ศาลาชุมนุม

[pensive]

In Thai, we have the two words อุตส่าห์ and อุตสาห์. I know Pali is not a tonal language, so I guess that Sanskrit is? And that these words are from Sanskrit?

My theory, though, would be that there was only one borrowing and that the two words evolved subsequently within Thai.

Does anybody know?

[Nan]

From RID:

อุตสาห, อุตส่าห์, อุตสาหะ น. ความบากบั่น, ความพยายาม, ความขยัน, ความอดทน, ใช้ว่า
อุษาหะ อุสสาหะ หรือ อุสส่าห์ ก็มี. ก. บากบั่น, พยายาม, ขยัน,
อดทน. (ส. อุตฺสาห; ป. อุสฺสาห).

From Dr.Wit Thai-English dictionary :

อุตส่าห์ (oot-sah)
(ก.) บากบั่น, พยายาม, ขยัน, มานะ. (น., ส.) อุตสาห. v. to attempt, to persevere, to take the trouble, to try, to attempt, to be diligent. n. S. = อุตสาห.

อุตสาห, อุตสาหะ (อุด-สา-หะ) (oot-sah-ha)
(น., ส.) กำลัง, ความมั่นใจ, การออกแรง, ความบากบั่น, ความขยัน, ความอดทน ใช้ว่า อุษาหะ อุสสาหะ หรือ อุสส่าห์. (ก.) บากบั่น, พยายาม, ขยัน, อดทน. n. S. industry, endeavour, effort, diligence, perseverance, exertion.

[pensive]

Hmmm, so อุตสาห์ is not a word. Thai2english.com thinks it is. The one word in Pali is used to create both the noun and the verb, which are distinguished in Thai by a different syllable structure and tone. I guess I should have checked the RID before posting, but T2E is usually very good. (I looked at its documentation and the meanings are derived from Lexitron.)

[Tgeezer]

Hmmm, so อุตสาห์ is not a word. Thai2english.com thinks it is. The one word in Pali is used to create both the noun and the verb, which are distinguished in Thai by a different syllable structure and tone.

That would appear to be right only with respect to Dr Wit's dictionary.

[David and Bui]

In a database of thousands of newspaper articles, I found 85 instances of "อุตส่าห์" and "อุตสาหกรรม". I found no deviation in the spelling of these terms: the first spelled with a ไม้เอก and the second without.

The notion of "word" or "term" in Thai is slippery since any particular dictionary item might be a separate "word" with its own independent meaning or it may be a combining form for a broader term. Glenn defines the set of inflected forms as a lexeme:

"Lexeme: The conceptual set of all inflected forms of a word. In Thai, since there is little inflectional morphology, this set generally has only one word in it, and that word is the lemma, or citation form." In the case of some Pali and Sanskrit words, there is "inflectional morphology" and this case is a good example.

As Nan points out, the RID sets forth the inflected forms of a lexeme as part of the headnote of a term, in this case, "อุตสาห, อุตส่าห์, อุตสาหะ". We cannot state that T2E form of อุตสาห์ has not been used by some writers, either in its pure form as an auxiliary verb or as a combining form, and is therefore not valid.

In Thai it could be that "aberrational" spelling is not necessarily "incorrect" spelling. Just look at all the Tweets and Facebook postings we see!

A different lexeme where spelling has not changed between the base and combining forms is "เกษตร":

เกษตร [กะเสด] น. ที่ดิน, ทุ่ง, นา, ไร่; (โบ) แดน เช่น พุทธเกษตร.
(ส. เกฺษตฺร; ป. เขตฺต).
เกษตรกร [กะเสดตฺระกอน] น. ผู้ทําเกษตรกรรม. (ส.).
เกษตรกรรม [กะเสดตฺระกํา] น. การใช้ที่ดินเพาะปลูกพืชต่าง ๆ รวมทั้ง
การเลี้ยงสัตว์ การประมงและการป่าไม้. (ส.).

Note that เกษตร on a stand alone basis is not spelled with a "ไม้ทัณฑฆาต" (the sound cancelling mark), although the final "ตร" is not pronounced. However in the combining forms, "เกษตรกร" (farmer) and "เกษตรกรรม" (agriculture) the ตร is pronounced.

[pensive]

But is this correct?

http://www.thai-language.com/id/141783

Using Google, the most prominent hit(s) on อุตสาห์ explain that this spelling is incorrect.

[David and Bui]

Thank you, Khun Pensive. I have posted the change in the primary entry to the database adding the ไม้เอก. The correction will show up in the next update of the online dictionary, in about a week.

[Tgeezer]

Thank you, Khun Pensive. I have posted the change in the primary entry to the database adding the ไม้เอก. The correction will show up in the next update of the online dictionary, in about a week.

Gosh, how easy it is to change a language, I suppose that the RID can be dispensed with in favour of popular opinion, there are some who would not agree with this.

[pensive]

Well, with respect to your previous remark, the RID appears to agree that all three words have the same meaning and use. So I think we can say that only one word was borrowed and, though it exists in three (should we say four?) forms, the meaning remains intact.

As regards changing the meaning by altering a page on this site, I think I was simply opening a debate. My problem was not so much that there was a page for a non-existent word, but that the sample sentence actually contained this same word, when any one of the alternatives would have been better.

But did you have something *positive* to say?

[Richard Wordingham]

Gosh, how easy it is to change a language, I suppose that the RID can be dispensed with in favour of popular opinion, there are some who would not agree with this.

Where does 55555 appear in alphabetical order? I can't find it on the RID on-line.

To be useful, a Thai-English dictionary should record the forms the user is likely to meet. I agree it gets tricky with the misspellings of the ill-educated.