection between sandal(wood) and (ไม้)จันทน์.

* I just noticed that this, the formal name for the English etymology resource found at etymonline.com, ironically has the initials OED--ironic because it's the poor man's Oxford English Dictionary. It's no substitute, but OED.com charges a hefty sum to subscribe.

Etymologist 7: Emerald/มรกต

Today I have another interesting connection between Thai and English to share. The Thai word for emerald, มรกต, is actually cognate with its English equivalent. First let's check out the RID99 definition of มรกต:

มรกต [มอระกด] น. ชื่อรัตนะอย่างหนึ่งในจำพวกนพรัตน์ มีสีเขียว.
"The name of a type of precious stone, one of the nine gems, green in color." (my translation)

Etymonline.com has this to say about the origin of emerald:

c.1300, from O.Fr. emeraude, from M.L. esmaraldus, from L. smaragdus, from Gk. smaragdos "green gem," from Sem. baraq "shine"... Skt. maragdam "emerald" is from the same source...

To sum up, we have English emerald coming from Greek smaragdos, related to the Sanskrit root maragdam. The Sanskrit has another form (or perhaps another transliteration, I'm not sure)--marakatam. The etymologies given in RID are woefully incomplete, so it's not surprising they don't acknowledge the Indic source of the word, but it's a pretty obvious connection between marakatam and มรกต. And thus between มรกต and emerald.

Etymologist 6: Bandana

I hear you asking, why is he writing a post on the origin of bandana on a blog about Thai? Well, I was recently enjoying a read through the Wikipedia page on Sanskrit loanwords in English, and found some interesting connections between English and Thai.

For those who weren't aware, Sanskrit and English are linguistic cousins. Very distant cousins, though, as part of the rather huge Indo-European language family (this means they descended from a common language--what we call "Proto-Indo-European" or PIE). And while Thai isn't part of the same family, it has an immense number of Indic (mostly Sanskrit and Pali) loanwords. Which makes for some interesting connection between English and Thai.

Which brings me to bandana. According to etymonline.com, bandana is attested in English from 1752, coming from Hindi bandhnu, a method of dyeing, from the Sanskrit badhnati "binds". The method was so-called because the cloth was tie-dyed. Go ahead, enjoy the flashback to the early 90s. Turns out the Indians were doing it three centuries earlier.

The word bandana is from the same PIE root as band in the sense "something that binds".

This is where the connection to Thai comes in. There are two cognates in Thai: พันธ- [พัน or พัน-ทะ], and พันธน- [พัน-ทะ-นะ]. Both are from the same Indic root. I'm not sure about the difference in the original language, but in Thai the former is usually a verb, meaning "tie, bind" (although it can be used as a noun to mean "obligation") and the latter is usually a nominalized form, "tying, binding; tying implement, binding implement". But really, they're basically the same word.

Looking into this causes me to wonder about the very similar word พัน. It's defined in RID99 as "to wrap around with a rope or something similar" (that's my quick, lazy translation). That sure sounds like to tie or bind, if you ask me. I looked it up in the Proto-Tai'o'Matic, which handily shows us what various scholars have written about the origins of native Thai words (as opposed to loanwords). Only one of the works, Jonsson91, claims a native origin for พัน:

Jonsson: [ *b- (A4) B16-31 ] PSW: *ban "to encircle"

I'd hardly call that conclusive, but I don't have any hard evidence to show that พัน comes from พันธ, so for now we'll put it in the "interesting correspondence that requires further investigation" category. It's the best I can do for now.

Thai loans in English

I recall participating in a discussion on the topic of loanwords. Specifically, musing on the vast number of English loans in Thai, and wondering if there could possibly be any Thai loans in English. My immediate reaction was that there wouldn't be, because native English speakers don't have sufficient exposure to the Thai language in any statistically significant way. Then someone suggested pad thai, I think it was. Which is a good point. Thai food is immensely popular in the U.S., at least, and we have two choices for how to deal with the abundance of varieties of Thai (or any foreign) cuisine: (1) give it a descriptive English name, or (2) use its native name.

On your average Chinese menu, for example, you'll see both "beef with broccoli" and "moo goo gai pan." We could call the latter "mushroom chicken," but we don't (or at least, most places I've been to don't).

We borrow the names for lots of foreign dishes: from French, we have filet mignon, and escargot; from Italian, everything from spaghetti to cacciatore; from Spanish, paella; from Arabic, couscous.

And from Thai, we have examples of both naming options in papaya salad (for ส้มตำ), a descriptive name, and mee krob (หมี่กรอบ) or pad thai (ผัดไทย), native names. Of course, there is variation from restaurant to restaurant, but many dishes are best known by their Thai names.

