ศาลาชุมนุม

[r2d2]

Ok thank you,

By the way, how do Thais say the latin letters? Like a,b,c... Do they just pronounce it like in english? For exemple B = Bee ?

tHX

Yes, Thai people spell ABC the English way.

OK!

Should we ask DavidAndBui to create a page for the English alphabet in Thai?
...
เอ ...

I see now that something did disturb me last night while posting "strange" comments, and found out now what it is...

To start with an "editors" comment:

Wiki (English) gives at "English Alphabet" the pronunciation for "English letter a" = IPA /eɪ/, เอ (or 'sara e' [long]), however, is written in IPA ʔeː (source of IPA TL.com)

Second, I would like to confirm the statement of Claude (see also experiences below).

Third, actually this is a concern I just have because the quoted question was "..., how do Thais say the latin letters? "

For my private means I would wish there would be a convention how to represent Latin letters in Thai ... letters (else than by applying thap sap rules according to languages using Latin based alphabets)

How to write บางกอก in Latin letters? Most frequent Latin letters based writing is Bangkok. But how Thais actually pronounce Bangkok, in particular the inhabitants of กรุงเทพฯ? [บาง-กอก] is not according to my experiences.

My wife and me are speaking among us Thai, English, and German (in doubt no doubt that it should be the "standard" of each of the 3 languages). As our facilities to speak these languages differ each, we have no explicit convention which language to use. I can recall situations in which my wife was sitting downstairs at her computer after a nice travel to the Netherlands writing (in Thai language) Emails to her Thai friends calling me: Thi rak, could you spell (out loudly) the name of the lovely Dutch city we have been today (the question refers to Latin letters)? No idea what should be wrong about it, then, I tried to do my best - using the "German convention of spelling (out loudly) the ABC" - spelling the Dutch name of the Dutch city written in Latin letters (we do not touch here at all the question how the city is actually pronounced in Dutch language). And this ended up always in ... either I went down and wrote it or she came upstairs...

Let's assume Bangkok would be a Dutch city and I had to spell it ... my wife, not understanding me, came upstairs, and it turned out that I forgot to mention that the /a/ is with umlaut? My wife: "Ach so! Bängkok"!

We agree, to write Bangkok with German umlaut would be mad but the situations I recall were not so different from how to write (precise: spell out loudly) the name of a Dutch city in Latin letters, rather, the high number of "umlaut-ungen" (English approximatively "the umlautings") of vowels in European languages, here in concrete comparing German and English (in doubt, for those means, British English).

In summary, from my very personal point of view --- my wife wants to improve her German for professional means, my sister-in-law is currently learning English in Bangkok but I have to teach her German soon, urgently, --- is that of course the first Latin based "ABC" Thais are learning is "according to the English convention to spell it out loudly". To use Latin letters in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Roma (city of Rome), South America, the Congo etc. ... it needs a lot of time as a teacher to "retrain" it so that it becomes clear that for (all) those (other) means the first "ABC" learned is not very valuable.

So, I object the idea that Thai language com should "create a page for the English alphabet in Thai".

To say something positive about it: My wife (and me) do not speak any Dutch. But I can recall her bright eyes when she mentioned: In the Netherlands, I really do not have any problem to find the toilete for women or to understand whether I should pull or push the door. I speak English and German. It's really funny here in the Netherlands!"

So, I think that usage of Latin letters is (historically) "conecting peoples", is simplyfying and easing certain situations. To give the English convention how to spell these letters out loudly in Thai - no good idea. To find a convention how to represent them in Thai letters? Good idea, but politically problematic. It should be done by the Royal Institute but hearing most recently about the problems of Portuguese language, i.e. that of Portugal, Brazil, or Angola, Mozambique ... as a member of the RI I would not like to do the job.

[pensive]

What the ...!

'A', 'B', 'C', etc *are* spoken in Thailand. With TV, one can expect the pronunciation across the country to be uniform. (Might not be the same in the jungle, but then they probably don't use it, so true by virtue of the negative premise - trying to head off an argument here.) Also, the conversion from spoken text to written text is automatic due to the logical nature of the Thai orthography.

So, without the need for the intervention of the Royal Institute, there *is* a way to write the pronunciation of the Latin letters in Thai. Whether it is encoded on this site or not doesn't really matter, but it exists and can be accessed.

[r2d2]

What the ...!

So, without the need for the intervention of the Royal Institute, there *is* a way to write the pronunciation of the Latin letters in Thai.

Khun Pensive,

simply: No. Sorry, you did not get my point.

My wife (Thai) and me own a VW. As this car/company has no entry at the Thai Wikipedia, let's assume we would own a BMW: There is really no good reason why my wife should call our car บีเอ็มดับเบิลยู. And she doesn't!
I understand that Thai people call AC/DC เอซี/ดีซี. Here in Germany, however, we call them with their (Australian-) English name, thus, not E/ʔeː/C/DC but A/eɪ/C/DC.

