ศาลาชุมนุม

[Gwindor]

I assume this is the proper section for posting this question, though it is about the history of Thai writing, rather than etymology.

I've looked at a few different charts mapping out the correlation between Thai letters and the Sanskrit grid.

One letter which appears to be mistakenly left out of the lists I have seen is ฏ (patuk), which appears in words like ปฏิรูป and กุฏิ.

I see ฎ (chada) in the charts as equivalent to retroflex (or "cerebral") unaspirated "ta", but no place for ฏ. Is it the same? Does it share a space in the Sanskrit grid with another Thai letter?

I assume, perhaps mistakenly, that Sanskrit and Pali would use the same grid, but I don't really know that.

d

[David and Bui]

Great question, Gwindor. I am looking at page ๘๗ of "หลักภาษาไทย, เรียบเรียงตามหลักสูตรวิชาชุดครุมัธยม" by สุธิวงศ์ พงศ์ไพบูลย์, พ.ศ. ๒๕๔๔ (2001). Paragraph 41 contains a chart showing Thai consonants and vowels and their language antecedents including อักษรขอม, อักษรทมิฬ, อักษรพ่อขุนราม, อักษรพระเจ้าฦาไทย, and อักษรพระนารายณ์. The consonant "ฏ" shows the history of the first four; the consonant "ฎ" shows no antecedent.

I hope someone responds.

[Gwindor]

I have attempted a little more research. My main interest in answering this question is to identify the sanskrit prefix that corresponds to Thai prefix ปฏิ- as in ปฏิบัติ and ปฏิรูป.

I have attempted some searches of online Sanskrit dictionaries/vocabularies, but haven't had any success search for English words like "reform" or "behavior".

However, in keeping with Thainess, I applied the methods of His Majesty King Rama IV, who took pains to learn English by first looking up Thai words in a Pali dictionary, then looking up the Pali in Sanskrit, then looking up the Sanskrit in English. In this case I searched English words in Hindi, knowing that a great deal of Hindi vocabulary is from Sanskrit. In general, I came up with words that didn't help, but I saw a few that began प्रति- . If this were transcribed directly into Thai using standard equivalents from "the grid" it would be spelled ปรติ- which doesn't quite fit. But it may be that Sanskrit ปรติ- is equivalent to Pali ปฏิ- .

This doesn't neatly answer the question about ฏ in the Sanskrit grid, but it seems likely enough that I can move on. In my somewhat Ptolemaic little system for understanding how Thai words relate to Sanskrit, I stay with my answers and let the anomalies accumulate until a more Copernican method is available.

[David and Bui]

Gwindor,

Have you seen the discussion on ปฏิ and ปฺรติ on pages 279-280 of "หลักภาษาไทย" by กำชัย ทองหล่อ ?

[Gwindor]

I don't have that book, though I think maybe I should get it. I find internet searches for these things very tedious!

Does this author confirm that ปฏิ and ปฺรติ are the same?

Thanks!

[David and Bui]

http://www.chulabook.com/description.as ... 9742466350

[David and Bui]

The listings are in the section concerning "อุปสรรคที่ใช้ในภาษาไทย" (prefixes used in Thai). As you know, the RID defines the prefix as "ปฏิ- [ปะติ-] คำอุปสรรคในภาษาบาลีใช้นำหน้าศัพท์อื่น แปลว่า เฉพาะ เช่น ปฏิทิน, ตอบ เช่น ปฏิพากย์, ทวน เช่น ปฏิโลม, กลับ เช่น ปฏิวัติ. (ป.; ส. ปฺรติ)."

Kamchai's listing under ปฏิ contains 17 examples, including ปฏิวัติ (หมุนกลับ); ปฏิเสธ (ห้ามเฉพาะ); ปฏิปักษ์ (ฝ่ายตรงข้าม). The next list show words where ปฏิ becomes ปัจจ. Then, ปฏิ as ปาฏิ. Then, ปฺรติ as ประติ, ประดี, and ปรตย or ปรัตย and ปราติ.ส

Kamchai does not provide linguistic analysis.

[Gwindor]

Here is another item, unrelated to the above, but definitely in the same vein.

I've been reading up on the history of the Thai monarchy. I learned that it was King Naresuan who established the policy of ศักดินา, i.e., aristocracy would be ranked according the the amount of land they owned.

The curiosity here is the use of the letter ด. Very unusual to see a word beginning with ศ that contains a letter that is not also in "the grid" since ด is not a part of the grid. At first I thought it was a misspelling, but this website and the RID confirm it.

[Thomas]

David, here I need your help.

In Thonglo's book, it seems to me that these are pp. 42-43, Thonglo explains "Sanskrit and Pali" letters. On these pages Thonglo states (as far as I can read with a loupe) that ฏ (but not ฎ) is a Sanskrit letter.

This table states it contrary http://www.clickthai.de/UL/th-dev-iast-v2.htm, but as just discussed with the author, this is an outdated version of Devanagari-IAST-Thai transliteration system (see e.g. บ vs. ป [Thonglo]).

The pair "ฏ ฎ" seems to be a rather late development in Thai writing sytem comparable e.g. with the pairs "ข ฃ" and "ค ฅ".

I'm entirely unsure about what I'm saying but if you advance to pp. 44/45 of Thonglo you'll find two tables. The legend of the phayanchana table contains the term ครั้งพญาฦๅไทย.

But actually I've no clue what พญาฦๅ means.

[David and Bui]

Thomas,

The word refers to a dynastic era. See the discussion at http://www.sac.or.th/databases/inscript ... 7%E0%B8%A2

"ความในจารึกเป็นคำยอพระเกียรติของพญาฦาไทย (พระธรรมราชาที่ ๑) . . . "

From Wikipedia:

"Mahathammaracha I . . . พระธรรมราชาที่ ๑ Mahathammaracha I, born as Lithai, was a king of the Sukhothai kingdom, reigning from roughly 1347 until his death in 1368. Lithai was the son of Lerthai, also known as Loethai or LeLue Thai, and the grandson of Ramkhamhaeng."

https://www.google.com/search?q=%E0%B8% ... e&ie=UTF-8