Thai language


Thai, Central Thai, is the national language of Thailand and de facto official language; it is the first language of the Central Thai people and most Thai Chinese, depending on age. It is a member of the Tai group of the Kra–Dai language family, and one of over 60 languages of Thailand. Over half of Thai vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali, Sanskrit, Mon and Old Khmer. It is a tonal and analytic language, similar to Chinese and Vietnamese.
Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers. Spoken Thai is partly, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and the urban/rural divide, mutually intelligible with Lao, Isan, and some fellow Southwestern Tai languages. These languages are written with slightly different scripts but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum.

History

The Thai language is classified as a Tai language, closely related to other Southwestern Tai languages including Lao, Shan in Myanmar, and numerous indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Yunnan south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border. It is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout the country. The standard is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai alphabet.
Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of the most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modern orthography.

Old Thai

Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on live syllables, with no possible distinction on dead syllables.
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 dentals ; 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. All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction:
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. An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops/affricates 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. The three most common tone "marks" 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.

Early Old Thai

Early Old Thai also apparently had velar fricatives as distinct phonemes. These were represented by the now-obsolete letters ฃ kho khuat and ฅ 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, a palatal nasal phoneme also existed, inherited from Proto-Tai. A letter ญ yo ying also exists, which is used to represent a 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 >.
Proto-Tai also had a glottalized palatal sound, reconstructed as in Li Fang-Kuei. Corresponding Thai words are generally spelled หย, which implies an Old Thai pronunciation of , 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, however, many Thai dialects have only one such short–long pair, and in general it is difficult or impossible to find minimal short–long pairs in Thai that involve vowels other than and where both members have frequent correspondences throughout the Tai languages. More specifically, he notes the following facts about Thai:
Furthermore, the vowel that corresponds to short Thai has a different and often higher quality in many of the Tai languages compared with the vowel corresponding to Thai.
This leads Li to posit the following:
  1. Proto-Tai had a system of nine pure vowels with no length distinction, and possessing approximately the same qualities as in modern Thai: high, mid, low.
  2. All Proto-Tai vowels were lengthened in open syllables, and low vowels were also lengthened in closed syllables.
  3. Modern Thai largely preserved the original lengths and qualities, but lowered to, which became short in closed syllables and created a phonemic length distinction. Eventually, length in all other vowels became phonemic as well and a new was introduced, through a combination of borrowing and sound change. Li believes that the development of long from diphthongs, and the lowering of to to create a length distinction, had occurred by the time of Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but the other missing modern Thai vowels had not yet developed.
Note that not all researchers agree with Li. Pittayaporn, for example, reconstructs a similar system for Proto-Southwestern-Tai, but believes that there was also a mid back unrounded vowel , occurring only before final velar. He also seems to believe that the Proto-Southwestern-Tai vowel length distinctions can be reconstructed back to similar distinctions in Proto-Tai.

Connection to ancient Yue language(s)

