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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

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