Thai-glish an adaptation, not a loan

The term “loan words” is silly. They’re not on loan. They’re words and phrases which have been lifted from another language, usually English. If something is loaned, then it’s intended to be returned. Are Thais going to return those 176 words at a later date? Here’s a better term for those words: tap sap. The briefest way to define tap sap in English is “a foreign word adapted to a language”. As we know, English has a plethora of tap sap, both words and phrases. Easily over 80 per cent of English words and phrases are tap sap, most of which derive from French, with derivatives of Latin, Greek, German and Scandinavian words close behind.  

Some Thai words that have been adapted by Westerners: sala, set (used in tennis), mahout, names for Thai food dishes, tuk-tuk, and possibly the words “brute” and “choop” (or “shoop” for “kiss”, as in the 1960s “Shoop Shoop Song”).

I hope the tap sap list compiled by the Thai government does a good job at transliteration. They can’t do a worse job than experts transliterating Thai words to English. 

Several years ago I published “700 Thai Words Taken From Thai” (Google it). In it, Thai words and phrases are transliterated to English spelling, with the idea of making them as easy and useful for beginner language students as possible. Other language texts seem to take perverse joy from making transliterations as convoluted and confusing as possible. The Thai language is already challenging enough for Westerners to grasp – why make it more difficult?

Ken Albertsen

Chiang Rai