Thai descends from proto-Tai-Kadai, which has been hypothesized to originate in the Lower Yangtze valleys. Ancient Chinese texts refer to non-Sinitic languages spoken cross this substantial region and their speakers as "Yue". Although those languages are extinct, traces of their existence could be found in unearthed inscriptional materials, ancient Chinese historical texts and non-Han substrata in various Southern Chinese dialects. Thai, as the most-spoken language in the Tai-Kadai language family, has been used extensively in historical-comparative linguistics to identify the origins of language spoken in the ancient region of South China. One of the very few direct records of non-Sinitic speech in pre-Qin and Han times having been preserved so far is the "Song of the Yue Boatman", which was transcribed phonetically in Chinese characters in 528 BC, and found in the 善说 Shanshuo chapter of the Shuoyuan 说苑 or 'Garden of Persuasions'. In the early 80's the Zhuang linguist Wei Qingwen using reconstructed Old Chinese for the characters discovered that the resulting vocabulary showed strong resemblance to modern Zhuang. Later, Zhengzhang Shangfang followed Wei's insight but used Thai script for comparison, since this orthography dates from the 13th century and preserves archaisms vis-à-vis the modern pronunciation. The following is a simplified interpretation of the "Song of the Yue Boatman" by Zhengzhang Shangfang quoted by David Holm with Thai script and Chinese glosses being omitted. The upper row represents the original text, the next row the Old Chinese pronunciation, the third a transcription of written Thai, and the fourth line English glosses. Finally, there is Zhengzhang's English translation.
in the 5th century BC, showing the locations of the states of Yue and Wu.
Besides this classical case, various papers in historical linguistics have employed Thai for comparative purposes in studying the linguistic landscape of the ancient region of Southern China. Proto-reconstructions of some scattered non-Sinitic words found in the two ancient Chinese fictional texts, Mu tianzi zhuan 穆天子傳 and Yuejue shu 越絕書, are used to compare to Thai/Siamese and its related languages in Tai-Kadai language family in an attempt to identify the origins of those words. The following examples are cited from Wolfgang Behr's work :
"The Wú say yī for 'good' and huăn for 'way', i.e. in their titles they follow the central kingdoms, but in their names they follow their own lords."
伊 yī < MC ʔjij < OC *bqij ← Siamese diiA1, Longzhou dai1, Bo'ai nii1 Daiya li1, Sipsongpanna di1, Dehong li6 < proto-Tai *ʔdɛiA1 | Sui ʔdaai1, Kam laai1, Maonan ʔdaai1, Mak ʔdaai6 < proto-Kam-Sui/proto-Kam-Tai *ʔdaai1 'good'
缓 < MC hwanX < OC *awan ← Siamese honA1, Bo'ai hɔn1, Dioi thon1 < proto-Tai *xronA1| Sui khwən1-i, Kam khwən1, Maonan khun1-i, Mulam khwən1-i < proto-Kam-Sui *khwən1 'road, way' | proto-Hlai *kuun1 || proto-Austronesian *Zalan
絕 jué < MC dzjwet < OC *bdzot ← Siamese codD1 'to record, mark'
"The Middle mountains of Gū are the mountains of the Yuè's bronze office, the Yuè people call them 'Bronze gūdú."
「姑瀆」 gūdú < MC ku=duwk < OC *aka=alok
← Siamese kʰauA1 'horn', Daiya xau5, Sipsongpanna xau1, Dehong xau1, Lü xău1, Dioi kaou1 'mountain, hill' < proto-Tai *kʰauA2; Siamese luukD2l 'classifier for mountains', Siamese kʰauA1-luukD2l 'mountain' || cf. OC 谷 gǔ < kuwk << *ak-lok/luwk < *akə-lok/yowk < *blok 'valley'
  • "越人謂船爲「須盧」。"
"... The Yuè people call a boat xūlú. "
須 xū < MC sju < OC *bso
? ← Siamese saʔ 'noun prefix'
盧 lú < MC lu < OC *bra
← Siamese rɯaA2, Longzhou lɯɯ2, Bo'ai luu2, Daiya hə2, Dehong hə2 'boat' < proto-Tai *drɯ | Sui lwa1/ʔda1, Kam lo1/lwa1, Be zoa < proto-Kam-Sui *s-lwaA1 'boat'
  • "賈築吳市西城, 名曰「定錯」城。"
" Jiă built the western wall, it was called dìngcuò wall."
定 dìng < MC dengH < OC *adeng-s
← Siamese diaaŋA1, Daiya tʂhəŋ2, Sipsongpanna tseŋ2 'wall'
錯 cuò < MC tshak < OC *atshak
? ← Siamese tokD1s 'to set→sunset→west' ; Longzhou tuk7, Bo'ai tɔk7, Daiya tok7, Sipsongpanna tok7 < proto-Tai *tokD1s ǀ Sui tok7, Mak tok7, Maonan tɔk < proto-Kam-Sui *tɔkD1'

Varieties and related languages

According to Ethnologue, Thai language is spoken by over 20 million people. Moreover, most Thais in the northern and the northeastern parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects due to the fact that 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 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 seasoning their speech only with "kham mueang" accent. Standard Thai is based on the register of the educated classes in Bangkok.
In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages. Although some 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".

Dialects

Central Plains Thai

Related languages

Central Thai is composed of several distinct registers, forms for different social contexts:
Most Thais can speak and understand all of these contexts. Street and Elegant Thai are the basis of all conversations. Rhetorical, religious, and royal Thai are taught in schools as part of the national curriculum.

