Languagle #34: Thai
กบในกะลาครอบ
kop nai kala khrop
"A frog under a coconut shell."
What it means
Someone who has seen very little of the world but believes they know everything, like a frog living under an upturned coconut shell and thinking it is the whole sky. The same image appears in other Asian languages as a frog in a well.
How to say it
gop nai ga-LAA krawp
Thai is tonal, so the pitch of each syllable is part of the word: gop is low, nai and LAA are level, and krawp falls. The g sound is Thai ก, halfway between an English g and k, and the p at the end of gop and krawp is barely said: just close your lips.
Word by word
- กบ gop (low tone): frog
- ใน nai (level tone): in
- กะลา ga-LAA (low, then level): coconut shell
- ครอบ krawp (falling tone): placed over, covering
Put together: a frog inside a coconut shell that has been turned over on top of it. Thai is written without spaces between words, so all four run together.
Where it was found
Thai calls an idiom like this a samnuan (สำนวน). This one is from Wikipedia's list of Thai idioms.
Similar sayings
- Malay: Bagai katak di bawah tempurung. Like a frog under a coconut shell. The same picture as the Thai.
- Chinese: 井底之蛙 (jǐng dǐ zhī wā). A frog at the bottom of a well.
How to recognise Thai
Thai letters are small and rounded, and most of them start with a tiny loop, like a little head. Vowels can sit before, after, above or below a consonant, and tone marks perch on top. Words run together with no spaces; a space marks the end of a phrase or sentence instead. Lao, its closest neighbour, looks like a softer, simpler Thai with fewer loops. Khmer letters are wider and more ornate, with small ticks on top and extra consonants tucked underneath. Burmese is built almost entirely from circles.
About the Thai language
Thai is a Tai-Kadai language spoken by around 60 million people in Thailand, where it is the national language. It is tonal, with five tones, and the tone of a syllable is worked out from a combination of its consonant class, vowel length and tone marks. The Thai script descends from Old Khmer and is traditionally said to have been created by King Ramkhamhaeng in 1283. Words are written without spaces between them.
← #33 · All answers · #35 →