ศาลาชุมนุม

[Richard Wordingham]

With 'Li' you are refering to Li Fan Kuei as quoted by Nanthanā Dānwiwat, p. 188?

Yes, I am referring to this man.

when in ancient ... Siamese, central Thai, Thai of the Ayutthaya period, Sukhothai ... mai muan and mai malai were pronounced differently, or when - round about - the phonetic discrimination was lost?

No information, alas. As this was a merger, the change from /aɯ/ to /ai/ will have taken place word by word, with a final flood at the end.

What the brothers Grimm did mean, or hear (?), with 'sz'?

I can't help you on that one.

[Passerby]

Where did Passerby give a good reason for 'ใ' not being used for words written with a mai muan?

When he asked if you had a copy of a poem which contained all 20 words in the Thai language which are spelt with ใ
It was presumptious of me to assume that he, like me, had only the fiantest idea of what you and r2d2 were talking about.
I apologise and withdraw.

WELL SAID. ME TOO.

[r2d2]

What the brothers Grimm did mean, or hear (?), with 'sz'?

I can't help you on that one.

... but the question was worth to be raised ... although I've to admit that it concerns i) Non-Siamese but not ii) Mai Muan but iii) a ligature (ß)... Btw, can mai muan and malai be called ligature? I guess not at all?!

[Richard Wordingham]

Actually, mai muan might be a ligature - but this is a wild guess. Now, you may know that sara ue was traditionally considered as being sara i plus nikkhahit, and I have sara ue used as a substitute for the combination sara i nikkhahit - Windows XP refused to render the combination sara i plus nikkhahit. That should have been fixed by now, but I haven checked. The difference in printing can be very small. The sequence occurs in Sanskrit words like สิํห 'lion'.

Now, could mai muan be a ligature of nikkhahit with sara e or mai malai? As its rôle in sara ue is to convert /i/ to /ɯ/, perhaps nikkhahit was used to convert /ai/ to /aɯ/.

Now, in the Brahmi script, the there was a length mark consisting of a single stroke, and you can see it in one form or another in most of the old short-lone pairs - (implicit) v. า, อิ v. อี, อุ v. อู, ฤ v. ฤๅ, ฦ v. ฦๅ and เ v. ไ. Thus, you might argue that ma; malai is also a ligature!

[jariya76]

ligature: A character, letter, or type, such as æ, combining two or more letters.

Is this the way you mean ligature?

[R.E.G.]

ligature: A character, letter, or type, such as æ, combining two or more letters.

Is this the way you mean ligature?

In this case they mean the symbol representing two sounds tied together, rather than two symbols representing sounds tied together. Since ไ ใ (at the simplest level ie. Thai language currently in use) represent อัย, it is argued that it is a ligature.

[Richard Wordingham]

No, I was suggesting that ไ and ใ were actual ligatures. ไ = เ plus า is fairly clear from the Brahmi forms of the vowels (e.g. at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi ) - า is simply a length mark, as in the form in ฤๅ and the smaller difference between อิ and อี. (The breaking of the /o/ or /au/ vowel into เ plus า is a later development.)

I'm guessing about the origin of ใ.

Somehow I'd missed the previous post - sorry for the delay in replying.

[qwert]

ไอ = อา + อี
ใอ = อา + อื

กลาง and อีสาน people can't pronouce ใอ sound.
กลาง still write by original sound but อีสาน isn't.

กลาง - พายัพ - อีสาน - ลาว
ใคร (ไคร) - ใข - ไผ - ใผ
ไว - ใว/วย - ไว - ไว
ให้ (ไห้) - ให้/หื้อ - ไห้ - ให้

ใอ is similar to អៅ in Cambodian.
ใน (in) - នៅ (stay)
ให้ (give/send) - ហៅ (send)

[Richard Wordingham]

กลาง - พายัพ - อีสาน - ลาว
ใคร (ไคร) - ใข - ไผ - ใผ
ไว - ใว/วย - ไว - ไว

The Maefahluang dictionary gives at least three Nuea words for 'who' - ใข, ใผ and ใคร (tua mueang), the latter presumably > ใค in modern Thai script spelling.

By วย do you mean what Maefahluang gives as เวิย? (I haven't investigated why อิ is needed in the transliteration.)

[qwert]

By วย do you mean what Maefahluang gives as เวิย? (I haven't investigated why อิ is needed in the transliteration.)

วย = ว + โอะ + ย

Maefahlung use Chiangmai sound to the major Northern vocabulary dictionary.
It can be pronouced as เว็ย/เวย (adap to foreign, it writes as เวิย).

Thai language have alphabet sound more than Tai/Dai. I don't know why, but I speculate it come with old-Northern Indian immigration.

You can finds some of original Thai word similar to Bali/Sansakrit.