Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo
Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo
Tai Peoples and Theirs Languages: A Preliminary ... - Khamkoo
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the <strong>Tai</strong>-?ɔ̂ɔ dialect end their sentences with the final particle ?ɔ̂ɔ. Final particles are found<br />
in all dialects of the <strong>Tai</strong> language family, hence their presence is noted here as one other<br />
common characteristic to be found over-all in this group.<br />
A brief sketch of evolution of the Thai language<br />
All <strong>Tai</strong> languages (except for Ahom which is now extinct) have been open to<br />
outside influences <strong>and</strong> each has evolved. Limited of space, this paper shall give only a<br />
sketch of the evolution of the St<strong>and</strong>ard Thai language which is the official language of<br />
Thail<strong>and</strong>.<br />
There are two facets to be considered when looking at the evolution of any<br />
language. Are we to describe the evolution of the written language or the spoken<br />
language? The present writer prefers to describe the evolution of the oral Thai language.<br />
However, we have to refer to the written one because, prior to the invention of the taperecorder,<br />
we only know the language of the past through its representation in written form<br />
such as in the inscriptions, old documents <strong>and</strong> the language of old literary works. Early<br />
Thai writings in the inscriptions of the Sukhodaya period (the 13 th century) give evidence<br />
that the Thai language was not developing in a vacuum. Already in the 13 th century, there<br />
are more words present than the words that linguists (such as Haudricourt 1948; Brown<br />
1965 <strong>and</strong> 1985) cite in reconstructing the common Proto-<strong>Tai</strong> language. Already in the<br />
inscription of Rama Khamhaeng in 1293 A.D., there are loan words from several sources<br />
such as Pali, Sanskrit, Khmer <strong>and</strong> even a few words from the Persian language.<br />
The reason behind all these borrowings is that the common Proto-<strong>Tai</strong> language<br />
lacked words in some semantic fields. There was a need for new words, for instance,<br />
when the Thai people of the Sukhodaya period experienced the enrichment of their lives<br />
brought about by their contact with a new religion (Buddhism). Their adoptions of this<br />
religion was concomitant with their acceptance of words from the Pali <strong>and</strong> Sanskrit<br />
languages which then served to broaden Thai conceptuality. For example, the word bun<br />
brought to them over the concept of having good merit <strong>and</strong> the word bàap the concept of<br />
possessing bad merit.<br />
Khmer or Cambodian is another language that influenced <strong>and</strong> was influenced<br />
by the Thai language. The Thai people came into contact with the Khmer speaking people<br />
when the Thai moved down the valley of the Chao Phya river <strong>and</strong> spread out over the<br />
territory of present-day Thail<strong>and</strong>. This territory had been within the Khmer sphere of<br />
influence prior to the 13 th century. The defeats that the Thai inflicted on the Khmer people<br />
in the 14 th <strong>and</strong> 15 th centuries also served to bring closer the two peoples. As a result, the<br />
Thai (the victors) adopted much of the vocabulary of the defeated (the Khmer), especially<br />
in the semantic field of government including the special vocabulary for royalty. The<br />
picture of the King in the old proto-<strong>Tai</strong> society, as is described in the inscription of King<br />
Rama Khamhaeng (1293 A.D.), was that of the father of his people, <strong>and</strong> there was no<br />
special royal vocabulary in these older times. However, when the Thai defeated the<br />
Khmer, the Khmer idea of kingship as a God-King was adopted, <strong>and</strong> Khmer as well as<br />
Pali-Sanskrit words were utilized in the Thai court to address the King <strong>and</strong> royalty. The<br />
readers who want an in depth study of Pali-Sanskrit loan words in Thai are kindly<br />
requested to refer to Professor William J. Gedney’s dissertation, entitled “Indic loanwords<br />
in spoken Thai” (1947); those who are interested in the Khmer loanwords in Thai can<br />
refer to Professor Karnchana Nacsakul’s dissertation, entitled “Parallelism in the use <strong>and</strong><br />
222<br />
<strong>Tai</strong> <strong>Peoples</strong> <strong>and</strong> Their <strong>Languages</strong>: A <strong>Preliminary</strong> Observation