Bangtao Tales |
January 30th 2016 |
||
|
Chapter 88 The Mysterious hor heep 'ห' The Thai language has it share of peculiarities and I am well aware that the question 'why?', referring to why is it so lacking in logic is a non-starter. Language is not designed by logicians, in fact it isn't designed at all. Like Topsy 'it just growed'. However the case of 'hor heep' (ห) is just magical. Now hor heep is usually pronounced as an 'h' but sometimes it is used for a different purpose. It can be placed before a consonant to alter the consonants class. (Low to high actually but lets get on with the story). As such it is not pronounced - it is silent. It does it's job quietly and efficiently. So far so good! However I have just discovered a case where, as my teacher put it, "the hor heep is implied but not written." As an example let's use อร่อย pronounced à-ròi (it means 'delicious') Now the sharp-eyed amongst you (if they haven't fallen asleep yet) will have noticed that there is no hor heep (ห) in that word. To get the class of the ร (ror rua) correct it should be preceded by a ห. It isn't. This means that we have the letter ห which is not only silent, but is not there at all. It exists rather like the Cheshire Cat's smile, only in it's influence on it's proceeding character. Quite extraordinary! I love it!!!! ...........................................
|
|||