Thai Language and Writing
The Thai or Siamese language is closely related to Chinese, both being "isolating" languages. In the course of history the Thai tribes emigrated from their homes in southern China and at various periods mixed with the peoples of the Indochinese peninsula. Some tribes formed groups of some size and importance, including the Shans of Burma, the Thais and the Lao; some still live in South China. In Thailand they mingled with the Mon-Khmer peoples and acquired from them certain physical characteristics as well as much of their culture and language.
From about the 5th to the 13th century central Thailand was successively dominated by the Mons and Khmers. The Mons were strongly influenced by the Indian civilization and practiced Theravada Buddhism, which used the Pali language. The Khmers had adopted Hinduism, which was later replaced by Mahayana Buddhism, using Sanskrit (Pali is related to Sanskrit, with a number of phonetic differences and simplifications). These combined trends were now added to the animist beliefs of the people.
When the Thais established their first Kingdom in central Thailand in the 13th century they adopted the cultural inheritance of their predecessors, and the Siamese language was enriched by many words from Pali and Sanskrit as well as from Mon and Khmer.
Thai is a monosyllabic tone language. Words which sound to us alike vary in meaning according to which of the five tones (normal, low, high, rising, falling) is used in pronouncing them. Thus a rise or fall in the voice does not specifically indicate a question or a psychological reaction, but serves to distinguish between different words: for example ma (rising tone) means "dog", while ma (high tone) means "horse" and ma (normal tone) "come".
The monosyllabic character of the language has been attenuated both by the introduction of foreign words and the use of composite and coupled words. Examples of composite words are nam fon, "rain-water" (nam = "water", fon= "rain"), nam ta, "tear" (ta = "eye") and nam khaeng, "ice" (khaeng = "hard"). Examples of coupled words (words associated either in meaning or in sound) are yai to "big", which is also the meaning of its component parts yai and to, though with slightly different nuances) and ban muang, "country'' in the sense of a man's homeland (ban = "house, village", muang = "village, country"). The coupled words may intensify, define more closely or generalise the meaning of the separate parts. They may also be formed purely for reasons of euphony, for which the Thais have a very delicate ear. In colloquial language a taste for alliteration sometimes leads to the formation of composite words whose ingredients may not always have any significance of their own: e.g. kinkaen, formed from kin, "eat", and kaen, which has no independent meaning.