Talk:ทราย

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Latest comment: 6 years ago by Wyang
Jump to navigation Jump to search

@Octahedron80, หมวดซาโต้ I've always wondered why this is written with a dr cluster and จริง (jing) with an -r-? Any ideas? Wyang (talk) 04:47, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Wyang I did sketchy research and found that documents from the periods of Ayutthaya (1351–1767) and Thon Buri (1767–1782) show that the term ทราย used to be written with the letter (as าย), but it appears to have already been written with the ทร cluster in documents from the Bangkok era (1782 onwards). Here are some examples:

  1. พระราชพงศาวดารกรุงศรีอยุธยา ฉบับปลีก
  2. พระราชพงศาวดารกรุงเก่า ฉบับหลวงประเสริฐ
    • royal manuscript dated 1681
      ประชุมพงศาวดาร ฉบับกาญจนาภิเษก เล่ม ๑. (1999). Bangkok: กองวรรณกรรมและประวัติศาสตร์ กรมศิลปากร. →ISBN. page 217.
      พญาซายขาว(pá-yaa ‘’‘saai’‘’ kǎao)
    • royal manuscript dated 1774
      ประชุมจดหมายเหตุสมัยอยุธยา ภาค ๑. (1967). Bangkok: สำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี. page 96.
      พญาซายขาว(pá-yaa ‘’‘saai’‘’ kǎao)
    • modern spelling
      พระยาทรายขาว(prá-yaa ‘’‘saai’‘’ kǎao)
  3. ราชาธิราช

I don't know the exact reasons for the spelling change, but my guess is that people probably (mis)understood that the term was from Khmer and then changed its spelling so that it be in line with the other terms borrowed from Khmer [the clusters dr, tr, chr, etc, in Khmer are often corrupted as s and represented by ทร in Thai, such as ทรง (song) from ទ្រង់ (trŭəng), ทราบ (sâap) from ជ្រាប (criəp), ทรุด (sút) from ទ្រុឌ (trut), etc].

As for จริง, it seems to have been so spelt from the outset. All the old documents available to me do not show any different spelling. Here are some examples:

  1. จารึกวัดศรีชุม
  2. หลักอินทภาษ

But I have no idea why it is so spelt (with the จร cluster). Could it be that the term was actually pronounced jring in the past [like ศรี (sǐi) that is still pronounced with r in some dialects]?

--หมวดซาโต้ (talk) 08:26, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply

@หมวดซาโต้ Oh wow! Thank you so much for this detailed and very informative reply. It is extremely interesting and makes a lot of sense. How did you find the attestations in the literature- is there a corpus or database of ancient Thai documents that one can search or reference? Also is there a comprehensive dictionary for terms in dialectal Thai (to look up the equivalents or pronunciations of จริง dialectally etc.)? I have attempted to incorporate part of the information above into the etymology for this word; please see if it is correct. With จริง, it is intriguing that it has always been written with an -r-; perhaps this would make its derivation from Middle Chinese (MC tsyin) (as written on จริง) much less likely. Wyang (talk) 09:41, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
The documents I used are mostly in printed forms. I'm not sure if there's any online database regarding attestations or Thai dialects. Anyway, digital databases that may be of use include (all are in Thai): Thai Parliament institutional repository (containing digitised series/collections of historical archives, dictionaries of historical or literary terms, old laws, etc), database of inscriptions in Thailand, Chiang Mai University Library heritage collection, database of palm leaf manuscripts from Northern Thailand, database of manuscripts from Western Thailand, Vajirayana Royal Library digital database (containing a large number of literary works – but with a considerable number of typos). --หมวดซาโต้ (talk) 17:31, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
BTW I found the obsolete จรีง with long ee from somewhere I already forgot. In case if it is from Khmer, Chinese can still be on top. :) --Octahedron80 (talk) 11:35, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Thank you both, @หมวดซาโต้, Octahedron80! The links to the digital databases are particularly helpful. This has been a fascinating discussion. Wyang (talk) 08:14, 21 August 2017 (UTC)Reply