ศาลาชุมนุม

[Thomas]

While translating (German into Thai) I came accross the term พลิ้ว --->

http://www.thai-language.com/id/151736

When I saw the reading guide/TL_enhanced phonetics I was wondering why the final wo waen turns out to be an /u/ in Tl-enhanced.

While checking this I found several other terms with a preceding short i and final wo waen where Tl_enhanced uses /u/. But in terms like Lao or maeo an /o/ is used.

I do not want to discuss the "appropriate romanization" of final wo waen here just for the fact that Tl_enhanced has been developed for an English speaker in the middle of the Atlantic but not for a German speaker in central Europe.

But what are the backgrounds/thoughts of the authors as to the different way "to Romanize/English-ize" the same phenomenon (final wo waen) differently?

[Richard Wordingham]

The root cause of most of the trouble is that <au> and <aw> represent an open back monophthong in English, and, generally, <au> as /au/ is not common enough in loanwords. This is in contrast to <ai>, which is accepted for /ai/. (I don't think the old London pronunciation as /ai/, as in Strine for Australian is relevant.)

[Thomas]

Richard, thank you for sharing your considerations as to Tl_enhanced.

However, at least what I understand, you are providing some arguments why ลาว is spelt/"romanized" as laaoM but not laauM or laawM in Tl_enhanced (because law or lau could be interpreted by an English reader as a term with a single vowel/monophthong).

Ok, understood - but if so, why to use an u but not an o in พลิ้ว phliuH?

A btw.: The German term for ลาว is Laos. No clue which Thai or Lao letter has been Romanized into the final German s but the resulting German term is bisyllabic with two syllables and two separated vowels.

[Richard Wordingham]

Ok, understood - but if so, why to use an u but not an o in พลิ้ว phliuH?

My guess is that it was stabilised by Chinese names like Liu.

A btw.: The German term for ลาว is Laos. No clue which Thai or Lao letter has been Romanized into the final German s but the resulting German term is bisyllabic with two syllables and two separated vowels.

The German <s> derives from French <s>. There were originally 3 Lao principalities, so someone decided to make the name of the territory plural!