| THAI – THE FACTS NAME: THAI NAME IN LANGUAGE: PHAA-S?A THAI LANGUAGE FAMILY: TAI CLOSEST RELATIVES: LAO （Laos）, SHAN （North Myanmar）, KHAMPTI （India）, LUE （China）, ZHUANG NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: approx 20 MILLION OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF: THAILAND DID YOU KNOW? Historically the Thai language was known in English as Siamese. A North-Eastern dialect of Thai, known as Isaan, is identical to Lao. THE THAI SCRIPT The unique, ornately curved symbols of the Thai language are immediately recognisable to anyone who has visited Thailand. Though pleasing to look at, the Thai ‘alphabet‘ is far more complex than our own. The script is actually comprised of 44 consonant symbols which are classified into three categories depending on the kinds of vowels they are associated with. Vowels are indicated by symbols, or combinations of symbols, that may appear before, after or even around the consonant – there are no spaces to help you separate one word from the next. The Thai government adopted the Royal Thai General Transcription System （RTGS） as as a standardised form of writing Thai using a Roman 26-letter alphabet. You will notice its use in official government documents, road signs and on maps. RTGS is a convenient system but it’s too limited to account for all the sounds in Thai. TONES Thai - along with Mandarin, Vietnamese and Cantonese - is a ‘tonal‘ language which means that the particular vocal pitch of a word may affect its meaning. For example the single syllable mai can mean ‘new‘, ‘wood‘, ‘burn‘ and ‘not‘ depending on the tone in which it is spoken. Thai has five such tones which are given in the chart below. The diacritic, or accent marker, corresponds to the system used in the current Lonely Planet Thai Phrasebook. diacritic tone none 1 – mid - a neutral tone spoken at the middle of the vocal range ` 2 - low - spoken at the bottom of the vocal range ^ 3 – falling - begins high and falls low ? 4 – high - spoken at the top of the vocal range ′ 5 – rising - starts low and rises to the top of the range MYTHS ABOUT THAI Everyone in Thailand speaks Thai. When people talk about the Thai language they are really referring to a Central Thai dialect that has succeeded in becoming the standard official language for the whole country. For this reason Thai is only spoken as a first language in the central provinces of the nation. As Thai is the official language of education, government and media it’s basically understood from North to South although recent estimates suggest that less than half the population of Thailand speak and understand Thai fluently. SAY IT IN THAI! Hello. sà-wàt-dee Goodbye. lah gòrn Yes. chai No. mai I’m from Australia. （for a man）. pom mah jàhk brà-têt or-sà-drair-lee?a I’m from Australia. （for a woman）. dì-chan mah jàhk brà-têt or-sà-drair-lee?a It helps to have a sense of humour. d?rng mee ah-rom kan nòy Don’t worry, I’ll do it myself. mai d?rng gang-won, chan jà tam eng Thailand is the Land of Smiles. A grin shows companionship. A laugh shows forgiveness. But what if you need a second-class train ticket from Bangkok to Chiang Mai? Keep smiling - this phrasebook will show you the way. |
| introduction map introduction tools pronunciation vowel sounds tones consonant sounds syllables plunge in! a-z phrasebuilder a/an & the adjectives & adverbs describing things be classifiers counting things commands & requests comparing things counting things describing things future gender have joining words location more than one see also numbers & amounts my & your negative nouns past pointing something out polite forms possession present pronouns questions & answers question words the this & that verbs word order cyes/no questions questions language difficulties numbers & amounts cardinal numbers ordinal numbers classifiers time & dates telling the time days of the week the calendar present past future during the day money tran |
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