Borrowed words should be pronounced properly

For Thais speaking English, the goal should be to achieve excellent communicative competence and ability to be understood rather than perfection. The word computer, for example, should be taught correctly as three syllables, with the accent on the second syllable, and the final “er” clearly enunciated. Should radar be transcribed as lay-dah? I am not convinced. More constructive use of bureaucratic time and energy should be devoted, instead, to agree upon a standardised grapheme-to-phoneme model to create some semblance of uniformity in signs, names and places. Presently, many forms of Romanisation are in use without any recognised standard based on orthographic form (transliteration), pronunciation (transcription) or both.

The Thai language has 44 consonants, 32 vowels and 5 tones. By eliminating the 2 obsolete consonants: kho khuat and kho khon and those rarely used, the remaining symbols produce 21 initial consonant sounds when appearing at the beginning of a syllable and 8 possible consonant endings: p, t, k, m, n, ng, w and y. With no final –s or –z, tennis becomes tenit. Gaan, gaal and gaar all share the same final sound – gaan, so hotel becomes hoten, football becomes fusbon. The Thai language has no final aspirated consonants: cop vs cob, bit vs bid, catch vs cash, so they are pronounced as glottal stops. Differentiating final consonant clusters is a major problem for Thais learning English, ie. sick, six, sixth, sixths. Consider when Thai students say maa – do they mean map, mass, mad, math, mash, match, Mack or Max? James becomes Jay; Charles, Chahn.

Linguistic reform emphasising transliteration (phonemic transcription) should critically look at the possibility of consolidating redundant consonant sounds such as: saw suea (tiger), saw sala (pavilion), saw-rue-si (hermit), saw so (chain) and saw trong (Long Live the King). A comparative analysis of sounds in Thai that don’t appear in English would include unaspirated p- (like spin) in the initial position – plaa (fish) and ng- (like sing) at the beginning of words – ngu (snake). English alphabet initial consonant sounds which have no legitimate Thai equivalent include: lock – rock; play – pray; chop – shop; thin – tin – sin; then – den; very – wary; zoo – sue. The vocabulary and grammar are relatively straightforward; the major stumbling block is the mastery of tones (learned best by imitation). Removing the tone groups would change the tone reading rules from 13 to 5.

My major goal is to initiate a lively, critical learned discussion on the need to activate linguistic reform in each and every native language used by participating Asean nations. Language and culture are inextricably related, so scholars must work together to facilitate reading clarity and multilingual literacy. Consistent spelling should adhere to basic phonic patterns for short and long vowels. For example, why is Suvarnabhumi Airport officially transliterated according to its Sanskrit roots rather than the far less confusing Suwunapoom? I suggest that the weekend market should be labeled Jutujuck, not Chatuchak; Soi Asoke (or Asoak) should be spelled phonetically the way it sounds, making reading signs more accessible to visitors, leading to a smoother integration into Thai society for foreigners into Thai society and for Thais into international society.

Dr Charles Frederickson