ศาลาชุมนุม

[Nan]

Surely it's the "ถ" that gives us the final "ด" sound?.. and "ร" is silent.

That's correct. When รถ together as final consonant, it's called unreal cluster, "ร" will be silent.

Another example is มารค (path, route).

[pensive]

สามารถ?

[Richard Wordingham]

สามารถ?

Part of the Sanskritisation of Thai spelling.

[pensive]

I don't understand. I can see a problem for Thai is to render Sanskrit into Thai, but I can't see a need to go back.

Also, are you saying either of

a) Yes, this is illustrative of Nan's "unreal cluster", or
b) This is not an unreal cluster, it is a Sanskrit spelling problem?

Thanks.

[Nan]

Pensive,

These words are Sanskrit origin which cause this kind of unreal cluster in Thai words. It's part of the Sanskritisation of Thai spelling as Richard pointed out.

[pensive]

OK. Richard was agreeing with you then.

[Richard Wordingham]

These words are Sanskrit origin which cause this kind of unreal cluster in Thai words.

By Sanskritisation, I'm saying that the words were originally borrowed from Pali and that the spelling was changed to match Sanskrit, and sometime the pronunciation has subsequently also changed.

The most obvious example is ro han. The pronunciation as plain /a/ reflects Pali. For example, to Sanskrit dharma there corresponds Pali dhamma. The Thai pronunciation reflects the Pali. As the vowel was retained as /a/ before double consonants, the spelling ธมม was long used. To reflect the Sanskrit spelling, one might write ธรม , but to show the vowel sound properly one writes ธรรม , although /rr/ occurs in neither Sanskrit nor Pali.

On the other hand, Sanskrit words like svarga have, as far as the consonants are concerned, been borrowed exactly as one would expect - /sawan/. The <r> has been doubled to show the vowel sound, giving สวรรค์. If the word have been borrowed from Pali, we would instead have *สรรค /sak/. Sometimes we have both Sanskrit and Pali forms represented, e.g. พรรค v. พรรค์.

[pensive]

Thanks for the insights. It is interesting to see that there was crosstalk between Sanskrit and Pali.