Phitsa, Kof, Khomphiotoe, and Other Thai Words You Already Know

OK, maybe the loan words for pizza, golf, and computer are too easy. (To get the last one, dividing the syllables may help: khom-phio-toe.)

Many of us these days know some other Thai words. Travelers may have mastered mai pen rai (“never mind,” “don’t worry about it”), always a handy phrase to have around.

Then there’s the Thai restaurant staple phat thai (which sometimes turns up on menus in nonstandard forms like pad thai, presumably out of fear that Americans will pronounce phat like “fat” rather than “pot.”)

Other food words we may know are sate (little meat skewers with peanut sauce), pronounced like “sa-tey,” and no doubt derived from the Malaysian-Indonesian word for the dish; kaeng (curry), pronounced rather like the English word “gang;” tom yam and tom kha (spicy soups); and nam pla (fermented fish sauce.) All of these are spelled any old way on menus, either because restaurant managers aren’t familiar with the Thai government’s official transcription system or because they think they are helping customers with their pronunciations. With your Thai food you should drink a glass of Pee No Nwar.

Thai culture has adapted many aspects of classical Indian religion and culture, and if you know some classical Indian vocabulary, then you also know more Thai words. Nagara (city) is nakhon.  Shri (or sri, either way meaning “auspicious” or “respected”) is si. Dharma (doctrine, law, principle, etc.) is tham, or, if it is the first element in a longer word, thamma-. Raja (king) is ratcha- or -rat, depending on its placement in a compound. So, the important southern Thai city of Nakhon Si Thammarat is Nagara Shri Dharmaraja, “the city of the auspicious dharma-king.” (Dharmaraja can mean either a king who rules according to the dharma or a kingly figure who embodies the dharma: usually the Buddha.)

The Sanskrit word mandala in Thai is monthon. In English “mandala” usually means a sort of cosmic diagram, but in Sanskrit the word has a wide range of meanings, one of which is also the primary Thai meaning: a district or county.

Sanskrit guru is Thai khru. Sanskrit pradesha (country or province, as in Indian state names such as Uttar Pradesh [“northern province”]) is Thai prathet, meaning “nation.” The formal name of Thailand in Thai is “Prathet Thai.” That Sanskrit-derived Indian term uttar, meaning “north” or “northern” comes through in Thai as udon, with the same meaning, but is used only in fancy contexts.

Sanskrit bhasha or bhasa (language) is Thai phasa, also meaning “language.” The Malaysian-Indonesian word bahasa, as in Bahasa Indonesia, “the Indonesian national language,” comes from the same source.

In all of these instances, the standard transcription system, which reflects pronunciation but not spelling, masks similarities. In fact, in Thai, that word monthon is actually spelled somewhat like mandala, and khru like guru. Thai has as many silent letters and non-matches between spelling and pronunciation as English.

So, anyway, you know more Thai words than you thought you did, chai mai?