Script

Thai is written in the Thai script, an abugida written from left to right. Many scholars believe that it is derived from the Khmer script. Certainly the numbers were lifted directly from Khmer. The language and its script are closely related to the Lao language and script. Most literate Lao are able to read and understand Thai, as more than half of the Thai vocabulary, grammar, intonation, vowels and so forth are common with the Lao language.
The Thais adopted and modified the Khmer script to create their own writing system. While in Thai the pronunciation can largely be inferred from the script, the orthography is complex, with silent letters to preserve original spellings and many letters representing the same sound. While the oldest known inscription in the Khmer language dates from 611 CE, inscriptions in Thai writing began to appear around 1292 CE. Notable features include:
  1. It is an abugida script, in which the implicit vowel is a short in a syllable without final consonant and a short in a syllable with final consonant.
  2. Tone markers, if present, are placed above the final onset consonant of the syllable.
  3. Vowels sounding after an initial consonant can be located before, after, above or below the consonant, or in a combination of these positions.

    Transcription

There is no universally applied method for transcribing Thai into the Latin alphabet. For example, the name of the main airport is transcribed variously as Suvarnabhumi, Suwannaphum, or Suwunnapoom. Guide books, textbooks and dictionaries may each follow different systems. For this reason, most language courses recommend that learners master the Thai script.
Official standards are the Royal Thai General System of Transcription, published by the Royal Institute of Thailand, and the almost identical defined by the International Organization for Standardization. The RTGS system is increasingly used in Thailand by central and local governments, especially for road signs. Its main drawbacks are that it does not indicate tone or vowel length. As the system is based on pronunciation, not orthography, reconstruction of Thai spelling from RTGS romanisation is not possible.

Transliteration

The ISO published an international standard for the transliteration of Thai into Roman script in September 2003. By adding diacritics to the Latin letters it makes the transcription reversible, making it a true transliteration. Notably, this system is used by Google Translate, although it does not seem to appear in many other contexts, such as textbooks and other instructional media.

Phonology

Consonants

Initials

Standard Thai distinguishes three voice-onset times among plosive and affricate consonants:
Where English makes a distinction between voiced and unvoiced aspirated, Thai distinguishes a third sound - the unvoiced, unaspirated that occurs in English only as an allophone of, for example after an as in the sound of the p in "spin". There is similarly an alveolar ,, triplet in Thai. In the velar series there is a, pair and in the postalveolar series a, pair, but the language lacks the corresponding voiced sounds and.
In each cell below, the first line indicates , the second indicates the Thai characters in initial position. The letter ห, one of the two h letters, is also used to help write certain tones.

Finals

Although the overall 44 Thai consonant letters provide 21 sounds in case of initials, the case for finals is different. For finals, only eight sounds, as well as no sound, called mātrā are used. To demonstrate, at the end of a syllable, บ and ด are devoiced, becoming pronounced as and respectively. Additionally, all plosive sounds are unreleased. Hence, final,, and sounds are pronounced as,, and respectively.
Of the consonant letters, excluding the disused ฃ and ฅ, six cannot be used as a final and the other 36 are grouped as following.
LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
Nasal
ม
ญ,ณ,น,ร,ล,ฬ
ง
Plosive
บ,ป,พ,ฟ,ภ
จ,ช,ซ,ฌ,ฎ,ฏ,ฐ,ฑ,
ฒ,ด,ต,ถ,ท,ธ,ศ,ษ,ส
ก,ข,ค,ฆ		*
Approximant
ว
ย

Clusters

In Thai, each syllable in a word is considered separate from the others, so combinations of consonants from adjacent syllables are never recognised as a cluster. Thai has phonotactical constraints that define permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters, and vowel sequences. Original Thai vocabulary introduces only 11 combined consonantal patterns:
The number of clusters increases when a few more combinations are presented in loanwords such as in or in ; however, it can be observed that Thai language supports only those in initial position, with either,, or as the second consonant sound and not more than two sounds at a time.

Vowels

The vowel nuclei of the Thai language are given in the following table. The top entry in every cell is the symbol from the, the second entry gives the spelling in the Thai alphabet, where a dash indicates the position of the initial consonant after which the vowel is pronounced. A second dash indicates that a final consonant must follow.
The vowels each exist in long-short pairs: these are distinct phonemes forming unrelated words in Thai, but usually transliterated the same: เขา means "he" or "she", while ขาว means "white".
The long-short pairs are as follows:
There are also opening and closing diphthongs in Thai, which analyze as underlyingly and. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:
Additionally, there are three triphthongs. For purposes of determining tone, those marked with an asterisk are sometimes classified as long:
Thai scriptIPA
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.
Notes:
  1. Five-level tone value: Mid , Low , Falling , High , Rising . Traditionally, the high tone was recorded as either or . This remains true for the older generation, but the high tone is changing to among youngsters.
  2. For the diachronic changes of tone value, please see Pittayaporn.
  3. The full complement of tones exists only in so-called "live syllables", those that end in a long vowel or a sonorant.
  4. 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, all "dead syllables" are phonetically checked, and have the reduced tonal inventory characteristic of checked syllables.

