> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Constable" <petercon@...> wrote:
> > What about the words ขนม(khanom) and ถนน (thanon)?

Richard Wordingham wrote:

> a) /khanom/ is probably Khmer in origin, and according to the Thai
> Royal Institute Dictionary, /thanon/ comes from Khmer <thnal'> where
> the apostrophe represents the bantak. (At least, I assume that
> ถฺนล่ <thnal1> represents ថáž"ល់.)
> Patrick's comments on nativeness therefore apply.
>
> b) The open inherent vowel is /a/.
>
> c) The closed inherent vowel is [o], not [O].

So, here's the fun part of my academics that's going to come through
(while not discussing directly writing systems, the following discussion
of phonology will have relevance to orthography, which is still the
purvue of this forum, IIRC).

We've moved beyond looking at how native Thai (usually monosyllabic in
form, sometimes sesquisyllabic) words fit into the orthography, where,
in the case of no overtly marked vocalism is present, we have the
situation of:
1. open syllable = [O], e.g. <k~> [kO(O)] 'and', as well as letter
names <k ai.k1> [kOO kai] 'k (like) kai (chicken)', etc.;
2. closed syllable = [o], e.g. <gn> [khon] 'person', <hk> [hok] 'six',
etc.;

When looking at loans, I think we're going to have a few co-phonologies
(that is, sound system differences based on layering and particular
conditions) present, depending on the strate/layer that the loan comes
from. For instance, we've a large number of relatively recent loans
direct from Pali-Sanskrit, a number of older Pali-Sanskrit loans that
came *through* Khmer, and a lot of Khmer loans.

We've seen that there're at least two different phonologies with regards
to Pali-Sanskrit:
1. where syllable final (and some medial) short vowels are often lopped
off, and
2. where all vowels are basically preserved (with slight conditioned
change).

The former, I'll submit, are primarily funneled into Thai through Khmer,
where a LOT of reduction has taken place, and the primarily
sesquisyllabic template has been enforced on incoming loans. The latter,
I would surmise is primarily Pali-Sanskrit that was eiher not funneled
through Khmer or was redacted with scholarly emendation.

With regards to the Khmer loans, it must be noted that initial clustered
words are actually sesquisyllabified, <thnal'> [tha-nol], etc, with the
original Khmer epenthetic shwa [ǝ] is realized as a short /a/ in Thai.
(As such, all Khmer loans that show initial clustering will have an
epenthetic short-a /a/, with whatever other full vowel existed in teh
original.) This word, <thnal'> 'street,' especially shows a great deal
of semi-nativization in Thai, due to the fact that Thai did *not* retain
a final orthographic <-l>, but rather makes it conform to Thai
phonology, where final -l is realized as -n, i.e. <bl> [phon] 'fruit',
yet does not overtly mark the initial short /a/ as found in <ma-hnau>
[ma'naaw] 'lime/lemon', <p(r)atu> [p(r)atu'] 'door,' <kra-brau>
[k(r)a'ph(r)aw] 'basil,' etc.

bah... long enough as is...
caffeine is sapping my concentration (as is the cries of one of the
visiting researacher's kids)....

-patrick