How to pronounce Latin letters in general - best way would, from my point of view, to ask Cicero, but as stated in the article, he died already on "7 Decembris 43 a.C.n."

The English page on "Latin alphabet" give the pronunciation of the 'Classical Latin alphabet'. If we refer to this table but not to Cicero [ˈkikeroː], A is/was pronounced as /aː/ but not as /eɪ/ or /ʔeː/ That's what I called in my preceding "umlaut-ungen" - in the specific case, A, we can call it also a "vowel shift".

Thus, as an experience I fully agree with Khun Claude

Yes, Thai people spell ABC the English way.

.

But I do not think that the company BMWwill enjoy, on the very long run, to be called, in Thailand, "the English way": To be "made in England" is no reason to buy a car in our days ...

[r2d2]

'A', 'B', 'C', etc *are* spoken in Thailand.

Yes, of course, but you must add "the English way". In Thailand, there are good reasons to do so.

But, e.g., also an experience, to represent 'A', spoken the English way, in Thai as เอ, has negative impact on the English spoken by Thais. I would prefer that, for training pronounciation IPA, a Latin based alphabet, would be used but I understand well that you can not use first, to learn a Latin based alphabet (the English in the specific case) a Latin based alphabet (IPA). You must use initially Thai letters (สัทอักษร) so that Thai-English dictionaries (adressed to the Thai learner) are full of สัทอักษร - representation of the English terms.

[David and Bui]

What the ...!

'A', 'B', 'C', etc *are* spoken in Thailand. With TV, one can expect the pronunciation across the country to be uniform. (Might not be the same in the jungle, but then they probably don't use it, so true by virtue of the negative premise - trying to head off an argument here.) Also, the conversion from spoken text to written text is automatic due to the logical nature of the Thai orthography.

So, without the need for the intervention of the Royal Institute, there *is* a way to write the pronunciation of the Latin letters in Thai. Whether it is encoded on this site or not doesn't really matter, but it exists and can be accessed.

Its already there. See http://www.thai-language.com/id/589908

[r2d2]

But I do not think that the company BMWwill enjoy, on the very long run, to be called, in Thailand, "the English way": To be "made in England" is no reason to buy a car in our days ...

To be honest, I do not know what the company BMW is thinking. I would, thus, give you another example:

A "Nivea" is a product/trade name for which I have never thought "how to pronounce" it. Not even in London. If I would need a Nivea in London, I would say: Do you have Nivea? --- and pronounce the very last term --- the German way. So, be assured, I have absolutely no idea, sure/truth, how to pronounce Nivea the English way.
In Bangkok, I have to look for a นีเวีย, thus a Niwia, as stated by Beiersdorf Thailand. I have no idea why. It is neither the German nor a posited (I never heard the term in English - for sure) English term. To be the English way, I would have expected a sara ai for the i (in the trade mark).

So, truth is that I do not know what BMW and Beiersdorf Thailand are thinking. Nivea should, actually, represent originally a Latin term.

[r2d2]

Khun pensive, please read this:

Previous to the Great Vowel Shift, these vowels had "continental" values much like those remaining in Italian and liturgical Latin..

What the continal values of these vowels in nowadays continental European languages are, can be determined (if the RI would like to do the job)

[r2d2]

Its already there. See http://www.thai-language.com/id/589908

David, thx for this. Thinking about it ... a valuable tool.

I think, about what I was speaking so long is about difficulties teaching any other European (Europe derived) language (else than English) to Thais (due to the mixer Latin letters = English letters).
The discussion helped me. I think, I will use for my means, the table with the phonetic representation/IPA of the classical latin alphabet at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabet. Full stop here - the "Great Vowel Shift" explains my difficulties...

[pensive]

You miss my point completely. It doesn't matter how we pronounce the latin letters, it only matters how the Thais pronounce them. This is what should be encoded in a table. Discussion of brand names is beside the point (or another topic), and this probably depends on the strength of the brand. But Thais do need to pronounce the individual letters, and they do pronounce them.

But as regards the table. Firstly, the link appears to be wrong. http://www.thai-language.com doesn't resolve for me. But I can get there with thai-language.com.

Secondly, I don't believe 'H' is correct as the people in Korat pronounce it with two syllables.

Thirdly, really, I would think that 'Z" would be 'zed' as their English instruction appears to be in British English.

So, I believe the table is a table of the Thai pronunciation of Latin letters, and not a table of the manner in which Thais pronounce the English letters.

Or am I wrong?

[claude06thailand]

I just asked my thai friend to pronounce H and Z...

H gives HAESH OR HESH
Z gives ZET more than ZED