ศาลาชุมนุม

[taih]

Why is the "thai" in สุโขทัย written differently from the "Thai" in ไทยแลนด์/เมืองไทย/ประเทศไทย?
Was Sukhothai always called or spelt the way it was in Thai and English?
Was there ever a ภาษาสยาม?

[David and Bui]

The simple answer is that ทัย in สุโขทัย is a different word than ไทย, even though they have the same pronunciation. A good source for information on the history of Thai provinces is their websites. The Sukhothai website contains the following sentence:

"คำว่า "สุโขทัย" มาจากสองคำ คือ "สุข+อุทัย" หมายความว่า "รุ่งอรุณแห่งความสุข" "
"The word 'สุโขทัย' comes from the combination of the words สุข and อุทัย. These words mean 'the dawn of happiness'."

The word อุทัย means "the rising sun."

The Royal Institute Dictionary says, "อุทัย น. การเกิดขึ้น เช่น สุโขทัย = การเกิดขึ้นแห่งความสุข", the word อุทัย means the birth of or the beginning of and cites the proper noun Sukhothai as its example.

The word ไทย has a different origin. The Royal Institute Dictionary says, "ความมีอิสระ ในตัว, ความไม่เป็นทาส . . . " [personal freedom, not being a slave.]

[taih]

Was the language itself always called ภาษาไทย and spelt this way?

[Richard Wordingham]

As I replied elsewhere, Pallegoix's dictionary of 1854 gives the spelling ภาสาไท. As to what the language was called in the more distant past, you have to be careful with your definitions. An approximate question is, "How far back was there a language known as something like ภาสาไท and including the linguistic forerunners of dialects now reckoned as being xxx". "xxx" is what you mean by 'the language'.

If you go far enough back, some other word may have been used for 'language' instead of ภาษา. I strongly suspect that this would be the case in 500 BC. Another related question, that may be answerable, is the age of the ethnonym Tai. The speakers of the Northern Tai dialects (e.g Zhuang) do not call themselves Tai. However, I do not know whether they once did.

Are the Northern and North Eastern dialects Thai in your reckoning? It is by no means impossible that some form of ภาษาไทย first applied to an earlier form of one of them. I have seen Siamese referred to as ภาษาไทยกรุงเทพ.

Another possibility is that at some time the language did not have a name. This is true of many Slavonic languages until fairly recently. However, that will not stop ethnographers forming a name when they need one, just as one may hear of people 'speaking Pakistani', even though there is no such language.

[Rick Bradford]

Is ภาษา cognate with 'bahasa', the Malay word for 'language'?

[Rick Bradford]

More confusion...

[Richard Wordingham]

Is ภาษา cognate with 'bahasa', the Malay word for 'language'?

Yes, they both derive from Sanskrit ภาษา.

[Thomas]

Are the Northern and North Eastern dialects Thai in your reckoning? It is by no means impossible that some form of ภาษาไทย first applied to an earlier form of one of them. I have seen Siamese referred to as ภาษาไทยกรุงเทพ.

Richard,

this discussion of ไทย/ไท here recalls in my brain a very rude act against my Thai teacher once I was learning Thai writing system. I asked her:

"Isn't the yo yak in ไทย a spelling mistake? Two lessons earlier you explained that a term with sara ai mai malai cannot have a final consonant since sara ai mai malai is in effect sara a plus final yo yak!"

As an act of courtesy I omit her answer here. I understand meanwhile that my question was as rude, or as meaningless, as she would have asked me whether the term "deutsch" is a spelling mistake according to German grammar.

Allow me, for reasons of simplification only, calling this specific yo yak further a spelling mistake. As such I've understood/interpreted ไทย as the younger/more recent form/version/variation of ไท. This interpretation is very congruent with your statements here. Years ago sometimes I tried to find out a little bit about "etymology of ไทย" but failed always. Sara ai mai malai is not indicating in PaliSanskrit, the observation that khon Thai is in Lao ຄົນໄທ without yo yung/ya is not very enlightening since, if there once was any yo yung/ya?, this will have been sacrificed during Lao spelling reform etc. etc. etc.

Do you have any clear idea about the etymology of the term ไทย, or, more precisely, the yo yak in ไทย?

Again, I still find it "strange" - a "spelling mistake" (???) made by intention to discern ไทย from ไท? Strange, isn't it?

[Richard Wordingham]

the yo yak in ไทย?

My understand is that it is something to do with Pali not having /ai/, and that therefore the Pali-based way of representing the sound would have had been something like เทย or เทยย. The combination ไ-ย is a compromise between the two systems. The silent ย is therefore available to make written distinctions, in very much the same way as Thai v. Tai in linguists' English.

[Thomas]

My understand is that it is something to do with Pali not having /ai/, and that therefore the Pali-based way of representing the sound would have had been something like เทย or เทยย.

Actually, have never thought in a Pali-ety of ไทย. Supposed in most instances that it is of ไท(กะได) "origin", derived from ไท (meaing [Tai] people), to which yo yak was added intentionally to discern "Tai" (people/language/property) from "Thai".

But you are right, Pali is an option ... I have obviously forgotten the once learned:

ไทย- ๒ [ไทยะ-] (แบบ) ว. ควรให้, ใช้ประกอบเป็นคํานําหน้าสมาส.
(ป. เทยฺย).

Unfortunately I have no Pali dictionary to translate deyya.

Coming back to the original post, "ทัย/ไทย confusion":

The Sukhothai website contains the following sentence:

"คำว่า "สุโขทัย" มาจากสองคำ คือ "สุข+อุทัย" หมายความว่า "รุ่งอรุณแห่งความสุข" "
"The word 'สุโขทัย' comes from the combination of the words สุข and อุทัย. These words mean 'the dawn of happiness'."

The word อุทัย means "the rising sun."

The Royal Institute Dictionary says, "อุทัย น. การเกิดขึ้น เช่น สุโขทัย = การเกิดขึ้นแห่งความสุข", the word อุทัย means the birth of or the beginning of and cites the proper noun Sukhothai as its example.

Without any assistance, and not having seen the term before, I would bet at once that สุโขทัย has a Sanskrit-ety, but there seems to be still space for the interpretation of the meaning.

สุโขทัย = sukhoday(a) = resulting in joy or happiness
สุข = sukha = pleasant (?)
อุทัย = uday(a) = going up , rising
ทัย = day = to divide

With your excellent Sanskrit knowledge: Could you bring slightly more insight in the composition of สุโขทัย, and its actual meaning?