Contrastive Study of Spontaneous Romanization of Thai by French Speakers and the Royal Thai Institute System
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Abstract
The romanization of Thai seems to have been problematic for a long time despite the promulgation of the RTGS system of the Royal Thai Institute in 1999. Each tends to romanize Thai words according to his/her linguistic preference and habit. This article aims to study the Romanization of Thai by French speakers by comparing it to the RTGS system and to propose a romanization of Thai which is simpler and more adapted to the French users. The data are collected from a word list in the MP3 format and listened to by 30 French speakers. The results demonstrate that French speakers tend to transcribe Thai words differently from the RTGS system due to phonological and orthographic differences. Many French graphemes are adopted such as É, È, Ï, and Ô. Establishing a transcription system for French speakers is recommended to facilitate a more natural pronunciation in some text types such as menus in Thai restaurants, guidebooks, and initial Thai language learning.
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