Thai spelling reform of 1942

Last updated

The Thai spelling reform of 1942 was initiated by the government of Prime Minister Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram. The prime minister's office announced a simplification of the Thai alphabet on 29 May 1942. The announcement was published in the Royal Gazette on 1 June 1942. [1] [2] The reform was cancelled by the government of Khuang Aphaiwong on 2 August 1944. Following the November 1947 coup, Phibunsongkhram became prime minister for a second time, but did not revive the Thai language reform.

Contents

Proposed simplification of the Thai writing system

A significant amount of redundancy of the Thai writing system was retained, in contrast to the simplification undertaken within the Lao language. The changes to simplify Thai spelling were: [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cirth</span> Artificial script in the fantasy works of J. R. R. Tolkien

The Cirth is a semi‑artificial script, based on real‑life runic alphabets, one of several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. Cirth is written with a capital letter when referring to the writing system; the letters themselves can be called cirth.

X, or x, is the twenty-fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ex, plural exes.

The Thai script is the abugida used to write Thai, Southern Thai and many other languages spoken in Thailand. The Thai alphabet itself has 44 consonant symbols and 16 vowel symbols that combine into at least 32 vowel forms and four tone diacritics to create characters mostly representing syllables.

A spelling reform is a deliberate, often authoritatively sanctioned or mandated change to spelling rules. Proposals for such reform are fairly common, and over the years, many languages have undergone such reforms. Recent high-profile examples are the German orthography reform of 1996 and the on-off Portuguese spelling reform of 1990, which is still being ratified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plaek Phibunsongkhram</span> Prime Minister of Thailand, 1938–44 and 1948–57

Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram, locally known as Marshal P., and contemporarily known as Phibun (Pibul) in the West, was a Thai military officer and politician who served as Prime Minister of Thailand from 1938 to 1944 and 1948 to 1957.

In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits. In the education field it is variously called a consonant cluster or a consonant blend.

German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tinglish</span> English dialect used by Thai people

Tinglish refers to any form of English mixed with or heavily influenced by Thai. It is typically produced by native Thai speakers due to language interference from the first language. Differences from standard native English occur in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. The term was coined in 1970, and several alternative terms have been proposed since its inception, such as Thainglish (1973), Thaiglish (1992), Tinglish (1994), Thinglish (1976), Thenglish (2003), and Tenglish (2012).

Lao script or Akson Lao is the primary script used to write the Lao language and other minority languages in Laos. Its earlier form, the Tai Noi script, was also used to write the Isan language, but was replaced by the Thai script. It has 27 consonants, 7 consonantal ligatures, 33 vowels, and 4 tone marks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russian orthography</span>

Russian orthography is an orthographic tradition formally considered to encompass spelling and punctuation. Russian spelling, which is mostly phonemic in practice, is a mix of morphological and phonetic principles, with a few etymological or historic forms, and occasional grammatical differentiation. The punctuation, originally based on Byzantine Greek, was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reformulated on the models of French and German orthography.

The Royal Thai General System of Transcription (RTGS) is the official system for rendering Thai words in the Latin alphabet. It was published by the Royal Institute of Thailand in early 1917, when Thailand was called Siam.

Irish orthography is the set of conventions used to write Irish. A spelling reform in the mid-20th century led to An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, the modern standard written form used by the Government of Ireland, which regulates both spelling and grammar. The reform removed inter-dialectal silent letters, simplified some letter sequences, and modernised archaic spellings to reflect modern pronunciation, but it also removed letters pronounced in some dialects but not in others.

In an alphabetic writing system, a silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often symbolised with a null sign U+2205EMPTY SET. Null is an unpronounced or unwritten segment. The symbol resembles the Scandinavian letter Ø and other symbols.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hard sign</span> Letter of the Cyrillic script

The letter Ъ ъ of the Cyrillic script is known as er goljam in the Bulgarian alphabet, as the hard sign in the modern Russian and Rusyn alphabets, as the debelo jer in pre-reform Serbian orthography, and as ayirish belgisi in the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet. The letter is called back yer or back jer and yor or jor in the pre-reform Russian orthography, in Old East Slavic, and in Old Church Slavonic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Society of Thailand</span> National government academy of Thailand

The Royal Society is the national academy of Thailand in charge of academic works of the government.

Danish orthography is the system and norms used for writing the Danish language, including spelling and punctuation.

ISO 11940-2 is an ISO standard for a simplified transcription of the Thai language into Latin characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reforms of Bulgarian orthography</span>

The Reforms of Bulgarian Orthography are historical changes to the spelling and writing system of the Bulgarian language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tai Noi script</span> Brahmic script historically used in Laos and Isan

The Tai Noi or Lao Buhan script is a Brahmic script that has historically been used in Laos and Isan since about 1500 CE. The contemporary Lao script is a direct descendant and has preserved the basic letter shapes. The script has mostly dropped out of use in the Isan region of Thailand, due to the Thaification policies of the Thai government, that imposed Central Thai culture such as the Thai script throughout the country.

References

  1. "1942 Thai spelling reform announcement". Thai 101. Retrieved 21 January 2017.
  2. "ประกาสสำนักนายกรัถมนตรี เรื่องการปร/a>(PDF). Royal Gazette (Thailand). 1942-06-01. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 13, 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  3. "Simplifed Thai spelling during World War II". Thai 101. Retrieved 21 January 2017.

Further reading