The discussion about Thai language on the forum made me searching for more information about Thai language. I was supposed to know something about Thai language but apparently I don’t know much.

 

As I mentioned on the forum that I reserved a book about Thai language from Aalborg University’s library (I must add something about library system in DK here because the system makes my life lot easier. I can reserve any book via a library website and they will immediately let me know if they can find the book for me or not. Then they will send me a letter to let me know that the book is available and I can pick it up. Thanks for the good service). It calls “Linguistic Diversity and National Unity – Language Ecology in Thailand” by William A. Smalley and the book has arrived on Monday. I found the book was surprisingly easy to read and to understand and I would like to share it with you.

 

Allow me to start with the writer; William A. Smalley (a professor emeritus of linguistics at Bethej College) was supported by the Fulbright Foundation through the Thailand-United State Education Foundation. He was associated with the linguistics department of Chulalongkorn University and the Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development at Mahidol University.

 

The book published in 1994 by The University of Chicago Press. 

 

Since the book contains more than 400 pages, therefore I pick some parts I found interesting.

 

Let me start with “Standard Thai : Variations about a Norm” Page 26”

 

As the internal language of the Thai nation, Standard Thai is a major source of unity of Thailand, but is itself a diverse phenomenon. Thai people generally agree that there are correct and incorrect ways of speaking and writing Thai, but well-educated ones will often unconsciously use some of the “incorrect” forms while they are talking about them as being incorrect. The issue of what “standard” means in relation to language is a complex one everywhere, and in Thailand it is one of the linguistic diversity of the country.

 

The term variety has been used in the preceding pages as a general term of several kinds of systematic language differences. It is not used for haphazard slips of the tongue, or for individual peculiarities in language use, but  for patterned variations in usage characteristic of group of people, configurations such as those we will explore more fully in this chapter as they occur in Standard Thai. When varieties coincide with geographic distribution they are often called dialects. When they coincide with social status or behaviour they are often called registers. When they are established as norms by the elite, the opinion makers, the bureaucracy of officialdom, they are referred to as standard and non-standard or substandard (or, more popularly, “correct” and “incorrect”).

 

For our purposes, Standard Thai starts with the set of varieties which educated people in Thailand think they should speak or write, and which they take as norms when using the language carefully. But all such speakers vary from these norms in myriad ways, and most variations which are not stigmatized still pass unnoticed as Standard Thai. Thus anyone who speaks or writes without markedly non-standard usage is generally interpreted as speaking Standard Thai.

 

The existence of such a standard language implies a process of codification, of overt and covert decision making concerning what is to be acceptable, what will go into a dictionary or a grammar book, what will be taught in school, what will be condemned. The need for such codification is felt by the elite, or by officials of a government, or a school system, in part because some of the diversity which exists in the language is too great for such institutions to tolerate. If a standard is truly to be achieved, however, these norms must also be accepted by a significant part of the populations.

 

The rigidity with which a standard is maintained varies for different parts of the language Table 2.1 shows a continuum of standardization along which some language features can vary more than others. .......

 

Table 2.1 : Most vigorously promoted

 

Standard                                        Ideal written

                                                          Actual written by relevant elites

                                                          Idea spoken

                                                          Actual spoken by relevant elites

 

Neutral                                           Non-stigmatized colloquial

                                                          Non-stigmatized regionalisms

 

Non-Standard                              Mistakes, slips of the tongue

                                                          Interlanguage

                                                          Stigmatized regionalisms

                                                          Stigmatized colloquial

                                                          Non-vulgar

                                                          Vulgar

                                                         

......The most tangible, least variable aspects of Standard Thai are the writing system and spelling. Unlike European languages, the writing system itself, including the basic shapes of the letters, is uniquely Thai. On the other hand, one Thai type font varies from another in the shapes of its letters, as does one typewriter model from another, and one person’s handwriting from another’s. Advertisers and logo designers create eye-catching variations also. But people read all such variants as Thai, still manifestations of the one Thai writing system. Shapes of the individual letters vary within limits of reconcilability, but no other system will be accepted as Standard Thai writing.

 

As in most languages with an established writing tradition, not much variation is allowed in Thai spelling, either. Normally a given word is to be spelled in one particular way considered correct, even if that spelling is inconsistent with other spellings. For exp, the correct way of writing “thaan” (respectful term of address to a man), which is spoken with a vowel of short duration, is “thaan”. According to represent a vowel of long duration, as though it were “thaan” similar to “thaan” (eat), or the correct way, really the only way, of writing “hong” (room), spoken with a vowel of short duration, is “hong”, although such a spelling would commonly represent a vowel of long duration.

 

To be sure, the spelling of a few Thai words has varied over time. Occasionally the spelling of one word has changed with shifting pronunciations, while the spelling of the other words has not. In a form of Tai which preceded modern Thai, for exp. “yaang” (a kid of tree) and “yaang” (rubber) were both pronounced and spelled differently, but in time they came to be spoken alike, and the spelling of “rubber” shifted also to “yaang”, like “tree”, Nevertheless, in spite of a few such cases little variation in spelling in tolerated in Stan darn Thai.

 

Beyond the writing system and spelling, an understanding of just what constitutes Standard Thai becomes more vague. The difficulty linguists have had in defining Standard Thai and its relationship to other forms of Thai has been expressed as follows :

 

Standard Thai has been called a national language, a regional dialect, a language for use in schools, an equivalent of Central Thai, and equivalent of Bangkok Thai, and equivalent of educated Central of Bangkok Thai, a language not equivalent to, but closely resembling Central (and Bangkok) Thai, a prestige of educated speakers regardless of origin, and a model of what Central Thai is supposed to be.

 

Precisely because many misconceptions concerning Standard are held by Thai people themselves as well as by foreign researches, we need to clarify its nature and diversity. In many respects the generalizations in this chapter and the next do not differ much from those which could be made concerning other standard languages, but they are often overlooked and misunderstand in Thailand, and need to be emphasized here.

 

 

 

 

The next journal :  “Standard Thai around the Nation” and “Summery (Part 1)”    

  

Wow, you put a lot into this journal Nicky, thank you!

The book is interesting, Bobby and it's easy to read, but I don't know if anyone would interest to read such a long journal like this. (p.s I'm a pretty fast typer, )

all about pasa thai, it s really interesting.

i will follow your journal sure.....when next episode? :-)

Don't know yet, Alex. I think the next one will be when I feel like typing.

Nicky, forgive me if I am wrong, (and I can't speak ANY Thai) but I believe Thai is a Living Language. So therefore it is in a constant state of flux, always changing. What is correct today will be incorrect in a few years time. A living Language also adapts to the needs of the people using it. If you look at the Thai language spoken today, I am sure it is vastly different to that, that was spoken 100 years ago. It is the only way any language can survive.

Yes it is a very interesting journal. I hope you go on to tell us the history and origins of Thai, written and spoken.

GAV : Every known language is living language, I think. Yes, that part of adaping to the needs of the people will be somewhere in the book about page 100+. I will put something about it on my journal some day.

Erm, ancient languages like Latin are known but are death languages...afaik. 8)

...ooopps....ment to say dead of course...

Hobbes : well, I can't argue with that.