    Unchecked syllables

ToneThaiExamplePhonemicPhoneticGloss
midสามัญคาstick
lowเอกข่า or galangal
fallingโทค่าvalue
highตรีค้า or to trade
risingจัตวาขา or leg

Checked syllables

ToneThaiExamplePhonemicPhoneticGloss
low เอกหมักmarinate
low เอกหมากareca nut, areca palm, betel, fruit
highตรีมักhabitually, likely to
fallingโทมากa lot, abundance, many

In some English loanwords, closed syllables with long vowel ending in an obstruent sound, have high tone, and closed syllables with short vowel ending in an obstruent sound have falling tone.
ToneThaiExamplePhonemicPhoneticGloss
highตรีมาร์กMarc, Mark
highตรีสตาร์ตstart
highตรีบาส1basketball
fallingโทเมกอัปmake-up

1 May be in educated speech.

Grammar

From the perspective of linguistic typology, Thai can be considered to be an analytic language. The word order is subject–verb–object, although the subject is often omitted. 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 กว่า B", A is more X than B. The superlative is expressed as "A X ที่สุด", A is most X.
Because adjectives can be used as complete predicates, many words used to indicate tense in verbs may be used to describe adjectives.
s do not inflect. They do not change with person, tense, voice, mood, or number; nor are there any participles.
The passive voice is indicated by the insertion of ถูก before the verb. For example:
To convey the opposite sense, a sense of having an opportunity arrive, ได้ is used. For example:
Note, dai, though both spelled ได้, convey two separate meanings. The short vowel dai conveys an opportunity has arisen and is placed before the verb. The long vowel dai is placed after the verb and conveys the idea that one has been given permission or one has the ability to do something. Also see the past tense below.
Negation is indicated by placing ไม่ before the verb.
Tense is conveyed by tense markers before or after the verb.
Tense markers are not required.
Thai exhibits serial verb constructions, where verbs are strung together. Some word combinations are common and may be considered set phrases.
s are uninflected and have no gender; there are no articles.
Nouns are neither singular nor plural. Some specific nouns are reduplicated to form collectives: เด็ก is often repeated as เด็ก ๆ to refer to a group of children. The word พวก may be used as a prefix of a noun or pronoun as a collective to pluralize or emphasise the following word.. 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 or optional, a classifier is almost always used in Thai.
Possession in Thai is indicated by adding the word "khong" in front of the noun or pronoun, but it may often be omitted. For example:
Subject pronouns are often omitted, with nicknames used where English would use a pronoun. See informal and formal names for more details. Pronouns, when used, are ranked in honorific registers, and may also make a T–V distinction in relation to kinship and social status. Specialised pronouns are used for those with royal and noble titles, and for clergy. The following are appropriate for conversational use:
WordRTGSMeaning
ผมphomI/me I/me
ฉันchanI/me Commonly pronounced as
เราraowe/us, I/me, you
คุณkhunyou
ท่านthanyou
เธอthoeyou, she/her
พี่phiolder brother, sister
น้องnongyounger brother, sister
เขาkhaohe/him, she/her
มันmanit, he/she

The reflexive pronoun is ตัวเอง, which can mean any of: myself, yourself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves. This can be mixed with another pronoun to create an intensive pronoun, such as ตัวผมเอง or ตัวคุณเอง. Thai also does not have a separate possessive pronoun. Instead, possession is indicated by the particle ของ. For example, "my mother" is แม่ของผม. This particle is often implicit, so the phrase is shortened to แม่ผม. Plural pronouns can be easily constructed by adding the word พวก in front of a singular pronoun as in พวกเขา meaning they or พวกเธอ meaning the plural sense of you. The only exception to this is เรา, which can be used as singular or plural, but can also be used in the form of พวกเรา, which is only plural.
Thai has many more pronouns than those listed above. Their usage is full of nuances. For example:
The particles are often untranslatable words added to the end of a sentence to indicate respect, a request, encouragement or other moods, as well as varying the level of formality. They are not used in elegant Thai. The most common particles indicating respect are ครับ when the speaker is male, and ค่ะ when the speaker is female. Used in a question or a request, the particle ค่ะ is changed to a คะ.
Other common particles are:
WordRTGSMeaning
จ๊ะcha/jaindicating a request
จ้ะ, จ้า or จ๋าcha/jaindicating emphasis
ละ or ล่ะlaindicating emphasis
สิsiindicating emphasis or an imperative
นะnasoftening; indicating a request

