Re: pa.tipatti

> (ii) Yes, I am interested in knowing more about the Mon people.
> (iii) (Please do not take this as an insult!) You very much typify
> the Thai people who are very proud of their own country. (I have
never
> had that kind of feeling towards Japan. I somehow sense that for me
> this is my first life to be reborn as a Japanese, and that I must
have
> been reborn as South-East Asians many many times.)

Dear Khun Tadao,

May I adopt you as a South-East Asian, more precisely another Thai? 
Susie (who remains my mother's favorite nun!) too of course!

By the way, another amendment for my last post: the Khmer for "water"
is not 'nam' but 'tueg', sorry about my faulty memory.

I will pass your questions on the Mon to Betty and ask her to comment,
is there anything else you would like to know?  Her email is
<beyugala@...>, in case you would like to contact her directly.

> (iv) Thank you for reminding me of Khun Alan. I never forget him,
and
> I know that I would never be able to pay him back what I had
> owed him. Without his help, I would never have been able to
> understand the Dhamma.

I saw that you spoke of him earlier on this list.  You didn't need any
reminders from me to think of his kusala, but it is great to remember
our brilliant friend together, isn't it?  Lobha and dosa and a bit of
kusala too I think!

> (v) Not to be scolded by Jim, let me talk a bit about
> Pali/Sasnskrit and Thai. I have a technical paper titled:
> "Truncation of Sanskrit and Pali Loanwords in Thai", where
> I seeked to have an (elegant) solution which can account for
> various trancation forms: e.g.
> kaara  (P, S) -> kaan 'maker'
> netra  (S)    -> neet  'eye'
> vetana (P, S) -> weet  'wages'
> candra (S)    -> chan  'moon'

Yes, but may I comment that most of the written words retain their
spellings albeit with the Thai alphabets, it is just the pronunciation
that changed according to Thai rules?  In the case of double
consonants at the end of the words that are not pronounced there would
be the special Thai sign we call 'garan' that cancels the sound
indicated by the spelling.  This is what I meant when I said earlier
that it leaves a etymological trace of the origins of the words and
distinguishes it from other homonyms in its written form. 

Also the Thai do not always truncate the sounds, some times we add to
it as well, especially in formal or poetic usage, for example the
normal word for "eye" is 'taa', but in poetry or in royal parlance it
is a prince's 'nehd' or a poetic 'netra'. 

The normal word 'jahn' (or 'jun') for the moon is spelled 'jantra'
with a 'garan' sign above the last double consonant to cancel the 'tr'
sound. 

The other two terms I am not sure about, 'kaara' or 'garn' in the Thai
pronunciation means more like "work or function" otherwise it can be
added to verbs to make them nouns, such as 'garn gratuhm' --"to act";
'garn giira' "to play sports"; 'garn kaa' --"to trade" 'garn duu lae'
--"to look after" 'garn rong plehhng'; --"to sing" etc.

'vetana' as 'weet' or "wages" I don't think I've heard, I don't know
if our Thai friends on this list has, perhaps not in the BKK regions?
  "Wages" are normally 'ngheun duen' (that's as close as I can manage
to the sound I guess!), literally 'monthly' "duen" 'money' " ngheun ".
Otherwise 'kha' which means "cost or value" is followed by 'jahng'
which means "hire", 'rang' or 'rang ngahn', which means "strength" or
"labor" to form 'kha jahng'; 'kha rang' or 'kha rang ngahn'

> If I follow my solution, which I do not discuss here, I can
> predict how loanwords (=foreign words) are truncated in Thai.
> There is one word which I do not understand at all why it has
> such a form, namely, "karaoke" (from Japanese). I am wondering
> whether if you can explain me why you do not pronunce it as
"karaok",
> which is how the Japanese word should be pronounce in Thai
> (according to my solution).
> tadao

Sometimes we lenghten the words as well, as I said, but these days
with communications becoming more and more accessible all over the
globe I think the younger people are introducing some forgotten sounds
as well as new ones through the loanwords, now that chewing gum has
replaced betel nuts in munchers.  Japanese sounds will become even
more familiar, with the video games and especially the translated
cartoons Thai kids read these days.  Not that they would understand
the language, but they would know certain sounds.  Remember the
'tamagotchi' or something like that?  And with the popularity of
Japanese food in Thailand, the kids would never shorten the word
'nigiri' or 'tempura' or 'unagi', I don't think!  Language does
reflect the cultural evolutions, doesn't it, as well as mental states
and even the dhamma, as Gayan mentioned, and there's anatta for you,
it changes constantly, doesn't it?  So many conditions that
collectively evolves as a community's, a nation's and a world event,
as Tan Ajaan said somewhere.

From your fellow Thai friend,

Amara