--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, Patrick Chew <patchew@...> wrote:
> > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter Constable" <petercon@...>
wrote:

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> 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.;

Of course, the first elements of the letter names are loan words! In
general, the Khmer names of the low consonants in Thai ('series 2' in
Khmer) have the same vowel as in Thai, /É"É"/.

> 2. closed syllable = [o], e.g. <gn> [khon] 'person', <hk> [hok]
'six',
> etc.;

> 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.

There are several layers with the _word_-final short vowels lopped
off, e.g.:

1. พจน์ <bacn\> /phót/ 'word' < Sanskrit/Pali
_wacana_
2. รัตน์ <r.atn\> /rát/ 'jewel' < Pali _rat(a)na_

I think the latest layer was still growing during the 25th centuy BE
(19th/20th AD). Consider such neologisms as:

telephone โทรศัพท์ <doraç.abd\>
/thoorásàp/ f. Sanskrit _çabda_ 'speech'.
telegraph โทรเลข <doralekh>
/thoorálêek/ f. Sanskrit/Pali _lekha_
'document'
television โทรทัศน์ <dorad.açn\>
/thooráthát/ f. Pali _dassana_,
'seeing', remodelled by reference to Sanskrit _darçana_. (The
usual
word is basically 'TV').
fax machine โทรสาร <dorasa:r> /thoorásaa+n/
f. Sanskirt _sa:ra_
'core part'. (The usual word is basically English 'fax'.)
bicycle จักรยาน <c.akraya:n> /càkkràyaan/
f. Sanskrit _cakra_ 'wheel' +
_yaana_ 'vehicle'. (This is the usual word for a pedal cycle - though
sometimes abbreviated to /kàyaan/. A motorbike is usually a 'rot
motorcy'.)

I'm having difficulty nailing down the origin of the prefix rendering
tele-; there is Sanskrit/Pali _duura_, but I can't see where the
gu.nated (or is it v.rddhied?) form _dora_ comes from.

My Thai-English dictionary gives both ทัศน์
<d.açn\> /thát/ and ทัศน
<d.açana> /thátsàná/ 'view'. However, the Thai Royal
Institute
Dictionary on-line disallows the latter as an independent word (as
opposed to a prefix), insisting on the spelling with sara a:
ทัศนะ
<d.açana.h>. That's a common pattern. It makes me wonder if
these
forms with the final vowel intact are mostly detached prefixual forms.

> 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.

Was there such a vowel in Khmer? Huffman's 'Cambodian System of
Writing' says,

'When the stops /p t c k/ occur as the first member of two-place
initial consonant sequences /CC-/, they are unaspirated before /r s
h/, slightly aspirated before voiceless stops and all continuants
other than /r/ (except in the homorganic sequence /kŋ-/), and
released
with a slight vocalism before /q b d/ and in the sequence /kŋ-/.
When
the consonants /q m l/ occur as the first consonant of /CC-/
sequences, they are released with slight vocalism.'

> (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>

There's a massive amount of infidelity in Thai final /n/ in non-Indic
loans from Khmer. There are cases of Thai having final <ñ> but
Khmer
having <n> (e.g. Thai เจริญ <crein> /càrə:n/
'prosper'), and Thai เà¸"ิน
<dein> /doen/ 'walk' corresponds to Khmer ដើរ <dei:r>
/daə/. Thai
seems to use final <ñ> to mark words as being of Khmer origin,
regardless of the original final.

> yet [Thai] 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.

The prefix in fruit names is still the full word หมาก
<hma:k> in
Northeastern Thai, and the first syllable of the 'door' word is still
ปาก <paak> /paak/ (tone not shown) 'mouth' in many Tai
dialects. I'm
not sure that the writing of the glottal stop in ประ-
<pra.h> and กระ-
<kra.h> is significant; the Sanskrit prefix _pra_ is always written
<pra.h> /prà/ rather than simply *ปร- <pra> /prà/.
(There is a
Sanskrit-derived prefix ปร- <para> /pàrá/.)

Eliminating these from consideration does not leave many native
sesquisyllables. There is a small group in <ml-> /mál-/, but I
don't
know if one can date the epenthesis in Thai. Thai spelling gives no
hint that it is not still a true cluster.

Richard.