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Siamese Wan and Waan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Fang-Kuei Li
Fang-Kuei Li*
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Extract

Siamese wan ‘day (A2)’ and waan ‘yesterday (A2)' present some phonological as well as etymological problems in Proto-Tai (PT). They represent a rare type of initial which has to be assumed in the Proto-Tai system. The first word has often been assumed to go back to the PT initial w-; thus Haudricourt lists it unhesitatingly under his PT *w-, and Benedict compares it with Indonesian wari. Wulff has noted, however, that the word appears in Dioi as ŋon, thus showing a curious correspondence of Dioi ŋ- to Siamese w-; but this observation of Wulff has been neglected by both Benedict and Haudricourt.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 32 , Issue 1: January-March , March 1956 , pp. 81 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © 1956 by the Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 A2 or the like in brackets after the gloss of a cited word denotes the tone class to which the word belongs; cf. Li, Consonant clusters in Tai, Lg. 30.369–71 (1954).

2 A. G. Haudricourt, Les phonèmes et le vocabulaire du thai commun, JA 1948.218.

3 P. K. Benedict, Thai, Kadai and Indonesian: A new alignment in Southeastern Asia, AA 44.576–601 (1942).

4 K. Wulff, Chinesisch und Tai 119 (1934). The sources of cited forms in Dioi, Lao, Shan, Nung, Tay Blanc, Tai Noir, Tho, etc. are listed in Wulff's book and in Maspero's article in BEFEO 11.152–69 (1911), and will not be repeated here. These forms are phonemicized here whenever possible, or given in a uniform phonetic transcription. The forms in Lü, Wu-ming, Lung-chow, T'ien-pao, T'ien-chow, Po-ai, etc. are from my own records.

5 In most cases initial v- can be analyzed as a positional variant of w-, except where v- and w- are in contrast. I have temporarily kept the symbol v- unchanged.

6 Guignard's original orthography is nghěn, with a circumflex added above the ě. The initial ngh- is slightly palatalized before a front vowel, and can be phonemically identified with the velar nasal ŋ-.

7 The vocalic lengths in both forms in Tai Noir are irregular, and cannot be explained. We find irregular lengthening of vowels for instance in modern Siamese naam ‘water (C2) ‘, khaau ‘rice (C1)', from earlier nam and khau.

8 E. Diguet, Étude de la langue tho (17).

9 Suggested in Lg. 30.373.