Borrowing words is a natural social and linguistic process. And learning new concepts from foreign cultures is a very common (and totally legit) reason to introduce loanwords into another language (although some countries feel that they have to come up with more native-sounding alternatives). Something like pad thai has no English name at first. Whether we will all end up calling it, say, Thai spaghetti (which I sometimes have done) or just adopt the native name (which already conveniently has the word thai in it anyway) is something that can't be predicted. Whatever sticks. And it appears, in several cases, that English has adopted a few words from Thai. Who'da thunk it.

Improve Your Accent: How to speak English like a Thai (2)

Something occurred to me after posting the last blog entry. It's important to know when to use "English English" and when to use "Thai English."

Personally, I tend to err on the side of wanting to sound too much like a Thai. But that's not always the best strategy. Particularly in educated company, knowing when to bust out your native accent is a useful skill.

In general, though, my comments on this topic relate to those English words which have become part of the greater Thai lexicon.

But say you were talking with someone about Bill Clinton. You have several options: using the extreme Thai pronuncation [บิน คินตั้น], or the slightly more authentic but still Thai-sounding [บิว คลินตั้น], or you can just say it like you would in English. Know your audience, and their background with respect to English. Make sure they'll understand what you're saying.

Also know what effect you want to have. If you want solidarity, mimic the pronunciation of the person you're conversing with. If you want to be exemplary or corrective, model the "proper" pronunciation. If you're not sure, hover somewhere in between.

Context is key.

Improve Your Accent: How to speak English like a Thai (1)

It occurred to me today that, ironically, sometimes the English words in Thai trip me up the most.

A recent example from my life: เบนซ์ Benz, meaning a Mercedes-Benz automobile. I know this isn't technically an English loan, but I'm counting it because we use it in English. I've been pronouncing this [เบ็น] for a long time now, and my wife has corrected me before (it's pronounced [เบ๊น]). But I don't use this word particularly often, so when I found myself saying it the other day, I overthought it and mixed myself up. Is it [เบ๊น], but I've pronouncing it [เบ็น], or vice versa? Somehow I ended up saying [เบ็น] again.

The problem is, there are some de facto rules (complete with exceptions) about how to pronounce English words in Thai. Thai people inherently know them as part of the phonology of the colloquial language, though they usually can't explain the rules to you.

So I'm going to try to infer them.

But in this post, let's first talk about why it's easy to pronounce English loans differently from Thais. (I'm saying "differently" and not "wrong," because heck, I'm a native speaker. But loanwords have to be pronounced with the proper nativized phonology or else your audience might not เก็ท.)

Things that can trip up your accent when using English loanwords:

(1) Unfamiliarity with the limits of Thai phonology. You have to know, say, that Thai doesn't end syllables in fricatives to know that a Thai will pronounce ชีส "cheese" as [ชี้ด]. And if they do use a fricative, it's going to be one found within the phonology elsewhere, namely /s/, and not /z/ like it is in English. The "proper" word for cheese is เนยแข็ง, but at places like Pizza Hut, the loanword is more common (e.g. ขอบชีส, Thai for "(cheese) stuffed crust").

(2) Unfamiliarity with the exceptions to the limits of Thai phonology. Thai is allowed to break its own rules. New phonemes are sneaking into syllable final positions, due to the influence of loanwords. So more and more people are pronouncing แก๊ซ with the final fricative instead of [แก๊ด], for example. And there's the Amway-esque Thai company Giffarine,กิฟฟารีน, which I recall always hearing pronounced [กิฟฟา-], not [กิบฟา-]. The moral is, go with the flow. Don't insist on an overly strict nativized pronunciation.

(3) Not knowing what tone to use. We'll talk about this more in the next post.

(4) Official Thai spelling of English loans prefers not to use tone marks. And often no ไม้ไต่คู้ ( -็). If you read Thai, this is a problem, because the spelling can be misleading. This seems to be a modern spelling trend for official spellings. Mary Haas' 1962 dictionary gives "apple" as แอ๊ปเปิ้ล, with a tone mark on both syllables, but the prescribed spelling today is แอปเปิล, for both the fruit and Steve Jobs' company. On the internet, though, แอปเปิ้ล is more common (452,000 hits vs. 152,000 for แอปเปิล), and เปิ้ล is a common Thai nickname derived from it, spelled with the tone mark. Hence, also เบนซ์ and not เบ็นซ์ or เบ๊นซ์ (but both are common misspellings).

Next time we'll look at some of the "rules" and how apply them.