Thai culture is a unique variant of many cultures in Asia. Lying between the two great hubs of Asian civilization, China and India, it is not surprising to see the significant traces of Hindu and Chinese cultures in Thai culture, too. Through a long course of times, the Thai people have developed their own characteristic culture that rooted in Thai society.
Thai culture can embrace many of its aspects; it can be language, art, way of life, value as well as people's attitude.
Language
Thai language is one of the best symbols of Thai culture. Thai alphabet was invented by King Ramkamheng the Great in 1283 by modeling on the ancient Indian alphabets of Sanskrit and Pali languages through the medium of the old Khmer character.
The inscriptions found in Sukhothai are the fruitful evidence of linguistic history in Thailand. Through along course of times, Thai language has evolved to have 44 letters (including 2 obsolete ones).
Thai language basically consists of monosyllable words whose meanings are complete by themselves. Another dominant feature is that Thai language is a tonal language with five different tones: low tone, high tone, falling tone, rising tone, and mid tone. For example, the word "Mai" when pronounced with the low tone will mean "new"; with the high tone is "wood"; with falling tone will be "not"; with the rising tone is "silk". Despite the difficulties of tones, Thai grammar is quite easy; there is no conjugation like French and English verbs, and verbs are not irregular. The difference in a sentence between present, future, and past time is indicated by a small word added. Like most of languages of the world, Thai language is influenced by the foreign languages as there are many words used today were derived from Pali, Sanskrit, Khmer, Malay, Chinese and English. |