Register

As noted above, Thai has several registers, each having certain usages, such as colloquial, formal, literary, and poetic. Thus, the word "eat" can be กิน, แดก, ยัด, บริโภค, รับประทาน, ฉัน, or เสวย, as illustrated below:
"to eat"IPAUsageNote
กิน/kīn/common
แดก/dɛ̀ːk/vulgar
ยัด/ját/vulgarOriginal meaning is 'to cram'
บริโภค/bɔ̄ː.ri.pʰôːk/formal, literary
รับประทาน/ráp.pra.tʰāːn/formal, politeOften shortened to ทาน /tʰāːn/.
ฉัน/t͡ɕʰǎn/religious
เสวย/sa.wɤ̌ːj/royal

Thailand also uses the distinctive Thai six-hour clock in addition to the 24-hour clock.

Vocabulary

Other than compound words and words of foreign origin, most words are monosyllabic.
Chinese-language influence was strong until the 13th century when the use of Chinese characters was abandoned, and replaced by Sanskrit and Pali scripts. However, the vocabulary of Thai retains many words borrowed from Middle Chinese.
Later most vocabulary was borrowed from Sanskrit and Pāli; Buddhist terminology is particularly indebted to these. Indic words have a more formal register, and may be compared to Latin and French borrowings in English. Old Khmer has also contributed its share, especially in regard to royal court terminology. Since the beginning of the 20th century, however, the English language has had the greatest influence, especially for scientific, technical, international, and other modern terms. Many Teochew Chinese words are also used, some replacing existing Thai words.
OriginExampleIPAGloss
Native Taiไฟ
น้ำ
เมือง
รุ่งเรือง		/fāj/
/náːm/
/mɯ̄əŋ/
/rûŋ.rɯ̄əŋ/		fire
water
city
prosperous
Indic sources:
Pali or Sanskrit		อัคนี
ชล
นคร
วิโรจน์		/ʔāk.kʰa.nīː/
/t͡ɕōn/
/náʔ.kʰɔ̄ːn/
/wíʔ.rôːt/		fire
water
city
prosperous

Arabic-origin

Chinese-origin

From Middle Chinese or Teochew Chinese.
Chinese wordsThai renditionIPAEnglish
เก้าอี้/kâw.ʔîː/chair
/kǔəj.tǐəw/rice noodle
เจ๊/t͡ɕéː/older sister
ยี่/jîː/two, but still used in words like twenty ยี่สิบ /jîː sìp/
ถั่ว/tʰùə/bean
อ่าง/ʔàːŋ/basin
กาว/kāːw/glue
ก้าง/kâːŋ/fishbone
ขุม/kʰǔm/pit
ทา/tʰāː/means to smear
ถอย/tʰɔ̌j/to step back

English-origin

French-origin

Khmer-origin

From Old Khmer.
Khmer wordsThai renditionIPARemark
กรุง/krūŋ/means city, as in Bangkok กรุงเทพฯ /krūŋ tʰêːp/
ខ្ទើយ กะเทย/kà.tɤ̄ːj/means Kathoey
จมูก/t͡ɕà.mùːk/means nose
เจริญ/t͡ɕà.rɤ̄ːn/means prosperous
/ឆ្លាស ฉลาด/t͡ɕʰà.làːt/means smart
ថ្នល់ ถนน/tʰà.nǒn/means road
ភ្លើង เพลิง/pʰlɤ̄ːŋ/means fire
ทะเล/tʰá.lēː/means sea

Portuguese-origin

The Portuguese were the first Western nation to arrive in what is modern-day Thailand in the 16th century during the Ayutthaya period. Their influence in trade, especially weaponry, allowed them to establish a community just outside the capital and practice their faith, as well as exposing and converting the locals to Christianity. Thus, Portuguese words involving trade and religion were introduced and used by the locals.
Portuguese wordsThai renditionIPARemark
/ กระดาษ/krà.dàːt/means paper
กระสา/krà.sǎː/means heron
เลหลัง/lēː.lǎŋ/means auction or low-priced
บาท/bàːt.lǔaŋ/means priest
เหรียญ/rǐan/means coin
สบู่/sà.bùː/means soap

Citations